Gf i f T"^ T"* TH T^ * o I LLETT E 5 ir*^ T~^ T^V T"** HA ir r %'nir^-T x^v Tk T REDEMPTION MELVIN L.SEVERY GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION KING C. GILLETTE Inventor of the System MELVIN L. SEVERY Author of the Book jGlLLETTE's SOCIAL REDEMPTION^ A REVIEW OF WORLD-WIDE CONDITIONS AS THEY EXIST TO-DAY OFFERING AN ENTIRELY NEW SUGGESTION FOR THE REMEDY OF THE EVILS THEY EXHIBIT WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND INDEX BY MELVIN L. SEVERY ^^^ Author of"FSeur- trial in question he lawlessly invaded the jury-box by saying, " Let the jury go out and bring in its verdict; the guilt is obvious." Despite this attempt on the part of the judge to reduce the jury to mere lay figures, a verdict of " Not guilty " was returned, at which this judge riotously exclaimed: "What? Not guilty? That is a travesty on justice. It is a shame that such stupid and unintelligent men should be taken as jurors. In this case the evidence was so conclusive that I did not think it necessary to instruct you. Not guilty! I won't have such a set of men in the jury-seats. You are all discharged without pay. You don't deserve a red cent. Such a jury is a detriment to justice. 155 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION You are about as useful as a set of ninepins, so far as brains and common sense go." Commenting on this outrage, a Chicago weekly prints the follow- ing : " Such a man is unfit to sit in a court where liberty and life are at stake; and our legislature would impeach him if it had any regard for judicial propriety and dignity. Judge Barnes, instead of studying the landmarks of the law he is assigned to administer, must be a stu- dent of " Alice in Wonderland," for there we read : ' I'll be judge, I'll be jury,' Said cunning old Fury I'll try the whole case And condemn you to death.' " The treatment of Mr. James E. Tyner by President Roosevelt is of a similar stripe. The following extract from an editorial in " The Public " of Dec. 12, 1903, will sufficiently explain the case : " Mr. James N. Tyner, the assistant postmaster-general of the post-office, department, has just grounds of complaint against President Roose- velt and he states them in a dignified way. Mr. Tyner is under in- dictment for fraud in connexion with his official position. He is entitled, as are all men under indictment, to a fair trial. No official, no newspaper, no citizen has any right to prejudice public sentiment against him. When an indictment comes into court, public attack upon the accused should cease. This is only decent among fair- minded men. But President Eoosevelt takes advantage of his high position to gain the ear of every possible juror with an assertion of his belief in Tyner's guilt. To this unwarranted mode of influencing juries in criminal cases, Mr. Tyner very properly responds with a searching question. ' Has it occurred to you/ he asks the President, 1 that pending the trial of the three indictments against me, based on the allegations of the report, and without having heard one word from me in my defense, your premature and unwarranted announce- ment of my assumed guilt and your call to the court and jury to in- dorse the same, is, to say the least, extraordinary and dangerous ? ' " Every man accused of crime is entitled to certain rights. Not to condone his crime if he is guilty, but to shield him from injustice if he is innocent or excusable. One of those rights is that the jury must regard him as innocent until his guilt is affirmatively proved beyond reasonable doubt. Of this right, President Roosevelt has done much to deprive Mr. Tyner. With the President's denunciation in mind, many a juror would go into the box convinced of the defendant's guilt. So Mr. Tyner would have to prove his innocence instead of challenging the prosecution to prove him guilty. Courts sometimes punish news- papers for doing what President Roosevelt has done in this case." It were easy enough, would space permit, to cite many other cases showing unauthorised and abusive treatment by judges and prosecut- ing attorneys, but they would only extend the proof of what the un- biased and well-informed reader must already fully realise, namely, that this is but another symptom indicating that the general trend of affairs in the United States is away from the liberty, the de- centralising democracy of Jefferson and Franklin, and toward the 156 HOW THE POISON WORKS bondage, the undemocratic centralisation of Hamilton and Taft, hav- ing its ripest fruitage in the Eooseveltian imperialism of the dominant political party. It is the old story over again. While we are kept too preoccu- pied to correctly read the signs of the times, while the mad chase for the dollar obliterates all other concerns, we are being insidiously and inch by inch robbed of our liberties as men and at American citizens. The Italian proverb, "Public money is like holy water; everyone helps himself to it," is fairly descriptive of present conditions. Wealth, however gotten, is a better passport to social distinction than any amount of impoverished virtue. The saying, " When honour grew mercenary, money grew honourable," fitly characterises the ethical status of the great mass of our politicians, statesmen, and legislators ; of our executives, judges and lawyers ; of our clergymen, press writers, political economists, educators and business-men. The history of decadent Greece and Rome shouts its warnings to us across the centuries but their voices are drowned in the clink of coin or lost in the self-satisfied cat-like purr of optimism. We used to suppose that the United States Constitution was an invulnerable safeguard of our rights and our liberties, but of late years the converse of this has been forced upon us. There has been so much " interpreting " of this document that the uninitiated might easily fancy it another " Eevelations." In England the will of the people as expressed by parliament is the supreme law of the land, and there can be little doubt that this is a far more salutary provision, so far as the liberty of the people is concerned; than a constitution which is the plaything of the Supreme Court. This interpretation of the meaning of legislative acts gives a power to the tribunal which performs that office scarcely second to that which makes the enact- ments. In this way is the will of the people subverted. In his work " On the Constitution/' J. Story says, " No man in a republican government can doubt that the will of the people is and ought to be supreme." In New Zealand, when a law is enacted, every term contained therein, about the definition of which there could possibly be two opinions, is clearly defined. This is as great an advance upon our system as is the New Zealand abolition of legal precedent and the try- ing of all cases on their merits, upon our ridiculous system of inter- minal citations of former decisions. In order to see clearly how like putty our Constitution has be- come in the hands of the Supreme Court, and how easy it is for party politics with the aid of the Chief Executive to control its decisions and through them the Constitution itself, let us consider the facts for a moment. The judges of the Supreme Court are nominated and appointed by the President and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and nominally hold office during good behaviour. Let us suppose now that the question arises as to whether or not the Constitution follows the flag, and that, coincident with this issue, 157 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION there are vacancies upon the Supreme Bench. What will be likely to occur? An unscrupulous Executive might easily bargain with a would-be- judge to rule as he and his party might desire, as the price of his ap- pointment, but such dishonesty is by no means necessary to the at- tainment of the same end. Nothing further is required than that the honest convictions of the various persons eligible shall be known or ascertained, in order for the Executive to make sure that the de- cisions of the appointees shall be but a replica of his own views. Nothing is more natural, more in accord with human nature as at present organised, than that we should consider those most eligible to an office who hold our own views in regard thereto. It could hardly be expected, for example, that Mr. Eoosevelt would nominate for the Supreme Bench a Jeffersonian democrat to whom imperialism was avowedly a national crime. It is interesting to note in this connexion that Justice Brown, of the Supreme Court, has announced his purpose to retire next Oc- tober, (1906) while Justices Fuller and Harlan both passed the age at which they might retire three years ago, and Justices Peckham and Brewer will attain that age next year. The ages of the Justices of the Supreme Court are as follows : Chief Justice Fuller 73 years old " " Harlan 73 " " " Brewer 69 " " " " Brown 70 " " " White 61 " " " " Peckham 68 " " McKenna 63 " " Holmes 65 " " " Day 57 " " The last two members were appointed by President Eoosevelt. Jus- tice Brown's successor will make the third appointed by the present Executive. Should two more retire during 'Pres. Roosevelt's term of office, as seems more than likely, Mr. Roosevelt will probably enjoy the singular distinction of appointing a majority of the highest court in the land. What such power vested in a single individual means in a Democracy none who are well-informed will need be told. The Su- preme Court, as well as the United States Senate, was primarily cre- ated that it might subvert the will of the common people, and to-day it is used to read into our Constitution sentiments which the original framers thereof never for a moment endorsed. Thus is it that our Constitution, primarily intended as a demo- cratic safeguard, has come of late to be one of our gravest menaces. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution was adopted for the purpose of securing certain results of the Civil War and of allaying certain race evils growing out of it. No one at the time of its adoption considered it in any other light than as a means for the protection of negro citizens from hostile State legislation. 158 HOW THE POISON WORKS On April 17th, 1905, the Supreme Court of the United States made a decision pronouncing a New York statute, limiting labour-time in bakeries to ten hours a day, unconstitutional and contrary to the pro- visions of the Fourteenth Amendment. This, too, notwithstanding the fact that the same court had held the eight-hour law for work in mines to be valid. Here once again we see the tendency of judges to draw to them- selves unwarranted power aptly illustrated, and we should not lose sight of the significant fact that this decision regarding labour in bakeries was arrived at by a five to four decision, Judges Harlan, White, Day and Holmes, dissenting, so that we are confronted with the fact that a single judge of the Supreme Court is able effectively to declare that the State of New York is not competent to determine within its own territory how many hours a day a baker may work without jeopardising his health. This is a direct and palpable in- fringement of a state's right to police regulation. And now comes the cream of the episode. The tool used by the Court to bring about this decision in favour of capital and against labour is that "same Fourteenth Amendment, made with a view to negro rights, in which intended capacity it is the most dismal of failures. It is a notorious fact that certain States deny the colored the rights expressly guaranteed by this Amendment, and that negroes, though they have tried desperately, have never yet been able to get the ear of the Supreme Court of the United States for relief. Here, then, we have the highest tribunal of the land, while negligently disregard- ing the plain intent of this Amendment, reading into it something it was never intended to contain, and then using that something to abridge the rights of statehood. What wonder that Philosopher Dooley remarks regarding the Su- preme Court decision to the effect that " th' constitution don't follow th' flag : " " ' An' there ye have th' decision, Hinnissy, that's shaken th' intellicts iv th' nation to their very foundations, or will if they thry to read it. 'Tis all r-right. Look it over some time. 'Tis fine spoort if ye don't care f'r checkers. Some say it laves th' flag up in th' air an' some say that's where it laves th' constitution. Annyhow, something's in th' air. But there's wan thing I'm sure about. ' What's that ? ' asked Mr. Hennessy. ' That is," said Mr. Dooley, ' no matther whether th' constitution follows th' flag or not, th' supreme coort follows th' iliction returns.' '' Such Supreme Court decisions call to mind the story of the little girl who, after hearing a quartet of boys tell what they were going to do when they grew up, and refusing to express her own ambitions, finally made the following very private confession to her favourite aunt: " I wouldn't tell before them" she said scornfully. " They couldn't understand. But, aunty, I want to be a justice of the Supreme Court, and " her voice became solemn '' beyond human control." As we write, the following editorial note in " The Public " of March 17, 1906 apropos of corrupting judges comes to our notice: " An investigation of public corruption is in progress in Cincinnati, which gives promise as it proceeds of scandalous revelations, The 159 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Republican leader, Boss Cox, already known to be unfit, notwithstand- ing the respectability of his associates, has been shown to have regu- lated decisions of the judiciary as well as the distribution of public plunder. And the developments thus far point to higher game than Boss Cox." Space does not permit even of mentioning many of the national legislative and judicial evils which have come upon us with the general breaking down of civic and commercial morality resulting from the deification of the dollar. A few of the most glaring must still be adverted to. Among these mention should be made of the general tendency to- ward governmental concentration and the increasing frequency and boldness of utterances questioning the wisdom of universal suffrage. The hand of Hamilton seems to reach from the grave, seise upon the tiller of the Ship of State, and head her toward those rocks of ruin which always seemed to his aristocratic mind her ideal harbor of refuge. Alexander Hamilton wanted the President chosen for life, and re- cently politicians, who certainly should and probably do know better, have advocated a great increase in the presidential term of office. Along with this has gone an agitation for increase of official salaries, on the part of those who seem to think the chief executive should be as nearly as possible like a king, not only in the duration of his term of office, but in the undemocratic and princely splendour for his life. They see no reason why he should not keep thirty blooded horses and a retinue of officials and servants to match. They would have these officials salaried so liberally that they too could afford to indulge in that un-American ostentation which they believe duly impresses other na- tions with our real worth. All this, of course, is but an inevitable corollary of that spirit of Hamiltonianism with which we have so soon to reckon, once for all, if we are to preserve in the United States anything worthy the name of liberty. The issue is clearly joined. If we cannot raise ourselves to the level of Jeffersonian ideals, our children and our children's children will be slaves, with nought of freedom but an ever dimming memory of bygone greatness. Along with the general trend of affairs noted above is the proposition, which has been seriously made by men in high places, that gold be made the only legal tender. 160 CHAPTER IV CONTRACTION OF CURRENCY AND EX- PANSION OF STATISTICS 161 Money is the common denominator of all desires. Social bodies, in common with all other bodies, are subject to the laws of motion. They have an inertia which prevents their instant mobilisa- tion. Hence it follows that a sensible period of time must always elapse before society can adjust itself to the new conditions arising out of a change in the volume of currency. From this social lag the creditor- class reaps many a golden harvest. The debtor-class cannot return the compliment since it lacks the power to controlthe currency. To loan a thousand dollars when it represents two hundred barrels of flour and then so to manipulate national finances that at time of pay- ment it shall mean three hundred barrels of the same commodity, that is the trick, and they who play it are yclept financiers and bedecked with the purple of public opinion. Rational money a national currency intelligently controlled in the interests of the whole people and carefully regulated in reference to the true commodity basis, the real constant of exchange, by means of the multiple standard in such a way that the dollar shall remain constant in its purchasing power from month to month and year to year, repre- senting always the same average amount of commodities and services and giving to its possessor at all times the same average command over the world of purchasable things. Prof. Frank Parsons. For six hundred years Venice had no money panic. In this country as many as ten disastrous panics have occurred within a single life a rate that would have given Venice over a hundred panics during the life of her credit bank. . . . The Bank of Venice lasted longer than any other money system known to history, and it clearly proved that an " irredeemable " legal tender, re- ceivable in the revenues and enforced in the payment of debts, may have far greater convenience, safety and stability than coin or any money re- deemable in coin. . . . One of the main causes of the downfall of the Roman Empire was the appreciation of the precious metals used as money. Prof. Frank Parsons, Rational Money. The most striking display of monetary power is shown by the action of the foreign syndicate in stopping the gold drain of a million or more a week from the Treasury. It seems, with the gain in gold and some expansion by the banks, to have restored confidence and revived busi- ness, and to show that, under a gold system, a few men hold National prosperity on tap to be sold to the highest bidder. In this view the six or eight millions profit paid by Mr. Cleveland seems reasonable. Terror is reported at Washington and a stock decline in Wall Street from fear that these bankers will not protect the United States till October. A great nation grovels at the feet of a foreign syndicate. Major Winn. " Figures won't lie, but liars will figure." Truth is a relation, wherefore it happens that by so arranging statistics as to make comparisons impossible she may be concealed indefinitely. The verdict acquits the raven, but condemns the dove. Juvenal Satirae. 162 CHAPTER IV CONTRACTION OF CURRENCY AND EX- PANSION OF STATISTICS HE effect of currency manipulation upon the social well-being of the community can hardly be exagger- ated in importance. Any change in this regard is bound to affect unjustly all parties to contracts. This iniquity will be beneficial to one side and harmful to the other, whichever way the circulating medium is manipulated. If legal tender be contracted it will tend unjustly to benefit the rich while it unjustly hardships the poor. The rich will get more of the products of labour for each of their dollars, while the worker will have to give more for each dollar he receives. The farmer buys money with wheat just as truly as the broker buys wheat with money. As will be seen by the perusal of the following facts, the course of the party, at present dominant, has ever been toward currency re- striction, notwithstanding the fact that the noblest representative of that party, Abraham Lincoln, said, if memory serves us, that he knew of no political crime worse than the contraction of the currency. Tjere- have been slight temporary set-backs to this policy, but they have sen'H. only to emphasise the persistent trend toward that cur- rency restriction which serves more and more to place the debtor absolutely \t the creditor's mercy in times of financial stress. It is not difficult to realise how those who have loaned money desire to get all they can in way of payment. Under proper conditions this desire would be checked by the contrary desire on the part of the debtor to pay as little as possible for the loans made to him. But as things are, the moneyed class who make loans also make laws, and the result is that they have persistently squeezed the borrower. Any restriction of currency is but an added weapon to this end, placed in the hands of the already over-armed capitalistic class. It is a fine ihing, from the standpoint of the money-lender, to-day to make a loan, say, to a miller, payable in five years, for an amount of money which is now the equivalent value of one thousand barrels of flour, and then, before the five years expire, so to manipulate the national currency that the miller will have to give up two thousand barrels of flour to discharge his indebtedness. This is in kind precisely what has occurred again and again. This is the real definition of that high sounding and seductive term " honest money" Let us consult history for a moment. Under the Federal Consti- tution no state can make anything except gold and silver a legal ten- 163 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION der. ('engross, on the contrary, is without limit' in this regard, and could constitutionally declare rimllen leaves legal tender at the rate of a hundred dollars a leaf, should it so desire. Were all debts merely obligations of honor and not subject to en- forced legal collection, 'there would be no such thing as the money question, for then, in times of financial stress, no advantage would accrue to the loaning class by attempting to " squeeze " the borrowing class. Debtors would simply reply to demands for payment of their loans, " We will meet our obligations as soon as this crisis has passed, and you have nothing to do but to wait till then, since we shall not permit you to ruin us by extortion." The proposition that laws for the collection of debt be repealed altogether is by no means without many cogent arguments. The most famous advocate of this means for the settlement of the money ques- tion is Jeremy Bentham, whose arguments are not to be brushed aside in the flippant spirit which the money powers would fain have us believe. Now, while Congress has no power to repeal laws for the collection of debt by direct legislation, it can arrive at practically the same result by making intrinsically valueless things, in unlimited volume, legal tender. This would prevent the ruin of the debtor-class in times of financial stringency, because it would make impossible that cor- nering of the money market which is the first turn of the screw of extortion. Nor would such a course on the part of Congress be the unprece- dented thing the creditor-class would like us to believe. Here are some of the things which have been used at various times as money. From 1828 to 1845 Russia used platinum. The Burman Empire used lead, and the Lacedemonians, iron. England under James II. used tin, gun metal and pewter; South Sea Islanders, axes and hammers; Ancient Britons, cattle, slaves, brass and iron; the Carthaginians, leather; China, in 1200, bark of the mulberry tree; ancient Jews, jewels; Africa and Indian Islands, cowrie shells; Iceland and New- foundland, codfish; ancient Eussia, skins of wild animals; Massa- chusetts Indians, wampum and musket-balls; Virginia in 1700, to- bacco; West India Islands in 1500, cocoanuts; British West India Islands, pins, snuff and whisky; Central South America, soap, choco- late and eggs; ancient Eomans, cattle; Greece, nails of copper and iron ; Rome, under Numa Pompilius, wood and leather, and under the Caesars, land. In other cases, copper wire, cakes of tea, pieces of silk, salt, coonskins and cotton shirts have been used, and in 1574 Holland used pieces of pasteboard. In his excellent work entitled " Rational Money " Prof. Frank Par- sons says: "The ideal dollar is one that will not mulct either the debtor or creditor, nor encourage speculation, nor depress industry a dollar of constant purchasing power, commanding the same average amount of commodities and services from year to year and age to age an ethical, impartial, democratic dollar, a dollar that will act as a fly wheel to keep the national engine working smoothly all the time, instead of producing or aggravating industrial disaster and ex- 164 CONTRACTION OF CURRENCY plosion. The price line must become a safe horizontal instead of the dangerous zigzag of a bolt of lightning." . . . " Since 1773 the chain lightning of prices has been golden, before that time it was bimetallic. Neither of these monetary thunderbolts appear to have much affection for the safe and honest horizontal." We reproduce on the following pages the two cuts which Mr. Par- sons uses to graphically illustrate the " golden " and the " bi-metallic " chain lightning of prices. Commenting on these diagrams Mr. Parsons says : " If the weekly or even the quarterly variations had been noted, the lines in both of these diagrams would have been full of saw teeth. If the maximum and minimum price levels had been marked instead of the yearly average, the extremes would have been far greater than those shown the drop in a panic being sometimes more than double that shown by the yearly averages. If actual prices had been taken (instead of metallic prices), we should have found that during the war period of unregulated issue of imperfect legal tender paper, the price line would have soared 76 points above the top of the diagram. Altogether these diagrams, full of ruin and injustice as they are, are yet mild repre- sentatives of the present money system. They tell part of its evils, but by no means all, nor do they give full emphasis to what they do tell!" . . .. " Our prime financial duty is the intelligent public regulation of the money-volume so as to give the dollar a constant purchasing power, yielding the creditor the same average command over com- modities and services that he gave, curtailing reckless speculation, preventing panic, and exercising a beneficent and impartial influence upon wealth production and distribution." Although having constitutional authority enabling it to come to the relief of the debtor-class, Congress has for the past forty or fifty years served the interests of the creditor-class by contracting more and more the possible volume of legal tender. Upon the organisation of our Government a mint was established. This was by Congressional Act of Apr. 2, 1792, making the dollar 416 grains of standard silver (or 371*4 pure) the unit of value, and pro- viding for the coinage not only of this unit dollar, but of gold eagles, half-eagles, quarter-eagles, silver half-dollars, quarter-dollars, dimes, half-dimes, and of copper cents and half-cents. The coinage was upon the ratio, pure silver to pure gold, of 15 to 1, and was to be made free of expense for any person who might bring gold or silver bullion to the mint for that purpose. This was the first legal tender law under our Constitution and it made all gold and silver coins " a lawful tender in all payments whatsoever." On Feb. 9, 1793, certain foreign gold and silver coins were also made legal tender. On June 28, 1834, the original ratio was altered from 15 to 1 to 16 to 1 and this, being an undervaluation of silver, caused that metal to be withheld from coinage, a condition which was accentuated by the gold discoveries. On June 18, 1837, an act was passed making the alloy uniform for both gold and silver, that is, one hundred parts of alloy to nine hun- 165 PRICE LINE 1666- 1698- GOLD PRICES ALOMCH DATA !fl6- 1691 "AFRICAN" DATA 1691-8. 1660 1670 1600 1890 --100 -90 -80 The gold lightning that has stricken our industries. PRICE LINE 1837- 1873 B I METALLIC PRICES ALDRICH DATA 1640- 1873.^1837- 1&40 BROAO ESTIMATE r*oM DATA OF W* G. 5UMNER St MUUHALL'S CITATIONS. 1850 I860 1C THUN 3EJRC 1870 1873 -140 -130 -100 - 90 The Bimetallic Thunderbolt with 4 Terrific Panics in 36 years. GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION dred parts of pure metal. Under this standard the silver dollar was to contain 412 1 /* grains of standard silver and the gold coins at the rate of 25.8 grafns of standard gold. All denominations coined were made legal tender, according to their nominal value, for any sum what- "*< H * Y( i r By act of Mar. 3, 1849, double eagles and single gold dollars were first authorised and made legal tender. On Mar. 3, 1851, an act was passed authorising the coinage of the one-fourth copper, three-fourths silver three-cent piece. This was the first coin, other than copper coins, which was not given a full legal tender value. On Feb. 21, 1851, all other subsidiary silver coinage was debased by reducing the weight of standard silver from 4121/2 to 384 grains to the dollar's worth. Not satisfied with this onslaught upon the white metal, the act abolished the legal tender quality of silver for all .debts in excess of five dollars. .Six years later on Feb. 21, 1857, came the next step toward the contraction of legal tenders. This was the re- peal of all acts which had made certain foreign coins legal tender. Then came the civil war when the government was forced to avail itself of its constitutional power to create legal tender. The govern- ment issued non-interest-bearing treasury notes which, while not legal tender for private debts, were yet "receivable in payment of public dues." These were not and could not be redeemed in specie, for the gov- ernment had suspended specie payment, having no specie to spare, yet they were quoted at times at about the same premium as for gold. This was because they were applicable to the payment of public debts, and had they also been legal tender for private debts before an issue of greenbacks had been made for their retirement, they would prob- ably have answered the fiat money question for all time so far, at least, as this country is concerned. On Mar. 17, 1862, the treasury notes were made legal tender for private debts, but several weeks previously greenbacks had been issued for their retirement, and we are told by Mr. Knox, in " United States Notes/' that by July, 1863, $56,000,000 had been retired. The greenback was legal tender for private debt, but was shorn of its par-preserving quality by not being applicable to the payment of public dues. On Apr. 12, 1866, began a series of Acts, pleasing to the creditor- class, for the rapid retirement of the greenback. Then came the act providing for the cancellation of the greenbacks, after which the creditor-class had only gold and silver for legal tender. Under these circumstances what did they do? They proceeded straightway to get silver out of the way, so that the volume of legal tender should be narrowed to the uttermost. On Feb. 12, 1873, an act was passed reducing the legal tender quality of all subsequent silver coinage to sums of five dollars in any one payment. On May 31, 1878, after the awful panic and the great greenback agitation, the process of retiring greenbacks was checked, leaving an out-standing volume of $346,681,016. 168 CONTRACTION OF CURRENCY On Feb. 28, 1878, an act was passed over the President's veto by a two-thirds vote of each House, reviving the silver coinage clause of the act of 1837 and restoring to the silver dollar the legal tender function of which the act of 1873 had divested it. The act further directed the purchase of from two to four million dollars' worth of silver monthly and its prompt coinage into dollars. The act of July 14, 1890, was passed as a bimetallism law in com- pliance with a public sentiment so strong as to influence both parties, but, by a ruse less honest than clever, the will of the people was once more subverted, and it was made a gold redemption law. This was accomplished in this way. The act provided for the repeal of the bullion purchase clause of 1878 and the substitution in its stead of a provision for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver bullion with treasury notes redeemable " on demand in coin." The Secretary of the Treasury, having the option of redeeming these notes either in gold or silver, transferred this option to the holders of the notes who preferred gold. This act of 1890 was subsequently repealed. Then, as a fitting climax to this creditor-legislation, came the Fowler Act, one of the purposes of which was to provide for the " re- demption in gold coin of all legal tender money of the government, including the silver dollar, as well as the United States and treasury notes and the subsidiary coins." We have considered this subject of legislative corruption in the matter of legal tender contraction thus at length because, on the one hand, it is a matter of the most vital import to all who have the wel- fare of our country at heart, and, on the other hand, because it* is still fashionable in some quarters, for those who prate of what they are pleased to call "honest money," to pose as superior intelligences, tried and true friends of the working man, " safe and sane " legisla- tors, saviours of the public conscience ! The views of such great Americans as Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln, Wendell Phillips, Horace Greeley, Peter Cooper and the like are of no account to them. To the reader, however, who has not replaced thinking with fetich- worship, it may be interesting to know that in Dec. of 1864 President Lincoln said, in a letter to Col. Edmund Taylor : " Chase thought it a hazardous thing, but we finally accomplished it, and gave to the people of this Eepublic the greatest blessing they ever had their own paper to pay their own debts." " The greatest blessing they ever had their own paper to pay their own debts! " In closing this subject of legal tender contraction in response to cor- rupt legislative influence on the part of the creditor-class, we cannot refrain from quoting one of the greatest orators, grandest characters and sanest men who ever lived, Wendell Phillips. He said : " The first question, therefore, in an industrial nation, is where ought the control of the currency to rest? In whose hands can this almost omnipotent power be trusted? Every writer on political economy, from Aristotle to Adam Smith, from Ricardo to Calhoun, allows that a change in the currency alters the price of every ounce and yard of 169 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION merchandise and every foot of land. Whom can we trust with this despotism ? "At present the banks and the money-kings wield this power. They own the yardstick, and can make it shorter or longer as they please, and when they will. They own the pound-weight and can make 'it heavier or lighter as they choose. " This explains the riddle, so mysterious to commen men, why those who trade in money always grow rich, even while those who trade in other things go into bankruptcy. "This is the issue of to-day. Who shall make the yardstick? " To-day we are fighting to secure what Jefferson, in 1813, advised, that ' the circulation be restored to the nation to whom it belongs/ " This is the reason why the banks and money-kings hate this move- ment so bitterly, and pour out their money like water to kill it. They feel and know it is a hand-to-hand fight between themselves and the people one of the last battles between aristocracy and democracy." The dishonest railway concessions made by our government may be considered as indicative of the degree of influence exercised over Con- gress by the railroad, banking, telephone, telegraph and express sys- tems. The treatment of the railroads is typical in kind, and a brief men- tion of a few of the succulent plums they were able to shake from the Congressional tree, will suffice for the matter in hand. In an article entitled " Our System of Distributing tKe Public Lands/' * J. L. McCreery says : " There would seem to have been small temptation to railroad companies to defraud the government of its land. They have been able to get about all they wanted as a gift." Later Mr. McCreery adds : " Occasionally it has occurred that Con- gress, or a state legislature, as the case may be, has refused to do for a railroad company all that it askt. A majority were opposed to con- ferring any further favors. In such case it was necessary for some of the adverse majority to be ' convinced/ They generally were. Any one who imagines that all the arguments used on such occasions are to be found recorded in full in the columns of the ' Congressional Record' are probably labouring under a hallucination. Sometimes, indeed, notwithstanding earnest efforts and a heavy expense for ' white- wash/ faint indications to the contrary ooze to the surface of history. In May, 1863, a joint stock company was organised, entitled ' The Credit Mobilier Company of America/ with a capital of $2,500,000. In January, 1867, the charter having been purchased by a company organised for the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, the stock was increast to $3,750,000 and afterwards rose to great value, paying enormous dividends. In 1872, in the course of legal proceedings in- volving the ownership of- the stock, it was disclosed that several mem- bers of Congress, the Vice-President of the United States and one of the candidates for the Vice-Presidency, were stockholders. The fact that these high officials were pecuniarily interested in a concern re- garding which they had been and would be called upon to legislate, *See " The Land Question from Various Points of View," published by C. F. Taylor, Philadelphia, Pa. 170 CONTRACTION OF CURRENCY created intense public excitement, followed by a Congressional investi- gation in the winter of 1872-3. On February 27, 1873, the Senate Committee made a report, which closed with a recommendation that one Senator, named therein, be expelled ; but no action was taken, and five days later his term expired. In the House of Representatives resolutions were past censuring two of its members." Mr. McCreery publishes extracts from a long series of letters from one of the managers of the Central Pacific Railroad to General Colton the object of the letters being to bribe, " fix," or " convince," certain Congressmen necessary to the dishonest legislation desired by the rail- road. Mr. McCreery remarks in a foot-note : " And yet there are per- sons who object to the government owning and operating the railroads, lest they might become engines of political corruption ! " The Federal Government granted the Southern Pacific alternate sec- tions (a section is a square mile in United States land-measurement) of a belt of land sixty miles wide in California and one hundred miles wide in the territories some of which are now States. The Northern Pacific got " alternate sections in a belt of land one hundred twenty miles wide running from the western boundary of Minnesota to Puget Sound and the Columbia River." Nor was this all. In addition to land, the Federal, State and Municipal governments made enormous grants in the shape of money and bonds. The five Pacific railroads received in this way enough, not only to build the roads, but to put large fortunes into the pockets of their managing promoters as well. Commenting upon these shocking legislative crimes, Henry George, Jr., says in " The Menace of Privilege " : " The total railroad land-grants have amounted to approximately 200,000,000 acres, or 312,500 square miles. " Can the significance of this be easily realised ? This gift of pub- lic domain to our Western railroad companies was sufficient to have made 2,000,000 American farms of 100 acres each. It would have made more than 33,000,000 farms such as in Belgium support a fam- ily each. in happy independence. " Or consider the matter in another way. This land gift of the railroads is equal to the combined areas of the States of Maine, Ver- mont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. It is nearly as large as the terri- tories of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, taken together, which support a population of at least 75,000,000." And as a return for all this how have these fattened beneficiaries of special legislation treated the American people? .Have they ever failed to charge the general public "all that the traffic will bear?" No; and in the meantime they have given a service as poor as they considered desirable from their own selfish viewpoint: they have pub- lished and still do publish upon the backs of their tickets, lying interpretations of their legal responsibility, intended to discourage any they may wrong from seeking legal redress; they have neglected reasonable precautions for the safeguarding of life and limb, until the editor of " The Outlook " remarks in this connexion : " It is be- 171 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION coming as perilous to live in the United States as to participate in actual warfare"; they have maintained an elaborate system of bribery, have controlled primaries, corrupted legislatures and made Congress their pliant tool and, in general, comported themselves not as public servants but rather as autocrats in relation to whom the people of the United States have no rights which they are in the least bound to respect. Concerning discriminating rates, Supreme Court Justice William Jay Gaynor, of New York, said in a recent address : " The greatest crime of our day and generation is the favouritism in freight-rates on our public highways. I say crime, for more wrong has been done by it than by all the crimes defined by our statutes. It has crushed and beggared thousands all over the land. And I say public highways, because our railroads are our public highways. That the public highways of a country should be used to aggrandise some and destroy others is so infamous and so heartless that we will be looked back upon as a generation lost to moral sense for having al- lowed it so long." Were one to assert that the statistics of Eussia or the Turkish Em- pire were occasionally " cooked," the average American would content himself with some such reply as, " Well, what can you expect of half- civilised countries ? " Tell him, however, that the national statistics of his own country are purposely falsified in order that th6 people may be politically deceived, and the chances are ten to one he will not believe you. That such is precisely the case we shall take occasion briefly to demonstrate. Space does not permit of our taking up many specific instances, though the abundance of material is enticing and a bit disconcerting, and we shall confine ourselves to a thorough and con- clusive proof of a small portion of the subject. The saying, " Figures won't lie but liars will .figure," usually refers to garbled facts, to the presentment of one side of an issue without showing due attention to the other side. This is unfair and very reprehensible, but it is not morally in the same category with deliber- ately falsified " statistics." In the one case, certain truths are given an undue weight; in the other, lies are offered as truths. Americans are a practical people, and sooner or later, usually the latter, they come to judge of the policy of a party, as they judge of that of a person, by what they believe to be its result. Lincoln's dictum, " You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people sometime, but it is impossible to fool all of the people all of the time," holds true here as elsewhere. Spell-binders may orate themselves hoarse, and partisan papers may " scare-head " pov- erty into seeming affluence, but there comes a time when hungry Labour takes up the last hole in its belt. When this is reached, the sufferers and their sympathisers begin to get unpleasantly inquisitive. You cannot fill an empty stomach with a song of praise, and hunger and doubt are first cousins. Questions are asked. If replies are unsatis- factory, more questions follow, and after a little a great doubt finds its tongue. Something must then be done. The day for uncomplimen- tary, flippant or evasive retort is passed. The people must be made 172 CONTRACTION OF CURRENCY to think themselves in the wrong. Wherever a complaint is made, the sufferer must be made to believe his case individual and unusual, rather than general and typical. The professional politician, usually bred a lawyer, is a past master in this sort of thing, and he knows just how to accomplish this result. He gets out his pencil and pad and betakes him to figures. " Statistics are like sausage, in that confidence in them depends upon who makes them." For this reason, in times of great political stress, the authority should be as nearly as possible like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. Now a few years ago it became a " political necessity," if confidence in a certain party were to be saved, to convince the people that the United .States of America were in a most prosperous condition. The twelfth census was soon to be taken, and carping critics would immediately compare it with the eleventh, just to see which way the country was going. Should it appear that we were not as prosperous as they had claimed, in short, should the truth be known but there ! It need not be known ! The peo- ple could easily be once more finessed. The sensation would not be novel enough to be noticeable. The first step toward the attainment of this end consisted in so altering the classification of the twelfth census as to make it impos- sible to compare it with the eleventh. This prevented the two from being put in deadly parallel in a way to show the trend of affairs dur- ing the preceding ten years. Having prevented the inquisitive from ascertaining by this comparison whether or not conditions had been improving since the last census, all that remained was so to order things that our present status should appear most gratifying. This done and comparison estopped as aforesaid, it would be easy to make the people believe they were on the steady up-grade toward affluence for all. One of the several means used to attain this end was so to fix things that the census enumeration should make a fine agricultural showing. The farmers are the backbone of the country. If they are prosperous other classes ought to be and normally are. The census places the wealth of our farmers at over twenty billions of dollars. Commenting upon this, the " New York Financier " decides that the farmer is the actual capitalist of the United States. It goes on to state that, while the increase in value of railway property as indicated by total capitalisation rose from $10,029,000,000 in 1890 to 11,892,- 000,000 in 1900, or an increase of 18.5 per cent, this was nearly 10 per cent less than the increase in the value of farm lands. Now, pausing only to call attention to the fact that there are two kinds of farmers, viz., those who farm farms and those who farm farmers, and pointing out that the Financier's conclusions are en- tirely misleading, because in arriving at them no account has been taken of this important fact, a system of juggling which might have been made to show the Irish tenant-farmers prosperous in the worst days of English landlordism, let us pass to the consideration of how these figures were obtained. We quote below from the report of a special committee of enquiry appointed by the National Board of Trade. Among the members of this committee were the editors of the " Chicago Daily Trade Bulle- 173 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION tin," and the " Cincinnati Price Current/' and the statistician of the "New York Produce Exchange." This committee found appalling errors in the Census report of farm-areas, with corresponding inac- curacies in the amount of crops harvested. The Reader will probably find it difficult to believe that city pavements make good farm-land, and quite impossible, we trust, to assume that a district can contain more farm-land than it contains of any kind of land. The report states that : " Features of inconsistency in the census-bureau work are to be found in comparisons of area in instances where the agri- cultural returns make the farm areas equal to or exceed the land sur- face, according to survey records as presented by the twelfth census. There appear many such instances. In 20 states, in which there are 1,490 counties, there are 101 counties made to appear as having farm lands equal to or in excess of the entire surveyed land surface. This number includes a few which by a small fraction of one per cent, are under 100 in the comparison, but which practically represent the entire land surface. The excesses over an equal extent of area range up to 40 per cent., the aggregate number of acres indicated in the farm returns for these 101 counties being five per cent, greater than their entire surface, without allowances for highways, towns, railroads, etc. Of the 101 counties there are 69 which appear to have more farm acres than the surveyed land records indicate within their boundary lines; there are 23 having over five per cent, excess of such area; there are 13 having over ten per cent, of such excess; ten having over 15 per cent, of such excess ; eight having over 20 per cent, of excess, in comparison with the reported actual land surface. For Ohio, 19 per cent, of the number of counties are shown to represent 100 per cent, or more of the entire surface as in farm lands; in Iowa 17 per cent.; Kansas 12 per cent.; Kentucky nine per cent.; Missouri nine per cent. ; Tennessee six per cent. ; Indiana six per cent., etc. " In addition to these 101 counties found by analysis of census-bur- eau data to reflect returns of farm lands equal to or in excess of the surveyed land surface of such counties, there are 700 other counties showing 90 per cent, or more, of which 335 represent 95 per cent, or more, in such comparison. Thus over 28 per cent, of all the 2,800 counties of the country represent farm areas reported as 90 per cent, or more of the surveyed land surface. " Whether these conditions, reflecting a large extent of farm acre- age in excess of what can be accepted as the true position, are due to overestimates in returns of enumerators, or to duplications in the me- chanical operations incident to the methods of the census-office in the tabulating work, or to both of these, with inconsistent work in editing the schedules, and other causes, cannot be stated by the committee, but they are evidences of erroneous work, the measure of which in in- fluence on results cannot be satisfactorily estimated. " While there are the large number of instances of inconsistencies and excesses in the comparisons of farm returns of areas and survey records herein mentioned and demonstrable by the available data, it does not follow that all the census exhibits of farm areas not having such evidences of inconsistency are free from errors, or exaggerations, in the statements of farm areas. For instance, a county which may 174 * CONTRACTION OF CURRENCY have only 60 per cent, of its area actually in farm lands may be exag- gerated 50 per cent., and not appear to be over 90 per cent, in the com- parison with the land surface of such county. Again, a county which may have only 45 per cent, of its area in farm lands may be doubled in the crop exhibit without going over the 90 per cent, relation to ac- tual land area. It is therefore impossible to determine or to suggest the limit to which such exaggerations or errors may exist in portions of the work wherein the conditions do not admit of such demonstra- tion as in such cases as are herein specifically stated. Exaggerations or errors which enlarge the area-basis correspondingly affect unduly the results in regard to production of crops represented." Commenting upon the unfair reception given this report by the Census authority, Mr. Henry L. Bliss says, in a signed article printed in " The Public" of Dec. 6, 1902 : " In reply to this report Mr. Powers, the United States statistician- in-chief for agriculture, has given out a statement maintaining the substantial correctness of the census reports, in which, among other things, he declares that the Board of Trade committee in making its report did not possess statistics of surveyed lands for a single State. " It is true that the data of areas published in the twelfth census, which was used by the committee, are not, as the committee seems to have supposed, statistics of surveys of the land-office. They are, how- ever, the data of areas adopted by the census-office at both the eleventh and twelfth censuses and are shown to vary from the surveys of the land-office by less than one-tenth of one per cent. That being so, the answer of the agricultural statistician seems but a contemptible eva- sion." In another part of the same article Mr. Bliss says : " This enumeration as farms of cabbage and potato patches on city lots, while it accounts for much of the apparent increase in farm acreage, does not account for the wide discrepancy between the figures of the department of agriculture and those of the census as to the production of wheat and other staple products. According to the estimates of the department of agriculture the amount of wheat pro- duced during the census year was 547,303,846 bushels, and according to the census it was 661,143,657 bushels, a difference of nearly 114,- 000,000 bushels. That this discrepancy is largely due to the exag- gerated census figures appears from our statistics of exports, which indicate that but 186,096,762 bushels of the wheat crop of the census year were exported. This, if we accept the census figures, would show that in this year our people consumed nearly 6^4 bushels of wheat per capita, or from 40 to 50 per cent, more than the usual amount as in- dicated by official estimates for other years. This increase might be taken as unmistakable evidence of the prosperity of the consumers, were not the prosperity theory conclusively disproved by census wage statistics, which, when honestly compared, show a decided decrease in average earnings during the last decade. " This important fact the census-office has sought to conceal by an adroit juggling of the data." We might go on to show how a similar kind of official deception was indulged in in order to make the public believe that the working 175 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION man's cost of living had not materially increased since 1896. The Bureau of Labour supplied statistics supposed to prove that position. Under date of Aug. 8, 1904, " The Commoner " prints the following : " The indications are that Mr. Carrol D. Wright, chief statistician of the government in general and of the Eepublican party in particular, will be the busiest man in the country for the next three months. As chief juggler of figures, Mr. Wright will be called upon by the G. 0. P. management to show that labour is better rewarded and has more left after paying living expenses than ever before in its history. If any- body can juggle the figures so as to make a showing, Mr. Wright is the man. Not long ago he proceeded to show that the average cost of living was lower now than it was ten years ago, and did it by showing that while such things as bacon and flour had increased something like 40 per cent., nutmegs and spices had decreased something like 60 per cent., showing a clear decrease of 20 per cent, in the cost of living. And in his estimates of the cost of living Mr. Wright forgot to include the important item of rent, which takes fully 19 per cent, of the average workingman's income. Mr. Wright will have to work at a desperate rate if he would do what his employers expect him to do for the G. 0. P. campaign." In an article entitled " More Cooked Statistics," published in " The Public " of Dec. 5, 1903, Mr. Henry L. Bliss makes a critical analysis of the data submitted. In the course of his article Mr. Bliss says: " That it is the studied purpose of the Commissioner of Labour to conceal rather than reveal facts unfavourable to existing economic and social conditions is shown by numerous reports and tables of statistics of the Bureau of Labour, besides those of Bulletin 38, in which, as we have seen, the increase in " real wages " is measured by the de- crease in the price of steel rails and other commodities of which the wage earner is never a purchaser." Space does not permit a further pursuit of this subject of falsified statistics. Enough has been written to convince any fair-minded and intelligent reader of the truth of our original contention, to wit, national statistics are falsified for the purpose of deceiving the pub- lic as to real conditions. Should any one desire to pursue the subject further he will find " Our Juggled Census," a pamphlet by Mr. Henry L. Bliss, an excellent point at which to attack the subject. 176 . CHAPTER V THE RUSSIANISING OF UNCLE SAM 177 When I see a workingman voting an old party ticket it makes me think of the popular song, " Nothing from Nothing Leaves You." Appeal to Reason. They have cheveril consciences that will stretch. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy. 178 CHAPTER V THE RUSSIANISING OF UNCLE SAM E trust the facts in the preceding chapter will not lead the Reader to imagine that the United .States enjoys a monopoly in the line of " cooked statistics." Such is far from being the case. In Russia, where statistics are manufactured to suit the needs of the autocracy, it has been found expedient, in the opinion of said autoc- racy, to prevent as far as possible troublesome truths from getting to the people either by spoken or written word. What is the use of labouriously " cooking " a fine mess of " statistics " if some meddle- some crank is to be allowed to tell the people they are false and so prevent their being thankfully swallowed ? To prevent this untoward condition of affairs in Russia they maintain a most active censorship. The censor is a sort of intellectual nurse, and the people in his charge are, if you please, bottle-babies to be fed with such pap as he thinks best to give them. Like all officialdom he obeys the law of self- preservation, and secures the perpetuity of his office by starving his babies till they are too weak to feed themselves. Soon they are glad to take anything he may give them without question. This is Russia, and we have now to consider whether the United States, having, as we have seen, copied her in the matter of " cooked statistics," is also following her lead in the matter of stifling freedom of utterance. We shall prove that this is precisely what is taking place in the United States. Not that we have as yet degenerated to the servile depths of intellectual slavery which obtains in Russia, but that we have deliberately turned our back upon our high ideals of liberty of speech and thought, that we have repudiated with insistence the very axioms for which the founders of our Republic unremittingly con- tended, and that we are now being hurried as fast as our ideals can be broken down by the greed for money, called commercialism, and the greed for territory called imperialism, down to the abject level of czarism. We are quite aware that this is a severe indictment, yet it is a true bill. In his "'Principles of Ethics," Vol. II., Chapter XVIII, Herbert Spencer says : " As belief, considered in itself, does not admit of being controlled by external power as it is only the profession of belief which can be taken cognisance of by authority and permitted or prevented, it follows that the assertion of the right to freedom of belief implies the right to freedom of speech. Further, it implies the right to use 179 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION speech for the propagation of belief ; seeing that each of the proposi- tions constituting an argument or arguments, used to support or en- force a belief, being itself a belief, the right to express it is included with the right to express the belief to be justified." Now, since freedom of belief means freedom to express belief, an attempt to prevent free expression of belief is an attempt to do the utmost that can be done against freedom of belief. In the darkest days of the Dark Ages " the veriest inquisitorial despot could do no more in his attempt to coerce belief than to coerce its manifestation, and any attempt to-day to coerce the expression of beliefs or of opin- ions is part and parcel of the brutish ignorance and superstition of the Dark Ages. Says Mr. John .Stuart Mill, one of the greatest philosophers and most marvelous minds of any age : " The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the ' liberty of the press' as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opin- ions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so often and so triumphantly enforced by preceding writers, that it needs not be specially insisted on in this place. ... If all man- kind, minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner, if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation ; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth ; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, pro- duced by its collision with error." That the founders of this government held these same ideals re- specting freedom of utterance is too well known to require more than passing notice. In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, gave the Eepublic this splendid ethical yardstick with which to measure itself in times of darkness and of doubt. And how we have used it! " Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political ; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti- republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; . . . freedom of religion; freedom of 180 THE RUSSIANISING OF UNCLE SAM the press ; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus ; and trial by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation/' On the 14th day of October, 1903, John Turner, the English com- munist anarchist, arrived in this country. The gentleman was at that time chief organiser of the retail clerks' union of Great Britain, and a member of the London Trades Council. He came to New York to arrange for an organisation of the retail clerks of this country in an international union with those of Great Britain. Mr. Turner is not a believer in violence, nor did he indulge in incendiary speeches. He is simply a disbeliever in all organised government. All this may be said of Tolstoy, the greatest living Bus- sian and the foremost of non-resistants. It is equally applicable to Kropotkin, the famous Eussian writer, and to Eeclus, the world- renowned geographer. Mr. Turner is simply a peaceable, well-edu- cated, refined gentleman with a particular philosophical belief. The greatest philosophers of the world have declared again and again that that country is best governed which is least governed. Mr. Turner pushes this theory home and believes in abolishing government al- together. On Oct. 23, 1903, while addressing a peaceable and orderly au- dience at the Murray Hill Lyceum, New York, and while speaking quite within the law, he was arrested by United States secret service detectives authorised by the Secretary of Commerce and Labour at Washington; and these detectives, without other authority, broke up the meeting and conveyed their prisoner to Ellis Island, a Federal government reservation. On the next day a non-judicial special board of inquiry decided that Turner was an " anarchist " and accordingly subject to deportation under the Federal law. Commenting upon this arrest, New York's most conservative news- paper, the " Evening Post," the next day printed the following : " The first attempt at enforcing the anti-anarchist act, passed after the assassination of President McKinley, is not only ridiculous, but alarming, to all who hold to American ideals of personal liberty. Last night .Secretary Cortelyou's United States marshals broke into a meeting and arrested John Turner as ' an avowed anarchist.' Unquestionably the government means to deport him a logical act under an absurd law. Turner has made no incendiary utterance in this country ; he has not, in the words of the law, ' advocated the overthrow by force or violence ' of any organised government. When he preaches the gospel of anarchy among us it would be time to deport him. To proscribe him because- he may have written or talked else- where against constituted authority may be legal; it certainly is re- pugnant to American ideals." Describing the extraordinary and shameful treatment of Mr. Tur- ner after his arrest, " The Public," in its issue of Jan. 23, 1904, prints the following editorially : " On Ellis Island, New York, a curious case of imprisonment may be observed. The prisoner is con- fined in a cage ; literally in a cage, such as may be seen in menageries. It is about 9 feet long by 8 feet wide; the two ends are closed only 181 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION with bars,lo that the prisoner is never concealed from view ; the whole contrivance stands in the middle of the floor of a basement room, and about 15 feet from the windows; and no one is allowed to approach it except in the presence of vigilant guards. The involuntary occu- pant of this cage is not a dangerous lunatic. He is not a convicted criminal. He is a sane gentleman of education and refinement, a peaceable subject of Edward VII., a man of affairs, a retail clerk (shopkeepers' assistant) when at home in London, and the head of the shop assistants' union of Great Britain. He came to New York to arrange for organising the retail clerks of this country in an inter- national union with those of Great Britain. As soon as he came he was arrested. But not for any crime known to the laws of any modern nation. He was arrested for the medieval offence of ' disbelieving ' something. The something which this gentleman does not believe in is organised government. It is because he ' disbelieves in organised government/ and for nothing else let us repeat, for nothing else, for that is all the official and the judicial records show that this man, John Turner, is confined like a wild animal in that cage, upon the mere say-so of a member of President Eoosevelt's cabinet. There is probably no place in the civilised world to-day where such a spectacle would be possible excepting only Eussia, Turkey and the United States." Mr. C. E. S. Wood wrote as follows in a Pacific monthly for March, 1904 : " The Declaration of Independence is as much a part of our Constitution as is Magna Charta of the Constitution of Eng- land. The Declaration of Independence says that governments are ordained amongst men to promote liberty and the pursuit of happi- ness, and 'whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it/ " If the right is inherent in the people to abolish any form of gov- ernment (as it certainly is, with or without any written declaration) they certainly have the right to discuss the abolishing of any form of government. And if this right of discussion exists, it cannot be lim- ited by any person's notion of what particular forms of government or of social union are sacred from discussion. If this man Turner can be deported for a mere political opinion, upon which he has not opened his lips, freedom of thought has ceased in this country." Under date of May 20th, 1904, the " Springfield Republican " pub- lished an editorial from which' we extract the following: "Much as we dislike to say it, the deportation of Turner is also, in a sense, a break with our past, especially with the tradition of free speech and free thought which have been our pride for generations. . . . Deportation, even of an anarchist, smacks too much of a system that has always characterised despotisms rather than free re- publics whose chief security has rested in the affections of the people." Judge Lacombe, of the Federal court, ordered Turner's deportation. Referring to the constitutional provision guaranteeing freedom of speech and press, he said : " As to abridgment of the freedom of speech, that clause deals with the speech of persons in the United States and has no bearing upon the question what persons shall be allowed to enter therein." 182 THE RUSSIANISING OF UNCLE SAM Let us consider this singular utterance a moment for the light it may cast upon the labyrinthine methods of the legal conscience. Were Turner an American he would be protected by the Constitu- tion in his utterances. All men have certain rights, freedom of utterance and of belief be- ing among the number. Recognising the truth of this assertion, our Constitution safeguards and guarantees these rights to everyone with- in its jurisdiction. Judge Lacombe, it would seem, doesn't propose that our government shall do right except where it is obliged to. He appears to think that our Constitution gives to our people, as an act of generosity, a right they did not before possess, whereas even a cursory perusal of any good philosophy would have shown him that these rights of free utterance and belief inhere in all men. Our Constitution merely recognises them, it does not create them. .Such being the case, the fact that Turner could not technically command the protection of our charter of liberty in no wise robbed him of the rights which had always inhered in him quite irrespective of it. This judge's decision, therefore, was not only unchristian and invasive, but it put our coun- try in the despicable position of a predatory power ready to rob any man of his inherent rights, provided he were not sufficiently protected. It is a pity we cannot at least draw our Federal decisions from a higher type of men. On the 9th of April, 1904, Emma Goldman was advertised to speak in a public hall in Philadelphia, rented for that purpose. The sub- ject was " The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation." An orderly crowd gathered and sought to enter the hall. The assemblage was perfectly peaceable and law-abiding, but the " Director of Public Safety " ordered the police to prevent the meeting from being held. And this for no other reason than that someone had told him the speaker was an " anarchist." There was not the slightest indication, to say nothing of proof, of the likelihood of any lawlessness. The subject was in no wise incendiary or offensive. The lecturer and the attendants were even forbiddeji to enter their own premises which they had hired for the occasion. Two of the attendants, Samuel Milliken and Frank Stephens, who insisted, though without violent behaviour, upon entering the hall, were arrested and imprisoned. This flagrant violation of one of the most fundamental rights of citi- zenship, perpetrated in the very city where the Declaration of Inde- pendence was signed, by officials who by this act are themselves an- archists if they are anything, received the approval of the local press and of that smug contingent which is pleased to regard itself the " better class." The issue was so well summed up by Mr. George G. Mercer, a lead- ing lawyer, in his speech before the magistrate in behalf of the pris- oners, that we close the subject with the following extract therefrom : " According to the primary meaning of the word an anarchist is one who advocates a social theory of absolute individual liberty and who believes in the beautiful ideal of the self-government of man without the necessity of any forceful enforcement of the law. I have never seen Emma Goldman, have never heard her speak, and have no belief in the present practicability of her political ideal; but, if I 183 rightly understand her position, she is the peaceful advocate of a state of society in which government, as we understand it, would be unnecessary. In one of this morning's newspapers I read her state- ments that she had always been permitted to speak on this topic in the city of New York. As a citizen of Philadelphia, who was born here and have lived here all my life, I hang my head with shame to think that this woman, when she comes to the city where the Declara- tion of Independence was made, is denied the right of free speech on another topic simply because she is known to believe in anarchy in its higher and better sense. In its secondary signification the word anarchist means one who promotes disorder, who overturns by vio- lence constitutional forms of government, and who interferes with the individual rights of man. In this second class we find the po- licemen who made the arrests last night; above them the lieutenant of this district by whose orders the arrests were made ; above him the Director of Public Safety who ordered the lieutenant to deny the right of free speech and to prevent the holding of a peaceful meet- ing ; and above the Director the Mayor of Philadelphia, who has done more, by this one act, to promote anarchy in its worst sense than all the speeches of Emma Goldman could have done in years. Certainly, this high handed outrage of the Police Department of Philadelphia shows that here, in this American city, is anarchy in a sense as bad as it could possibly exist in Eussia ; namely, a state of society in which the functions of government are performed badly or not at all, and in which there is no capable supreme power." While upon this subject of free speech, there seems to be no better place than this to treat of our gradually augmenting censorship. Long before the foundation of our Federal government our fore- fathers noted the evils of press censorship as it existed in Europe, and they determined that, as far as it lay in their power to prevent it, this country should never suffer a similar loss of liberty. The two institutions which they prized above all others were freedom of the press and trial by jury. It is a singular commentary upon modern American conditions that both these sacred institutions are now un- dergoing vigorous assault. So vital did our forefathers consider this principle of liberty, that the Federal party went down to political ruin because it became responsible for the " sedition act," which made libels against the President and other Federal officials offences to be tried before judges of the President's own appointment and juries selected by his own appointees. Indeed, so strong was this pub- lic sentiment that it continued with but slight abatement almost down to the present time. Even in the heat and excitement of the anti- slavery agitation, at a time when great issues were trembling in the balance, a Senate favourable to slavery "revolted at the suggestion that anti-slavery newspapers be made unmailable." In a little booklet entitled " Our Advancing Postal Censorship," Mr. Louis F. Post, of Chicago, states the case so clearly and so well that we cannot do better than to put his thought, as briefly as possible be- fore you. Mr. Post states that he believes American public opinion would not consciously tolerate a censorship, and that were any political 184 THE RUSSIANISING OF UNCLE SAM party to assume its advocacy they would surely be overwhelmed with the condemnation of an indignant people. But he points out that in this case, as in most instances where a people loses its liberties, the first inroads made upon the cherished principle are concealed behind some plausible excuse and are usually offered as a cure for some condition exceedingly distasteful to the people as a whole. In this way the thin edge of the wedge of precedent is entered and the public lulled into silence, the few who see the menace for the most part holding their peace, lest, in contending for the principle assailed, they be thought to be defending the abuse so distasteful to public opinion. Thus the precedent is established and is from time to time extended to include acts less and less in public abhorrence until, in the end, Liberty is bound hand and foot and freedom of the press be- comes but a memory. Mr. Post says : " And it is a fact, that by indirect and surreptitious methods a censorship is gradually being established over printing and publishing in the United States. It has advanced so far that a Federal bureau at Washington already possesses powers of press censorship sufficient to enable it to suppress any periodical whatever, in the discretion of the officials who control the bureau. . . . By deciding as to any periodical whatever, and however falsely, -upon evidence satisfactory to himself, that its con- tents were offensive to public morals, the head of this bureau could effectually suppress that publication. And the mere fact that he could do this, would have a powerful effect in influencing all peri- odicals to support or oppose public policies as the persons or parties controlling the censorising bureau might direct. " It is by insidious steps, such as are here suggested as possible, that the public opinion of free peoples has always been suppressed, and that their other liberties have been wrested from them in the con- sequent silence/' The Eeader will please bear in mind that it is literally true that the Federal bureau at Washington may condemn any publication which does not please it; that it may do this without previous notice to its publishers; that it may do this without even informing the publisher wherein his publication is at fault; that it may deny the use of the mails to any concern without a -hearing of any sort, and that its action rests entirely upon its own discretion and that its verdict is final and beyond appeal. Indeed, in one particular our censorship is worse than that of Eussia, for there the censor merely lampblacks the objectionable portion of a publication and then per- mits it to circulate, while here our censors confiscate or suppress the entire edition, and do not even inform the publishers wherein they offend. Nor is this all. As if determined to shield themselves from the indignation their high-handed acts might arouse if fully known, it is provided by Act of Congress approved Sept. 26, 1888, that " notice of any kind giving information, directly or indirectly, where or how or of whom or by what means an obscene . . . publica- tion of an indecent character " . . . " may be obtained/' is it- self " non-mailable matter." Should we attempt, therefore, to put before our readers specific concrete instances where the postal authorities had pronounced per- 185 fectly harmless matter indecent, we should subject this book to sup- pression similar to that we were criticising. This, it will readily be seen, operates to protect this bureau from much of the criticism it richly merits and would otherwise secure from the press of the country. After showing how there might easily spring up in this country "a censorship which the crude censors of Russia might envy," Mr. Post says : " Now, in this country there is just such a bureau as we have imagined above. It is known as the Post Office Department. That department controls the delivery and receipt of almost all the written and printed matter of the country. Nearly all private cor- respondence, nearly all books, nearly all periodicals, are circulated by its machinery. It has gone so extensively into the business of dis- tributing letters and periodicals for the people that all business is dependent upon it, and any periodical against which it might dis- criminate could not long continue publication. " To invest this department with power to grant or refuse its dis- tributing service to periodicals, with reference to its own judgment of the legitimacy of their printed contents, would be to place at its mercy every periodical which the department might wish to destroy. " But not only have we such a bureau in this country, in the Post Office Department, but that department has been gradually invested, in very much the manner indicated above, with the censorial powers outlined above as possible. And it has exercised those powers with similarly aggressive discretion/' " The investiture of the Post Office Department with arbitrary cen- sorship over the press, began (as we have indicated in our supposi- tions that such a censorship probably would begin), with legislation against such postal matter as was most intensely offensive to public morals. Obscene letters and papers were declared to be unmailable and the act of mailing them a crime. To this innovation objection was difficult. No appeal to the principle of freedom of the press could be made which would not seem like an attempt at shielding vile offences, with appeals to political traditions and abstractions like opposing "mere generalisations" or theories of government to actual immoralities. Under cover of the silence which decency thus imposed, the postal censorship gained a foothold. " Then further steps were taken. The ban of unmailability was ex- tended to mail matter in furtherance of frauds. Decency did not impose silence here, but what could be said against laws for the sup- pression of fraud? Nothing that would not make the objector seem to be an apologist for actual crime on pretence of devotion to a mere ' theory of liberty/ '' Nor was much difficulty encountered in extending the postal cen- sorship against obscene and fraudulent mail matter to mail matter in connexion with lotteries. Public opinion had become ripe for ex- ' eluding that business from its old place in the category of the legiti- mate, and objections to this extension of the censorship were rebuked as sympathetic with lotteries, instead of being accorded a fair hear- ing in the interest of freedom of the press. " While censorial statutes were accumulating, criminal prosecutions 186 V THE RUSSIANISING OF UNCLE SAM which never got before the highest court were building up a mass of precedents, and rules and rulings of the Postal Department were establishing censorial lines of administrative procedure which have crystallised with time. And so it has come about that the Postal De- partment has acquired and is actually exercising the ominous cen- sorial power to which we invite attention. " Upon decrees sent out from a bureau at Washington, all their correspondence is withheld from individuals, on the charge, estab- lished before no judicial tribunal, that at some time in the past they have solicited correspondence through the mails for purposes of fraud; and legitimate periodicals are suppressed, on pretence that they contain obscene language or sentiments. In none of these cases is the alleged offender given a jury trial, in none does his case come before a judicial tribunal; in all his nearest approach to a trial is before attaches of the censoring bureau which makes the charge, and in some the specific accusations are withheld from him." Eeferring to a specific case, that of the suppression of the issue of " Lucifer " of Dec. 17, 1903, Mr. Post says, relative to the arti- cle which, after great patience, he succeeded in getting the Postal Authorities to indicate to him as the one they considered objection- able : " The phrasing, considered by itself, is not out of the com- mon in the current literature of fiction. If any well-known nov- elist had put these two articles, thought by thought and word by word, into the mouths of characters in a problem novel, it is almost inconceivable that any publishing house, other than the American Tract Society, would have suppressed them; and if the postal cen- sors had condemned them as obscene by excluding the novel from the mails, a cry of derision would have echoed from one end of the country to the other. " The inference seems to us unavoidable, that the issue of ' Lucifer ' of December 17, 1903, was excluded from the mails, not because of any violation of the postal statute, but because it advocated doc- trines of social life at variance with those to which the postal cen- sors are professedly devoted. In other words, it was suppressed, not for decency's sake, but for opinion's sake." . . . " Power fattens upon what it feeds on. Little by little, from sup- pressing evil reading to suppressing that which is doubtful, it ad- vances to the suppression of unpopular opinions, and then to those that are popular; and it makes its advances so insidiously that all freedom of opinion is throttled by censors before the people realise that it has been assailed. " That the point of suppressing unpopular opinions in one branch of social philosophy has already been reached, is evident from the cir- cumstances of the " Lucifer " case which we describe above. " Here is a publication depending for existence, as all others do, upon regularity of mail circulation. Without notice, accusation, specification, trial or hearing of any sort, a regular issue, the full edition, is confiscated by a local postmaster upon orders from the censor at Washington. After this suppression, the publisher is noti- fied of it, but information as to the specific fact upon which the arbi- trary action was based is withheld. He is told he has violated a 187 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION particular postal law, but he is not told how he has done it. Nor does he get a hearing even on the vague general charge of which he is ad- vised. The action is as arbitrary as such actions are in Russia/' Mr. Post relates how he wrote various letters to the Post-Office Department both at Chicago and at Washington in his endeavour to ascertain specifically what had led the authorities to rule against " Lucifer." These letters began on .Jan. 27, 1904, and it was not till Aug. 25th, 1904, that the Department, after quietly ignoring sev- eral letters, vouchsafed a portion of the information requested. Referring to this experience, Mr. Post says : " And after the edi- tion has been suppressed, another paper, interested in sounding an alarm if freedom of the press has been bureaucratically assailed, is trifled with by the censors for months, in its efforts to discover the specific offence for which the suppressed paper was suppressed, only to learn finally that it was for publishing two articles, only the titles of which are given, and in which, however offensive they may be to good taste, even a prude could hardly find material for specifications on a charge of immorality. " A censorship which can maintain this attitude toward freedom of the press respecting one subject of discussion, will have little diffi- culty in speedily advancing its meddlesome jurisdiction to other sub- jects. " The real issue here, let us repeat and it will bear repetition again and again is not the legal offensiveness of the particular articles noted above. That issue is important only for its bearing upon the point of the good faith of the censor. The real issue is the wisdom of allowing any official to deny mailing facilities to anything whatever which is otherwise mailable, merely upon his own judgment, as a censor, of the morality of the intelligence it conveys or the opin- ions it expresses." " If opinions in this country are to stand or fall upon reason and free discussion, the present postal censorship must be abolished. So long as publication through the mails can be denied arbitrarily by an administrative bureau of the government, the discussion of conflicting opinions is hampered. " Even the sentiment of fair play, entirely apart from all considera- tions of a free press, demands the abolition of this censorship. So long as an administrative officer can withdraw mailing rights from a publication for any offence whatever, without an opportunity for the publisher to be heard in his own defence before an impartial tri- bunal, fair play is impossible. Though we deny mailing rights to indecent publications, fair play demands that the person accused of the offence, and whose personal and property rights are involved in the accusation, shall have the opportunity he is guaranteed in all other cases to convince his fellow citizens that his publication is not inde- cent. It is his right to be judicially heard in his own defence. ' Instances like that of the suppression of ' Lucifer ' by postal cen- sorship point so directly and unmistakably to great injustice and public danger that any fair-minded man may see it and every patri- otic man ought to resent it. No matter what one's opinion of any 188 THE RUSSIANISING OF UNCLE SAM paper and its teachings may be, there should be but one opinion of a postal organisation which permits in any case what was done in that case, and this should be an opinion of unqualified condemnation. " The confiscation, by postal clerks, of any publication, for any cause, without specific charges, without opportunity to the publisher to be heard, without the verdict of a jury, without appeal, without any of the ordinary safeguards of personal rights and private prop- erty, and consequently without any assurance of guilt, is an ominous fact. No matter how objectionable or even dangerous a paper's teachings may seem to the censors, no matter how offensive its lan- guage in their estimation, so palpable an invasion of the commonest rights of citizenship is a direct menace to the independent press of the country. Any law that authorises it should be swept from the statute books. " The only difference between such a power and that of Russian censorship is a difference neither in kind nor degree. It is a differ- ence only in scope of execution. And scope of execution widens with use. " The issue before us turns not upon the propriety of excluding in- decent publications from the mails, but upon the wisdom and justice of allowing administrative officers to hamper freedom of the press and confiscate property rights, upon their own opinion of what con- stitutes indecency, and without an opportunity for the alleged of- fender to be heard in his defence. Under the postal censorship pub- lications are denied mailing rights, not because they are offensive to decency, but because the censor, from whom there is no appeal, chooses to think them so. Here is the seed of a mighty tree of ab- solutism." We have devoted this space to the " Lucifer " incident for the rea- son that it i typical of many other cases, and vividly shows how rap- idly American ideals of liberty are being debased to the Russian level. It will be remembered that upon June 9, 1902, Miss Rebecca J. Taylor, a clerk in the War Department, at eight hundred and forty dollars per annum, was discharged on account of some articles, not in sympathy with the administration's imperialistic policy, which she wrote and which were published in the "Washington Post." Miss Taylor was a clerk under the merit system, the rules of which are supposed to be a guaranty against discharge for political or religious convictions or their free expression, in short for anything other than "just cause," yet, notwithstanding all this, she was summarily ousted, as one paper put it, " Without a hearing, without a com- plaint of any kind, without the slightest reference to the Civil Serv- ice Commission, without the observance of any of the safeguards of the merit system, without pretence of conduct prejudicial to her offi- cial duties, but simply upon the President's order modifying the civil service rules, they handed her a notice of dismissal in the middle of the day, and requested her to vacate her desk immediately." This is a fair example of the censorial spirit which is abroad in the land. If this is a sample of the merit system of civil service, it would be interesting to the layman to be told wherein the merit sys- tem differs from the spoils system. 189 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION One thing is certain ; he will never know until he is told, for they are in all respects indistinguishable to the uninitiated. Should the reader be specially interested in this subject, we would call his attention to the case of the " Ladies' Home Journal," of Philadelphia, which was arbitrarily forced to discontinue a prize- guessing contest on pain of losing its postal rights. "The Unique Monthly/' formerly "The Penny Magazine," pub- lished at New York, was another publication to feel the heavy Bus- sian hand of our censors. The publisher of this magazine, we are in- formed, was materially assisted by having " a friend at court," and was only saved from ruin by the "generous support" of the same rich and influential " friend." " Discontent," published at Home, Washington, was another target for postal injustice. Several issues of this paper were stopped in bulk at the Tacoma post-office. The postage was paid and the pub- lishers naturally supposed the papers had gone to the subscribers. Commenting upon this, " The Public " says editorially in its issue of Jan. 4, 1902 : "They were put upon inquiry only by complaints of subscribers, who asserted that no copies had been received by them for weeks. Investigation then revealed the fact that orders had been received by the Tacoma. post-office to hold the paper there, pending an investi- gation; though upon what charges the postmaster professes not to know, and the publishers are uninformed. After detaining some four or five consecutive issues the Tacoma postmaster forwarded to the respective subscribers the whole accumulation, his orders having ap- parently been revoked. How much worse than this is the Eussian censorship in Finland ? " The "Appeal to Season," published at Girard, Kansas, by J. A. Wayland, is another case in point. This socialistic organ was sub- jected to most exasperating treatment at the hands of the postal authorities. "Wilshire's Magazine" was held up for two days to enable the Department to determine whether or not one advertisement should be censored. The authorities finally decided that the advertisement was mailable, but informed the publishers that, since it related to a guessing contest, their neglect to submit a proof before publication was a violation of the rulings of the Department. Commenting on this, a Chicago paper prints the following: " As we have shown . . . the rulings of the Department on these matters are absolute and final. The censorship is Eussian in its absolutism. It is worse than Eussian in its methods, for in Eus- sia they only blacken censored articles, while sending the paper through the mails, but here the whole paper is * held up ' for one cen- sored article." Nor is this postal censorship confined to publishers. It extends even to private individuals. In discussing this phase of the subject, "The Public" prints a long editorial in its issue of Oct. 7, 1905. From this we extract the following: " The object of the present article is to prove certain propositions which, if proved, ought to appeal strongly to every Congressman with 190 THE RUSSIANISING OF UNCLE SAM American instincts. They show that the power exercised by the Post Office Department over the legitimate liberties of personal corre- spondence, has overstepped all reasonable bounds and needs the check of Congressional legislation. " We enumerate as follows the propositions we are about to prove : " First. By arbitrary decrees of the Post Office Department, some private businesses are cut off from the mail facilities which other pri- vate businesses enjoy. " Second. By like arbitrary decrees of the Post Office Department, particular individuals are prohibited from receiving through the mails legitimate correspondence of a kind that is generally delivered through the mails. " Third. By like arbitrary decrees of the Post Office Department, all persons are prohibited from communicating through the mails, on any subject whatever, with persons resting under this postal pro- scription. " Fourth. These decrees are made by the Postmaster-General upon no other evidence than he chooses to consider, and with no other op- portunity to be heard in defence than he chooses to grant. " Fifth. The courts have no jurisdiction to interfere, and arbi- trary action of the Postmaster-General is absolute. " We submit with all confidence the opinion that if these proposi- tions be proved, freedom of mail correspondence is dependent not upon law, but upon the whims, the prejudices, the partisanship, and possibly the corruption of bureau chiefs. And it makes no difference what may be the alleged cause for postal proscription in the particular case here cited, or in others like it; for if postal proscription by the mere exercise of unbridled bureaucratic power is possible in any case and for any cause, then it is possible in any other case and for no legitimate cause at all. " Now to the proof/' The editorial then relates how the Postal Department prohibited the delivery of all mail to "The People's United States Bank," at St. Louis, or to Mr. E. G. Lewis, of the same city. The Department contended that the bank was doing a fraudulent business and that Mr. Lewis was the chief promoter of the fraud. All these aspersions Mr. Lewis's friends denied. The editorial clearly points out that the question is not whether or not the business is honest and legitimate, but rather " whether any business, or any man's name and credit should under any circumstances be at the absolute mercy of an execu- tive bureau of the government." " That this is the vital question," the article continues, " will be admitted, we think, when the fact appears, as the fact is, that the Federal courts (and of course the State courts are powerless) refuse to adjudicate upon the fact of fraud. Observe, the courts do not re- fer the question of fraud to a jury. Neither do they pass upon it themselves without a jury. They simply decide that as the act of Congress now stands, any decision of any Postmaster-General that a business is fraudulent, is, for postal purposes, conclusive upon all courts, whether the business be fraudulent in reality or not. We re- peat, therefore, that the question of the fraudulency of Lewis or his 191 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION business is secondary. So far as the most important public interests are concerned, the primary consideration is the arbitrary and un- bridled power which the present postal statutes give to a Washington bureau over private affairs and personal honor. " What attracted our attention to the Lewis case was a fugitive newspaper report that the Post Office Department would not allow Mr. Lewis to receive any letters, not even letters from his wife! It seemed to us that this power to break up a private business (for that is involved at this stage of the world in cutting off mail correspond- ence), and to ruin personal reputation and proscribe personal corre- spondence, all without a jury trial or other judicial protection, but simply by the fiat of a bureau at Washington, is a dreadful power. It amounts to the infliction upon a Postmaster-General's convict, of a penalty that no Congress would think of inflicting upon convicts of the criminal courts. Think of sentencing any criminal convict, what- ever his crime and though convicted by a jury of his neighbors, to proscription for life from all intercourse by mail with his fellows even with his wife ! Yet this is the penalty for conviction of fraud by the Postmaster-General, who sits behind a desk at Washington, who acts without the aid of a jury, whose action is not reviewable by the courts, and who denies to the accused any hearing whatever other than such a hearing as he himself may graciously concede, out of the amplitude of his own mercy." . . . " It is probably fair to say that a parallel to this feature of postal administration can be found in no other civilised country, not even in the most autocratic." We regret that lack of space does not permit our following this able editorial into all its facts of detail. Suffice it to say that we believe any fair-minded person who peruses it will cordially endorse the following quotation from it : " We submit that we have now completely proved what in this arti- cle we set out to prove, namely " That discriminations between persons and businesses are made in the delivery of mail matter., by arbitrary decree of the Postmaster- General. " That these decrees are made upon no other evidence than the Post- master-General chooses to consider, and with no other opportunity to the accused to be heard than the 'Postmaster-General chooses to grant. " That the courts have no jurisdiction to interfere, and that the de- cree of the Postmaster-General is absolute. " And what does this imply ? '' That the rights of every American citizen to the use of the mails for personal correspondence, and that every business, however legiti- mate it may be, are subject to the arbitrary mandate of one official of the Federal government. "Under his orders domiciliary visits may be made anywhere and upon anyone, by secret service detectives empowered to probe into private and business affairs. To deny them access would be to run the risk of postal proscription upon unfounded accusations of fraud. Under his orders any one may be cited from anywhere into the 192 THE RUSSIANISING OF UNCLE SAM presence of the Postmaster-General at Washington, on pain of being postally proscribed for disobedience. " Under his orders, after as much or as little hearing or no hear- ing at all, and upon as much or as little or no evidence at all, as he arbitrarily allows, the Postmaster-General may issue an order forbidding the delivery of mail to any person or corporation whom he may from any motive, puritanical or corrupt, choose to ostracise to the enormous extent that postal proscription does ostracise." How accurate was the dictum of the Postal Department in the mat- ter of "The People's United States Bank," of St. Louis, may be gathered from the following quotation from " The Public " of Feb- ruary 24, 1906 : " Some months ago we told of the suppression by the postal au- thorities of a banking business in St. Louis as fraudulent by refusing delivery of letters addressed to the bank. This action was taken upon the report of cheap Federal detectives, which the accused persons were not allowed to see, and without any trial, but by the arbitrary order of the Postmaster-General. The bank was of course forced into the hands of a receiver. Business on a large scale without the postal service is impossible. But now the receiver reports that ' every loan and investment held by' this so-called fraudulent bank 'has been liquidated 100 cents on the dollar with interest in full to date,' and that the ' deposits are being paid in full ' and he has ' already declared dividends to the stockholders of 85 per cent.' This does not indicate that the concern was deeply steeped in fraud, as the Post- master-General arbitrarily decided it to be; and the fact that a busi- ness which proves to have been upon such a financial footing could be ruined by the reports of two Federal detectives and a Postmaster- General with Presidential campaign favors to his debit, is a sufficient commentary on the censorship power of the Postal Department. An investigation by Congress into the nature and exercise of this despotic power is proposed and should be pushed." Another case in point is that of a Mrs. Williams, a Florida " men- tal healer," who did not practise according to the honesty standards of the Postal Department. She was denied the use of the mails un- der her own name, without anything more than a something akin to a star chamber hearing or investigation. Nor is this Kussian contagion confined to postal circles. It is spreading like a virulent pestilence into other departments of our body politic. In "Our Dumb Animals" of May, 1905, appears the following ar- ticle under the heading, " President Koosevelt Has Shot a Bear." "We see in our papers of April 19th (to-day) that President Roosevelt has shot a bear. Whether it was a male bear or a female bear, whose young might be in danger of dying of starvation, we do not know. . We saw in the papers a few days since that the President was to be received at his hunting ground by a procession, at the head of which was to be carried in a cage a bear, which at the close of the reception was to be turned out of its cage and allowed thirty minutes to run away, at the end of which time the dogs and hunters were to pursue and kill him (or her), as the case might be. 13 193 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION " Now whether this caged bear was the one that President Eoosevelt shot we do not know, but if it was the same bear, and the President was aware of the fact, he has done what, under the laws of Massa- chusetts, would be punishable by a fine of two hundred and fifty dollars and a year's imprisonment." Because of this article the superintendent of Washington pub- lic schools, apparently anxious to do a little censoring on his own account, prohibited the circulation of the issue containing it in the public schools of that city. It would seem as if enough had been written upon this topic to convince the most sceptical optimist allowed at large that we have a postal censorship in the United States, of which Russia would doubt- less be proud. The big " bones " in the soul of that liberty which our forefathers bequeathed us, were freedom of the press and trial by jury. He whose hand penned the Declaration of Independence stood first, last and always for liberty of expression. Little did he think that we should so soon forget his precept and example, and trample under foot the Declaration which meant more than life to him and his sub- lime comrades in liberty. Little did he think that we should en- slave an Asiatic people, and then, to cap the climax, establish among them a censorship one of whose acts was to forbid the publication of the Declaration of Independence! If there be any event in all our national history which better illustrates the present degeneracy of American ideals we do not know of it. Think of making it an of- fence to publish the document of all documents most sacred to true Americans ! To what a pass have we come when we will not permit our brown brother even to examine the keystone of our national arch, lest, perchance, it should enkindle within him those same noble aspir- ations that fired our forefathers in the good old days before Mammon became the sole god of our idolatry. 194 BOOK V CHAPTER I. A DARK PAGE IN AMERICAN HISTORY CHAPTER II. MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION CHAPTER III. THE WAGES OF OUR SIN 195 For though the laws of Justice seem to sleep, They never sleep; but like the ocean's flood They creep up to the water-mark of God, And when they ebb there is but silent slime. C. E. 8. Wood. One to destroy is murder by the law, And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe; To murder thousands takes a specious name, War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame. Young, Love of Fame. Injustice in the end produces independence. Yoltaire, Tancrede. Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. Macaulay. Necessity is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. ) William Pitt. Wherever man oppresses man Beneath Thy liberal sun, O God! be there Thine arm made bare, Thy righteous will be done. John Hay. I have always thought that all men should be free, but if any should be slaves, it should be, first those who desire it for themselves, and sec- ondly those who desire it for others. Abraham Lincoln. " Sing me a song divine With a sword in every line." The aim of war is robbery and murder is its means. Enrico Ferri. Every crime destroys more Edens than our own. Nath. Hawthorne. 196 CHAPTER I A DARK PAGE IN AMERICAN HISTORY HAT our trophies of imperialism constitute a grue- some addition to our American gallery of latter day ideals, only the uninformed can doubt. Without ceasing for a moment to pride ourselves for suppress- ing slavery at home at an immense cost of life and treasure, after almost every pocket principality had better accomplished the same end, we have gone thousands of miles across the seas and enslaved a strange and unoffending people under conditions abhorrent alike to all ideals of good faith, justice, or civil- ised warfare. We accepted the Filipino as our military ally against Spain and guaranteed, to his satisfaction at least, that we would as- sist him in attaining that for which he had taken up arms. Un- aware of our dollar-degeneracy, believing that we were still animated by the American principle and lured into a false sense of security by the grand ideals of our forefathers which they knew, alas! better than our own dominant party, they fell an easy victim to our treach- ery. Later we "purchased" them from Spain, as if they were so many cattle to which that effete monarchy had a good title. Thus does history repeat itself. For more than seven hundred years Corsica battled with Genoa for its freedom. At length her resources all but exhausted, her army unable to cope with the great Corsican patriot, Paoli, Genoa sold to France the people she could not subdue. It was on both sides of the sale, one of the blackest transactions of history, and the American " purchase " of the Philip- pines is its twin. Out of the land of Paoli came "the little Corsican," whose heavy martial tread shook the world, and whose mailed hand crumpled crowns like tissue tinsel and made every royal jewel chatter in its bezel in a very ague of fear. Will the land of Aguirialdo produce a little Filipino to make good the historic parallel? Perhaps not; but Nemesis is never more than round the corner, and Asia is tossing in her sleep and shows signs of an early awakening. Already has she swung her right arm upon Russia with a strength and precision which indicate that at least one eye is open. It is whispered, as we write, that we may sell the Philippines to Japan, they seem to be an unstable commodity .on the world's bargain counter, so Nemesis has a good prospect of sustaining her reputation. There are those that still contend that the Filipino was never our military ally and that we could not therefore have betrayed him. This view of the case, where honestly held, can only result from ignorance of the facts. 197 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION We deem it wise, therefore, first of all, to show that the facts admit of but one interpretation, to wit, the Filipinos were accepted by us as our military allies against a common enemy upon repre- sentations, which they deemed sufficient, that such an alliance would advance interests which they held dear. We must, first of all, call the Reader's attention to the significant fact that the evidence which we shall offer in support of the above contention is drawn from sources unfriendly to the Filipino's cause, and can therefore be relied upon not to over-state his side of the case. To emphasise this point we cannot do better than to quote the open- ing paragraph of a booklet entitled " Documentary Outline of the Philippine Case," by Mr. Louis F. Post, of Chicago. " In his classic oration on Toussaint L'Ouverture, Wendell Phil- lips makes much of the fact that our knowledge of this negro hero and statesman of San Domingo is derived altogether from his ene- mies. While Cromwell, Napoleon, Washington, are characterised by friendly historians of their own race, only the unsympathetic records of hostile aliens reveal the greatness of Toussaint. In that particular, at least, this black leader of a century ago was like the Filipinos of to-day. Their tragic history, too, must be gathered as yet from the records of their enemies. In its more recent develop- ments, this history of theirs is to be sought for in a tangled mass of American official documents; and upon the testimony of these we purpose to try the Philippine case." It has been contended by enemies to the Filipino cause that there was no rebellion against Spain at the time of Dewey's victory; that, the former insurrection had been terminated by an agreement with the Spanish governor-general. This contention is not true to fact. At page 319 of " senate document 62 " will be found an official dispatch from Oscar F. Wil- liams, American Consul at Manila, written some seventy days before Dewey's victory. In this the consul says : " Peace was proclaimed, and, since my coming, festivities therefor were held ; but there is no peace, and has been none for about two years. Conditions here and in Cuba are practically alike. War exists, battles a"re of almost daily occurrence, ambulances bring in many wounded, and hospitals are full. Prisoners are brought here and shot without trial, and Manila is under martial law. The crown forces have not been able to dis- lodge a rebel army within ten miles of Manila, and last Saturday, February 19, a battle was there fought and five dead left on the field." By reference to page 320 of " document 62 " it will be seen that a month later, and still some forty days before the naval battle, Mr. Williams reported that the "insurrection is rampant; many killed, wounded, and made prisoners on both sides. A battleship, the Don Juan de Austria, sent this week to the northern part of Luzon to co-operate with a land force of 2,000 dispatched to succour local forces, overwhelmed by rebels. Last night special squad of mounted police were scattered at danger points to save Manila. . . . Rebellion never more threatening to Spain." Still later, and a good month before the naval engagement Mr 198 A DARK PAGE IN AMERICAN HISTORY Williams sent the following report, (see page 321 of "document 62 ") : " Cuban conditions exist here possibly in -aggravated form. Span- ish soldiers are killed and wounded daily, despite claimed pacification, and the hospitals are kept full." It will be seen, therefore, that long before the advent of Dewey's fleet, the Filipinos were engaged in a formidable and growing in- surrection which was progressing favourably at the time of Dewey's arrival upon the scene, all politically inspired claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The limited space at our disposal will not allow an exhaustive treatment of each detail of this subject. We must content ourselves with putting before the Eeader the main facts with sufficient proof to substantiate them. Should a more exhaustive treatment be desired, we take pleasure in referring him to the booklet already mentioned, " Documentary Outline of the Philippine Case," to which we are indebted for many succinct statements of fact. Coming now to the question, Were the Filipinos our military al- lies ? we find the matter settled once for all by Dewey's letter to Sen- ator Lodge, printed at page 1397 of the Congressional Eecord for Feb., 1900. In this, singular as it may appear, the admiral admits the crux of the whole question, while apparently seeking to deny it. He says : " I never treated him as an ally, except to make use of him and the natives to assist me in my operations against the Spaniards." It will be seen, therefore, that Admiral Dewey treated Aguinaldo as an ally for the purpose of operating jointly against a common enemy, and the further fact should not be lost sight of that this was the closest alliance which it was within the Admiral's power to make. No more binding alliance was possible without joint action on the part of the President and the Senate by means of a formal treaty. No one, of course, contends that such a formal treaty was entered into. Admiral Dewey's letter, therefore, admits the whole contention, viz., that there was a military alliance for the purpose of " operations against the Spaniards," a common enemy. Nor does proof of this alliance rest solely upon Admiral Dewey's contradictory letter. The testimony afforded by the communications of Mr. E. Spencer Pratt, the American consul-general at Singapore, are equally conclusive. These will be found in " document 62." It will be remembered that when Dewey was about to sail from Hongkong, Aguinaldo was in exile, at Singapore. On Apr. 28, 1898, Mr. Pratt reported as follows to the state de- partment : "Being aware of the great prestige of Gen. Aguinaldo with the insurgents, and that no one, either at home or abroad, could exert over them the same influence and control that he could, I determined at once to see him, and, at my request, a secret interview was ac- cordingly arranged. . . . After learning from Gen. Aguinaldo the state of and object sought to be obtained by the present insur- rectionary movement, which, though absent from the Philippines, he was still directing, I took it upon myself, whilst explaining that I had no authority to speak for the government, to point out the 199 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION danger of continuing independent action at this stage; and, having convinced him of the expediency of co-operating with our fleet, then at Hongkong, and obtained the assurance of his willingness to pro- ceed thither and confer with Commodore Dewey to that end, should the latter so desire, I telegraphed the commodore on the same day." The telegram referred to was as follows : " Aguinaldo, insurgent leader, here. Will come Hongkong; arrange with Commodore for general co-operation insurgents Manila if desired. Telegraph." To this Dewey himself replied : " Tell Aguinaldo come soon as possible." Mr. Pratt succeeded in promptly getting Aguinaldo and his aide- de-camp and private secretary off to Hongkong, and reported his success by cable to the state department as follows : " Gen. Aguinaldo gone my instance Hongkong arrange with Dewey of co-operation insurgents Manila." It will be seen from the above that Aguinaldo's " co-operation " was sought against a common enemy, and how he was led, not only not to suspect betrayal, but to become convinced " of the expediency of co-operation with our fleet then at Hongkong." To. Mr. Pratt's cable message the state department paid no atten- tion, showing that Aguinaldo's co-operation with Dewey was not a disagreeable prospect. Six weeks later, however, answering Mr. Pratt's mail dispatch the secretary of state enjoined upon him by cable to " avoid unauthorised negotiations with Philippine in- surgents," and said in a mail dispatch of the same date : " If in the course of your conferences with Aguinaldo, you acted upon the as- sumption that this government would co-operate with him for the furtherance of any plan of his own, or that, in accepting his co- operation, it would consider itself pledged to recognise any political claims which he may put forward, your action was unauthorised and cannot be approved." The real purpose of the department seems to have been to secure Aguinaldo's military assistance and then, after this had been accom- plished, to repudiate any political alliance. In a department dis- patch sent to Mr. Pratt on June 25 he is informed that " The department is pleased to learn that you did not make any political pledges to Aguinaldo." Whatever may have been the intent of the department, the signifi- cant fact of the matter is that it waited until six weeks after the matter was out of Mr. Pratt's hands before it took any action what- ever upon his communication. By this time the alliance had all but accomplished its purpose. The matter was in the hands of Dewey and the department should have given him any instructions it had to give in the matter, instead of sending them to Pratt. So far as Aguinaldo was concerned, and for all he could ascertain to the contrary, the course pursued by the department was that of entire approval of Pratt's representations to him. Aguinaldo's reception at Manila was such as to confirm this im- pression. The " Hongkong Free Press " of June 1, 1898 in a dis- patch from its correspondent at Manila told how Aguinaldo had ar- 200 A DARK PAGE IN AMERICAN HISTORY rived at Manila " on the 19th inst., and was received with great enthusiasm by the natives. Admiral Dewey was very much pleased with him, and has turned over to him two modern field pieces and 300 rifles, with plenty of ammunition." Along the same line is Gen. Greene's report, at page 421 of " doc- ument 62 " : " When the ' McCulloch ' went to Hongkong early in May to carry the news of Admiral Dewey's victory, it took Aguinaldo and seventeen other revolutionary chiefs on board and brought them to Manila bay. They soon after landed at Cavite, and the admiral allowed them to take such guns, ammunition, and stores as he did not require for himself." We see, therefore, that in pursuance of this de facto military al- liance between Dewey and Aguinaldo the former divided arms and munitions with the latter to assist him in their common purpose. Furthermore, be it remembered, that Aguinaldo lost no time in demonstrating his usefulness to his associate. By June 16th, or in less than a month from his arrival, Aguinaldo had driven the Span- ish forces into Manila, and bottled them up there, as may be seen by the following quotation from a report made by former U. S. Consul at Manila, Oscar F. Williams. This was dated June 16, and is to be found in " document 62." "I have the honour to report that since our squadron destroyed the Spanish fleet on May 1, the insurgent forces have been most active and almost uniformly successful in their many encounters with the crown forces of Spain. . . . The insurgents have defeated the Spaniards at all points except at fort near Matate, and hold not only North Luzon to the suburbs of Manila, but Batanyes province also and the bay coast entire, save the city of Manila. . . . Ma- nila is hemmed in." In order to prove still more completely, if possible, that a mili- tary alliance existed between Dewey and Aguinaldo, and that it was of a nature to create on the part of the United States a moral obliga- tion to the people represented by Aguinaldo, we quote the following from " Documentary Outline of the Philippine Case," p. 12. " At a session of the United States peace commissioners at Paris, October 14, 1898, E. B. Bradford, a commander in the United States navy and chief of the bureau of equipment in the navy department, was under examination as an expert witness with reference, among other things, to the rules of war and morals in their application to the war with Spain, when .Senator Frye, one of the commissioners, asked him : ' I would like to ask just one question in that line. Suppose the United States in the progress of that war found the leader of the present Philippine rebellion an exile from his country to Hongkong and sent for him and brought him to the islands in an American ship, and then furnished him 4,000 or 5,000 stands of arms, and allowed him to purchase as many more stands of arms in Hongkong and accepted his aid in conquering Luzon, what kind of a nation, in the eyes of the world, we would appear to be to surrender Aguin- aldo and his insurgents to Spain to be dealt with as they please ? ' " And this American expert answered : 201 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION ' We become responsible for everything he has done, he is our ally, and we are bound to protect him/ " The object of this question and answer, both examiner and wit- ness being favourable to Philippine annexation, was to show that the alliance was such as to impose an obligation upon us to protect Aguinaldo from Spain. But if it did that, did it not also obligate us to protect him from ourselves ? " A further examination of documentary evidence conclusively proves that Dewey, on the water side, and Aguinaldo, on the land side, completely invested Manila. On this point General Otis says in his report of "military operations and civil affairs in the Philippine islands " ; " For three and one-half months Admiral Dewey with his squad- ron and the insurgents on land had kept Manila tightly bottled/' In the meantime Aguinaldo had begun to organise a government. That this government had a territory to govern and that its authority was peaceably acknowledged by the inhabitants thereof, has else- where been abundantly proved both by official and unofficial testi- mony. And this government, upon the arrival of Gen. Anderson at Ma- nila with the first installment of American troops, was what is known in international law as a government de facto, obeyed by the inhab- itants though unrecognised by other governments. T,he shameful tale which follows is too long for detailed narra- tion. It is the story of the betrayal of a trusting ally, so trusting that he could not interpret the Machiavellian hints which a sus- picious associate would have understood. The documentary evidence shows beyond a doubt that the real intentions of our government were studiously concealed until such time as we considered it safe to spring the trap of treachery. Here is the bald confession of Gen. Merritt to be found at page 40 of Maj. Gen. Miles's report for 1898. "... I did not consider it wise to hold any direct communica- tion with the insurgent leader until I should be in possession of the city of Manila, especially as I would not until then be in a position to issue a proclamation and enforce my authority, in the event that his pretensions should clash with my designs." As our forces got stronger the claws were suffered to protrude more and more from the velvet paw of expediency, until in January Gen. Otis issued the very proclamation of supreme authority which Gen. Merritt had thought it unwise to issue in July. The velvet paw now became a mailed hand, the fingers of which showed ever increasing activity. Unfriendly incidents followed each other in quick succession, and still Aguinaldo, with' his eyes fixed on the grand ideals of our forefathers, could not believe us capable of the act we had been deliberately plotting from the start. First came Gen. Otis's peremptory order that Aguinaldo should withdraw his forces "beyond the line of the city's defenses before Tuesday the 15th instant," failing which he was informed they would be assaulted by both the land and sea forces of the United States. This was a demand that Aguinaldo should withdraw his forces from territory they had taken from the Spaniards. 202 A DARK PAGE IN AMERICAN HISTORY Aguinaldo then asked that the positions they were about to aban- don should be restored to them " if in the treaty of peace to be cele- brated between Spain and the United States they acknowledge the dominion of Spain in the Philippines." This met with a flat refusal from Otis. Aguinaldo was compelled, therefore, to withdraw from the very territory he had wrested from .Spain without the slightest guarantee that his ally would not restore that very territory to Spain. Then came for the first time apparently the fear on the part of our brown brothers that we were intending to play them false. Gen. Otis thus speaks of the change: " The formerly expressed fear that Spain would return had given way to the statement that it was the intention of the United States to replace her in the odious domination which she had exercised for centuries." How well-grounded this apprehension was events soon proved. When President McKinley's "benevolent assimilation " proclama- tion reached the Philippines, Gen. Otis tried to suppress it; in justification of which act he said, at page 60 of his report: " After fully considering the President's proclamation and the temper of the Tagalos with whom I was, daily discussing political prob- lems and the friendly intentions of the United States government toward them, I concluded that there were certain words and ex- pressions therein, such as 'sovereignty/ 'right of cession/ and those which directed immediate occupation, etc., though most ad- mirably employed and tersely expressive of actual conditions, might be advantageously used by the Tagalo war party to incite wide- spread hostilities among the natives. The ignorant classes had been taught to believe that certain words, as { sovereignty/ ' protection/ etc., had peculiar meaning disastrous to their welfare and significant of future political domination, like that from which they had recently been freed." Gen. Otis substituted a proclamation of his own for that of Pres- ident McKinley, but by a mistake the President's got into the hands of the Filipino authorities and was used to interpret that of the general. The effect upon the Filipinos was electrical. In his own proclamation Gen. Otis quoted this warning from the McKinley document : " There will be sedulously maintained the strong arm of authority to repress disturbance, and to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings of good and stable government upon the peo- ple of the Philippine "islands." On the 19th of May, 1902, Senator Spooner, the leader of the im- perialists of the Eepublican party in the Senate, made the following significant admission during a colloquy with Senator McLaurin of Mississippi (see page 6,001 of the Congressional Record of May 19, 1902) : "MR. SPOONER: We have a perfect title to whip any body of troops that attacked our men anywhere under God's heaven. That is all I care to say about that." " MR. MCLAURIN, of Mississippi : The Senator can, of course, an- swer or not. I cannot force the Senator to answer; but I should 203 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION like to have a direct answer, as I am willing to answer any question that any Senator may propound to me. I have asked the Senator a question, if we had any title of any kind to the Philippine Islands on the 4th of February, 1899, and if so what was that title? " MR. SPOONER : We had a perfect right to occupy the suburbs of Manila under the protocol. I have never claimed that we acquired a legal title to the Philippine archipelago except by the treaty. "MR. McLAURiN, of Mississippi: Then the Senator does not claim that we had any title to the archipelago on the 4th of Feb- ruary, 1899 ? " MR. SPOONER : I do not." Now if we had no title to the Philippines on February 4th, 1899, we certainly had none in December of 1898. It will be seen, there- fore, that President McKinley's proclamation of Dec. 21, 1898, as- serting American sovereignty in the Philippines was a flat declaration of war against the Filipino Eepublic and the Filipinos very properly so regarded it. Aguinaldo responded to it by an address to the civilised powers. The proclamations mark the real beginning of the war, though the first shot was not fired till one month later. The dubious honour of this outrage rests with the Americans who opened the initial battle which, according to Gen. Otis's report (p. 96), "was one strictly defensive on the part of the insurgents and of vigorous attack by our forces." That the United States government knew from the first that the Filipinos expected their alliance with our forces to culminate in their independence is a fact demonstrable beyond the vaguest shadow of a doubt, notwithstanding those in high places have had the unblushing effrontery to deny it. In a letter of Apr. 30, 1898, to the Secretary of State, (see page 343 of "document 62"), Consul Pratt writes in reference to Aguinaldo : " The general further stated that he hoped the United States would assume protection of the Philippines for at least long enough to allow the inhabitants to establish a government of their own." Aguinaldo's proclamation of May 24th issued soon after his ar- rival in the Philippines is unmistakable upon this point. (See page 431 of "document 62.") It begins in these words: " Filipinos : The great nation North America, cradle of true lib- erty, and friendly on that account to the liberty of our people, op- pressed and subjugated by the tyranny and despotism of those who have governed us, has come to manifest even here a protection which is decisive as well as disinterested toward us, considering us en- dowed with sufficient civilisation to govern by ourselves this our unhappy land." But why multiply proofs? The official documents teem with evi- dence showing conclusively not only that Aguinaldo's one thought, one hope, one expectation, was independence, first, last and always, but that we were perfectly well aware thereof, and deliberately and for our own selfish ends availed ourselves of his assistance and that of his compatriots, cheerfully and efficiently rendered upon the as- 204 A DARK PAGE IN AMERICAN HISTORY sumption that Filipino independence was to result, knowing all the while that we should betray them when they had finished helping us take our chestnuts out of the fire, and we had become strong enough not only to dispense with the assistance of our allies but to kill them if they resisted. Could Russia have done much worse? Comment- ing upon the moral turpitude of our treatment of our brown brother, Mr. Post says in his " Documentary Outline of the Philippine Case " : " Clearly, Aguinaldo and his people aspired to independence long before the time the President's Philippine commission says they did. It was no afterthought with them. Clearly, too, they understood at the outset that the alliance they were making had independence for one of its purposes. Clearly, also, the American officials, up to the highest in the land, knew that this was their understanding. " But no attempt was made to disabuse the minds of these confiding people until after their services as allies could be safely dispensed with. Consuls were warned not to promise independence, and mili- tary commanders were similarly instructed. But Aguinaldo was kept in the dark. He was given no intimation that the apparent friendliness of American officials to his independence was secretly disapproved." . . . " Gen. Anderson appears to have been the only American official who in any way at all gave Aguinaldo reason to suspect unfriendliness toward his civil government. Anderson wrote on the 22d of July, (page 394 of " document 62"), warning Aguinaldo that in the ab- sence of orders he could not recognise his civil authority, though happy to see him fighting so bravely and successfully against a com- mon enemy. This is the letter in which Gen. Anderson observed : ' So far as I can ascertain your independent status has not been recognised by any foreign power/ " Aguinaldq's reply, dated July 24, 1898, (page 394 of "document (52"), not only shows that up to this time he had confided in the apparent intention of the Americans to recognise their Asiatic allies as an independent nation, but it is one of the pathetic documents of history. In it Aguinaldo rebukes his American friends more pointedly than he could then have supposed. These are his words: . . / It is true that my government has not been acknowledged by any of the foreign powers, but we expected that the great North American nation, which struggled first for its independence, and afterwards for the abolition of slavery, and is now actually strug- gling for the independence of Cuba, would look upon it with greater benevolence than any other nation/ " There the matter dropped. Aguinaldo's hopes were allowed to revive, until the time should be ripe for crushing them and his government together. " Aside from Gen. Anderson's cautious warning, with its ignored reply, nothing whatever was done by the American authorities to indicate to Aguinaldo that his notorious proceedings and proclama- tions for the establishment of a Filipino government were to be treated as the playthings of a barbarian. He thought his military alliance was to culminate in a formal recognition of independence; and the circumstances justified his expectations. Our government 205 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION knew he thought so; but, ally though he was, it allowed him to act upon that belief until its military forces had got into position to defy him. Then, and not before, it began to display a hostile pur- pose. And when the time seemed fully ripe it openly, but still with an awkward attempt at deceptive suppression of the truth, pro- claimed its own sovereignty over the islands, and thereby declared war upon the infant government. " By the testimony, then, of its own records, the American nation is convicted in this Philippine case of deliberately deceiving its trusting allies, and barbarously suppressing a well-ordered and peace- able government whose independence it was morally bound by every consideration of good faith to recognise." How are the mighty fallen ! To what a depth have we sunk when it is possible for a United States .Senator to make a speech like that of Senator Beveridge of Indiana on the Philippine question, and still maintain a vestige of the respect of his colleagues. We can- not better express our opinion of this bit of rhetorical poison than by quoting the following editorial thereon published in a Chicago paper on January 3, 1900: "Kegarding the Philippine question, the presidential mouthpiece for that purpose in the Senate has indicated the presidential policy with unmistakable distinctness. We allude to Senator Beveridge, of Indiana. It is not a policy of expansion Mr. Beveridge advocates. It is a policy of undisguised imperialism. And the chief motive is commercial exploitation. * The times call for candor/ he says ; and candid he unquestionably is. Looking without a blush upon his countrymen as belonging to a race of remorseless brigands, he admonishes the Senate that * that man little knows the common people of the republic, little understands the instincts of our race, who thinks we will not hold ' our conquest ' fast, and hold it for- ever.' And the race thus characterised by himself as a race guided by instincts of insatiable greed, he has the impious effrontery to entitle ' trustee, under God, of the civilisation of the world/ It is well to know the depths to which this administration has sunk in its mad departure from the eminently American precept that ' forci- ble annexation ' is ' criminal aggression ; ' and Senator Beveridge in his Philippine speech renders us that service. The day has now gone by when administration organs can fool dull devotees of party, by pretending that no variation from American traditions is con- templated. They must either repudiate the administration or accept imperialism in all its nakedness. The purpose of the administra- tion is proclaimed by this administration Senator as authoritatively as possible outside of a presidential message. And it proves to be what the critics of the administration have predicted in the face of ridicule that it would be, a policy of world-wide empire maintained by overwhelming military force in ceaseless action against all re- sistance. Without concealment we are now invited upon an im- perial and military career like that wherein Eome the old ' trustee, under God, of the civilisation of the world ' lost her own liberties in struggling to destroy the liberties of other peoples, and 906 A DARK PAGE IN AMERICAN HISTORY finally disappeared in the gloom, of the dark ages in which her own betrayal of her ideals of liberty had enshrouded the world." How refreshing in comparison with this medieval moral turpitude is the following from an open letter written by the late Senator Hoar. " What I want the American people to do is to do in the Philip- pines exactly what we have done, are doing and expect to do in Cuba. We have liberated both from Spain, and we have had no thought at least, I have had no thought of giving either back to Spain. I should as soon give back a redeemed soul to Satan as give back the people of the Philippine islands to the cruelty and tyranny of Spain. Indeed, since they got arms, an army and an organisation, I do not believe it would be in the power of Spain to subdue them again. Having delivered them from .Spain, we are bound in all honour to protect their newly acquired liberty against the ambition or greed of any other nation on earth. And we are equally bound to pro- tect them, against our own. We were bound to stand by them, a defender and protector, until their new governments were established in freedom and in honour; until they had made treaties with the powers of the earth and were as secure in their national independence as Switzerland is secure, or as San Domingo, or Venezuela is secure." We submit that our original contention is fully proved and that the United States stands convicted of a deception so infamous, a crime so black, that^ we may well bow our heads in shame against the just condemnation of the following poem. " CONFESSIONAL." By Howard S. Taylor. " God of our Sires who hither fled Across a strange and stormy sea, Who suffered exile, toiled and bled To make themselves and children free, God of the Pilgrims, smite us not! We have forgot! We have forgot! "How runs the story? Far away We hear the epoch-opening gun Fired by our Minute Men at bay Upon the green at Lexington. But far and faint, we heed it not, Lord God of Hosts, we have forgot! " The Bill of Rights our Fathers signed And sealed with shot and saber-stroke, Their just appeal to all mankind, Their prayers sent up through battle-smoke, Their faith humane, without a blot, Lord Christ,' forgive! We have forgot! " Ah, if, where sunset islands lie, Thy brave, brown men their blood shall spill, Shall strike for liberty and die, Slain by the heirs of Bunker Hill, Thou wilt remember, wilt Thou not? Though We, Thy people, have forgot! 207 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION " We have forgot! A Roman lust Profanes our ancient, holy things; We trample justice in the dust We have the rabies of the kings! The scarlet rage of gun and sword! Have mercy on Thy people, Lord! Amen! " Let us now consider the treatment accorded the Filipinos by our soldiers, our "boys in blue," as we delight to call them. It is a pleasant fiction, which our optimists take great pride in promoting, that when war with Spain was declared, the "pick of American youth," for the great love of humanity that was in them, hastened to sacrifice themselves upon the altar of right. As a matter of fact nothing could well be farther from the truth. Beyond a doubt more than one man enlisted from purely humanitarian impulses, but over against every such one were a round hundred who were dominated by a desire to " remember the Maine " and to avenge her, or who were looking for excitement, searching for adventure, anxious to see a new country, out of work and glad to take anything that came along, or who were swept away by the desire to wear a uniform, carry a gun and shoot at the biggest game ever stalked. Not only were they not the flower of "the American youth" in any proper sense, but, on the contrary, they were, to a very great extent, of that type found in all classes from the lowest to the highest and colloquially characterised by the one word "sporty." Some were from rich families, some from those in moderate circumstances, and some from the very poor, but, throwing out the white blackbirds among them, they belonged ethically to that misty, ill-defined epoch between the jungle and the first faint dawn of civilisation. " The honour of the army ! " That is one of Satan's choicest jokes. Since when did the reduction of murder to a science react upon its votaries with a regenerating force ? " As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The minute man who seises his gun to defend his fireside is a very different individual from the man who enlists for aggressive warfare, and different from both of them is the pro- fessional soldier who learns in advance the art of killing, hoping that the time will come when he may practise it. The dominant thought of the home-defender is social and regenerating. To him killing another is an awful possibility, a last resort, at contemplation of which his mind recoils, his heart sickens. He is as brave as virtue; as generous as justice; as persistent as the seasons; as untiring as the waves that overcome adamantine resistance. The following from the pen " of one of the most sincere and de- voted friends of humanity that this country has produced," the late John P. Altgeld, is of interest in this connection. It appears in his " The Cost of Something for Nothing," under the heading " Fighting for Liberty and Country." "While professional militarism fights with almost equal readiness under any flag, and is to-day the principal prop and support of established wrong throughout the world, there is no nobler spectacle than that of the great body of citizens of a country taking up arms in defence of liberty. 208 A DARK PAGE IN AMERICAN HISTORY " To establish liberty for mankind is the highest mission on earth. " It is a most significant and eloquent fact that wherever liberty has been established in this world it was done, not by professional sol- diers, but by the common citizens. These are the occasions that give to the world its heroes. Mere daring is often vulgar, but daring and sacrifice coupled with a mighty moral cause bring immortality. " It is sometimes urged that a country must have professional mili- tary men in order to be prepared for emergencies. But what does history teach us? " The French armies which overthrew all Europe were made up mostly of citizen soldiers. The great German armies which Na- poleon routed were of professional soldiers, and they went down in utter ignominy. Many years later, the French had become profes- sional soldiers and the Germans raised an army of citizens, and this army proved invincible, and redeemed the fatherland. King George's troops were professional soldiers. They tried to subjugate our forefathers, but the citizen soldier and patriot was too much for them. " The American heroes consisted of citizens who triumphed and established our independence. " In the Civil War, the Union armies were composed almost en- tirely of citizens ; and they fought to a finish, and triumphed in one of the greatest wars ever waged. " It has been remarked of our recent war in Cuba, that the citizen or volunteer soldiers did the fighting, and the professional soldiers did the blundering. " In South Africa, a few thousand citizen soldiers almost held their own against a quarter of a million professional soldiers for several years. The fact is, that every new war differs from all preceding wars, and both sides have to learn how to fight. And the intelligent citizen fighting from high motives fighting for home and country makes a much more ready and invincible soldier than the pro- fessional, who stands on a lower plane. " Instead of a standing army being a perserver of peace, it is a con- stant provocation of war and a continual menace to the liberties of a country. " Tyranny must rely on brute force ; but Eepublics must look to the affections of the people for protection/'' 209 CHAPTEE II MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION 211 " MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION." " Bind and torture, burn and slay, In the old barbaric way. Stamp their rice crops in the mud, Drench their ruined fields in blood, Drive and starve and concentrate, Still they won't assimilate. " Shoot your prisoners at a guess, Make a howling wilderness, Butcher children, women, men Every native over ten All you meet with, small and great, Shall the dead assimilate? "Be ye not. of God afraid; Learn the inquisition's trade; Reproduce, from history's page, Tortures of the middle age; Copy hell, and this saith Fate, ' Hatred shall assimilate.' " Yea, by Him who seeth all, Though in holocausts they fall, Till their last defender die, Till their last home light the sky, Rendering to you hate for hate, They shall be at Freedom's gate." Bertrand Shadwell, in The Public. 213 CHAPTER II MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION E who enlists for aggressive warfare is of very differ- ent fibre from the defender of the hearth or the repeller of invasion. There is no justification for killing unless it be self-defence, or the resistance of some invasive act jeopardising life, liberty or the legi- timate pursuit of happiness. He who does not see this without being told is of an intellectual punk from which fine characters cannot be carved. He who sees this truth and follows it not is morally weak or perverse. Of the professional soldier, but little need be said. His calling is one which is disorganising with respect to all the finer traits of manhood. His professional thought is constantly upon an appeal to force, not an appeal to reason or to right. His golden rule finds expression in " my country, may she ever be right, but my country right or wrong/ 7 This infamous saying, dressed in the tawdry rags of an expediency which calls itself patriotism, he spreads thin or thick as a healing balm to cure, or a tasteful bandage to con- ceal, all manner of ethical wounds. " The honour of the army ! " What bearing has the Funston episode upon the *' honour of the army ? " In a speech by Senator Patterson of Colorado which appears in full at page 3326 of the Congressional Eecord of Mar. 27, 1902, this shameless violation of the usages of civilised warfare is calmly and dispassionately laid bare. Commenting upon this speech, a Chicago paper says : " The speech of Senator Patterson, of Colo- rado, on the disgraceful exploit whereby the unsavory Funston won his commission as brigadier-general, ought to be read far and wide. It is a calm arraignment, fortified with authorities, which reduces Funston to an irreducible minimum. The occasion of Senator Patterson's speech was an interview sent out by Funston, in which he said that President Roosevelt had approved heartily of his New York Lotus Club speech, and was very anxious to have him go to Boston on the invitation of Senator Lodge and make the same speech there. This was the speech in which Funston excited the Lotus eaters to cheers by suggesting that American anti-imperialists ought to be hanged. He says now that the suggestion was wholly abstract quite Pickwickian; but it certainly had in it much of the spirit of the hangman. In the interview which Senator Patter- son took for his text, Funston defended his method of capturing Aguinaldo as being within the rules of honourable warfare. It was to that point that Senator Patterson mainly addressed his speech ; and when he finished, Funston's military crime had been laid bare." 213 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION 'We submit the following extracts from the speech in question. Keferring to the utterances of Funston before the New York Lotus Club, Senator Patterson quoted from the report thereof as fol- lows : " ' I have been nagged by that class of papers until I am tired. Editorially they wilfully misinterpret my remarks, and I am glad to express my independence of their opinions and their talk and that of their kind about my using dishonourable and unfair means in the capture of Aguinaldo; also that I violated the Articles of War. They know a great deal more about the articles of golf than they do about the Articles of War. Everything is permissible in a campaign except the use of poison or the violation of a flag of truce. ' As a matter of fact, only four of my men on the expedition were dressed in the insurgent uniform. The other men dressed as Fili- pino peasants. ' Pres. Eoosevelt approved heartily of my remarks before the Lotus Club Banquet and was very anxious to have me go to Boston on the invitation of Senator Lodge, and make the same speech there, but my orders were such that it was impossible for me to go.' "Mr. Pres., I paid no attention to the speech of General Funston before the Lotus Club, although it indulged in pretty broad sug- gestions that those in the U. S. who were seeking to have justice done to the Filipinos and to satisfy the people that the Philippine Archi- pelago was undesirable property for the U. S., deserved hanging more than those actually engaged in the insurrection." . . . " I think it but just and proper that two things should be put before the country in a calm and dispassionate manner. First, the statement of Gen. Funston himself, over his own signature only last Sept., about the capture of Aguinaldo; and, second, the rules of civilised warfare as promulgated, with the approval of Pres. Lincoln, and as declared by all writers upon international law, and as rati- fied by the late peace conference at The Hague. " Without indulging in criticism, I will first call attention to the rules of war applicable to the conduct of General Funston in dealing with Aguinaldo. I read from page 222 of Geo. B. Davis's Interna- tional Law. The author was an instructor at West Point, and he gives the rules which should govern warfare upon the part of a civi- lised nation, as he derives them from all the great authorities upon that very important subject. On page 222, Sect. 21, under the sub- head ' Use of the enemy's flag and uniform,' he makes the following statement. ' It is forbidden in war on land to make use of the enemy's flag for purpose of deceit. It is also forbidden to use the enemy's uni- form except with some distinguishing mark sufficiently striking in character to attract attention at a distance. On the sea the national flag of a public armed vessel must be displayed before an engage- ment begins or a capture is made; these rules are based on the fact that flags and uniforms are used for the purpose of determining the national character of troops in the field. A violation of these rules indicates a want of good faith, a quality equally obligatory in peace 6r war.' . . . " Now, Mr. Pres., having in view those statements, I desire to 214 MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION call attention of the Senate to General Funston's own rehearsal of this transaction, (the capture of Aguinaldo), I call nobody else as a witness. . . . " Turning to ' Everybody's Magazine/ which I understand is owned and published by John Wanamaker, we find two articles, one in the Sept., and the other in the Oct. number, 1901, which is the story continued from one into the other by Gen. Funston, over his own signature, of his capture of Aguinaldo. . . . " Commencing at the beginning, it seems that about Feb., 1901, Company C of the 24th U. S. Infantry was located at Pantabangan, upon the northeast part of the island of Luzon. Its commander, Lieut. Taylor, was informed by the mayor of Pantabangan that a small number of insurrectors were in the neighbourhood, and that they could probably be induced to come in and be of service to the American side. The result was that they were induced to come in; the body was found to consist of Cecilio Segismundo, a confidential agent of Aguinaldo, and who was the bearer of important dispatches to the insurgent generals in southern and central Luzon. The others were merely insurgent soldiers who acted as an escort for the mes- senger. . . . " After much persuasion Cecilio Segismundo, the confidential agent of Aguinaldo, was induced to betray his superior and enter into an agreement to capture the chief he was professing to serve. " Gen. Funston then describes the manner in which they reached the plan by which Aguinaldo was to be captured. . . . " Now mark the plan, and bear in mind the rules that govern civi- lised warfare while the plan that Funston himself unfolds is being considered. He says: ' The plan was to disguise a body of native troops in our service as. insurgent soldiers, representing the reinforcements asked for by Agui- naldo, and thus gain access to his presence. The necessary American officers were to be carried along as supposed prisoners who had been captured en route. Any suspicions Aguinaldo might have were lulled by decoy letters over the forged signature of some insurgent chief. The whole plan will be best understood by a perusal of the following letter to my immediate superior, Gen. Wheaton ' " Then follows the letter in which the plan is substantially stated as I have read it. ... " General Funston's memory is bad when he states there were but four of the Macabebes dressed as Filipinos, as I shall show: There were 20 at least. . . . ' To have equipped our men throughout with uniforms would have aroused suspicion because of their neatness and uniformity. Ac- cordingly we procured only 20 uniforms of the blue and white striped cotton cloth with which the insurgents were formerly clothed, the remainder being outfitted as Filipino paisanos or peasants. Fifty Mauser and 18 Eemington rifles were obtained from the stock of captured arms in the Manila arsenal. There were 100 cartridges for each Mauser and 60 for each Eemington/ . . . " Omitting some immaterial portions, immaterial for my purpose, he tells how he addressed a forged letter, ostensibly signed by 215 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Hilario Placido, to Aguinaldo telling him of the straits in which they were for food, and begging that food be sent them. . . . ' The food came early the next morning and after a hasty break- fast, the march for 'Palanan was taken up by the main part of the company, we Americans being left behind with a guard of ten Maca- bebes, under a corporal/ " The company reached Palanan and I take up the statement of General Funston as to what occurred there. He says: ! But the end was now at hand. A few moments before three o'clock we reached the bank of the Palanan River, a stream about one hundred yards wide, and saw the last boatload of Macabebes forming on the farther bank. As prearranged the boat was sent back for us and we were just embarking when firing broke out in the town on the other bank. We hurried across and took command of the excited and yell- ing Macabebes who were filling the air with bullets, firing in all di- rections. We Americans ran at once to Aguinaldo's house and reached there just in time to take part in the last of the scrimmage and saved the lives of the prisoners from the Macabebes. . . . ' Aguinaldo, as might be expected, was terribly agitated, and, in fact, could scarcely speak. He said to me in Spanish, * Oh, tell me, is not this a joke?' I assured him that it was, to the contrary, cold, hard fact, and that he was at last a prisoner. He could scarcely believe it at first. . . . ' Those Maoabebes and those in command of them were received as friends ; they were dressed as friends, professing to be friends/ . . . " It is unnecessary, Mr. President, to read more. I have done all that I intended to do. I simply called the attention of the .Senate to the rules of civilised warfare as declared in the order that was approved by President Lincoln and as set forth by Halleck in his work upon international law, and that are stated by Holls as the basis of The Hague Treaty, which the .Senate ratified. All declare that the use of the enemy's uniform is perfidy, and that if in the use of such a killing occurs it is assassination, and those who engage in affairs of that character are, under the rules of civilised warfare, outside of protection. . . . " I want to suggest, therefore, whether General Funston was war- ranted in saying that the President approved his speech or not, and whether he was warranted in what he said about the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Philippines, and also whether or not, as he intimates, he may be used as a campaign orator in the coming campaign, the facts of his dealings with Aguinaldo, as detailed by himself and the laws of civilised warfare as they are, without any question should be put clearly and unequivocally before the American people. " I have done, Mr. President, all I intended to do, and, under the circumstances, I think I have done no less than I should." In the " Chicago Evening Post " of May 9, 1902, Edward Osgood Brown says in part : " If Aguinaldo had bribed a deserter from the United States army to give him some letters of an inferiofl American officer; had then forged that officer's signature, and by means of it had opened communication with Funston and found his whereabouts 216 MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION had then, with other deserters from the United States army and sol- diers of his own outnumbering altogether Funston's body-guard two to one, reached a place some miles from Funston's headquarters, where the latter was alone with that body-guard ; had there, with all his men, become too weak from lack of food to move, and in the presence of imminent death from starvation had sent to Funston to beg for food to save his own and his followers' lives ; had received it, and with it, guides; had been ushered into Funston's presence with his men dis- guised as American soldiers and himself as a prisoner; had then, while shaking hands with Funston, signaled his men to shoot down Funston's body-guard and make Funston a captive and carry him away ; had succeeded in his undertaking and returned to his army and his kindred and received their unlimited praise and plaudits what would they (the readers of the "Evening Post") have said of the Malay character and of Aguinaldo individually ? " And this is' the man we have praised and promoted. .Says Mr. Louis F. Post in " The Public " of March 22, 1902 : " Our conten- tion that Gen. Funston acted as a spy when he captured Aguinaldo, is confirmed by Senator Burton, who defended him on the 14th on the floor of the United States Senate. While insisting that what Funston did had been done in the line of honourable warfare, Senator Burton admitted that Funston and his force had, to quote the press dispatch, * acted somewhat in the capacity of spies.' It was for acting successfully in this capacity that Funston got his promotion to the rank of brigadier general. He should have been paid in money, and not with promotion. Spies and hangmen are custom- arily paid in money." And this is the man who, instead of being court-martialed, de- graded from his rank, punished and dowered with lasting infamy and contempt, has been praised, promoted, rewarded and feted in the same country which made the life of Benedict Arnold a burden and his name an immortal badge of infamy! Could any incident better show the depth to which the American official conscience has fallen? Apropos of this subject Mark Twain says, in his "A Defence of General Funston " published in the " North American Review " for May, 1902, that neither George Washington nor General Funston was made in a day. He points out that in each case the basis or moral skeleton was an inborn disposition as permanent as rock, a thing which he says never undergoes any genuine change from cradle to grave. In each of the cases cited he asserts that the character or " moral flesh bulk," as he calls it, was built and shaped around the skeleton by training, association and circumstances, and from this he deduces this postulate. " Given a crooked disposition skeleton, no power nor influence in the earth can mould a permanently shapely form around it." It is in this way that the great humorist accounts for an act which will go down in history as a permanent blemish upon our national character; an act which earned for Funston a pro- motion from the powe'rs that be, on the one hand, while on the other, it secured for him the contempt of the best thought of the land. The article above referred to is preeminently worth reading. It is in Mr. Clemens's best vein and shows not only his inimitable sense 217 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION of humour, but also his keen appreciation of and love for truth and justice. We regret exceedingly that we are unable to quote at length from "A Defence of General Funston," as we had intended to do, the reason being that Messrs. Harper & Brothers have for " business reasons " refused to allow us to make extracts therefrom. We leave the Reader to determine in his own mind, what these " business rea- sons " are which make an article good enough for the " North Ameri- can Review" in May, 1902, unfit for publication in 1906, merely calling attention to the fact that in the case of managers of news- papers it frequently seems expedient to them for " business reasons " to withhold, or misrepresent, what they know to be the truth, nor are these reasons always of a strictly personal nature. They have been known ere now to have a political inception. That Mark Twain's "defence" is a just and terrible indictment is not to be denied, neither is it to be denied that it is quite as just to-day as on the day it was written. We sincerely hope that all our readers, who are desirous of seeing the depth of degradation to which swash-buckling militarism can descend in boastful, swaggering pride, will peruse Mark Twain's article in the " North American Eeview " for May, 1902, from beginning to end. " The honour of the army ! " When the Dreyfus case was on, this was France's cry with every other exhalation, yet had one raked every military circle with a fine-tooth comb he would not have found among all Dreyfus's enemies honour enough to look conspicuous anywhere except beside the absolute ethical negation of an Esterhazy. The honour of the army ! What sort of conditions did this celebrated case expose? What was the true inwardness of the .Sampson-Schley con- troversy ? What bearing have the wretched brutalities of West Point upon this question ? Will the reports of the atrocities of Fort Ethan Allen, stifled as soon as possible for " the honour of the army," make toward belief in military excellence, think you? Will the treatment of our brown brothers in the Philippines stir us to any enthusiasm over the morality of our soldiery? Does the Funston Episode swell the national bosom with pride? The honour of the army ! Said a recent writer : " Imperialistic tendencies always parade in military fashion. When Rome was pass- ing from republic to empire, the legions demanded patriotic worship. When Bonaparte was rushing France backward into absolutism, the ' grand army ' was his shibboleth. To William of Germany the army is the most sacred thing in the realm next to himself. And now that our own country has plunged into imperialism, denunciations of criminal acts committed by army officers upon inhabitants of the distant country they have been sent out to conquer and subdue, are smothered by demands that we respect 'the honour of the army.' We, too, are thus invited to set up a military fetich for permanent adoption." In his " A Defence of General Funston " published in the " North American Review" for May, 1902, and already alluded to, Mark Twain calls attention to the fact that many of the customs of war are anything but pleasant to the civilian. He points out that every detail of the Funston scheme, with but a single exception, has been 218 MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION practised before. This one detail he asserts, is absolutely new, never having been resorted to before at any period in history, in any country, among any people, savage or civilised. He informs us that it was to this detail Aguinaldo alluded when he said that he could have been taken alive by no other means. In explanation Mr. Clemens tell his readers that when a man is so exhausted by hunger that he is " too weak to move " he may properly supplicate his enemy to save his failing life, with this one qualification, that if he so much as taste of the succouring food that is offered, food which all ages, and all nations hold to be sacred food, "he is barred from lifting his hand against that enemy for that time." Continuing, our author states that it was reserved for a Brigadier-General of Volunteers of the American army to outrage a custom which "even the degraded Spanish friars had respected," and he closes his paragraph with this crisp and pregnant sentence, " We promoted him for it." Drawing a parallel between the assassination of President McKinley and the capture of Aguinaldo, Mr. Clemens points out that, bad as the assassin was, he had not, dying of starvation, received from the President the very food which gave him strength to perform his treacherous work, nor did he " proceed against the life of a benefactor who had just saved his own." Eeader, do not misunderstand us. We do not contend that no professional soldier is honourable, any more than we would assert that no butcher is a tender-hearted lover of animals. What we do claim is that war as a calling or dominating factor of thought, is not calculated to make toward morality any more than butchering is likely to cultivate the tender sentiments of sympathy and pity for animals. We are aware that some will say that the professional soldier, who in times of peace studies methods of killing in order that he may be able to practise them in a manner the more deadly in time of war, is a necessary safeguard of every nation and that his calling is there- fore honourable and should be honoured. Unfortunately, however, for such a contention, history proves just the reverse. Again and again has it been shown that the practice of the arts of peace makes the very best soldiers who ever fought for a just cause. We do not claim that they are as good in a war for conquest as those seasoned campaigners who have had all tendency to question the morality of their acts disciplined out of them, till they are mere ma- chines, like the six hundred at Balaklava who held it " Their 's not to make reply Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die." What we do claim is that in a just cause the most formidable sword ever wielded is that which has not had time to forget how recently it was a pruning-hook. In an article on " Professional Militarism," the late John P. Altgeld summed up the matter most forcibly. He said : " Viewed from any standpoint, the business of killing men is a brutal and degrading pro- fession, which must brutalise those who engage in it, to a greater or 219 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION less degree, depending somewhat upon the character of the man in the beginning. Except where men strike for life, liberty, or country, the moment he reddens his hands with the blood of his fellows, the microbe of the fiend begins to circulate in his veins, and a slow but certain disintegration settles down upon him and all connected with him. " If he possessed great virtues and strength of character to start with, the process of dissolution may be lengthened to the second gen- eration; but the end is the same. There is something abhorrent about the taking of life, and Nature will have her revenge. Even the man who delights in killing the lower animals gradually changes. He becomes coarse, his finer and nobler feelings are blunted, and he finally partakes somewhat of the nature of the fierce brutes whose conduct he imitates. From the standpoint of fair play, he sinks even below the average level of the brute; because the element of unfair advantage by reason of firearms, etc., must be considered. " The business of the professional soldier is to kill, to destroy. He creates nothing. All his thoughts run in the direction of destruction. He is a stranger to the elevating, strengthening, and ennobling influ- ence that comes from creating something, from adding to the world's comfort or happiness. In spirit and aim he belongs to the barbaric ages. His environment in itself is enough to destroy even the strong- est and noblest manhood. He is isolated from both the affairs and the society of the great body of citizens. He is a stranger to their aims and their aspirations. His association with women is generally confined to the worst of the sex. " The powerful and selfish interests of the world use him as a club to beat the toiling masses into subjection while they are being robbed of the fruits of their toil. He thus becomes the unintentional foe of liberty, freedom, and justice. He is made an instrument of injustice, and this in itself is degrading. He must obey orders, and therefore he is excusable before the law; but it does not change the nature of his act, nor relieve him from the reactionary effect of his conduct. In the world's armies, there is everywhere this tendency of the pro- fessional soldier to degenerate, because of his mental, moral, and physical environment. " The private soldiers in many cases are treated like dogs. What is more natural than that they should sink to the level of dogs in their conduct? The officers strut in fine uniforms, and form a class by themselves. They are exclusive, and cultivate a spirit of snobbery. This spirit of exclusion, this 'I am better than thou' attitude, is in itself belittling. No snob ever grew into a great man. " Nature draws no distinction between officer and private, and the death-dealing influence of a wrong destroys all who come within the circle of vibration which every wrong sets in motion. A fine uniform may conceal a scrofulous body; but no screen has yet been devised that will veil the windows of a putrid soul, or erase from the counte- nance the scars of a dead conscience." We have recently had an apt illustration of the corruptive tendency of an aggressive war, and it is still fresh in mind. When our relations with Spain were approaching a crisis, the great heart of the American people was wrung again and again by the atrocities which were being 220" MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION practised by the Spaniards in Cuba. When Weylerism reached its most devilish depth in the " reconcentration " of the non-combatants, a storm of indignant protest swept our whole country. The thought of unoffending men, women, and children being driven from their homes and gathered in camps or stockades under conditions which meant disease, starvation and death, with all the attendant horrors and outrages of military confinement, stirred the American people as they had not been stirred before for years. Their humanitarian im- pulses were quickened and they needed only half an excuse for inter- fering. Indeed many of our best citizens counselled interfering purely on impersonal humanitarian grounds. The blowing up of the Maine was but a match applied "to a train already laid. Whatever motives may have actuated our government officials in bringing about this war, (the subsequent publication of official corre- spondence gives good cause for doubt on this score), certain it is that the people at large were actuated by no selfish motives. It cannot be denied that a strong retaliatory sentiment followed the sinking of the Maine, but this was a craving for satisfaction in terms of blood rather than money, and much of this, to our credit be it said, soon wore away and left as our dominant motive a desire to ameliorate the suffering of the oppressed Cubans. Traverse back over this period in imagination and we find that the brutalities recorded were confined to Spain's treatment of the Cubans and our ill use of our own men by subjecting them to unsanitary camp conditions, feeding them upon " embalmed " beef, etc., etc. Our treatment of our enemies was well within the limits set down by the rules of civilised warfare. When the end came we were a gen- erous victor, so far as Spain was concerned, generous to the extent of purchasing for some $20,000,000 alleged property to which she had no valid claim according to international standards. We see, therefore, that our national record, so far as the -Cuban part of the war is concerned, is measurably clean. When, however, we began operations in the Philippines, all this was changed. Immediately Spain's power in those islands was broken. It became evident to those on the inside, and, ere long to everybody with eyes and ears, that we were fighting for territory. Imperialism became rampant, and then came the confirmation of what we have been at such pains to make clear, viz. that war, when not redeemed by having some grand motive for its object, is hopelessly debasing. Its poison percolates from the commander-in-chief, down through the lowest officer, to the humblest private. No sooner did we turn our back upon all our ideals of liberty and justice, salving our bleeding national con- science by that hypocritical sop to Cerberus, " the white man's burden," than our whole military arm seemed to be afflicted with gangrene. Having adopted the policy of imperialistic robbers, it seemed almost natural that we should establish a Eussian censorship and feed the American people with just such falsehoods as the Philippine war de- partment and their superiors here at home wanted them to swallow. Facts! What have facts to do with it? It is a censor's business to write down as facts those things he desires, not those things he sees. 221 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Anyone can tell what occurs. No need of keeping a censor for that. Referring to Philippine atrocities and to the suppression of facts concerning them, Mr. Louis F. Post writes in " The Public " of April, 19, 1902 : " That this shameful condition has long been known by the authorities at Washington has been more than suspected, and with good reason. " Why has Senator Lodge and his Philippine committee refused persistently to investigate charges of cruelty, if he did not believe that a thorough investigation would uncover what the Waller trial has begun to reveal ? " Why has the secretary of war suppressed documents tending to ex- pose the revolting situation, if he does not know, what the Waller verdict indicates, how very revolting it would be to the public mind ? " Why is a virtual censorship still maintained at Manila, if there is nothing to conceal from the American people ? " Why were all correspondents but those of the three monopoly press associations excluded from the hearings of the Senate Philippine committee, unless there was a purpose to keep the testimony * well in hand?' " Every disclosure, through private sources, of facts like those in- volved in the Waller trial has been met with official denial or scouted as hearsay; and though the anonymous evidence anonymous be- cause the witnesses dared not reveal their identity lest they themselves might suffer from the same barbaric policy has been abundant, the official probe has been strenuously withheld. The government itself has stood between officers like Maj. Waller or Gen. Smith and the American people, officially vouching, in the face of circumstantial reports to the contrary, for the humanity of the American troops in the Philippines/* Along the same line is the indictment by that staunch Republican paper, the u Chicago Record Herald/* There is no uncertain note in the following criticism of the war department taken from its issue of April 12, 1902 : " It is clearly exceeding its powers and rights as a branch of a representative government which is responsible to the American public, whatever the truth may be. ... It is known beyond doubt that it has censored press dispatches to the perversion of the truth, that it has concealed the facts concerning an outrageous mismanagement of the finances in the transport service, and lastly that its policy with regard to the stories of Weylerism in the Philippines has been one of persistent deceit . . . the situation as we know it to-day brings shame upon us all. District after district burned, natives tortured, a population mercilessly cut down, and, to crown all, editors imprisoned arbitrarily, not for sedition, but for printing stories of corrupt practices in American administration. The liberty of the press, with accountability for its abuse, is ruthlessly violated by the military au- thorities in the Philippines, in wanton defiance of the first principle of American law. Surely the indictment is one that demands some- thing more than protestations and excuses from Secretary Root." However,, despite the many facts blue-penciled by our new Russian department, story after story of the almost unbelievable brutality of 222 MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION our soldiery began to reach this country. It seemed as if our " boys in blue " had by some strange alchemy been transformed into a horde of vodka-crazed Cossacks. It was hard to believe that their behaviour in the Philippines should have differed so from their conduct in Cuba. With scarcely a dissentient voice both officers and men had indignantly condemned Weyler's " reconcentrado " policy in the Antilles, only to put the same thing in practice a little later in the Philippines. On Dec. 8, 1902, Gen. Bell adopted this outrageous military meas- ure in Batangas. The General's order provided, as described in sub- stance by the Associated Press, " For the establishment of a zone around the garrisons, into which the friendly inhabitants are to be required to come under penalty of confiscation and destruction of their property." What this means can perhaps be as well gathered from the attitude of the better members of the press as in any other way. . Upon Jan. 21, 1902, the papers mentioned below made the fol- lowing comments upon this matter : " Boston Herald." " This new order is ... a new confes- sion of the -fact that a large part of the natives who have professed to be reconciled to our government are not reconciled. ... It puts an end to all statements that the people desire our sovereignty." " Detroit Free Press." " Weylerism is Weylerism, whether it mani- fests itself in Cuba or in the Philippines. If it was a brutal, cowardly policy for .Spain to adopt, it is a brutal, cowardly policy for the United States to adopt." " Dubuque Telegraph-Herald." " The United States went to war with Spain to abolish Weylerism in Cuba; yet to subdue the liberty- and-independence-loving Filipinos it is itself now doing in Batangas and elsewhere in the 'Philippines what the brutal Spanish butcher did in the Pearl of the Antilles." " Buffalo Courier." " A report received by the war department contains full information of the harsh policy, including the feature of concentration camps, adopted by Gen. Bell for the reduction of Batangas province in Luzon. . . . Gen. Bell should be called off. The American people are surely not ready to accept responsibility for concentration camp horrors." " Baltimore American." " With what astonishment do we read that a general of our army in the far-off Philippines has actually aped Weyler and Kitchener. . . . We have actually come to do the thing we went to war to banish. Our good name is dearer than all the islands of the sea. In the name of all that is best in our hu- manity, civilisation and patriotism, let the government at Washington erase this stain before it becomes fixed and inerasable." Some later press comments are as follows : " Johnstown Demo- crat," Jan. 24. " There are millions of men and women in the United .States who repudiate and abhor Weylerism in the Philippines as they repudiated and abhorred it in Cuba, and the time will come when their protests will be heard. Imperialism is now in the saddle, but its end cannot be far away." " Pittsburg Post," Jan. 24. " It has been known in Washington for several weeks that Gen. Chaffee was establishing re,concentratlon 223 camps in the province of Luzon, some of them not far from the city of Manila. Gen. Chaffee, however, did not issue an order so sweeping as that of Gen. Bell. He has contrived in a measure to veil his methods." "Columbus Evening Press," Jan. 27. "Indignation throughout the country has been aroused by Gen. J. Franklin Bell's reconcen- trado methods in the Philippines. It is justly felt that our honour will be clouded with shame if we allow our colonial armies to be offi- cered by a man who adopts Butcher Weyler's barbarous policy of reconcentration." It must not be imagined that all the atrocities for which we have to answer in the Philippines are comprised in, or are tributary to, this " reconcentrado " policy of Gen. Bell. Outrages official and unofficial almost without number were committed upon this martyred brown race. For example a special correspondent of " The New Voice," of Chicago, wrote from Iloilo, P. I., Oct. 30th, 1902, an article published in " The New Voice " of Dec. 19. In this he tells the experiences of a gentleman whose business took him to the Philippines. Speak- ing of the army with which for several months he had been in intimate relation, he said to the correspondent : " Discipline is frightfully slack and as a result drunkenness pre- vails in most wholesale fashion and is a disgrace to the whole army and to the American name. In my way of looking at it, drunkenness in the army is to-day one of the most formidable problems of the whole Philippine situation. If the army could be sobered up and made decent, a great many of the troublesome features that now con- front the American government here would be much relieved. In the cities where there are garrisons drunkenness and bad conduct upon the part of the soldiers are so constantly in evidence and so extreme that the native population is strongly prejudiced against Americans and everything American." Speaking of instances of drunken outrages which had come under his own observation, he said: "Yes; while I was in San Fernando in the Pampango province, a cavalryman got a pass to go to Bacalor. While there he got drunk, and as he was riding home in the early evening his hat fell off. A native who was close by ran and picked it up and handed it to him. The soldier took the hat, drew his revol- ver, and shot the native, mortally wounding him. The impression made by a deed of that sort upon the native community can hardly be realised. Perhaps the best approach to any appreciation of it that an American can make would be to imagine some of our states in the possession of a hostile army that would commit such outrages upon the people." Speaking of the general conduct of the soldiers he said : "They bluster and bully and drive the natives about; take pos- session of their shops and stores, and insolently enter their homes to abuse and insult their women. It is a common thing to hear soldiers, and even officers, say that they wish the insurrection would break out again so that they could clean some more of the natives out of the country. " I recently met a naval officer in Manila who had been serving in 224 MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION one of the southern islands and who told me, and I have every reason to believe that he told the truth, that, upon the occasion of the viola- tion of some of the customs of civilised warfare on the part of the Filipinos, the commanding officer of the American troops at the place where it happened gave orders that the country for twenty miles around should be absolutely devastated, and every living thing, man, woman, child or beast, killed; and, said he, it was done." Kegarding the social evil he said, " It is shockingly in evidence everywhere, and the attitude of the army toward it is that of toleration and encouragement. Hundreds of young native women are being in- veigled into mock marriages by American soldiers, with the knowledge, if not with the -approval, of their officers. Girls are sold by their parents as temporary * wives ' for a few dollars a month, often against the will of the girl. The officers know it, and make no objection. These ' wives/ together with the corps of prostitutes, are examined weekly by post surgeons to guarantee the lecherous Americans against infamous diseases. " And when a soldier does become diseased, he is cared for in the hospital at full pay. I fancy that the moral people of the United States would rise in rebellion if they could really be informed con- cerning the conditions that exist here along these lines. " Of course I am here on business. The successful prosecution of my business depends on my keeping on good terms with army officers, and I am going to keep on good terms with them if I can, but when I go home I shall look back upon these months as months spent very near to hell, and nothing but necessity will ever bring me to the Philippines again." In an article written from Cebu by Josiah Obi the " Constitution's " special correspondent in the Philippine islands, and reviewed in " The Public" of Jan. 4, 1902, occurs the following: " The highly civilised and altogether humane methods that charac- terised the rule of the gentle Weyler in Cuba are being resorted to by the American army in its efforts to subject the Visayans of this island of Cebu, of Borol, and would be put into effect in Samar if the con- ditions were favourable. Whole villages have been burned by the orders of the general commanding this district, and the reconcentrado policy, of which we have heard so much in Cebu, is about to be put into operation here if, indeed, it cannot be said to have already been instituted." . . . " Only a few nights ago an American officer boasted that he is known as the Weyler of the district where he is in command. He also said though it may seem incredible that he was proud of being so called." . . . " The officer commanding the battalion over on Bohol has been given instructions to kill off everybody suspected of connection with the in- surgents. He had been told that these orders give him the widest latitude; that he is not to be very particular whether the suspect is bearing arms or has been ; if he is a suspect he is to be treated as an out-law and shot down. The people are to be brought in from the country and cooped up in the towns. Those who refuse to come are to be hunted down/' 15 235 CHAPTER III THE WAGES OF OUR SIN 227 PROCLAMATION OF A FILIPINO GENERAL. The generals, chiefs and officers of the army of deliverance will pre- vent any ill-treatment in word or deed, by soldiers or peasants, of any dis- armed, sleeping or drunken enemies and of all those who, throwing their guns down and raising their hands, declare thus their surrender, or of any others that may become prisoners in any way; meeting out exemplary punishment to all who act against this order. They will receive with kindness and courtesy, and accord good treat- ment to all soldiers, officers and chiefs of the army of invasion who may come to our camp, after leaving their guns at a predetermined place, to prevent any deception, conceding to them the best of treatment as speci- fied in previous orders. At the headquarters, April 28th, 1901, The Commanding General, Miguel Malvar. The battle hurtles on the plains, Earth feels new scythes upon her; We reap our brothers for the wains, And call the harvest honor; Draw face to face, front line to line, One image all inherit, Then kill, curse on, by that same sign, Clay clay, and spirit spirit. Be pitiful, O God! Mrs. Browning. The Cry of the Human. Patriotism having become one of our topics, Johnson suddenly uttered in a strong, determined tone, an apothegm at which many will start: " Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But let it be considered that he did not mean a real and genuine love of our country, but that pre- tended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest. BoswelVs Johnson. 228 CHAPTEE III THE WAGES OF OUR SIN HOSE who closely followed Philippine affairs will re- member that Major Waller was tried by court-martial for barbarous treatment of the natives. Press reports stated that the " specifications alleged that in the one instance the accused had caused a native to be tied to a tree and on one day to be shot in the thigh, on the next in the arms, on the third in the body and on the fourth to be killed." The trial began on Mar. 17, 1902. The major pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, but admitted that he had ordered eleven natives shot while on this expedition. He insisted that he had acted under superior authority. On the 22d of March Capt. David D. Porter, one of the witnesses, testified that he was present when Gen. Smith gave Maj. Waller his orders, that he was with the Waller ex- pedition, and that Maj. Waller had not exceeded 'the orders given him. In testifying on Apr. 8th, Maj. Waller swore that Gen. Smith had said: " I wish you to kill and burn. The more you kill the more you will please me. The interior of .Samar must be made a howling wilder- ness. Kill every native over ten years old." Commenting upon this devilish speech, more suggestive of Moham- medan fanaticism than of American civilisation, a Chicago weekly says editorially ? " In this testimony Maj. Waller was immediately corroborated by Capt. Porter and Lieut. Halford. The latter said that Maj. Waller did not wholly agree with Gen. Smith's order, for he commanded Porter not to kill old men, women and children." Under date of Apr. 9, 1902, the Chicago "Evening Post" said: " The testimony just brought out at the Waller court-martial in Manila is of the most startling nature. It came as a distinct shock to the American people when the charges of killing natives were first made against Maj. Waller and his companions. But now it must stagger the most enthusiastic expansionist to have the testimony of three officers to the effect that Maj. Waller was simply obeying the commands of his superiors. . . . The war department has a duty to perform in the premises." Under the heading " Our Demoralising Conquest," " The Public," Chicago, said in its issue of April 19, 1902 : " The inhumanity which has characterised the American occupation of the Philippines can no longer be denied. It must now be either 229 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION defended with bravado or confessed with shame. The trial and ver- dict in the case of Maj. Waller leave no other alternative. " Maj. Waller was court-martialed for killing natives in the island of Samar, not in battle but in cold blood after capturing them. " His plea in part was that the natives in Samar were treacherous. But he conceded that he had not put his prisoners on trial to ascertain their individual guilt. He had executed them "off-hand, without re- gard to whether they were individually guilty of treachery or not. Defending this as being within the usages of war, he urged that with- out criticism he had dealt in the same way with ' boxers ' in China ; and that not only did this conduct there go without criticism from his superiors, but it was practised and approved by officers of the European troops. Indeed, they were inclined to make sport of the Americans for chicken-heartedness, because in other respects the American policy was excessively fair and humane from the prevailing military point of view. Maj. Waller admitted the execution of all of his Samar prisoners in this unceremonious fashion, justifying the homicide as a legitimate act of war. " But he did not rest his defence on the plea alone. He made a further plea, the nature of which' strongly indicates that his motive after all was not to punish treacher^r, but to terrorise a stubborn enemy by giving them to understand that they were to receive no quarter. He testified that he had acted pursuant to the orders of Maj. Gen. Jacob H. Smith, the American general in command on the island of Samar and his superior officer. . . . " On the 13th the Waller court-martial made known the verdict which had been arrived at by a vote of 11 to 2. As reported by special cable to the ' Chicago Eecord-Herald/ a Eepublican and imperialist paper, in which it was published on the 14th, this verdict found that Waller had acted in accordance with the rules war, the military necessities of the situation, and the order of his superiors. In other words, the execution without trial of prisoners of war taken by American troops in the Philippines, is regarded by American military authority as being within the military code of ethics. " Whether such base conduct is in truth in harmony with military ethics may well be doubted. The military ethical code is sadly eccen- tric when invoked in behalf of peoples too weak to assert its authority with force and too friendless to have it asserted for them by powerful onlooking nations; but it is hardly believable that it would justify the off-hand shooting of prisoners of war unconvicted of any offence. " One military officer of long experience in the field, a Eepublicdn at that we refer to Col. Henry L. Turner, of Chicago has spoken vigourously in condemnation of the theory of military honour which approves the Waller method of warfare. Interviewed for the * Chi- cago Eecord-Herald ' of the the 14th, he said : ' To me this principle is so horrible to adopt that I cannot help hoping there will be some qualification of the news received later. Probably there never was a more treacherous, blood-thirsty enemy than the American Indian ever fought by the United States army. And yet I do not hesitate to declare that had Maj. Waller drawn up 11 unarmed prisoners of the blood-thirsty Apache tribe and ordered 230 THE WAGES OF OUR SIN them shot without trial, his lightest punishment under Gens. Grant, Sheridan, Crook, Miles, Custer or any of our old line heroes, would have been dismissal from the army in disgrace or imprisonment for life. My own judgment is that Maj. Waller would have been tried by a drumhead court-martial and shot within 24 hours. That a man who has tried to justify the unwarranted killing of Filipinos by the fact that he had ruthlessly shot down the Chinese, should be acquitted with honour and let loose to continue the destruction of human life at his own sweet will is a matter difficult to realise. If campaigning in the Philippine islands has brought the United States army to the point where it justifies this class of warfare, the sooner the troops are brought home the better/ *' . . . " The Waller verdict, together with the horrible revelations of the evidence, is an intimation to thoughtful Americans that here is only one instance of a general policy of inhumanity. But for some such policy, tacitly recognised and approved, Waller would hardly have ventured to kill his prisoners without a trial, no matter what their offence had been ; Gen. Smith would hardly have ordered a slaughter of captives, and if he had, Waller would probably have disobeyed ; and, last but by no means least, the Waller court-martial, had Waller ven- tured upon such an exploit, would not have acquitted him of the crime. The whole thing testifies to a contagion of inhumanity." " The ' water cure ' has been administered to thousands of natives in the Philippines, at least in Panay,' says a returned soldier of Kansas City, who had himself * seen it administered dozens of times ' to natives and asserted that the practice was general in the island of Panay, and who approves it. "Other witnesses, produced before the Senate committee, not by the majority who are responsible for the investigation but have been much more solicitous to conceal the facts than to permit disclosures but by the minority, have fully confirmed the Kansas City soldier's story. One of them testified on the 14th, as the Associated Press re- ports him, that he had witnessed the ' water cure ' at Igbaras, prov- ince of Iloilo, November 27, 1900. It was administered to the presi- dente, or chief Filipino official, of the town. Upon the arrival of his command at Igbaras the presidente was asked whether runners had been sent out notifying the insurgents of their presence, and that upon the official's refusal to give the information he was taken to the convent, where the witness was 'stationed, and the water cure was administered to him ... he was standing in the corridor of the convent, stripped to the waist and his hands tied behind him, with Capt. Glenn and Lieut. Conger, of the regular army, and Dr. Lyons, a contract surgeon, standing near, while many soldiers stood about. The man was thrown under a water-tank, which held about 100 gallons of water, and his mouth was placed directly under the faucet and held open to compel him to swallow the water which was allowed to escape from the tank. . . . When at last the presidente agreed to tell what he knew, he was released and allowed to start away. He was not, however, permitted to escape, and upon refusing to give further information he was taken again as he was about to 231 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION mount his horse and the cure was administered the second time. This time the man was not stripped, nor was he taken into the building. Dr. Lyons said the water could be brought to the spot and given there, and when it was brought in a five-gallon can, one end of a syringe was placed in it and the other in the man's mouth. As he still refused, a second syringe was brought and one end of it placed in the prostrate man's nose. He still refused, and a handful of salt was thrown into the water. This had the desired effect and the presidente agreed to answer questions. " The other witness testified that he had witnessed the torture of two policemen of the town of Igbaras ... the details of the 'cure' were in the hands of a squad of the Eighteenth regular in- fantry, known as 'the water cure detail.' These acts were committed under the command of Capt. Glenn, who was judge-advocate of the department of the Viscayas. ... the water was kept running four or five minutes, and the physician in charge frequently placed his hand upon the man's heart to observe the effect of the treatment upon that organ." . . . " The civil governor of Tabayas, an American army officer, officially confirms these witnesses and all others who tell of similar cruelties. For he declares in his report of last December, which the secretary of war surpressed, that this water torture is in general use. In the same report he accuses the American troops of extensive burnings to ' lay waste the country so that the insurgents cannot occupy it.' " Now that this long-denied and long-concealed but vigourously prosecuted policy of cruelty and extermination has leaked out through the Waller court-martial proceedings, it will not be enough for the government to explain it as a matter of retaliatory policy. " The evidence is abundant and conclusive that in the beginning the Filipinos were humane in their modes of warfare. Such cruelty as they have practised did not precede, but has followed, the cruel meth- ods of the Americans. Our troops adopted the ' water cure ' not in retaliation, but confessedly to extort information. They have laid waste and exterminated, not to ' get even,' but on account of ' the military necessities of the situation.' Baffled by a stubborn people defending their homes, our army began a series of campaigns which, as Gen. Hughes has cautiously admitted before the Senate committee, could not be called civilised warfare. " Under these circumstances the plea of retaliation for Filipino bar- barities will not serve our government as an excuse for the barbarities which it appears to have tolerated and which it has certainly tried to conceal. " Neither will it do to shed official tears of regret, and promise vigourous measures of reform. The condition is chronic and will not yield to any efforts at mere reform. " Gen. Hughes was correct in his thought when, before the Senate committee, he said that new commanders coming into the field would start in to conduct their work much ' easier ' than the old ones ; that ' they would come into the country with their ideas of civilised warfare and were allowed to get their lesson.' That is, ' the 232 THE WAGES OF OUR SIN military necessities of the situation' speedily converted humane offi- cers into barbarians." . . . " The true remedy, consequently, is not a futile policy of sending out new levies of humane officers, to be turned in due time into un- speakable barbarians, but an honourable course more in consonance with our national ideals. We must restrain our world-power ambi- tions. We must recede from our blood-stained attempt at Philippine, conquest. We must repudiate our whole greedy, grasping, hypo- critical and conscience-deadening policy of benevolent assimilation. It is better to be accused of a national 'scuttle' than to be longer guilty of a national crime." . . . " For, let it not be forgotten, the Filipinos had set up a flourishing and order-preserving republic before the present war began. That republic exercised actual jurisdiction over nearly all the Philippine archipelago, as Gen. Anderson, the first American commander in the Philippines, has testified. In an article in the ' North American Ke- view ' for February, 1900, Gen. Anderson wrote, referring to the period of the surrender of the Spanish in August, 1898 : ' We held Manila and Cavite. The rest of the island was held not by the Spaniards, but by the Filipinos. On the other islands the Spaniards were confined to two or three fortified towns/ " And that occupation was peaceably maintained, the republic being recognised by the inhabitants and law and order prevailing." . . . " The quiet and orderly life of an unoffending people, which our naval cadet, Sargent, observed, has been broken up, and northern Luzon, through which he and Paymaster Wilcox travelled with safety and from which they carried pleasing memories, has been laid waste. The latest dispatches assure us that in all this region peace again prevails. But now it is the peace of the graveyard. Why have we caused this misery? Why have we devastated this country? Why have we remorselessly slaughtered thousands upon thousands of its inhabitants, not only in unequal battle, but also in cold blood after captures? Why have we tortured prisoners to extort information? Why have some of our generals commanded their subordinates to make no prisoners, but to kill all natives over ten years of age? Why do we carry on this contest which breeds inhumanity even in the hearts of the humane ? Is it because , those people resist our as- sumption of sovereignty? Then why did we assert and why do we endeavour to maintain that power over an alien and unwilling peo- ple 10,000 miles away from our shores ? Is it for their good, for their benevolent assimilation? From the President down, we all know that that is not the reason. " One of the real reasons was given by Gen. MacArthur to the Sen- ate committee on the 8th, when, as reported by the ' Chicago Inter Ocean/ a Republican paper, he mixed in with a lot of benevolent phrases and some fantastic evolutionary speculations, a declaration that 'the possession, the permanent possession of the Philippine archi- pelago, is not only of supreme importance, but absolutely essential to American interests/ " That is one of the unvarnished reasons ; and the others are like it, 233 only on a smaller scale. Since the islands are rich in natural wealth, American ' interests' want a chance at the grab. To satisfy those interests, with their greed for gain and lust of power that outrun satisfaction and surpass understanding, we have placed our nation in the pillory, self-convicted of perfidy to an ally, of making a war of conquest upon a weak and friendly people, and of waging the war with a degree of cruelty and inhumanity that forces our own military officers to admit, even if cautiously, that it cannot be called civilised. How much longer shall this republic so stultify its own best ideals ? " How the atrocities practised by the Americans in the Philippines were regarded by some of the ablest papers in the country may be gathered from the following quotations. "Albany Argus," Apr. 30, 1902. "It ought to be evident to everybody that if the subjugation of the Filipinos is to be accom- plished, it can only be done by the methods of extermination which Smith has borrowed from Weyler, sparing neither age nor sex, woman nor child. If the American people mean to deny the Filipinos their independence, they should give Gen. Smith a vote of thanks, and let the tragedy proceed." " Johnstown Democrat," Apr. 30, 1902. " Gen. Smith has shown that he does not intend to be made the scapegoat of the strenuous President. He has boldly admitted that he gave the order which has excited the horror of the whole civilised world and that transcends anything in savagery which ever emanated from a civilised authority. But at the same time he lets the people know that the responsibility rests, not upon him, but upon his superiors." " Chicago Eecord-Herald," May 7, 1902 : " If the island of Min- danao can only be reduced to subjection to our flag by turning it into a shambles and ' wading through a sea of blood ' the American people will turn from the revolting alternative in horror and dis- gust. . . . The President has said that the American flag will ' stay put ' in the Philippines. It cannot and will not stay put there with the consent of the American people at the cost of a war of re- lentless,- vengeful extermination." "Cole County (Mo.) Democrat": "Some of the administration supporters are setting up, as a kind of fictitious apology for the bar- barities practised by the American army in the Philippines, that ' our troops have had great provocation/ This reminds one of Shake- speare's statement, in the original manuscript of his Julius Caesar, that ( Caesar never did wrong without just cause/ for which incon- gruity the immortal hard was taken to task by Ben Jonson, and with such effect that Shakespeare amended the ridiculous line, in ac- cordance with common sense." "New York Tribune," May 1, 1802. "To devastate a country with fire and sword, to make it a 'howling wilderness,' to slaughter its inhabitants indiscriminately, non-combatants as well as combatants, women as well as men, is not legitimate. It is not war. War is hell, but it is not that kind of hell. The Japanese did not do it in their war with China, though, they had dreadful provocation. Our troops did not do so in our Indian wars, though the provocation there was incomparably greater than any that has been offered in the Philip- 234 THE WAGES OF OUR SIN pines. The British did not do so in India, not even after the name- less horrors of Cawnpore. To legitimise such an order now would be to turn back by a century and more the hands upon the dial-plate of time." " Buffalo Enquirer," Apr. 28, 1902 : " What do the vilifiers of a downtrodden race say to such ' savages, Apaches and barbarians ' as Smith and Waller? What do the vaporers of high-flown talk about educating and elevating the Filipinos think of such exponents of advancement as the water-cure fiends ? " "Cleveland Citizen," Apr. 26, 1902. "When one reads of the horrible tortures and massacres that the Filipinos were subjected to at the hands of our ' Christian ' soldiers, one cannot help but wonder whether Cortez and Pizarro and even the arch-fiend himself would not stand aghast at such monstrous crimes." " The Ithaca (N. Y.) Democrat," Apr. 24, 1902. " If these things constitute ' marked humanity and magnanimity/ then panthers, ghouls and hyenas are the gentlest creatures on earth, and all should join with President Roosevelt in approving of ' the conclusions of the secretary of war/ }: " City and State," Apr. 24, 1902. " The point which all who de- sire the Philippine iniquity to be exposed and stopped should now press is this: Open sessions on the part of the 'Philippine investi- gating committee. Senator Lodge claims that these sessions are absolutely free; but he is seriously in error in that assertion, for the following reasons: The three press associations which have a right to be present are the " .Sun," the Publishers and the Associated none other. These are all sympathetic to the administration's Philip- pine policy, and they have obstructed practically the egress of news in time for its prompt consumption by the press. They have given out what they wanted, but not all that a knowledge of vital truth required. In justice to the public there should be an adequate rep- resentation before the committee of the opposition press." " Chicago Evening Post," Apr. 29, 1902. " Those who tell us that 'war is war' and that we must not inquire too minutely into the methods pursued by an army operating among a half-civilised people, are bound to defend not only the water cure and the slaughter of children, but the revival of the methods of the Spanish inquisition the rack, the wheel, the thumb-screw and the total disregard of the restraints imposed by international law and humanity upon civilised warfare. What would the American people have said five years ago if Weyler had issued such an order as Gen. Smith admits having given to his subordinates ? What would they have said if the Spanish authorities and newspapers had excused such an order on the miser- able ground that ' war is war ? ' ' In an article published in a Chicago paper on July 26, 1902, en- titled "Brutal Degeneracy Disgracefully Defended," A. B. Choate wrote as follows: " The administration 'organs and apologists resort to a defence as disgraceful, if possible, as is the offence they seek to mitigate. These men dishonour Abraham Lincoln by calling themselves Republicans, and they seek to hide behind the shroud of Abraham Lincoln by 235 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION citing in justification Order No. 100, which he approved April, 1863. The shamefulness of this attempt is exposed by quoting certain para- graphs of that order which they are careful not to reproduce. Com- pare these paragraphs with the acts sought to be justified by Lincoln's order. THE DEADLY PARALLEL. Paragraph 80, Order No. 100. Honorable men, when captured, will abstain from giving the enemy information concerning their own army, and the modern law of war permits no longer the use of any violence against prisoners in order to extort the desired information. Paragraph 16, Order No. 100. Military necessity does not admit of cruelty . . . nor torture to extort confessions . . . nor of the wanton devastation of a district. Paragraph 44, Order No. 100. All robbery, all pillage or sack- ing, even after taking a place by main force, all rape, wounding, maiming or killing of such inhabit- ants, are prohibited under penalty of death, or such other severe pun- ishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense. Paragraph 15, Order No. 100. Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings responsible to one another and to God. Filipinos who, when captured, re- fuse to give their enemies informa- tion, are not considered honorable for so doing, but are called ' niggers and savages,' and are subject to violence to extort the desired in- formation. The ' water cure ' and other forms of torture and violence are resorted to as a military necessity to extort confessions as to the lo- cation of hidden arms, etc., and Samar was made a howling wilder- ness by order of Gen. Smith as a military necessity in the Philip- pines. Robbery, pillage, sacking and rape have been notoriously com- mon in the Philippines. In May, 1902, in the senate of the United States, Senator Lodge said that the cruelties practiced in the Phil- ippines ' were a source of deep re- gret. That the secretary of war has done all he can possibly do. He has done his entire duty.' If this be true, then it is impossible for the Republicans to conduct their war on the Filipinos according to modern rules of civilised warfare. The Republicans claim to be in partnership with God in this Phil- ippine affair. Destiny put them into the islands, and since they have done their ' entire duty, the responsibility is with God alone.' " Such are the confessedly necessary results of imperialism. The administration admits that it has court-martialed more than 350 officers and men in the Philippines; admits that it has done its whole duty, and ' deeply regrets ' that torture and devastation reign in spite of all it can do; admits that it cannot conduct its war on the Filipinos successfully within the bounds of the rules of modern warfare." A letter by Mr. Joseph Lee, published in the Boston " Transcript," is as follows : 236 THE WAGES OF OUR SIN "By printing the letter of private Weir and the rest of the evi- dence in the case of the torture of Filipinos by Sergeant Edwards by order of Lieutenant Arnold you have helped your readers a long step forward in the understanding of this question of torture in the Philippines. " Your article shows that Weir's letter giving specific details of most revolting torture, ordered by the one officer and executed by the other, was written in April, 1901, and that an investigation corroborat- ing Weir's testimony was reported to the War Department in August, 1901, and yet we know that nothing has yet been done to punish these officers, and the indignation expressed by the War Department, now that the facts are brought out and public expression of their attitude is forced upon them, is directed not against the torturers, but against those who have brought these facts to light. "' These dates show that this evidence was all before Mr. Root when he said that 'he had no further knowledge' concerning Philippine cruelty, and so prevented this case from being brought to light. He had it all when he was so fierce against Miles for daring to hint that all was not sweet in those islands. " Peeling off a strip of flesh by winding it on a stick is not cruelty, then ; nor hanging a man by the thumbs, nor beating, water cure, etc. Either Mr. Root considers these things not cruel, or he what was he doing when he made that statement? How many more stories like this one was he keeping back? This was not a tale of cruelty what is the rest of the story that he could tell us if his definition of what is cruel were less exacting? " Mr. Root has said that the war has been carried on in accordance with the Lieber code. The Lieber code forbids torture. What did the Secretary's statement mean? It is a little too late now for Mr. Root to trust to the complaint that those who are trying to put a stop to such things are * attacking the army.' Did ' the army ' do those things? Somebody, indeed, is responsible; but it is not the army. It is the man who tries to cover up the facts, who lets the evil-doer go unpunished while he attacks those who seek to bring the facts to light. " Some of us believe that the honour of the American army is sound enough and safe enough and pure enough to bear the light of day ; and we are having the conviction more and more forced upon us that the extreme unwillingness of the War Department to have the facts brought to light, that its feverish resentment against anyone who does anything to reveal what has actually been going on in the Philip- pines, grows out of a desire to protect, not the honour of the army, but the political interests of persons much nearer home." From the above we see that we have fallen from that high estate in which we held it dishonourable for prisoners of war to betray their comrades on the one hand, or for captors to seek by torture to extort information on the other, to the inhumane, uncivilised and inquisi- torial level of savages inflicting insufferable agony upon captives for the express purpose of breaking down their moral resistance, corrupt- ing them, and forcing them to violate those very standards of moral- ity which we ourselves have set up. 237 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Mr. Herbert Welsh, of the Philadelphia "City and State,'* _ suc- ceeded in procuring a snapshot photograph, which he has kindly enabled us to reproduce herewith, of an application of the "water torture " in the Philippines. It is a great pity that this horrible sight has not been placed before the American people as a visual example of the effects of "benevolent assimilation " both upon the swallower and the man swallowed. From an illustrated pamphlet entitled " Spanish Torture Under the Stars and Stripes " we extract the following : " It has been said that a man's mind is often subject to three evo- lutionary stages when confronted with a statement opposed to hia views. He declares 1st. It is absolutely untrue ; 2d. It is contrary to the Bible; and 3d. He always did believe it. " This theory seems to be pretty well illustrated in the evolution of the imperialistic supporters of the national administration with re- gard to the torture of Filipinos by our troops in the Archipelago. When it was first charged that the water cure and other tortures were being systematically used by our army in the Philippines for the accomplishment of a military purpose, the assertion was, with marked unanimity, promptly and indignantly denied as absolutely untrue. " The next step of the Imperialists was to assert that these charges of torture were simply sporadic acts of our soldiers under great provocation in retaliation for outrages committed by the Filipinos. To make any mention of them, however, was to ( defame the army.' Besides* it was contrary to General Order N"o. 100, promulgated originally by President Lincoln in 1863, and now, as Secretary Root said, ' the practical and effective guide and rule of conduct to which every officer understands that he must conform.' Then, too, Rule 16 of this General Order explicitly states: ' Military necessity does not admit of cruelty that is, the inflic- tion of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions.' " Secretary Root, in his letter to .Senator Lodge, dated February 17, 1902, said : . . . You will perceive that in substantially every case the report has proved to be either unfounded or grossly exaggerated. 'That such occurrences (water cure, etc.) have been sanctioned or permitted is not true. A constant and effective pressure of pro- hibition, precept, and discipline has been maintained against them. That there has been any such practice is not true. The cases have been few and far between, scattered infrequently over a great area of country along the course of three years of active conflict, through thousands of engagements and among many thousands of troops. That these occasional cases have characterised our army or conduct is not true. . . . The war in the Philippines has been conducted by the American army with scrupulous regard for the rules of civilised warfare, with careful and genuine consideration for the prisoner and 238 a-. CL o 773 si r< -U 2 = O (-, - 5 .2 t* ^ " 11 J iS ^3 ^^ ^ ^ 2 S O A x < THE WAGES OF OUR SIN non-combatant, with self-restraint, and with humanity never sur- passed, if ever equaled, in any conflict, worthy only of praise, and reflecting credit upon the American people.' * " Finally, it is now frankly admitted by those who formerly denied it, that torture, especially the water cure, has been used, not as a retaliatory measure, but for a military purpose i. e., to get infor- mation or guns from the Filipinos. The practice is excused on the ground that it is the only way ' to make them talk ' ; that it has been the means of saving the lives of thousands of natives as well as the lives of our troops; that it is harmless; that it is a good thing, etc. It is significant, however, that this admission was not made until the fact had been indisputably established by the testimony given by over a dozen soldier witnesses before the Senate Philippine Com- mittee." ..:.. . " General Otis, in his report dated May 4, 1900, stated that the native scouts and police in the service of the United States were ruth- less and cruel ; that they did not regard looting as a crime at all, and that they often resorted to torture as a means of eliciting a con- fession. " Governor Taft, in his testimony before the Senate 'Philippine Committee, referring to this matter, said (page 74) : ' I have heard charges of whipping and charges of what has been alluded to as the water cure. They were rife in Manila/ "And again (page 75) : ' What I am trying to do is to state what seemed to us to be the explanation of these cruelties that cruelties have been inflicted ; that people have been shot when they ought not to have been; that there have been individual instances of water cure, that torture which I believe involves pouring water down the throat so that the man swells and gets the impression that he is going to be suffocated and then tells what he knows, which was a frequent treatment under the Spaniards, I am told all these things are true/ " On Dec. 9, 1900, at Banate, Iloilo, Panay, " Father Augustine," a Filipino priest, was done to death by torture. In an able editorial demanding justice in this matter, calling upon the United States to do its duty, a Philadelphia weekly under date of Dec. 11, 1902, said in part: " It is a very disagreeable duty, but they cannot get away from it, one and all, from the greatest to the least, any more than Father Augustine could get away from the grip of Cornelius M. Brownell, of Burlington, Vt., formerly of ' Paine's .Celery Compound/ but now in the insurance business when he was ' giving the nigger ' his last dose preparatory to putting him underground. As we have been asked many times by our friends, 'would you have us scuttle, desert our new responsibilities?' No, by no means, we reply; you must meet them. One of the responsibilities is this in the year 3 of the Empire ; since the flag is not hauled down in the Philippines, you are re- sponsible for the murder of this Roman Catholic priest, committed under its protecting folds, not by one of your officers alone, but by one evidently- in conspiracy with others. Your authorities, instead of do- ing justice to the murdered man and to you you for the time dis- 239 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION graced before the world by that crime have steadily run away from justice and are running now despite what they say to hide that fact." In "The Outlook" of Mar. 22, 1902, appeared an article from which we extract the following : "Between August, 1898, and March, 1901, ten officers, thirty-six soldiers, scouts, and camp-followers were brought to trial in the Philip- pines for ' cruelty to natives and for violation of the laws of war/ Among the cases charged and in most cases proved, were firing into towns, killing of defenceless prisoners, ' torture by causing natives to be hung by the neck for ten seconds/ rape, looting, robbery with vio- lence, and brutal assault. Upon conviction one officer was sentenced to dismissal, with five years 7 imprisonment, six others were repri- manded, eleven private soldiers were put to death, two were fined, twen- ty-one were dishonourably dismissed from the service, with sen- tences of imprisonment ranging from one month to the full term of the offender's life. . . . Two officers of the 27th Volunteer In- fantry caused natives to be hanged by the neck for periods of ten seconds at a time, and Lieutenant Hagedorn of the 16th Eegulars, admits that he put prisoners in the stocks, fed them on salt fish, and kept them without water, until they were forced by thirst to give information." The following is an excerpt from an article by B. 0. Flower, in " The Arena " of June, 1902 : " This treatment (the water cure) consists of placing the victim on his back and pouring water down his throat until the body is so distended as to cause exquisite suffering, which is intensified by the fear entertained by the victim that his stomach will burst. It is a reversion to the brutal spirit that made the days of the Spanish Inquisition the darkest page in the history of Christian Civilisation. " Under the title of * Three Forms of Torture Applied by Amer- icans to Natives in the Philippines/ the " New York World " of April 18th, contained the following, ... of the way our soldiers have tortured the Filipinos. ' Water-Cure, No. 1. This is to extort information from Philip- pine prisoners. The victim is first bound hand and foot and laid on his back on the ground. Great quantities of water are then forced down his throat until he can hold no more. Pressure is then ap- plied to the stomach until some of the water is expelled from the mouth, when more water is forced down. This process is repeated until the victim either gives the information or dies. ' Water-Cure, No. 2. Used to extort information from prisoners and also as a punishment for enlisted men. It consists in tying the victim securely and then pouring ice cold water, a little at a time, on his face or dropping it on the back of his neck or on his head. This is an ancient form of torture, and was used during the Inquisition, sometimes, in preference to the rack or seering with red-hot irons. It is certain to drive the victim insane in a short time, or kill him. 'Progressive Wounding. This is a form of torture practised by officers sometimes when they wish to impress the natives, and it 840 may be compared to the blowing of Indian leaders from the mouth of cannon by the British during the Sepoy Mutiny, except that it is more lingering. The victims are bound to trees and shot not to kill, but merely wound them. If they do not die from loss of blood, they are shot again the following day, and this is kept up from day to day until they die. Three days is usually the limit they can live. The North American Indians formerly used this form of torture, ex- cept that they wounded their victims with arrows. In the testimony given at the court-martial of Major Waller at Manila recently this form of torture was described/ " In the same issue of " The World," Eichard O'Brien, formerly a Corporal in Company M, 26th U. S. Volunteers, now living in New York, gave the following description of the barbarity and wanton brutality of our soldiers practised on the defenceless inhabitants of Barrio la Nog: ' It was on the 27th day of December, the anniversary of my birth/ said Corporal O'Brien, ' and I shall never forget the scenes I wit- nessed on that day. As we approached the town the word was passed along the line that there would be no prisoners taken. It meant that we were to shoot every living thing in sight man, woman, and child. The first shot was fired by the then sergeant of our company. His target was a mere boy, who was coming down the mountain path into the town astride of a caribou. The bo} r was not struck by the bullet but that was not the sergeant's fault. The little Filipino boy slid from the back of his caribou and fled in terror- up the mountain side. Half a dozen bullets were fired after him. The shooting now attracted the villagers, who came out of their homes in alarm, wondering what it meant. They offered no offence, did not display a weapon, made no hostile movement whatsoever, but they were ruthlessly shot down in cold blood men, women, and children. The poor natives huddled together or fled in terror. Many were pursued and killed on the spot. * Two old men, bearing between them a white flag and clasping hands like two brothers, approached the lines. Their hair was white. They fairly tottered, they were so feeble under the weight of years. To my horror and that of the other men in command, the order was given to fire, and the two old men were shot down in their tracks. We entered the village. A man who had been on a sick bed appeared at the door way of his home. He received a bullet in the abdomen and fell dead in the door way. Dum-dum bullets were used in that massacre, but we were not told the name of the bullets. We didn't have to be told. We knew what they were. ' In another part of the village a mother with a babe at her breast and two young children at her side pleaded for mercy. She feared to leave her home, which had just been fired accidentally I believe. She faced the flames with her little children, and not a hand was raised to save her or the little ones. They perished miser- ably. It was sure death if she left the house it was sure death if she remained. She feared the American soldiers, however, worse than the devouring flames.' ' ; Compare for a moment American official orders to "kill all over 1 211 ten years of age " to " obtain information at any cost," to " make a howling wilderness " of a suspected province with the orders and gen- eral instructions issued by the commanding officer of the South of Luzon, Miguel Malvar, for strict compliance in this district : " The generals, chiefs and officers of the army of deliverance will prevent any ill-treatment in word or deed, by soldiers or peasants, of any disarmed, sleeping or drunken enemies and of all those who, throwing their guns down and raising their hands, declare thus their surrender, or of any others that may become prisoners in any way; meting out exemplary punishment to all who act against this order. "They will receive with kindness and courtesy, and accord good treatment to all soldiers, officers and chiefs of the army of invasion who may come to our camp, after leaving their guns at a predeter- mined place, to prevent any deception, conceding to them the best of treatment as specified in previous orders. " At the headquarters, April 28th, 1901. The Commanding General, MIGUEL MALVAR/' Does not this comparison make any self-respecting American blush with shame for his "land of liberty?" * And what is the underlying motive for this national campaign of brutality, falsehood, debauchery, crime and treason? In brief, this. To turn the monopolies of the Philippine islands over to the Standard Oil " crowd " and to Wall Street. In explanation of this statement, we cannot do better than to quote the following editorial from " The Public " of June 25, 1904 : " How thoroughly plutocratic the Philippine conquest was is '* given away ' by that ultra-veracious newspaper correspondent, William E. Curtis, in a recent letter from Manila. Mr. Curtis explains, with graphophonic fidelity, no doubt, why American capital has been so much slower in making investments in Philippine monopolies than was expected. American capitalists fear that the Filipinos will not be as docile as we Americans, under plutocratic dominion. That is rather uncomplimentary to American public spirit, to be sure, but Mr. Curtis writes: 'There is not the slightest doubt that plenty of capital will be offered, and all the transportation facilities needed will be promptly undertaken in the Philippine islands, whenever an assurance can be given that authority will not be turned over to the natives and in- vestors placed at their mercy. . . . Of course, no one can anticipate the action of Congress, but there is not the slightest probability that the Philippine islands will ever be declared independent or that the natives will be given sufficient control of affairs to endanger any investments that may be made here/ " So the truth about the Philippines is leaking out by degrees, often through such unexpected apertures as Curtis's letters, and fools who read as they run may become aware thereof. The object of subjugat- ing the Filipinos by the military power has been to turn the monopolies 243 THE WAGES OF OUR SIN of their country over to the plutocratic wizards of Wall street. A great hullabaloo was raised over the friars' lands question. Yet the friars got those lands through the voluntary concessions of their converts to Christianity. But now railroad franchises and lands are to be turned over to the Standard Oil ' crowd ' and their confreres ; and to perpetuate this iniquity vested rights guarantees are demanded, not only against independence but even against an autonomy that might endanger titles to American monopolies in the islands." Our national congressmen, instead of acting the part of real statesmen building upon absolute ethics and for all time, have turned their backs upon all our high ideals and dearly-purchased liberties, and have descended to the miserable quagmire of a cheap and dis- honourable expediency. "AND SOME ONE LAUGHED." " For a statesman there was with the heart of a fox, Who tricked the nations in turn; And he rubbed his hands as he stood and watched The fires he kindled burn. And he cried aloud in his scorn and pride: ' O ye who would empires make! Go, learn to build with iron and steel, And with blood the cement to slake.' " And another arose, who spoke in his turn : ' Go, forge me a golden chain, To bind me my Empire fast and strong, Against all stress and strain; Go, buy me their hearts with a penny-piece, Lest our labor be in vain.' "And some one laughed men heard the laugh Across the earth and sky: 'Ye builders with blood and iron and gold In the tricks of your trade shall ye die! 4 But learn, if ye can, there is only one True, faithful builder's art To bind in peace, to hold by faith, To build on the unbought heart. 4 For your wisdom is as foolishness And whatever the work of your hands, It shall turn to your hurt, it shall come to naught, It shall crumble to dust as it stands.' " Auberon Herbert, In the Westminster Gazette. Chancellor Stevenson, of N"ew Jersey, in a speech at the State Bar Association delivered at Atlantic City, June 17, 1904, said: "The world is living in a state of international lynch-law where might makes right and where the biggest army and the biggest guns rule." Commenting on this scathing characterisation of present conditions, A Chicago weekly remarks : " International law has gone out of fashion and national holdups have taken its place. Chancellor Steven- 243 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION son honours the thing too much when he calls it lynch-law ; for lynch- law is a crude method of doing justice, whereas this thing is undis- guised freebooting." And what has been the cost of our national crime in blood, in heartache and in money? The testimony of the late Edward Atkinson upon this subject is beyond question and therefore of the utmost importance. In his " The Cost of War and Warfare " he said : " The cost of war and warfare from 1898 to 1903 inclusive has been over $900,000,000. The cost of the war with Spain and of the warfare upon the Philippines to the end of the fiscal year June 30, 1903, had been over $850,000,000, an addition in that fiscal year to the previous charge upon the tax- payers of this country of not less than $150,000,000. This charge is increasing rather than diminishing. At the end of the present calendar year, Dec. 31, 1903, we shall have expended in war and warfare not less than $920,000,000, which sum will be slightly in ex- cess of the outstanding bonded debt of the United States bearing in- terest. Of this sum about $300,000,000 is commonly assigned to the cost of the war with Spain. There is no exact data outside the government accounts by which this can be apportioned. " Over $600,000,000 may be charged by taxpayers to the effort to deprive the people of the Philippine Islands of their liberty. The excess of the expenditures of this country, due to the warfare in the P. I., with the cost of the increase in the regular army and other expenditures engendered by militarism during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, varied but a fraction from $2 per head of the popu- lation. " The conduct of the work of imposing a form of government upon these people without their consent has been administered by able and upright men who have used their utmost efforts to overcome the evils inherent in the conditions. The pretext of developing commerce by holding dominion over these islands has ceased to impose upon in- telligent people. All that we import from the Philippines we may continue to import, whoever holds them the principal article, hemp, being free of duty. " For 20 years, from June 30, 1878, to June 30, 1898, covering the administration of Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland (first), Harrison, and Cleveland (second), the average annual expenditures on the different branches of the government service per capita were as follows : Civil Service, including Indians and Postal deficiency. .$1.48 War dept., including fortifications and other similar work : 75 Navy dept., including the construction of what is known as the ' New Navy ' 35 Interest on the Public debt 90 Pensions, including the very heavy increase during the term of Harrison 1.52 Average $5.00 244 THE WAGES OF OUR SIN The expenditures in 5 years of war and warfare under McKinley and Roosevelt were as follows (annual average) : Civil Service $1.58 War Dept 1.90 Navy Dept 80 Interest 47 Pensions . . . 1.86 Average .$6.61 During the fiscal year ending June 30, the expenditures have been as follows (during a so-called year of peace) : Civil Service 1.77 War Dept 1.47 Navy Dept 1.03 Interest 36 Pensions . . 1.72 Average 6.35 " An excess over the normal of 20 years of peace, order, and indus- try, of one dollar and thirty-five cents ($1.35) per head. " But this does not show the whole case. During the 20 years prior to the Spanish war the cost of pensions and interest was $2.52 per head. Had it not been for debts incurred and pensions to so-called Spanish war veterans, these charges, which had been reduced to $2.08 per head, would not have exceeded $1.88 in the last fiscal year, the falling in of pensions through lapse of time now moving on with accelerating speed. " These differences per head may seem of trifling importance, but, when computed on the population of June 30, 1903, the customary factor by which expenditures are distributed by the Treasury Dept., The excess of expenditures in the civil service at 29 cents per head comes to $23,316,000 The excess of expenditures on the .army at 72 cents per head 57,888,000 The excess of expenditure on the navy at 68 cents per head 54,672,000 The total of actual excess of expenditure during the warfare in the Philippine Islands and the tendency to militarism in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1893 135,876,000 If to this be added 20 cents per head, by which the interest and pension charge would have been diminished except for war and warfare. . 16,080,000 We find that the waste in war and warfare in the last fiscal year, was a fraction less than. . .152,000,000 245 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION " The present tendency is to increase rather than to diminish, and when the expenditures of the present 6 months ending Dec. 30, 1903, are audited, the proof will be complete that the cost of the war with Spain, which a strong administration would have avoided, and the 'criminal aggression' upon the people of the Philippine Islands, which a weak administration, brought upon the country, will have cost the taxpayers $920,000,000, a sum slightly larger than the entire bonded debt of the United States bearing interest, now out- standing. " The pretext of expansion of commerce in the East in justification of closing the door to trade in the 'Philippines to other nations, while strenuously urging the open door in China and other parts of Asia, has been exposed and now excites only derision. In the com- putation of the cost of war and warfare to June 30, 1902, it proved that we have been paying for five years $1.05 per head of our popula- tion to secure an export which amounted to 6^/2 cents per head, on which there might have been a profit to some one at the rate of one cent per head of the whole population. The figures of the last year are even more grotesque. The cost of criminal aggression in the Philippine Islands during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, was not less than $1.25 per head, after making any allowance that any reasonable man could make for the alleged necessity of increasing the army of the United States and building battleships to meet other contingencies. " The exports from the United States to the Philippines have fallen off to less than $.05 per head of our population; had there been a profit equal to one cent on the five cents they would not have fallen off. " The effort to suppress the evidence of torture, devastation, and ruin brought upon the people of these islands has failed, the facts of ' criminal aggression ' have been proved.'" "The Springfield (Mass.) Eepublican " published the following summary of the evidence under oath before 'the Senate Philippine Committee, in regard to the use of the water torture by our soldiers to secure guns and information: " 1. Captain McDonald, .Sergeant Charles S. Eiley, Sergeant Davis, and Private Smith, of the Twenty-sixth Volunteer Infantry, all tes- tified before the Senate Committee that they saw the water torture administered to the native presidente of Igbaras, Island of Panay, November 27, 1900. On the strength of the confession obtained, a town having 12,000 inhabitants was burned to the ground. " 2. Sergeants L. E. Hallock and J. H. Manning, of the Twenty- sixth Volunteer Infantry, testified before the Senate Committee that they saw the water torture administered to twelve natives at Leon, Island of Panay, to secure information as to the disappearance of Private O'Herne, of the same regiment. "3. Private Daniel J. Evans, of the Twelfth Infantry, testified before the Senate Committee that he saw the water torture admin- istered to two natives in northern Luzon to secure confessions. "4. Sergeant Isador H. Dube, of the Twenty-sixth Volunteer Infantry, testified before the Senate Committee that he saw the 246 THE WAGES OF OUR SIN water torture administered in Panay to a native, in the presence of Captain Glenn and Lieutenant Conger. " 5. Lieutenant Grover Flint, of i;he Thirty-fifth Volunteer In- fantry, testified before the Senate Committee that he had seen the water torture administered to at least twenty different natives, at dif- ferent times, in Luzon. Major Geary, his superior officer, was al- ways near and cognisant of the proceedings. " 6. Private K. H. Hughes, of the Eighth Infantry, testified before the Senate Committee, on May 6th, that he saw the water torture administered to a native in Luzon. " 7. George C. Bbardman, of the Twentieth Infantry, testified be- fore the Senate Committee that he saw the water torture administered to a native in Luzon. " 8. Corporal William J. Gibbs, of the Ninth Infantry, testified that he was cognisant of the infliction of the water torture upon a native who died from the results of it. This case was evidently in .Samar. Corporal Gibbs testified that the water used was salt water, mixed with sand ; also that the torture was in common use. " 9. Major Cornelius Gardner, governor of Tayabas province, Luzon, called upon for specifications in support of his allegations, de- clared * that certain United States troops coming from San Pablo, in or near the town of Dolores, tortured a native by the water cure.' " 10. Major Cornelius Gardner also specified that the command- ing officer of Laguimanos tortured a native boy. "11. Major Cornelius Gardner also specified * that troops coming from Lucena or Tayabas on several occasions tortured natives be- longing to the pueblo of Pagbilo/ (Note 'On several occasions' means that several different cases of torture thus occurred). " 12. Among the official reports received at the War Depart- ment may be found the following case : 'A detachment of Macabebes, desiring to elicit information in regard to the whereabouts of a body of insurgents, seised a woman and demanded that she should disclose their position. The woman failing to comply with the demand, the 'water cure* was em- ployed. This was ineffectual, and then some of the men jumped on the woman, who lay on the ground with the water exuding from her lips/ " These Macabebes were United States troops or scouts, with Amer- ican officers, and they were employed in Luzon. " 13. In the official reports received at the War Department is an account of the case of Lieutenant Hagedorn, who, in order to secure confessions, put three natives in the stocks, deprived them of water for two days and nights, and, at the same time, fed them salt fish. Lieutenant Hagedorn reported that 'this diet had excellent results/ Colonel Hood, his superior, commended Lieutenant Hagedorn for ' energetic and valuable service/ although he may have acted ' mis- takenly ' in using torture. " Here are thirteen different exposures of the use of physical torr ture, although the actual number of individual cases of torture repre- sented is very much greater than thirteen, being in the vicinity of fifty. Every one is drawn from the official records of the War De- 247 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION partment or from sworn testimony of soldiers whose veracity has not been impeached. The cases range in point of time as far back as 1900, and they occurred in Luzon, various provinces of Panay and Samar, three different islands. Corporal Gibbs testified that the tor- ture was in 'common use/ Another witness said that there was a regular water-torture < squad ! ' The reader must judge from all these facts whether the use of this torture to secure confessions was sporadic and exceptional or widely prevalent in the army." Nor have we ceased making this shameful history. We are still at our nefarious work. Even as we write the news comes to us of the Moro massacre of Mar. 7 to 9th (1906). Apropos of this subject we give below a letter by Moorfield Storey, President of the Anti-Im- perialist League. " The cable from Manila brings us the news of an exploit by which, in the words of our president, our soldiers ' have upheld the honour of the American flag' and over which this civilised Christian nation is expected to rejoice. What is it? " The island of Jolo is one of the smaller Philippine islands. Its area by the last encyclopaedia is given at 333 square miles, and its population cannot be large, as the same authority gives the population of the whole Sulu archipelago, consisting of 188 islands, with a total area of 2,029 square miles, as 22,620. In a crater at the top of a steep mountain were gathered a body of Moros, or, as Gen. Wood in his official report says, the position was ' defended by an invisible army of Moros.' This place was attacked by our troops, and, to quote the official report, ' all the defenders of the Moros' stronghold were killed. Six hundred bodies were found on the field. . . . The action resulted in the extinction of a band of outlaws.' "What was their offence? Gen. Wood describes it by saying that they were men ' who, recognising no chief, had been raiding friendly Moros, and who, owing to their defiance of the American authorities, had stirred up a dangerous state of affairs.' " A later unofficial report says that ' the families of the Moros re- mained in the villages located in the centre of the crater at the apex of the mountain, and the women and children mingled with the warriors during the battle to such an extent that it was impossible to discriminate, and many were killed in the fierce onslaught.' " The severity of the resistance may be gathered from the fact that though the Moros are described as having an almost impregnable po- sition, our forces lost only 18 killed and 52 wounded. " No prisoners were taken. No wounded remained alive when the conflict was over, and 600 human beings were slain without mercy. Not even women and children in the villages were spared. Every American must regret deeply when any of our brave countrymen are killed or wounded, but that regret must be far greater when they are sent to their deaths for such work as this. " Suppose we had heard that the British had dealt thus with a Boer force, that the Turks had so attacked and slaughtered Armenians, that colored men had so massacred white men, or even that 600 song birds had been slaughtered for their plumage, would not our papers have been filled with protest and expressions of horror ? They ' rec- 248 THE WAGES OF OUR SIN ognise no chief and had been raiding friendly Moros.' What was their side of the story? No man lives to tell it. They have been ex- terminated. Is it possible that this is all the greatest and freest nation in the world, as we like to believe ourselves, can do for a people over whom we insist on extending our benevolent sway ? " This outrage unhappily is only one in a series. The bloody rec- ord of Philippine conquest tells of many battles where Filipinos were killed, but none were wounded and no prisoners were taken ; of sys- tematic torture, of villages destroyed by wholesale, of cruel recon- centrations, of brutality in every form. The responsibility for this cruel policy certainly the responsibility for this last crime is with the President and the secretary of war. If they had really de- sired to stop this, work, they could have done it, but they have taken the opposite course. Save Gen. Smith, who was made a scape-goat when the public conscience was aroused by the horrors of Samar, no officer has been punished for cruelty. Bell, Waller, Howse and others who were the immediate actors have been honoured and pro- moted. Miles, Hunter and others who pleaded for humaner methods have been discredited and abused. Brutality has been rewarded, hu- manity has been punished. The President now congratulates Gen. Wood on his ' brilliant feat of arms ' and praises this wholesale mur- der. It is idle to claim that it was a battle. There is no body of men, women or children not one of whom will ask ior mercy. In no desperate battle are losses so unequal. " The spirit which slaughters brown men in Jolo is the spirit which lynches black men in the South. When such crimes go unpunished, far more when the men who commit them are praised and rewarded, the youth of the country is taught an evil lesson. Eace prejudice is strengthened and the love of justice, the corner-stone of free institu- tions, u weakened. When a man is lynched the community which tolerates the offence suffers more than the victim. When we honour brutality in our army we brutalise ourselves. Our colleges have failed if they have not taught a better civilisation than this, our churches have failed if this is their Christianity. " These Moros were robbers, it is said. Alas, what are we ? We who went as their allies and friends, who made a treaty with them to be kept while it suited our convenience and then repudiated, and who now have ' robbed them of their country, their freedom and finally of their lives. Have they ever injured us that we invade their little island and kill them in their homes ? * They do not know how to govern themselves/ That is our excuse, and how do we govern them ? We have shown them how little we regard our agreements, and when they ' stir up a dangerous state of affairs ' we exterminate them. Thus we teach the Filipinos what American civilisation means. " This nation cannot escape the inexorable law, which was stated by Emerson, ' The dice of God are always loaded. . . . Every crime is punished. . . . Every wrong redressed in silence and certainty.' Why must we persist in a policy which is repugnant to all our beliefs, which has lowered all our standards, which brings us no material profit, which has reduced the unhappy Filipinos to misery and which has placed upon our flag so many indelible stains of which the blood 249 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION shed in the massacre of Jolo is the latest ! Are we so low that we must applaud such deeds? "The responsibility for them in the last resort rests upon the American people. They cannot shift it to their servants unless they condemn such acts. Their silence is approval. Their approval makes them partners in the crime/' Interesting in this connexion is the following poem written by D. H. Ingham for " The Public." "MANIFEST DESTINY." " Benevolent assimilation " Is still at its grewsome task; Not once in its manifold efforts Has fallen the pious mask. Not even when torture of natives Was woven into a jest, Nor at capture of Aguinaldo Through cunning ruse of a guest. Each act was extolled in its season, In a series of similar crimes On our history's page recorded, Of these most prosperous times. Meanwhile we are gazing at Russia, Aghast at her frightful scenes, The blackest of which can but rival Our own in the Philippines. Where " benevolent assimilation " With Machiavellian wiles Still remembers the first " plain duty " We owe to our stolen isles. Where, under a " strenuous " ruler But lately, for duty's sake, Six hundred more natives were lying Like grass in the mower's wake; With their women and children mingled, Crushed into the common grave, Close clinging to husbands and fathers, Out of the question to save. And the wholesale feat was accomplished At only a trifling cost; Of our brave American soldiers Only seventeen were lost. The cheap-won, blood-dyed laurels Belong to General Wood; And our worshipful spoil-appraisers Still call his handiwork good. We boast of our peace-loving rulers, And gains of one-sided war; Our long-sighted national conscience, Spying but evils afar. 250 THE WAGES OF OUR SIN We are used to the trick of glamor, To the windings of disguise, To the steering of wily pilots Through a mist of goodly lies. Evidence of Philippine atrocities might be multiplied almost with- out end, but enough has been written abundantly to prove all we have claimed. We cannot close the subject without an extract from a speech by the late Senator Hoar, delivered in the United States Senate May 22, 1902, and reported in the " Congressional Record," pages 6176-86. Its sound Americanism falls like a balm upon the harried hearts of all lovers of liberty and justice. " Gentlemen talk about sentimentalities, about idealism. They like practical statesmanship better. But, Mr. President, this whole debate for the last four years has been a debate between two kinds of senti- mentality. There has been practical statesmanship in plenty on both sides. Your side have carried their sentimentalities and ideals out in your practical statesmanship. The other side have tried and begged to be allowed to carry theirs out in practical statesmanship also. " On one side have been these sentimentalities. They were the ideals of the fathers of the revolutionary time, and from their day down till the day of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Sumner was over. The sentimentalities were that all men in political right were created equal; that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are instituted to secure that equality; that every people not every scattering neighbourhood or settlement without or- ganic life, not every portion of a people who may be temporarily discontented, but the political being that we call a people has the right to institute a government for itself and to lay its foundation on such principles and organise its powers in such form as to it and not to any other people shall seem most likely to affect its safety and happiness. Now a good deal of practical statesmanship has followed from those ideals and sentimentalities. They have builded 45 states on firm foundations. They have covered South America with repub- lics. They have kept despotism out of the western hemisphere. They have made the United States the freest, strongest, richest of the na- tions of the world. . . . " You also, my imperialistic friends, have had your ideals and your sentimentalities. One is that the flag shall never be hauled down where it has once floated. Another is that you will not talk or rea- son with a people with arms in their hands. Another is that sover- eignty over an unwilling people may be bought with gold. And an- other is that sovereignty may be got by force of arms, as the booty of battle or the spoils of victory. . . . What have your ideals cost you, and what have thev bought for you ? " 1. For the Philippine islands you have had to repeal the Declara- tion of Independence. For Cuba you have had to reaffirm it and give it new lustre. " 2. For the Philippine islands you have had to convert the Mon- roe doctrine into a doctrine of mere selfishness. For Cuba you have acted on it and vindicated it. 251 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION " 3. In Cuba you have got the eternal gratitude of a free people. In the Philippine islands you have got the hatred and sullen sub- mission of a subjugated people. " 4. Prom Cuba you have brought home nothing but glory. From the Philippines you have brought home nothing of glory. " 5. In Cuba no man thinks of counting the cost. The few soldiers who come home from Cuba wounded or sick carry about their wounds and their pale faces as if they were medals of honour. What soldier glories in a wound or an empty sleeve which he got in the Philippines ? " 6. The conflict in the Philippines has cost you $600,000,000, thousands of American soldiers the flower of your youth the health and sanity of thousands more, and hundreds of thousands of Filipinos slain. " Another price we have paid as the result of your practical states- manship. We have sold out the right, the old American right, to speak out the sympathy which is in our hearts for people who are desolate and oppressed everywhere on the face of the earth. Has there ever been a contest between power and the spirit of liberty, be- fore that now going on in South Africa, when American senators held their peace because they thought they were under obligation to the nation in the wrong for not interfering with us ? ". . . This war, if you call it war, has gone on for three years. It will go on in some form for 300 years, unless this policy be aban- doned. You will undoubtedly have times of peace and quiet, or pretended submission. You will buy men with titles, or office, or salaries. You will intimidate cowards. You will get pretended and fawning submission. The land will smile and smile and seem at peace. But the volcano will be there. The lava will break out again. You can never settle this thing until you settle it right." Looking at the Philippine episode from a purely business stand- point " The .San Francisco Star " printed the following in the sum- mer of 1903 : " It has been some time since any Eepublican paper has dared to claim that the Philippines will ' pay/ The facts are too apparent for even the most exuberant political imagination to over- come. If we could make a profit of ten per cent, on every dollar's worth of goods we sell to the Philippine islands, it would take us more than a thousand years to get back what we have already expended. If we could increase our present trade 100 per cent., and make a. profit of ten per cent, on every sale, it would about defray the cost of main- taining there two regiments of American soldiers. Some of our mili- tary officers say it will be necessary to maintain there an army of from 30,000 to 50,000 men. An army of 30,000 men, kept there for a single year, would consume the profits on our present exports for 150 years. Besides all this, it is to be remembered that our exports are chiefly for the needs of the army and the camp-followers. If we should cease paying the bills, the market would disappear. The Philippines invasion is simply an expensive crime." From the Appendix to " Documentary Outline of the Philippine Case " we extract the following family record and poem. 252 THE WAGES OF OUR SIN The First Break in the Family Eecord. 1750-1775. In Memory of William Tomilson, Killed in the Battle of LEXINGTON, While Fighting Bravely for Liberty. 1774-1814. In Memory of George W. Tomilson, Killed in the Battle of LUNDY'S LANE, While Fighting Bravely for Liberty. 1812-1862. In Memory of Thomas J. Tomilson, Killed in the Battle of FAIR OAKS, While Fighting Bravely for Liberty. 1849-1898. In Memory of Andrew J. Tomilson, Killed in the Battle of SAN JUAN, While Fighting Bravely for Liberty. 1872-1899. In Memory of Abraham L. Tomilson, Killed in the PHILIPPINES, While Fighting Bravely. "PRO PATRIA." By John Lowth. Strange that a nation strong and free, Tradition's darling, and the hope of earth, Should train its rapid guns to scourge The dusky children of the sea. Strange that the Pilgrims' later sons, Unblushing, scathe with sword and strife, The island home of those whose guns Are poised for Freedom's very life. Thou spirit of our country's birth, Which moved when Concord's guns rang out, Which fashioned from the choice of earth A nation brave, strong, prosperous, free, Come, rebaptize thy chosen sons, And reaffirm " all men are peers," And blot our blushing nation's shame From out the record of the years. 253 BOOK VI CHAPTER I. OUR LAND GRAFT CHAPTER II. THE DESPOLIATION OF THE PEOPLE CHAPTER III. THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE LAW, STRIKES AND INJUNCTIONS CHAPTER IV. THE COURTS vs. JUSTICE 355 Properly speaking, the land belongs to these two: To the Almighty God; and to all his Children of Men that have ever worked well on it, or that shall ever work well on it. No generation of men can or could, with never such solemnity and effort, sell Land on any other principle: it is not the property of any generation. Thomas Carlyle, in " Past and Present." There be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves. Merchant of Venice. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box; his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful singer, he kept not time. Merry Wives of Windsor. The land question means hunger, thirst, nakedness, notice to quit, la- bour spent in vain, the toil of years seized upon, the breaking up of homes, the misery, sickness, deaths of parents, children, wives, the de- spair and wildness which spring up in the hearts of the poor, when legal force, like a sharp harrow, goes over the most sensitive and vital rights of mankind. All this is contained in the land question. Cardinal Manning. In vain we call old notions fudge And bend our conscience to our dealing. The Ten Commandments will not budge And stealing will continue stealing. Motto of American Copyright League. The ordinary progress of a society which increases in wealth is at all times tending to augment the income of landlords, to give them both a greater amount and a greater proportion of the wealth of the community, independently of any trouble or outlay incurred by themselves. They grow richer, as it were, in their sleep, without working, risking or economising. What claim have they, on the general principle of social justice, to this accession of riches? John Stuart Mill. 256 CHAPTER I OUR LAND GRAFT TIME-HONOURED way of characterising men who are hopelessly dishonest is to say in colloquial figure of speech, " They will steal anything that isn't spiked down/' This metaphor, in view of recent disclosures, is rapidly losing its literary significance. .So cor- rupt have become these United States of Dollardom that spiking down does not afford the slightest protection against theft; in fact, the very worst thefts to our credit have occurred in connection with a thing of all things in the world most securely " spiked down/' These atrocious land crimes have been consum- mated with an effrontery which is astounding and upon a scale which is appalling. If the Reader happen to be one of those who expect social ameli- oration through legislation, let him reflect that these thefts which we are about to narrate were consummated with the full knowledge of the Interior Department, particularly of the General Land Office. They have known of the thefts, we are told, since their inception. The department of justice is equally well aware of them. Congress in particular is chargeable with the full and guilty knowledge of this colossal crime. We have seen how 200,000,000 acres of land were, with fatuous generosity, bestowed by Congress upon the railway companies, an area as great as the combined areas of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Con- necticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela- ware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina, and we are now to see how during the last fifteen years at least 150,000,000 acres, the equivalent in area of thirty states the size of Massachusetts have been stolen and added to this stupendous total of alienated lands. Moreover, the best authorities assert that, when the full truth is known the 150,000,000 acres now known to have been stolen will very probably be swelled to 300,000,000 acres, or an area approximately equivalent to one hundred states the size of Connecticut, or more than seven times the gross area of all New England! Is a legislature which will permit such wholesale robbery of the people of the United States a very promising body for that people to appeal to in the name of justice to right its wrongs or ameliorate its sufferings? As well beseech a highwayman to restore the purse he has just secured at the point of a pistol. When social regeneration comes, it will begin at the outside of the body politic and work to- ward the centre. Corruption is concentrative, reform will be dispersive. Every grafter wants to centralise government more and more. There is 17 257 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION nothing he is more afraid of than the people. Urge municipal lighting in a town or city, and straightway these gentry raise a cry that they are afraid the thing will " get into politics/' They have prac- tised saying this till they do not show by the flicker of an eyelash, the quiver of a muscle, or the slightest vocal suggestion of a circum- flex inflection, that they are aware that all these public-service cor- porations maintain active lobbies and expend immense sums for persistent political and legislative corruption. Paraphrasing Na- poleon's characterisation of the Eussians, we may say, Scratch an advocate for governmental centralisation and you will find a grafter, in spirit if not in fact. It seems a fitting place here to assure the Reader that the Gil- lette plan for social redemption looks for no aid from Congress or from any State legislature, neither does it seek to work through any political party. For the intelligence of those who seek to abate the awful social injustice now obtaining by joining forces with po- litical corruptionists for the sake of their party machinery, Mr. Gil- lette has no higher opinion than justice warrants. His plan for the redemption of society is in its last analysis decentralising, as indeed any plan must be which guarantees beyond a peradventure to every person living under it the widest possible liberty compatible with equal liberty. The social evolution of the race is ever toward greater liberty, and any plan for the betterment of humanity which contemplates narrowing this ever widening range of individual freedom defies the most solemn mandates of nature. Had there been any virtue in concentration this land would never have been alienated from those for whom it was intended, and the victims of this and the many other robberies similarly perpetrated would not now be clamoring for election of senators by direct vote of the people, for the initiative, the referendum and the power of recall, in short, would not be girding themselves to the task of saving, in spite of their legislators, what little is possible from the wreckage caused by the mis-repre- sentatives who, for a lobbyist's mess of pottage, have shamefully betrayed them. Add together 200,000,000 acres of land given to the railroads and the 150,000,000 known to be stolen, and you have the tidy total of 350,000,000 acres, an area capable of supporting a population more than three times greater than the present population of the United States. Consider for a moment what this means. 350,000,000 .acres is 546,875 square miles. Estimating the present population of the United States at some- thing less than eighty-four millions and the average family to con- tain, say, five persons, though this is an overestimate, the figures in 1900 being 4.7 persons per family, we find that every family in the United States has been robbed of a farm of more than 20 acres area. When we wonder at the poverty which stares us in the face on every hand, it is well to remember that every man, woman and child in our great country has been robbed of the means of a hand- some competence by the very legislature originally designed for their protection. OUR LAND GRAFT In proof of our contention that this alienated land would support a population three times as great as our present population we submit the following table of areas and populations of various localities to show that a smaller territory is actually doing so at the present writ- ing. Name. Area. Population. England 50,839 sq. miles. 32,536,075 Wales 7,470 " " Scotland 29,785 Ireland . 32,583 Islands 302 Japan with Formosa 147,655 Italy 110,550 Netherlands 12,648 Belgium 11,373 Switzerland 15,976 Denmark 15,388 Alsace-Lorraine 5,600 Porto Eico 3,606 Hawaii 6,449 Saxony 5,787 Baden 5,821 Wurtemburg 7,528 Hamburg 158 Bremen 99 Brunswick 1,424 Bavaria 29,282 Hesse 2,965 Mecklenburg-Schwerin 5,135 Saxe- Weimar 1,388 Anhalt 906 Saxe-Meiningen 953 Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 755 Saxe-Altenburg 511 Lippe 469 Keuss (Younger Line) 319 Mecklenburg-Strelitz 1,131 Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt 363 Schwarzburg-Sondershausen .... 333 Lubeck 115 Waldeck 433 Schaumburg-Lippe 131 Tahiti 600 West Indies 138 Servia 18,630 Hayti 10,204 Guam 200 Bermuda 19 Barbadoes 166 Malta, &c 122 Total ,546,309 359 4,471,957 4,456,546 150,599 49,732,952 32,475,253 5,347,182 7,074,910 3,315,443 2,464,770 1,719,470 953,243 154,001 4,202,216 1,867,944 2,169,480 768,349 224,882 464,333 6,176,057 1,119,893 607,770 362,873 316,085 250,731 229,550 194,914 138,952 139,210 102,602 93,059 80,898 96,775 57,918 43,132 10,300 30,527 2,493,770 1,294,400 9,000 17,536 195,600 188,141 168,789,298 In summing up the table we see that 546,309 square miles is now supporting 168,789,298 persons, while the American public has been robbed of 546,875 square miles, an excess of 566 square miles over the combined areas of the above table. The total land area of that portion of the United States east of the Mississippi Eiver is 854,805 square miles. The total area of lands known to have been alienated as aforesaid is 546,875 square miles. It will be seen, therefore, that the American people have been despoiled of a landed area equal to more than 63% of all the land east of the Mississippi Eiver! And this with the knowledge, yea, the connivance, of Congressmen chosen to safeguard the peo- ple's interests ! The following diagrams, slightly altered, are reproduced from pages 43 and 57 of Bolton Hall's " Free America/' The first shows that 54:% of the families own neither farms nor homes; 15% par- tially own farms or homes while only 31% actually own farms or homes free and clear. The second answers those who contend that poverty results from overcrowding. We quote the following from "The Menace of Privilege" by Henry George, Jr. " Much of the land of the United States, especially the Western and .Southern farming land, is held in large tracts. For instance, the Texas Land Syndicate No. 3 .owns 3,000,000 acres in Texas, in which such English noblemen as the Duke of Eutland and Lord Beresford are largely interested. Another syndicate, the British Land Company, owns 300,000 acres in Kansas, besides tracts in other States. The Duke of Sutherland owns hundreds of thou- sands, and Sir Edward Eeid controls 1,000,000 acres in Florida. A syndicate containing Lady Gordon and the Marquis of Dalhousie controls 2,000,000 acres in Mississippi. " But these holdings become as nothing beside some of the stealings of the Western land thieves. The extent of their operations is al- most beyond belief." In his cyclopedic work, "The Story of New Zealand/' Mr. Frank Parsons says : " The United States has given enormous quantities of the people's land and money to railway corporations, more than enough sometimes to build and equip the whole road, but the people do not own a mile of these railways; the private companies own them all. New Zealand, too, has put the people's land and money into railways, but it keeps the roads it pays for to be the property of the people. New Zealand believes that when she invests the nation's money, the investment should belong to the nation and not to a pri- vate company." In " Free America " Mr. Hall says : " As a sample of the manner in which America has been disposed of, take the grants to railways. To record all the wholesale throwing away of the people's land would take a book of this size. Here are a few items. To the Northern Pacific Eailway 42 million acres were given; to the Union Pacific 16 million; to the Central Pacific 15 million; and to the Southern Pa- cific 14 million. The Texas Pacific Eailway got 13 million acres. The Oregon Central, a comparatively short road, got 4,700,000. The 260 .s OUR LAND GRAFT Burlington & Missouri Railway was presented with 3,373,000 acres. And the list might be continued until a total was reached of over 200 million acres given to railroads alone. " Do you realise what this means ? It means that a few corpora- tions, which received also franchises of enormous value, have been given a greater acreage of fertile lands than the entire land area now included in the thirteen original states. Suppose the proposi- tion had been made in 1789 to give all the states won from the British at the cost of so many lives, to a few companies. What would Washington or Jefferson have said? " Then turn to private land-owners and syndicates. During the past fifty years almost the entire area of the fertile lands west of the Mississippi has been gobbled up, part of it being subsequently sold to actual settlers, and the rest held as a speculation until in- creasing population should force the public to yield to extortionate terms. Among these forestallers of natural resources are reported the Texas Land Syndicate No. 3, owning 3,000,000 acres in Texas, in which such titled foreigners as the Duke of Eutland and Lord Beresford of the English nobility are large owners. Another syn- dicate, the British Land Company, owns 300,000 acres in Kansas alone, besides other lands in various states. The Duke of Suther- land owns hundreds of thousands of acres in Florida, and Sir Ed- ward Reid controls 1,000,000 acres also in Florida. A syndicate of which Lady Gordon, the Marquis of Dalhousie and other titled Brit- ishers are members, controls nearly" 2,000,000 acres in Mississippi. As these lands cannot be used without payment to their so-called ' owners/ it is evident that a good many citizens of this republic are contributing, or must contribute when they have to use land in these states, to the support of that foreign aristocracy from which our forefathers believed we had been forever freed. " Nor is the ownership of America by foreigners confined to the aristocracy. Plain Patrick .Scully, an Irishman, managed a number of years ago to secure possession of large tracts of land in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. The income from these lands, as fast as they found tenants, was used to buy more land, so that Mr. Scully now owns about 300,000 acres. Whether it is any easier for a tenant farmer to pay rent to a ( Mr/ than to a * Sir ' or a ' Duke ', is a question which awaits an answer. In fact Scully is often spoken of as ' Lord ' Scully. " There is, however, a growing sentiment in America against alien ownership of land, and it has been urged by many reformers that Congress should pass a law forbidding aliens to own land in this country. This suggests the further question, whether it is any easier to pay rent to a citizen of Boston or Baltimore than to a citizen of London or Berlin. " What has been done by the syndicates and by Mr. Scully has been done on a smaller scale by thousands of other corporations and land lords, until now there remains, in all the great territory of the United States, practically no land of any present or probable value which can be used without paying someone for its use. East, West, North or South, wherever wheat or cotton, corn or sugar or anything 263 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION can be profitably raised, everywhere there is the sign ' No Trespassing Allowed.' The man who wants to work on the soil finds that in every direction some one has been ahead of him and has obtained the exclusive title to the use of all the land that is worth anything. To- day a baby has no right to be born on the land, or even to be buried in "it, unless someone will pay for its grave. " And as with farm' lands, so also with timber and mineral lands. The pines of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, the gigantic red- woods and other timber of the Pacific slope, the dense forests of Florida and Mississippi, and the spruce woods of Maine, all have owners who demand ' stumpage ' for each tree cut. It is true that some of these forests are owned by companies which cut the lumber from them, but in these cases the charge for permission to work on timber lands is just as certainly paid by those who use the lumber. No tree is so remote from civilisation as not to have an owner, who takes care that no idle workman shall employ his time in converting it into a useful article. " The control of mineral lands is still closer than that of farm or timber land. The great anthracite coal deposits of Pennsylvania are in the firm grip of a few persons and railway corporations who well know the enormous value of their exclusive privileges. Having control of the only anthracite coal mines in the country, these men and companies have combined to limit the production of coal and to raise its price. So effectively has this combination worked that the price of coal is now, on an average, one dollar per ton more than it was five years ago, and the increasing demand for coal enables the combine to give the screw other turns and force the price higher and higher. " They force the price up notwithstanding the superabundance of coal. President Fowler, of the New York, Ontario & Western B. E., testified in 1900 that 'without some restriction/ by which he meant railroad control, 'coal would be a drug in the (New York) market at $2 a ton/ You can read all about the anthracite coal monopoly at the end of Dan Beard's ' Moonblight/ " The fields in which bituminous coal is found being nearly one hun- dred times larger than the anthracite fields, it has not been so easy to control its production. Yet every known coal seam, even in the remote mountains of Tennessee, Colorado or Montana, is ( owned ' by some one. You can see on the 'Pennsylvania coal roads four thousand cars as big as houses, all marked Berwind-White Coal Com- pany. But most of the fields are owned by people who do not in- tend to mine coal but who expect to charge others royalties for the privilege of mining. Every ton of coal which goes to furnish power for hauling freight or turning mill-wheels must pay a tax or royalty to the lord of the land out of which it is dug. '' The same is true of iron ore, one of Nature's most important gifts to mankind. In the mountains of Pennsylvania, of West Virginia, of Tennessee and Alabama, and in the ' ranges ' of Northwest Mich- igan and Minnesota there are immense bodies of the raw material for the various products of the iron and steel industries." :< The total area of land granted by Congress for building railwavs 264 J OUR LAND GRAFT was 215,000,000 acres; though not all railways were built. The land office estimated that the area taken was 178,000,000 acres. (Ex. Doc. 42., Forty-sixth Congress) . But some railways fenced in much more land than was granted to them. And in addition to the na- tional grants, the State of Texas gave 38,000,000 acres to rail- ways." . . . " The Anthracite Strike Commission accepted as accurate the state- ment that 91 per cent, of the anthracite lands are owned by the six railroads and their subsidiary companies, and 5 per cent, more are controlled by them. (Report Dept. Labor, May, 1903, page 448). There are only about 150 individual owners." . . . " It would only waste time to detail how other natural resources are grabbed. You know how the .Standard Oil Trust has got the valuable oil fields and how it has its agents continually on the watch for the new wells. Just as soon as a prospector ' strikes oil' along comes an agent and buys up the tract of land in which the oil has been found. Not in order to produce oil there is as much oil already being produced as can be sold at present prices but to keep the land under its own control so that there will be no new compe- tition. " On this question of the ownership of land and the burden it lays on the people, the Hon. Henry A. Robinson, formerly statistician of the United States Department of Agriculture, says that in 1890 ' The total royalty of the mines worked, stumpage of timber paid, the rent of the water-power and ground rent of building sites amounted to at least $935,000,000.' " Mr. Robinson was not figuring on interest on mortgages, rents for railway and franchise grants, and other like items which enormously swell the total." In " Everybody's Magazine," of May, 1905, is an article by Bailey Millard, entitled " The West Coast Land Grafters." Preceding this is the following note by the editor : " In 1850 Henry Miller landed in this country, a poor German butcher boy. To-day he is owner of 14,539,000 acres of the richest land in California and Oregon more than 22,500 square miles, a territory three times as large as New Jersey! How did he get it? Well, here's a statement that shows how some other Land Kings of the West -Coast got their hold- ings, and describes the amazing, stupefying graft in the land busi- ness of the West, and the questionable practices for which Senator Mitchell and Congressman Hermann of Oregon stand indicted to- day. Here are given details showing how the Government and the home-seekers have been plundered. The career of John A. Benson, from his start as a land surveyor, through his fraudulent titles, his false measurements, his imaginative maps, to his selling back to the Government lands stolen from it, is vividly presented. The Oregon situation, with its indicted .Senator, Representatives, and United States District Attorney, is clearly described. So many prominent men have been indicted for Land Graft that to give their names would be, says Mr. Millard, ( a sort of roll-call of nearly all who have secured large holdings of fertile lands in Oregon and Cali- fornia ! ' And this is only a beginning." 265 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Mr. Millard explains in detail how these great land crimes were committed. He says by way of establishing a point of departure: " Now, many times before I had heard of land frauds and had taken them for granted, as have other landless and incurious citizens; but when the busy, buzzing machinery of the great ring of grafters was thus vividly exposed to my view, i became subtly alive to the mean- ing of these things. Since then I have been making a study of the manner in which the land kings of the Pacific Coast acquired their tremendous holdings, and have been pursuing the question of land frauds generally, beginning with the manipulation of the old Spanish and Mexican grants in California, and looking into the homestead, school-land, timber-land and forest-reserve iniquities in that State and in Oregon. And I will say right here and my language is plain, that such a mass of fraud you will find nowhere else on earth. And it is all based upon that insinuating, self-serving, and wonderfully elastic thing which I call Land Conscience. Land Con- science is common enough. A man who would not dream of taking money from his employer's till, a man who, as a juror, would spurn a bribe, a man recognised as a person of probity, is as likely to be possessed of a smooth, easy-going, self-deceptive Land Conscience as the gentleman who goes forth 'o'nights with a jimmy. " When the sense of honour of a United States Senator, two Repre- sentatives, a Commissioner of the General Land Office, a United States District Attorney, a half-dozen Surveyors-General, and other high Federal officials, will not restrain such persons from permitting themselves to be enlisted on the side of graft one can see that this Land Conscience may be lulled as by a Circean song. The enmesh- ing in the legal net, by indictment after indictment, of- Senator John H. Mitchell, Representatives Binger Hermann and John N. Williamson, and United States District Attorney John H. Hall, on charges of conspiracy against the Government to gain possession of hundreds of thousands of acres of valuable land in Oregon, though it may be more conspicuous and more arrestive of the public sense than other affairs of the kind, is merely incidental to the great campaign of Graft in West Coast land affairs." He refers to John A. Benson as "the King of the land grafters," and details methods employed by his majesty which for unblushing effrontery, and barefaced dishonesty remind one of the works of " The System " as described by Mr. Lawson. Mr. Millard says of Benson : " It was while working about the Coast with transit and pole that the poor young surveyor saw the possibilities of rolling up a large fortune that awaited the touch of the cunning hand of Graft. After a little study he became versed in the history of the land frauds in California. In the course of that study he saw how Jose Limantour, in collusion with a former Mexican Governor of Cali- fornia, had easily stolen a million acres. He saw how old grants had been stretched to include three times their original territory. He saw how the Mariposa grant, originally in the form of a plain quadrangle, was ' floated ' miles and miles out of its first boundaries, to take in valuable outlying mines, until it had assumed the form of a boot. He saw how one grant, a square, inoffensive-looking af- 266 OUR LAND GRAFT fair on the map, had stretched forth legs and antennae here and there, until it looked for all the world like a huge tarantula. He saw how the Los Meganos tract, in Contra Costa County, had been repeatedly stretched until twenty-five square leagues of land had been claimed when only three could be located by proper metes and bounds. He learned how, in measuring the grant-lands, the sur- veyors of the old days would take a riata of a certain length instead of a chain and stretch it and their Land Conscience as far as they could, and then drive the stakes anywhere. " He saw that although no one man could legally acquire more than 1,120 acres under any combination of the public-land acts, yet, as a matter of fact, single individuals and companies owned vast tracts which a few years before were in the hands of the Government. "All these things John Benson saw; and he determined to profit by the understanding. He resigned as deputy surveyor and mapped out a magnificent plan of action, which comprehended the obtaining of large contracts for the surveying of Government lands, the em- ployment of men to act as his deputies in the field, the securing of allies and confederates in the local land offices and those of the vari- ous surveyors-general, and even of reaching over to Washington and enlisting men in the General Land Office to help him to millions. " There had been def rauders of the land department before rob- ber-bees that had buzzed about and belted themselves with golden rings but Benson^ with his far-seeing eye, visualised a system be- side which all the schemes in this line looked like petty larcenies. For, after all, the operations of the whisky ring, of the Star Koute swindlers, of the Belknap frauds, have been as nothing to those of the land grafters of California and Oregon." Benson even carried his graft into official Washington. He main- tained such an active agency there that whenever there was any hint that a special agent was to investigate his work he was able to have the agent summarily removed. At last a man named Conrad, a particularly shrewd special agent, was sent to California to investigate his work. Of this incident Mr. Millard says : " Conrad studied the stupendous scheme of fraud to such purpose that within six months he had put upon paper a full statement of the operations of the Benson gang. Before he had an opportunity to submit his report he was quietly forced to resign at the instance of Benson, the Washington end of whose machine was still in full working order. But other agents and other reports followed, and in 1886 the heavy hand of the Government reached out for John A. Benson. Both civil and criminal suits were begun the' initial steps in a prosecution in which no fewer than eighty-six indictments have been filed against Benson and his colleagues a prosecution that has cost the Government thousands of dollars and up to the present has not deprived the -shrewd surveyor of his liberty for more than brief periods of time, and, as he boasts, has not cost him so much as an hour's sleep." Benson pursued several methods of defrauding the government. For example he would secure personally or through a dummy a con- tract to survey and furnish maps and field-notes of townships. This 267 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION work would be estimated at the highest rate allowed by law and Benson through his " pals " at Washington would often secure many times the amount called for by the contract. For example a con- tract for survey of eighteen California townships stipulated a maxi- mum price of $1800, but Benson received nearly seven times that amount, viz., $12,168.39. In the case of another contract calling for $3,000, this and no more, he received of the government for his beautiful map and field-notes the tidy sum of $30,139.40 ! And these artistic maps and instructive field-notes, how were they prepared ? Let Mr. Millard answer : " Simply by * faking ' the surveys, which were made in back offices in San Francisco by men who did not go within a hundred miles of the land. The surveyor would take .a county map, which showed some of the more prominent topographical features. That would give him a field to work upon where there was no need to weary himself by dragging a jingling chain through the brush. From this map he could make up a fanci- ful survey-plot on a larger scale, showing land-monuments, blazed trees, rocks, hills, and other natural objects for the prescribed metes and bounds. Often blazed trees would be put into an utterly treeless plain, and branches of streams would be made to run three to four miles out of their true course. It is a noteworthy fact that the maps of these surveys were among the finest ever sent to the sur- veyor-general's office. They were things of beauty, full of fine de- tails, and so satisfactory that, at first, there was not the slight- est hesitation on the part of the officials in signing warrants in pay- ment for them. ... In less than five years Benson made over $2,000,000 out of his contracts ; but as he was always a free spender, he was often hard pressed for funds. In 1882 he was forced to as- sign, but the banks advanced money on new surveys and he went blithely on." Elsewhere Mr. Millard says : " Often for whole seasons the field- work of the Benson gang was the merest sham. In the California counties of Sonoma, Mendocino, and Monterey, township after town- ship for which survey-plots were made and field-notes written up was never seen by the surveyor. In central Monterey County, where mile after mile of lines was supposed to have been run, not a stake was driven. Men who tried to locate land under the homestead or timber-claim acts could not find a single corner. And .yet the Gov- ernment accepted the Surveys and paid Benson, in the name of his dummies, hundreds of thousands of dollars for them. . . . Spe- cial agents were set to work in a manner so secret that Benson, with all his boasted knowledge of Government land affairs, did not know what they were doing. These agents worked for two years and dis- covered many other things beside fraudulent surveys. They found that where the Benson gang had done real work or made a show of doing it by throwing stakes out of a moving wagon, by collusion with the surveyors-general, they were often paid from six to ten times as much as they were really entitled to for doing good work." Another fraudulent method consisted in bribing dummies to per- jure themselves by taking up land under an agreement to deed it to Benson while swearing under oath that they wanted it for them- 268 OUR LAND GRAFT selves and were not acting in collusion with any other party or par- ties. Says Mr. Millard : " In one case four dummies went before a corrupt notary and took up forty timber claims, for which the notary received $400 in fees $10 for each entryman. A man would come into the office as Jones, then go out and come in as Smith, and repeat the operation ten times. Hundreds of such dummies were em- ployed. They were, for the most part, ranch-hands, stenographers, sailors, stevedores, and colored janitors. The papers were all signed in blank and the men who did the signing rarely knew the nature of their contents. Each dummy received a small- sum for his services and was satisfied. The making of final proof was a matter of little concern to the conspirators, for they had a cohort of men ready to swear they knew the land, had lived upon it for the prescribed length of time, and were locating upon it for their own and for nobody else's benefit. .Some of the syndicates which grabbed king- doms made contracts with the grafters to furnish final proofs at so much per application. ... In the early days four dummies went forth to locate land in the Sacramento Valley for Moneyed Principals. By a simple plan the years of actual residence required by law were reduced to the lowest terms. A wagon, with a few boards nailed over the top of it, was drawn over the corner-stake of four quarter-sections, all of which were taken up. The wagon served as the house which each man was required to erect by the provisions of the law. Its four corners were so placed as to cover the four corners of the land and in each corner an entryman slept as soundly as if the Land Conscience were something remote and trivial. The wagon was moved about from corner to corner, and it did not take long for the Moneyed Principals to acquire a large territory. The grafters practised many other neat little frauds. One man made his residence in a house two feet high, six feet long, end three, feet wide, which he removed at will from one quarter- section to another. " But the dummy has shown more iniquitous energy in locating swamp and overflow lands than in any other way. These lands, situated in various parts of California, were sold by the State to private individuals in tracts not to exceed 320 acres to any one per- son, at $1.25 per acre, provided the land should be reclaimed. But by the use of dummies one of the land kings secured over 17,000 acres, and another 31,000. It was in the reclamation business that Comedy peeped forth in the schemes of the grafters. Much of the land was in the foot-hills and mountains, where there were large vacant tracts suitable for grazing. These tracts were often glacial meadows, partly overflowed in the spring, but dry during the sum- mer, when the cattle ranged over them. Hundreds of thousands of acres of these meadows were applied for as swamp land. The act of reclamation was charmingly simple. The Land Conscience of the dummy was appeased by the mere dragging of a hoe over the ground for twenty or thirty yards. Down in Visalia they will show you a historic hoe that has reclaimed 30,000 acres of rich grazing-lands." Mr. Millard goes on to state that one hundred men in the great Sacramento Valley have come to own more than 17,000,000 acres. 269 while in the San Joaquin Valley it is not an uncommon thing to find a single name standing for 100,000 acres. " These/' says Mr. Millard, " are only little extracts from the main body of testimony, in which many other vast tracts were described in the same loose manner. It was shown that in all Mr. Mil lei- owned and managed 22,717% square miles ! In Fresno County alone his holdings were 921,600 acres, while in Humboldt and Washoe Coun- ties, Nev., they were over 3,500,000 acres, and in Harney and Grant Counties, Oregon, they were nearly 7,000,000. But think of the aggregate 22,717% square miles, or 14,539,200 acres! That is a territory as large as the four States of New Hampshire, Massa- chusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware! It is three times as large as New Jersey! It is twice as large as Belgium! It is bigger than Switzerland, it is much larger than Denmark, it is greater than all Greece! " Then there is the Kingdom of Haggin, a most delectable domain ; the Kingdom of Tevis, the ruler of which has been called to a still greater estate; the Kingdom of Jack, which includes nearly half of Monterey County, Cal., and portions of adjacent counties. And besides these there is many another noble monarchy. Of the King- dom of Carr it may be remarked that around it are stretched over 100 miles of barbed wire, inside of which are whole sections of Government land, which to enclose is unlawful, and over which a holder can have only a scrambling and tortious possession, as the law-books call it. " And these great kingdoms are not the land of the lean kine, but of the fat; not the land of the darnel, but of the full-headed wheat the land of the fig, the olive, and the vine much of it the richest, fairest land that lies under the blue arch of heaven." The article narrates how Benson formed an alliance with Fred- erick A. Hyde, whose " operations in taking up whole townships by means of dummy entrymen attracted Benson's attention/' and how the two formed a plan to obtain possession through dummies of large tracts of State school-lands and other lands, and to " dispose of them on highly advantageous terms to the United States Govern- ment itself!" In this connexion Mr. Millard says : " Thousands of acres of the school-lands ' stood on end/ as the real-estate men say in the Sierras and the foot-hills. Generally they were of little value, being covered by chaparral and dotted with granite boulders. How was it possible to unload such land upon the Government? Simply by interesting its trusted officers in the plan. The Government was making forest reservations in California and indemnifying holders of land forfeited for that purpose by giving them acre for acre what were known as ' lieu lands/ to be selected by the claimant at will in any State where Government land was to be found. Benson and Hyde's long acquaintance with the local land offices and the offices in Washington placed them on terms of intimacy with the officials. This intimacy was the means of their acquiring advance information in regard to the intentions of the Department of the Interior and the Land Office at Washington. The information enabled them to influence men who 270 OUR LAND GRAFT would recommend to the Government the acquisition of certain tracts as forest reserves. Having established a modus vivendi with these men on a money basis the conspirators not only decided what land should be recommended for forest reservations, but even drew, in their own offices, the maps which subsequently went forward to the Government with the recommendations of the officials! They made the forest-reserve selections so as to include the property which they had or knew they could get. With the advantage of knowing the lands likely to be declared within a forest reserve, they went to work to 'secure persons who would take up the State school- lands in those prospective reservations. " This was accomplished by buying, (as the testimony before United States Commissioner Heacock showed), anybody and everybody who was willing to sell his or her name for from five to twenty dollars. Mrs. Belle Curtis, a former stenographer in Hyde's office, testified that the janitor of the office, several of his colored friends, a num- ber of ranch-hands from Hyde's ranches, and Stein, Hyde's barber, his wife, and many of their friends, were taken to- Hyde's office, where they 1 signed applications for State school-lands which they had never seen, which might be in Africa for all they knew. For sign- ing the applications and the assignments of their rights they re- ceived from five to ten dollars. Four corrupt notaries received the applications, assignments, and affidavits in bunches of as many as forty at a time and affixed their jurats, though they knew nothing of the persons whose names "were signed to the documents. " Having the title to the school-lands, the next step of the schemers was to secure the ' lieu lands/ which was easily done through the obliging officials. It was shown in the testimony in court that land costing Hyde and Benson $2 an acre was disposed of to the Govern- ment for lands selling for $3 an acre. The bribe paid to the offi- cials was generally ten cents an acre for the lands actually selected by the Government. It was the particular mission of Henry P. Dimond to push the matters through the Land Office in Washington; but Hyde and Benson had still other agents. William E. Valk and Woodford D. Harlan, of the General Land Office at Washington, confessed that they were in the employ of the grafters and were paid by them. Money was sent in letters to Valk, to Harlan, to J. J. Barnes, and to other officials at Washington. The local land officials were * taken care of ' in a still simpler manner. Greenbacks were sent in envelopes addressed to the agents of the different land offices, without any note whatsoever. These facts were all shown in court, and as the result of the untiring efforts of Attorney Heney, the Gov- ernment's powerful instrument, the conspirators have been held for trial." Among the other public men mentioned by Mr. Millard as im- plicated in this enormous graft are Binger Hermann, Representative from Oregon and formerly Commissioner of the General Land Of- fice, John H. Hall, United States District Attorney in the prosecu- tion of graft charges, Henry Meldrum, formerly U. S. Surveyor Gen- eral, S. A. D. Puter, .Senator Mitchell and his law-partner, ex-Judge A. H. Tanner, and many wealthy men of the West. 271 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Among those indicted on Feb. 13, 1905, for " conspiracy to de- fraud the government by securing possession of 150,000 acres of land in the proposed Blue Mountain Eeserve and transiting them into timber-land scrip by reversion of title to the Government " were U. S. Senator Mitchell, State Senator Franklin, Representatives Hermann and Williamson, W. N. Jones, P. Mays, George Sorenson and others. In closing his disconcerting expose Mr. Millard says : " If in the foregoing chapter of fraud the Eeader thinks that he has read the half or even the tenth part of the history of the land-grafters of California and Oregon, let him not deceive himself. Volumes could be written upon the Mexican-grant frauds, the railroad-grant steals, the timber-land swindles, the desert-and mineral-land grabs and other giant iniquities. I have here merely touched the ground in the high places, taking the most conspicuous examples of this greatest of all grafts. And at the bottom of it all is that cool, indifferent, easily satisfied Land Conscience, one of the most baffling elements of hu- man nature, with which the reformer of the future will have to deal/' CHAPTER II THE DESPOLIATION OF THE PEOPLE 273 You may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel. Shakespeare Henry IV. To any plain understanding the right of property is very simple. It is the right of man to possess, enjoy, and transfer, the substance in use of whatever he has himself created. This title is good against the world; and it is the sole and only title by which a valid right of absolute private property can possibly vest. But no 'man can plead any such title to a right of property in the substance of the soil. James Fintan Lalor. Hither, ye blind, from your futile banding! Know the rights and the rights are won. Wrong shall die with the understanding, One truth clear, and the work is done. Nature is higher than Progress or Knowledge Whose need is ninety enslaved for ten. My word shall stand against mart and college: The planet belongs to its living men! John Boyle O'Reilly. Thieves for their robbery have authority, When judges steal themselves. Shakespeare Measure for Measure. What we call real estate the solid ground to build a house on is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests. Nathaniel Hawthorne The House of Seven Gables. 274 HE facts recited in the foregoing chapter are not without painstaking and elaborate verification. The testimony of Mr. William R. Lighten, of Omaha, Nebraska, who has made a careful and exhaustive study of this subject fully bears them out. Mr. Lighton published the remarkable results of his in- vestigations in a series of seven articles which appeared in the Bos- ton Transcript of the following dates, May 20 and 27, June 3, 10, 17 and 24, and July 1, 1905. In these articles Mr. Lighton says : " Within the last fifteen years there has been stolen from the public domain not less than 150,- 000,000 acres; an area that would make thirty States of the size of Massachusetts, five .States as large as New York, or three States as large as Kansas. When the truth is known, as it may be by and by, these figures will doubtless be doubled, trebled or quad- rupled. The present statement is one justified by present knowledge. A recent grand-jury investigation in California, backed up by other official inquiry, disclosed that one man alone in that .State holds title to nearly 15,000,000 acres, acquired within the time named by the flagrant processes of theft. There are dozens, and even scores of men whose stealings will run from 10,000 to 1,000,000 acres or more, the extent of their grabs depending principally upon their .ability to swing transactions to a successsful issue. " No reference is made to the solemn, semi-official chicanery of the railroad land grants or to the equally bald grants in the South- west, glossing over earlier pilferings. Those deals appear by com- parison impeccably honest and above reproach. This charge relates only to such downright, outright, deliberate stealing as cannot be described* by any other name, bearing no stamp of formal official approval. " Wherever there is a body of public land large enough to make a bait worth swallowing, there the thefts are going on. Lands of every description are included. Millions of acres in the rich wheat valleys of California have been stolen; millions of acres of grazing- lands on the plains of Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota, Wyoming and Montana have been stolen ; millions of acres of timber land in north- ern California, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and Montana have been stolen, not to mention the earlier stealings in the now almost devastated timber regions of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota; and now the lumber-thieves are plying their shameless trade un- hindered in the new fields of Mississippi and other undeveloped dis- 275 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION tricts of the South; unnumbered acres of mineral land have been stolen in fact, nothing worth stealing has escaped the clutch of these bold outlaws." These " bold outlaws " it should be remembered are considered to be eminently respectable men, the industrial and financial barons and kings of the West. So popular has dishonesty become in America that only petty thieving carries with it the sting of disapproval. In good sooth may it be said of us: " In the corrupted currents of this world Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law." Says Mr. Lighten : " One of the thieves is a U. S. Senator who bought his seat with a handful of the small change from his timber and gfazing-land filchings. " Another is Clark of Montana, whose thefts in timber land, amount to millions of acres, and are now being investigated at Helena. There is Warren of Wyoming, Senator Mitchell of Oregon. Be- sides there are many of the smaller fry from the same school of fish filling seats in the lower House of Congress. "But as a general proposition the biggest and most notorious of these grafters are not in official positions; neither are they seeking them. In the language of one bold buccaneer of the order, ' It's easier to own a Judge than to be one.' . . . " The Interior Department, particularly the General Land Office, has been aware of the thefts, since their inception; and knowledge has not been merely constructive but actual. . . . " The Department of Justice is no more in ignorance than the Inte- rior Department. . . . " It is Congress more than, any other branch of the Government which is chargeable with full and guilty^ knowledge of this stu- pendous crime." Under date of May 27th. he publishes a most instructive table to which he adds comments of great importance to all interested in his subject. He says : " Some conception of the scope of recent operations in public lands may be got from a glance at the following table, taken from an official source, showing the total alienations of lands by the Government in each of the six years from 1898 to 1903. 1898 , 8,453,896 acres 1899 9,182,413 " 1900 13,453,887 " 1901 15,562,796 " 1902 19,488,538 " 1903 22,824,299 " " This shows a total of nearly 90,000,000 acres passed from the U. S. to individuals within the brief period named. Compare with this the estimate, also official, that there now remains in the public domain 276 THE DESPOLIATION OF THE PEOPLE only about 200,000,000 acres unappropriated suitable for agriculture or for grazing. " But the striking feature of the table is the high rate of increase apparent from year to year an increase of almost 200 per cent from 1898 to 1903. Most of this has been taken under the homestead law, in the face of the statement repeatedly made that the lands suitable for homesteading under existing laws and under the present methods of soil culture have long since been practically exhausted. This was one of the stoutest arguments advanced in support of national irriga- tion legislation. And it is the plain truth. These lands that are being so industriously homesteaded are for the most part grazing- lands on the high plains. . . . " In 1902 Binger Hermann of Oregon was Commissioner of the Gen- eral Land Office, and in his report for that year to the Secretary of the Interior, he wrote: ' It appears that the original homestead entries, final homestead entries and commutation homestead entries made during the last fiscal year aggregated 188,445 in number and 19,481,844 in acres, an increase over the year 1901 of 77,055 in number and 4,026,786 in acre's, a very gratifying exhibit of the appropriation of public lands by American settlers/ " But observe ! As an appendix to this complacent document there appears a report of a special agent then at work in Nebraska, in the course of which occurs this plain English : " The ' Hobo Filing/ This method of securing colour of title to public lands has grown alarmingly in this State during the past two or three years ; these filings being made by cattlemen and ranch owners to protect their fence lines. They allude to them as ' our filings ' just the same as so many cattle. No attempt is made or expected to be made to comply with the law, except, perhaps, to erect a small pen or shack ; and in some cases the claimant goes onto the claim once in six months, so that he can declare when he proves up that he has not been absent from the claim more than six months at any one time. In most cases, however, no attempt is made at all toward improvement or compliance with the homestead law. These entries are made by anybody and everybody that they can get who will certify to the oath loafers, tramps, railway graders, Negroes, men and women. . . . " The homestead law is a dead letter, absolutely no attention paid to it. " Senator W. A. Clark of Montana has acquired more than 1,000,000 acres of timber land. " Another, conspicuous most of all, perhaps, is the case of Henry Miller of San Francisco. He came to the United States from Ba- varia in 1847 and worked for three years thereafter as a butcher in Washington Market, N. Y., then went out to California and worked at his trade there until 1857 studying American institutions mean- while, it appears. He then linked his fortunes with those of a man named Lux, and together these worthies (in the naive phrasing of an autobiographical sketch from Miller's hand) 'acquired 800,000 acres in California, besides other lands in Oregon and Nevada/ and started in the live-stock business. At one time they had 80,000 cattle and 277 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION 100,000 sheep on their ranges. This, mind you, from a beginning on butcher's pay! Furthermore, Miller now has title to mere than 13,000,000 acres, 'acquired' by methods which his autobiography neglects to state." The article bearing date of June 3, is replete with interesting data, from which we extract the following : " The soldier's widow was an important factor in this deal, as in many another like it; indeed she is always in active demand, because of the comparative ease of using her. Within a short time I have been able to verify a rather startling report of genuine Yankee thrift in this connection. A practising physician in Omaha, a man of good standing in his profession, while acting as a pension examiner made a contract with a long-headed ranch-man in the western end of the State, by the terms of which he was to corral soldiers' widows and send them out to make homestead filings in the ranchman's behoof ; he to receive as compensation for his services the sum of $25 for each widow delivered according to specifications. In the course of time his debit account amounted to $600. Payment was refused and the claim was given to an attorney to collect. A year ago a Federal grand jury toyed with the gentleman for a time, but let him go. ... " For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1902, the land-office agents re- ported a total of 153 cases of unlawful fencing, in the whole of the public-land region, embracing a meagre 3,952,844 acres. ' There may be a few more,' added the complacent Commissioner Hermann, ' but this is practically the total.' " There is not a State in all the region that has not a greater total. Nebraska alone can show fifty per cent more; Wyoming, with her 35,000,000 unappropriated acres, can show 200 per cent more; so can Montana; so can New Mexico; so can Arizona, "Last April (1904) Senator Warren of Wyoming voiced this challenge to the ears of his brethren : ' If all these frauds exist, as people charge, why don't the Government agent find them ? ' To which .Senator Gibson of Montana (an awfully plain-spoken man) re- plied : ' The agents of the Government simply do not do their duty. They are bought off.' And he went on to mention an instance or two. Bather curiously, his statement created not so much as a ripple of interest or excitement." The article of June 17, bears the title " The Beneficent Assistance of Our Congress." It contains the following : " Within a short time past I have talked with many of the large land-holders of Western Ne- braska, Western Kansas, Wyoming, Montana and Eastern Colorado, repeating this question: * Here, suppose the General Government prosecutes an investigation some time and brings actions for the recovery of these lands. What will you cattlemen do then ? ' One answer, received from half-a-dozen different sources, was significent: 'If that time ever comes, Congress will simply confirm title in us. We can't give up the land without utter ruin.' " There, you see, comes in the plea of the sacred ' Vested Interest.' " In the closing article of the series that of July 1 Mr. Lighten 278 says : " In one Public-Land State one thief in particular has stolen on a scale .of vast magnitude hot by paltry quarter sections, but by tens of square miles. Whenever necessary to the furtherance of his infamous designs, he has not hesitated to suborn perjury and to commit it himself ; he has not hesitated to corrupt, by outright bribery and otherwise, surveyors, inspectors, and other officials of the General Land Office and of the local land office in his State ; he has not hesi- tated, when the need arose, to spread the network of his evil influence over the Federal bench of his circuit and to procure a Federal Judge, to give solemn legal confirmation to his acts by quieting title to the stolen lands, upon the gauzy pretext that this shamless conspirator was a purchaser in good faith and without notice of the frauds. " This is what is going on to-day, in the name of justice ; and this man speaks with authority in the councils of the nation. Disclosures and ample proofs will be forthcoming in due time, a time that now promises to be not far distant, God speed the day." In " The Land Question From Various Points of View," published by C. F. Taylor of Philadelphia appears an article by J. L. McCreery of Washington, D. C., entitled " Our System of Distributing the Public Lands." The writer heads the article with this sentence, " It has been an Instrument of f Fraud and Injustice and General Demoralisation." Under the sub-heading, " Frauds Under the Pre-emption and Home- stead Acts," Mr. McCreery says: "Let us suppose (to invent a name) that the New York and Nebraska Land and Cattle Company start in business in the far west. It has in its employ one hundred ' cowboys.' The fertile valley of a stream is selected for its opera- tions. At the instance of the manager of the company each of the cowboys files a pre-emption declaratory statement for a quarter sec- tion (160 acres) of land. The land is selected in such a form as to cover as much space as possible up and down the stream. One man's four forty-acre tracts in a ' string ' can often be made to cover a mile of the water course. Sometimes not more than three-quarters of a mile. A hundred entrymen can thus take in seventy-five miles of the stream the richest part of the valley. " The pre-emption law requires that a person purchasing land there- under must prove that he has inhabited and improved such land. It does not say haw long he must have done so. The General Land Office has supplied this omission, and carried into effect what it conceives to be the spirit and purpose of the law, by establishing a rule that such lesidence and improvement must have continued for at least six months, in order to afford a presumption that the settler is acting in good faith. So a few days after the expiration of six months from the date of the entry the cowboys, in ' squads/ appear at the local land office, and ' prove up.' It is not necessary to have erected a dwelling-house upon and improved the land if the entryman and his two witnesses have sufficiently elastic consciences. A has for witnesses B and C ; B has for witnesses A and C ; C has for witnesses A and B. The land is paid for in cash which the company furnishes. The cowboys step over to the nearest lawyer's office, or more likely the com- pany has its own lawyer, and deed every acre of land to the company. 279 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION "Having exhausted their right under, the pre-emption law, they forthwith proceed to enter as much more land under the homestead law. At the end of six months they pay (with money furnished by the company) for the land under the commutation provision of the home- stead law, and at once transfer it to the company. " But the end is not yet. True, the pre-emption act and the home- stead act each provides that no person shall have the benefit thereof more than once. But at this stage of the proceedings the cowboy that last year made pre-emption and homestead entry of certain land under the name of John Brown, now makes entry of another quarter section under the name of Nicholas Yost; Frank Smith becomes Theophilus Baxter; Henry Jones becomes Philip Lingenfelter; and seven months later the syndicate obtains possession of thirty thousand acres more of the best land in the state. " And by and by the immigration of honest settlers begins. They push into this region only to find that all the land worth having, up and 'down that water course for a hundred miles, has past into the hands of this land syndicate. There is, at a moderate estimate, a space of ten miles on each side of this stream, and whatever tribu- taries run into it twenty miles in width by a hundred miles in length, covering an area of two thousand square miles in which no bona fide settler can find a foot of water front." From that portion of Mr. McCreery's article sub-headed, " Timber Frauds Under Colour of Law" we extract the following: "The lumber companies (as hereinbefore explained in the case of cattle companies) use their employes as fictitious homestead entrymen (or pre-emptors, until the pre-emption law was repealed) . A little shanty, not quite the size of a street-car, is built upon ' skids/ so that it can be easily drawn from a piece of land which has been cleared of its merchantable timber to one which the company proposes next to de- nude. The lumberman's occasional visit to this ' claim shanty' is made to count for ' residence/ He cuts down the largest trees (for the company's use), and is prepared to swear that he has been ' clear- ing ' his ' farm/ The peelings of his potatoes, the seeds of his canned tomatoes, etc., are thrown into a ditch and covered, and he is ready to testify that he has done a little something in the way of ' cultivation/ The seeds of such apples as he may get hold of and eat are dropped somewhere, and furnish a foundation for the statement that he has plantel a few fruit trees. Of course, it is all a wretched farce, but the Commissioner of the General Land Office, fifteen hundred miles away in Washington, has no means of knowing that. The local officers have little inducement to ask troublesome questions. Among the * silent partners ' of the lumber company there is generally at least one Senator or Eepresentative in Congress to whom the officers owe their position, and they would not have been recommended for ap- pointment if such Senator or Eepresentative had not supposed them to have, if not 'horse SCLSC,' at least as much sense as 'the ox who knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib/ " Under the caption " Bribery of Government Officials " the author relates how " land-proof notices " were published in a few papers of flTl IKKIIP flft.pr wVlir>Vi +Vlo nHvp-r-Hoornmri-c WOT-O " li-Pfarl m-it " ^-^A J13 an issue after which the advertisements were " lifted out " and did 280 not appear in the copies circulating among subscribers. Apropos of " The Stockman/' printed at Springer, Colfax Co., New Mexico, he says: " There is also on file an affidavit, dated July 31, 1884, from the foreman of ' The Stockman/ A. L. Clark, in which (among other things) he says: * We got ten dollars for each of these fraudulent notices, and five dollars for those that appeared in the regular and full issue. The notices came from the Register, with a check or mark on them indi- cating which were to go into the regular issue and which into the fraudulent/ . . . Olney Newell, who was the actual owner of the ' Stockman/ told me that he establisht said paper in Springer for the express purpose of printing fraudulent land notices." Another audacious steal from the Government was in connection with an Act of Congress of July 5, 1886, granting the State of Oregon " lands to the extent of 1920 acres per mile to aid in the construction of a military-waggon road from Albany to the eastern boundary of the state." Section 4 of this act provided that : " When the Governor of said State shall certify to the Secretary of the Interior that any ten continuous miles of said road are completed, then a quantity of land hereby granted, not to exceed thirty miles, may be sold, coterminous to said completion of said road; and so from time to time until said road is completed." Various Governors of Oregon certified at different times to the completion of numerous ten-mile sections of the road, the United States conveyed title to the land as provided by Act of Congress, and the State of Oregon disposed of the land to various parties who hastily sold it to third persons. Later an official investigation dis- closed the fact that only a small portion of the pretended 357 miles of road had been constructed. The United States instituted suit for the recovery of its lands, and the United States Supreme Court ruled that, since Congress had delegated to the governor of Oregon the au- thority to determine whether or not the road had been built in ac- cordance with the law, his certificate to the effect that the road had been properly built, whether true or false, was conclusive and there- fore the government could not recover its lands. By reference to Vol. 147 of U. S. Supreme Court Reports, page 165, etc., the Reader will find the particulars of one of the most bare- faced swindles ever perpetrated upon our government. He will see how the Union River Railroad Company in Washing- ton (then a territory) secured a right-of-way from the government to haul timber to tide-water over government lands, and then stole the timber so hauled from the government. " Just think," says a recent writer in regard to this episode, " of the e cheek ' required to obtain from the government a right-of-way over which to carry to market timber stolen from the government ! " Nor does this close the long series of land crimes. We have touched only the more conspicuous and typical, lack of space preventing any- thing like an exhaustive treatment of the subject. One more land outrage has yet to be mentioned because of its recent occurrence, its picturesque death's-head-and-cross-bones piracy, and the light it casts upon the supposed spotless sanctity of the judicial ermine. We refer 281 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION to the land thefts of Alaska. This subject has recently been most ably treated by Mr. Eex E. Beach in a series of articles entitled " The Looting of Alaska," published in " Appleton's Booklover's Magazine," beginning in the January, 1906, number.* Those who wish the full story of this unexampled bit of brigandage are referred to Mr. Beach's articles. We can only offer here a brief skeleton of the shameless crime, a crime which was perpetrated through the assistance of members of Congress and of the judiciary. We ask the Header's careful attention to this statement because we hope to convince him, even though he be an optimist, that any real reform which requires special legislation to put it in practice is not likely to be adopted by a purchasable Congress which though nominally representing the voters of the country, is actually in the pay of special privilege. He will see that here as elsewhere it is the same familiar story of official and judicial corruption, and it is be- lieved that he will come, in the end, to realise that if anything is to be done to ameliorate the condition of the unprivileged labourer, it must be done by the labourer himself without the aid of Congress or Courts. It is related that a well-known Westerner by the name of Hoxie paid the sum of five thousand dollars to influence a verdict in his favour. When charged with bribery he admitted having paid the money but repudiated the charge saying, " Your Honour, I paid that money in the interests of truth. I want only justice, but justice comes high in this locality." That was years ago and the disease has spread till now, with regret be it said, justice comes high anywhere in the United States, so high that for the most part only Special Privilege and Corruption can pay the price. The looting of Alaska swings about one Alexander McKenzie as a central pivot. The character which Mr. Beach bestows upon this worthy might be compounded as follows, from Mr. Lawson's characterisations of frenzied financiers. Take the initiative he has given H. H. Eogers, the conscience he has bestowed upon J. Edward O'Sullivan Addicks, if it can be found, and the insatiate greed ascribed to John D. himself, stir well and season with the daredeviltry of a drunken highwayman, and you have the " Czar of North Dakota " as described by Mr. Beach. This McKenzie is the man who, according to Mr. Beach, all but succeeded in " fixing " North Dakota legislation so as to permit the Louisiana Lottery to enter that State. Indeed he had gotten the press muzzled and the law-makers corrupted to his complete liking, when, bv the merest chance, the " 'Pioneer Press " of St. Paul got wind of the matter and sent a member of its staff, Mr. Conde Hamlin, to the North Dakota Capital, to air the matter. When Mr. Hamlin made known his errand his life was threatened. So desperate were the McKenzie gang that Mr. Hamlin was obliged to go into hiding. He was spied upon and assaulted, yet he continued his work. His life was attempted, yet he did not desist until he had given the conspirators * Copyright, 1906, by D. Appleton and Company. Reprinted by permis- sion from " Appleton's Magazine " for January, 1906. 282 THE DESPOLIATION OF THE PEOPLE such publicity and created such- a public sentiment that the legislature was constrained to kill once and for all the measure which but for Hamlin's work would have disgraced North Dakota for thirty years. This incident in McKenzie's career shows, to use Mr. Beach's words, " the calibre and ability of the man who now turned his attention to Alaska, the newest, the richest, and the weakest of our possessions. To one who had moved a capitol, handled a railroad, smothered a legislature, and done other things on a like scale, the plunder of a province was but a step/' In the winter of 1899-1900 Congress passed a bill providing civil government for Alaska. A code of laws was prepared which, among other things, gave unusual political and judicial powers to the United States judges. The code provided that, " The title of any lands hereto- fore conveyed shall not be questioned nor in any manner affected by reason of the alienage of any person from or through whom such title may have been derived." This was simply applying to Alaska mining laws already existing in other portions of the United States. Now it seems that Alexander McKenzie, the Czar of North Dakota, 0. P. Hubbard, the Alaskan lawyer, Robert Chipps, the claim jumper, H. E. Hansbrough, Senator from North Dakota, and Senator Thomas H. Carter, under whose supervision the Alaskan code of laws was pre- pared, had been in consultation in Washington when Congress was about to establish civil government in Alaska. " The fifteen million dollar Alaska Gold Mining Company had been incorporated," says Mr. Beach,* "to exploit the worthless mining titles of the claim- jumpers, and a plastic tool, Arthur H. Noyes, of Minneapolis, had been picked as a judge to administer the laws for the Nome district. . . . That he was in many ways a good choice for the clique is evidenced by the fact that his Alaskan record is too extraordinary for belief. " The United States Constitution, the code under which he held office, the laws of ordinary honour and decency, were to him as dead as the Sanskrit and as unsanctified as a soap advertisement. First, he gained general hatred until his weakness and vacillation appeared, and although there is still cherished in Alaska the bitterest enmity for McKenzie, yet for Arthur H. Noyes, his miserable, liquor-sodden ac- complice, there remains nothing but contempt. " An illuminating incident anent his appointment and showing the character of men behind the plot, is that Senator Bard, of California, who had just taken his seat, was promised the Alaskan judgeship for a friend who had helped in his election. It was so well settled that his friend was to receive the position that his fellow-Senators congratu- lated him upon obtaining such a good appointment so early in the game. Just before confirmation, however, President McKinley called him in, stating that such pressure had been brought to bear that he was forced to break his word and give to Mr. Noyes the position he had promised the Senator's friend. An influence, indeed, to make William McKinley break a promise ! " * Copyright, 1906, by D. Appleton and Company. Reprinted by permis- sion from "Appleton's Magazine" for January, 1906. 283 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Now the idea of this precious band was to secure for its own use and behoof temporary control of valuable mining property already owned by others and to " gut " it before they could be dispossessed. Their first move was to get Senator Hansbrough to introduce, in lieu of the above-quoted section of the code forbidding the questioning of title on account of alienage, the following : " Aliens shall not be permitted to locate, hold, or convey mining claims in said District of Alaska ; nor shall any title to a mining claim acquired by location or purchase through an alien be legal. In any civil action, suit, or proceeding to recover the possession of a mining claim, or for the appointment of a receiver, or for an injunction to restrain the working or operation of a mining claim, it shall be the duty of the court to inquire into and determine the question of the citizenship of the locator, etc." Commenting on this Mr. Beach says : * " Although the amendment would have been unconstitutional, still, if passed, it would have given the conspirators a peg to hang upon until it had been re- pealed or reviewed by the Supreme Court. Before action could be taken they would have gutted the mines, floated the big company, and sold out." A battle royal ensued over this point. Congressman John F. Lacey of Iowa, Senator Stewart of Nevada and others saw what it meant and lined up against it. So stubbornly, however, did Hansbrough and his clique fight that the debate lasted nearly a month, before the amendment was voted down. This left the Alaskan mining laws the same as those of Colorado, Montana and other States. This defeat caused the conspirators to change their tactics. If they could not make laws to their liking, the next best thing was to administer those already made according to their own sweet wills, and this, Mr. Beach shows, is precisely what they 'did. We have seen how pressure was brought to bear on President McKinley, with the result that he was led to " break a promise " and to give the Alaskan judge- ship to Arthur H. Noyes. What more did McKenzie need? Late in the preceding summer, great excitement had been caused by a rich gold " find " in the beach sands at Nome. An army of miners had flocked thither and were peacefully and industriously working the "pay dirt," shoulder to shoulder. All that was necessary was for the Czar and his retinue to repair to Nome, dispossess the miners of their claims, and " gut " them during the pendency of any litigation which might result. We fancy we hear you say that the law would not permit such an outrageous injustice. The law was McKenzie. Justice breathed through the Czar's lungs. He is quoted as boasting on one occasion that " he had the Nome courts in his vest pocket," and he amply proved the as- sertion in due course. To attempt a brief explanation of this extraordinary proceeding would be to do the subject injustice. We prefer to quote Mr. Beach's own words at some considerable length. After describing the un- paralleled activity along the water-front following the discovery of gold in the beach sands he goes on to say : * Copyright, 1906, by D. Appleton and Company. Reprinted by permis- sion from " Appleton's Magazine " for January, 1906. 284 THE DESPOLIATION OF THE PEOPLE " Upon this scene of vigour and progress the new court officials ap- peared late in July. t Four days later Alexander McKenzie was in pos- session of the mines he coveted, the owners had been thrown off, and in two days more he had taken everything the unfortunates owned, even to personal property, such as tents, houses, horses, books, clothes, and gold which had been mined' elsewhere. Within a week his system was running smoothly, his court was grinding out orders unheard of in law, in decency, or in dreams; and the stream of gold dust had been diverted from the .Swedes into the pockets whose bottoms reached to Washington. " His beach-mining outfit was established and waiting when he ar- rived, so one of his first acts was to instruct Judge Noyes to issue orders ejecting the miners along the shore. Although Congress had just fixed a strip of sand which should ever remain open and free to all, nevertheless, in direct disregard of this, soldiers were sent out to arrest the poor men hunting for a winter's grubstake. Noyes construed the law in such a manner as to limit them to a tiny strip only a few feet wide at the water's edge. " On the afternoon of his arrival McKenzie entered the law offices of Hubbard, Beaman & Hume, demanding of them a half interest in the jumper's titles which they owned, stating that he controlled the judge and district attorney, and that if they desired their cases to reach a hearing at all they must ' dig up/ The lawyers consented, receiving, in lieu of the supposed titles, stock in the Alaska Gold Mining Company. The politician further demanded that a one- quarter interest in their entire law business be given to his district attorney, Joseph K. Woods, promising in return to appoint Hume as Wood's assistant. On the following day he came to them again, de- manding an additional one-quarter interest in their general business for himself. After demurring, the partners did this also. Inasmuch as the firm had most of the contested title cases of the district, in this way McKenzie and his coterie became interested in both sides of the resultant litigation, contingent interest being demanded from both litigants. " The lawyers did not give up one-half of their business without a struggle, but they were threatened with utter ruin, both to them- selves and clients, so, rather than be crushed, they acceded. Straight- way an extra corps of stenographers was employed preparing docu- ments asking for the appointment of a receiver in five suits. The papers were presented to Judge Noyes at six o'clock in the evening at his hotel, and he acted on them without even reading the affidavits. McKenzie was appointed receiver in each case with instructions to take immediate possession, work the mines, and preserve the proceeds sub- ject to the court's orders. The defendants were ordered to deliver possession and were enjoined from in any manner Interfering with his management. In each case the receiver's bond was fixed at five thou- sand dollars, although the output from each mine was known to be from five thousand to fifteen thousand dollars per day. He was appointed during the evening, before any bonds had been filed, before the necessary papers were filed by the clerk, and even before the sum- 285 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION mons had been issued. At midnight he had ejected the rightful own- ers and was in possession. . " All this was done in absolute disregard of law, coming as a total surprise to the defendants, who were not only ignorant of any action taken, but were not even cited to appear in their own defence and argue why such orders should not be entered in court. To analyse the turpitude of this action further, the simple holding of court in Nome was directly in disregard of and contrary to the terms of the Alaskan Code, which provided that the judge should reside at Saint Michaels, one hundred and twenty miles distant, and should hold court elsewhere only upon thirty days' notice. Added to this, Noyes had assured the claim-owners that his shop would be open for no business until his return from Saint Michaels. " In granting these injunctions without sufficient bond, he again vio- lated the Alaskan Code, which provides that before allowing an injunc- tion in any case the plaintiff must give a suitable and sufficient bond to pay all costs and resultant damages to the defendants if the in- junction prove wrongful or without sufficient cause. In the face of this, for the protection of mines earning as high as fifteen thousand dollars daily, Noyes required a surety of five thousand dollars. " Comment is unnecessary upon his disregard for a well-established principle of law in appointing the receiver ex parte; that is, without notice to the opposing faction. " Bearing in mind that the jumpers' titles were now largely vested in McKenzie, neither is comment necessary upon the unique situation of his appointment as receiver for his own property, something ridiculous in law. " The appointment of a receiver for a placer was something unheard of in our entire mining history, being manifestly unjust and dan- gerous, for the law aims only at protection. A receiver was not needed to protect this property. The gold lay safely stored in the ground; it could not get away nor deteriorate. All that could have been justly asked was an injunction to keep the claims in statu quo, until the title had been determined. McKenzie was not a miner, was not competent to run a mine in a practical manner, yet he was put in charge of his own property to conserve the interests of his con- testants. " The very question of alienship upon which the suits were brought had been declared of no avail by the Congress which gave this court life, and, although the defendants appeared with exemplified copies of their naturalisation papers in proof that the actions should fall of their own weight, the judge refused to heed them. " Fearful of complications, the Swedes, or Pioneers, as they were called, had imported from San Francisco some good lawyers a few weeks before, as had Charles D. Lane, the man who had bought cer- tain of the original titles. These attorneys immediately got busy. They undertook to have Noyes rescind his arbitrary rule. " On the day following McKenzie's appointment, they tried to get an order setting it aside, appearing before the judge with properly prepared papers, praying that a hearing be granted at once. The value of haste may be appreciated. He refused. They argued the matter 286 THE DESPOLIATION OF THE PEOPLE twice within a few days, but he delayed his opinion until August 10th, over two weeks, then decided adversely to them. Later they prayed for an appeal from the decisions of Noyes's court. He refused to allow it. Meanwhile the receiver had hired all the available men, and was working day and night to gut the mines. " On July 25th, two days after the first move, Noyes issued a further order which was so much worse than his previous ones as to elicit the following criticism from the Circuit Court of Appeals at San Fran- cisco : ' The order was so arbitrary and unwarranted in law as to baffle the mind in its effort to comprehend how it could have issued from a court of justice.' " Its history is this : When the posse of hirelings ousted the owners, they found large quantities of supplies, tools, tents, horses, and other things, among which were considerable sums of gold, part of which had been taken from the claims in dispute and part of which had come from other mines not in controversy at all. This was too good to lose. Also, it is well to leave an opponent the least possible means with which to fight. Through his judge, McKenzie issued an order enlarging his own powers to take in all of this. He was directed to grab everything on and about the mines as follows : t Take possession of all sluice boxes, pumps, excavations, ma- chinery, pipe, plant, boarding houses, tents, buildings, safes, scales, and all personal property fixed and movable, gold, gold dust, and precious metals, money boxes or coin, and all personal property upon said claims/ " He did so, even taking the tents and beds of the men, their own personal property, their boxes of gold dust, gold taken from other claims in which he could have no interest, time books of these and other claims which the defendants were working. There was no redress. Criticism of such action is futile. " Before doing this, Noyes boasted that he would tie up the de- fendants all around so that if they wanted anything they would have to apply to Mr. McKenzie. " In the case of Chipps vs. Linderberg, the receiver was ordered to take possession thus of about one hundred thousand dollars' worth of personal property, without even an averment in the complaint, or in any other pleading, that the property belonged to the complainant. McKenzie took possession and held it without bond or any other au- thority than the arbitrary order of the court, which order was made without pleading, petition, or written application from any person whatever. " One naturally says, * Surely there must have been some redress.' What was it ? Alaska was not even a territory. Laws had been fixed for her, and there was no higher authority in the land than the Fed- eral judge who applied them. He was ruler of the land, appointed directly from the nation's head. The military were here to preserve order and enforce his mandates. Where could relief come from ? " We see the scheme working now, a perfect piece of political job- bery, backed by the weight of United States courts and enforced by the troops in blue. Mines wrested from their owners, laws construed GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION to suit the gang, personal property purloined to cripple the victims, the right of appeal denied ! " The Header will marvel how all this could be accomplished with- out bloodshed. He will ask himself if the American spirit is broken. He will wonder if the memory of 1776 has departed out of the earth. Of one thing he may be assured American character is vastly dif- ferent from what it was in revolutionary times. We are more " law abiding " now. We have such a tender, raw-sore respect for " rights of property " that nothing could now induce us to make a teapot of Boston Harbor. Taxation! We are perfectly dead to it! We have had the very gastric juice taxed out of us until we should feel almost ill at ease, if railroads, beef-trusts, coal-combines, oil-trusts and in- numerable other " gentlemen's agreements among hogs " did not go through our pockets every hour of the day and night. The American people has had faith in its courts . and legislatures and has come to regard an appeal to any other tribunal as quite out of the question. Slowly, but the more surely because slowly, they are waking from their long sleep. They rub their eyes and *ask " What, are those Pinkertons, and are they actually shooting at unarmed American citizens ? " They see themselves robbed of their most fundamental rights by injunctions; they witness their fellow-men torn from their homes, in defiance not only of justice and of law but of court orders, imprisoned, ill-treated, killed, deported, and they begin to draw their breath a trifle quicker. The American people, Oh ye hosts of Mam- mon! are patient, law-abiding, long-suffering, and very sleepy, but they have a limit which must not be exceeded or they will awake, and if ever they do awake to what is being done to them ! The following from the " Baltimore American " is suggestive upon this subject. "SOUNDS OF THE TIMES." " Father, what is that noise I hear? " "What is it like, my son?" " Like the crack of fireworks going off, Like the roar of a minute gun, Like the crash and the dash of the ocean waves When ships they are breaking up; Like the thunder when the lightning strikes." " That's the people waking up, My son, That's the people waking up." " Father, what is that sound I hear? " "What is it like, my boy?" " Like the piercing din of escaping steam, Like the shriek of a whistling buoy, Like the yell of an Indian getting scalped, Like lots of crockery crashed." " That's the ballot's hammering at strenuous work That's the rings that are getting smashed, My boy, That's the rings that are getting smashed." 288 THE DESPOLIATION OF THE PEOPLE " Father, what is that moan I hear? " "What is it like, my lad?" " Oh, it is like a shivering ghost, So faint and weary and sad! It is like the wail of a midnight wind, Like the sob of a mighty loss, Like the dying groan of a deep despair." "That's the passing of the boss, My lad, That's the passing of the boss." Most of those who were robbed in Alaska were not Americans. Perhaps the thing could not have been done had they been. Mr. Beach thinks not, but it seems to us that Colorado has about as weird a tale to tell. Mr. Beach says : * " Perhaps you said, on beginning this story, that the writer assumed an attitude too aggressive, that he used too many superlatives? The facts stated and to come are more superlative than any language in his vocabulary. " The story of Graft is old. We are growing to realise dimly that our nation is permeated with it, that our body politic is built upon corruption. There w.as a time when we looked with reverence and re- spect upon the makers and givers of our law, but it is so no longer. Honours bestowed do not purge the recipient. A senator may be a rogue, a judge a charlatan. Graft was in the land before our time we have merely seen it grow and reach out. But few of us have seen its birth. This is a tale of its beginnings in a virgin land. Upon perusal it appears an extraordinary affair by reason of its ingenuity, its invention, its daring but it is not! It is extraordinary because it is so ordinary, so very ordinary, because it has happened before, because the trail is so well trodden, because here, in our own time, is brought up the spectacle of corruption in its early stages, as it must have existed in our boy-hood or in our fathers' times. " Had the abuses we detailed in the preceding chapter occurred in any other Western mining-camp, or been directed at ordinary Amer- ican citizens, blood would have run at once, even in the face of mili- tary protection ; and it speaks volumes for the law-abiding character of Alaskans that no more drastic measures were taken. Many of the defendants were Scandinavians, easy going and slow to wrath, their actions approving a saying of McKenzie : ' Give me a barnyard of Swedes and I'll drive them like sheep/ " Moreover, the scheme was so bold, so efficient, so undreamed of in its prostitution of the whole sacred machinery of government, that the victims were confused and required time to shape their cam- paigns. This suited the clique precisely. Delay was all they asked. Every sun meant thousands to them. Added to this, the nearest Court of Appeals was at San Francisco, three thousand miles away by water, with no telegraph. This had all been counted upon, as has before been said ; the plan being to tie up the mines, then strip them during the pendency of the suits." * Copyright, 1906, by D. Appleton and Company. Reprinted by permis- sion from " Appleton's Magazine " for January, 1906. 19 289 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Referring to the backers of the North Dakota Czar, Mr. Beach says : " McKenzie often expressed absolute confidence in the ability of his backers to force a favorable decision from the superior courts in case of an appeal, and during the first flush of success, when the whole district lay helpless under his heel, he made the mistake of talking too much. A serious mistake for one of his accomplishments. He spoke of those who backed him, the strongest in public life, and it became a matter of gossip that here was a combination too huge to break, that the Alaska Gold Mining Company had been organised with governmental backing for the sole and avowed purpose of looting the land it was named for, that its stock was distributed through Washington circles wherever it would do the most good. "I propose to show evidence strongly confirming this startling theory, to show that others even more exalted than those I have men- tioned were entangled in this plot. Whether they were the innocent dupes of more designing men, or whether they hoped to share in the spoils, I shall not discuss. The facts should tell the story without extraneous comment. The finger should point where the blame be- longs. It leads to Washington. " After Noyes had appointed a receiver in the Anvil Creek cases, something unheard of and utterly vicious in its possibilities, and after he had further denied the defendants an appeal which would have carried with it a stay, certified copies of the court record were filed with United .States Attorney-General Griggs, and the removal of Noyes was asked on the ground of incompetency. Griggs refused ! Indeed, Noyes boasted that the Attorney-General had in a personal letter ap- proved his action. " If such a proceedure as the mere appointment of a placer mine re- ceiver was unprecedented, what then is to be said of the action of the Attorney-General of the United States in publicly praising such a step and, worse yet, of his meddling with a case at law during its trial? It was the same in effect as though a justice of the Supreme Court had indorsed the decisions of an inferior court judge during the trial of a suit which was later to be appealed to his own. This action of Griggs was one of the most remarkable ever known in the judiciary of this or any other civilised country. His conduct went far toward proving that McKenzie's was no idle boast when he said : ' To hell with them all ! Nobody can hurt me ! I am too strong at headquarters ! ' ; We shall refer in another chapter to the judicial and legislative corruption brought to light by this episode. Suffice it here to say that when the removal of McKenzie's tool, Noyes, was demanded, " certain of our worthy United States Senators rose up on the Capitol floors and fought bitterly for him, for McKenzie, and for their accom- plices/' What is the explanation of it all ? The following from the " Peoria Star," entitled " The Gradations of Theft/' will go a long way towards helping the thoughtful to an answer : " Stealing a million genius. Stealing $500,000 .sagacity. Stealing $100,000 shrewdness. 290 THE DESPOLIATION OF THE PEOPLE .Stealing $50,000 misfortune. Stealing $25,000 irregularity. Stealing $10,000 misappropriation. Stealing $5,000 speculation. Stealing $2,500 embezzlement. Stealing $1,250 swindling. Stealing $100 larceny. Stealing $10 theft. Stealing a ham war on society. " The Reader may be interested to know the denouement of this loot- ing of Alaska so far as the Czar of Dakota is concerned. The case was finally taken into the California courts, and Judge Morrow sent two deputies to arrest him. McKenzie tried intimidation and bluffing, but we are informed that it was of no avail. He was taken and brought to California. " On February 11, 1901," says Mr. Beach,* " he was sentenced to a term of one year in prison, six months each in two cases. By the ' wise ones ' back East this trial of the Boss of the Northwest for a little grafting was considered something of a joke. As well try to salt the tail of a bald eagle as to jail Alec McKenzie. It was a political impossibility. " In sooth it was a joke, observed in its true light. Here was the head of a conscienceless conspiracy, a corrupter of men, as true a pirate as Morgan, LaFitte, or Kidd, brought to the bar at last, being tried, not for his real infamies, but on a pitiful charge of contempt of court." . . . " Of course his case was appealed to the Supreme Court and he was admitted to bail, pending further proceedings. After hearing the evidence, the court denied his petition for a writ of c&rtiorari, and he was committed to the Alameda County Jail. When his actual plight became known, great indignation was roused in public circles. The mails became choked with letters, telegrams, and protests. The judges were beset with offers of a million dollars bail for this man. Such steps were taken to secure his pardon as to cause President Mc- Kinley to remark that he had never before seen as much influence brought to bear for an individual. " Investigation was made and Judge Morrow presented a resume of the case to Attorney-General Knox, who had succeeded Griggs, in which he stated that, in view of the evidence, he could not recom- mend a pardon. Nevertheless, agitation increased until Mr. McKinley yielded. He was about to make a Western trip at this time, and it is reported upon credible authority that, before leaving, he instructed the Attorney-General to make out two pardons for McKenzie one based on the ground of extenuating circumstances, the other alleging the prisoner's health to be so shattered that, to save his life, clemency was necessary. Instructions were left for the first pardon to be sent upon receipt of a certain telegram, the second, if the wire read dif- ferently. * Copyright, 1906, by D. Appleton and Company. Reprinted by permis- sion from " Appleton's Magazine " for January, 1906. 291 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION u Upon reaching San Francisco, Mr. McKinley spoke to one of the judges : 'I never had such pressure exerted on me before. Are there no extenuating circumstances no reasons why a pardon should issue to my old friend McKenzie ? ' ( Mr. President/ replied the judge, * in going over the evidence, I find twenty reasons why his punishment should have been more se- vere, but not one why he should be freed.' ' But he is a very sick man/ Mr. McKinley urged. ' Of course he is. It makes anyone sick to be -caught red-handed with the spoils/ " Nevertheless, in the face of these judges, a few days later came a pardon issued on the ground of ill health/' In summing up the McKenzie part of the episode Mr. Beach pays eloquent tribute to the moral degeneration of America. He says: " In this way was the master rogue punished for his thievery, to wit, by a brief imprisonment and the restoration of a slender part of the money he had taken. His reputation was not damaged, however. While in jail he was, as he is to-day, a member of the Republican National Committee that body which shapes our political destinies. He has been one of the Eepublican National Advisory Committee as' well as one of the Republican Executive Committee, and is politically more powerful now than ever ! His is a familiar figure in Eepublican politics, State and National, from Bismarck to Washington, and he is reputed to be operating heavily in Wall .Street by means of his sena- torial backing." We might submit a long list of other land crimes less typical in kind and less important in size, but enough has been written amply to prove all we have contended, and to lead every right-minded American citizen to look with eager longing toward any system which will make such outrages impossible for all time. This is precisely what is claimed for Mr. Gillette's plan for social redemption, a claim which will be fully substantiated later. CHAPTER III THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE LAW 293 What is the cause of the grave changes that are coming over the American Republic the extraordinary inequality in the distribution of wealth manifested on every hand; the rise of class feeling; the growth of the aristocratic idea; the lapse from morals in business and private rela- tions among the very rich; the growth of elements of physical, mental and moral deterioration among the working masses; the appearance of militant trade-unionism; the perversion of the injunction principle and the use of soldiers in strikes; the corruption of Federal, State and munic- ipal politics; the deterring of press, university and pulpit from an open expression; the centralisation of government; the advances in foreign aggression? Such things did not exist at the foundation of the Republic. Why should they now appear when we have grown so wonderfully in popula- tion and wealth? Why should this age contrast so unfavorably with that when the nation numbered less than our chief city now contains? The answer is that something is rampant now that existed only in rudimentary form then. That something is Privilege. Henry George Jr. The Menace of Privilege. The great ones of the world have taken this earth of ours to them- selves; they live in the midst of splendour and superfluity. The smallest nook of the land is already a possession; none may touch it or meddle with it. Goethe Wilhelm Meister. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little, as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the lat- ter in order to lower, the wages of labour. . . . We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are al- ways and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combi- nation, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. Adam Smith Wealth of Nations. Action causes reaction and organisation begets counter organisation. Walter G. Cooper Fate of the Middle Classes. 294 CHAPTER III THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE LAW. AND INJUNCTIONS STRIKES HEN" any noteworthy cry is raised that certain acts committed or proposed are anarchistic, one need never look to see whence it proceeds. It comes in- variably from the so-called "better class," that class which delights to describe itself as the creator and preserver of law and order. At first blush this seems natural enough, but what shall we say when we learn that practically all the real anarchists with which our country is afflicted are members of this same supposed superior class which so delights in raising the cry of " Anarchy ! " when none exists save in its own acts ? Does this seem an extreme statement ? Let us test it. Take the case of the so-called Chicago anarchists. Could a better illustration of the truth of our assertion be found? These men were convicted and punished with little or no pretence of administering even-handed justice, simply because public opinion demanded a scape- goat. Innocent men, men who not only were not but could not have been guilty of the crime charged against them, were some of them hanged and others imprisoned, simply to appease the clamour of the "better classes" and to serve as a warning to other anarchists. Seldom in the history of the world has there been perpetrated a judicial crime so outrageous as this. When the mischief had been done, part of it past all remedy, vengeance was satisfied, and the people were in a condition to view the matter more soberly. What was the net result of this tardy sanity? This, that the Chicago Anarchists were innocent of the crime for which they had been punished. Thousands of Chicago citizens, among them the most influential and wealthy men in the city, signed petitions addressed to the Governor of Illinois praying that he pardon the imprisoned anarchists. Mr. Lyman J. Gage was one of the active men in this movement. Afraid to confess the lamentable mistake which had been made, the petitioners gave as their reason for seeking clemency for the incar- cerated men, that they had sufficiently expiated their crime. The Governor of Illinois, a most able lawyer, replied in effect : These anarchists are guilty or they are not. If guilty and their guilt properly proven, they have not expiated their crime and should not be set free. If not guilty, they should be set free, not as criminals who have been sufficiently punished, but as innocent men improperly convicted. 295 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Governor Altgeld, who was admittedly an able jurist, now proceeded to make a critical analysis of the whole case. He found that the trial was a ridiculous farce; that the jury was packed; and that jurors, instead of being drawn in the usual manner from the body of the county, had been secured in a most singular way. The prose- cuting attorney selected a man, and the trial judge appointed him a special officer to summon whomsoever he pleased. Commenting upon this proceeding, a Chicago paper said editorially : " This officer boasted, in advance of the trial and while selecting jurors, that he was managing the case and that the prisoners would hang as certain as death, because he was calling such men as the prisoners would have to challenge peremptorily, thereby wasting their challenges, and that, when these had been exhausted, they would have to take such jurors as the prosecution wanted. And it all came out in that way. The prisoners did exhaust their challenges, and consequently did have thrust into the jury-box to try them for their lives a body of men almost every one of whom had confessed in open court, upon entering the jury-box, that he was prejudiced against the prisoners." There were many other improprieties and irregularities which the Governor's investigation unearthed, and as the result of them all he more than pardoned, he acquitted the imprisoned men and in effect rehabilitated the good name of those who had been unjustly hanged. We must confess, therefore, that the so-called law-and-order party were the real anarchists in the above case. Another case in point is graphically described in the following quo- tation from Mr. Upton Sinclair's great work, " The Jungle." It per- tains to a strike which occurred some few years ago in Packingtown : " Meantime the packers had set themselves definitely to the task of making a new labour force. A thousand or two of strike-breakers were brought in every night, and distributed among the various plants. Some of them were experienced workers, butchers, salesmen, and managers from the packers' branch stores, and a few union men who had deserted from other cities ; but the vast majority were ' green ' negroes from the cotton districts of the far South, and they were herded into the packing-plants like sheep. There was a law for- bidding the use of buildings as lodging-houses unless they were licensed for the purpose, and provided with proper windows, stair- ways, and fire-escapes ; but here, in a * paint-room/ reached only by an enclosed * chute,' a room without a single window and only one door, a hundred men were crowded upon mattresses on the floor. Up on the third story of the ' hog-house ' of Jones's was a store-room, with- out a window, into which they crowded seven hundred men, sleeping upon the bare springs of cots, and with a second shift to use them by day. And when the clamour of the public led to an investigation into these conditions, and the mayor of the city was forced to order the enforcement of the law, the packers got a judge to issue an in- junction forbidding him to do it! " Just at this time the mayor was boasting that he had put an end to gambling and prize-fighting in the city; but here a swarm of pro- fessional gamblers had leagued themselves with the police to fleece the strike-breakers; and any night, in the big open space in front of 296 THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE LAW Brown's, one might see brawny negroes stripped to the waist and pounding each other for money, while a howling throng of three or four thousand surged about, men and women, young white girls from the country rubbing elbows with big buck negroes with daggers in their boots, while rows of woolly heads peered down from every window of the surrounding factories. The ancestors of these black people had been savages in Africa ; and since then they had been chattel slaves, or had been held down by a community ruled by the traditions of slavery. Now for the first time they were free, free to gratify every passion, free to wreck themselves. They were wanted to break a strike, and when it was broken they would be shipped away, and their present masters would never see them again; and so whiskey and women were brought in by the car-load and sold to them, and hell was let loose in the yards. Every night there were stabbings and shootings; it was said that the packers had blank permits, which enabled them to ship dead bodies from the city without troubling the authorities. They lodged men and women on the same floor; and with the night there began a saturnalia of debauchery scenes such as never before had been witnessed in America. And as the women were the dregs from the brothels of Chicago, and the men were for the most part ignorant country negroes, the nameless diseases of vice were soon rife ; and this where food was being handled which was sent out to every corner of the civilised world." The many negro lynchings which have occurred in all but a few states in the Union, offer an abundance of testimony to the same effect. It is almost invariably the self-styled law-and-order faction which thus anarchistically defies the law and harks back to the ethics of the jungle. The whitecaps are another case in point. The eastern " legalised " atrocities committed upon the striking coal miners, the western out- rages upon the miners of Colorado, of which we shall have more to say, the treatment of Emma Goldman and John Turner, already adverted to, the judicial assault upon the rights of jurors, and the defiance of court orders by the Standard Oil, Beef Trust, and other octopi, are all illustrations of anarchy in the so-called upper classes. Over against this what can be offered in the way of the less " respect- able " anarchy of the poor ? Leon Czolgosz, a poor, misguided youth whose mind was in all probability unhinged, assassinates President McKinley, and straight- way the country goes into hysterics against anarchy. Both the pulpit and the press, with rare exceptions, lose their heads. A wild cry for vengeance, the word is used advisedly is heard in all parts of the land. To read the press reports one would think the President were a being capable of a million-fold the suffering of an unofficial man. In our own town one shop-keeper filled one of his windows with miniature instruments of torture, with placards indicating that they should be applied to the assassin. A Methodist clergyman of Chicago hys- terically exclaimed : " Pray for Czolgosz ? No. The assassin is fixed irrevocably. No murderer shall enter the kingdom. This is enough. Man might as well pray for the devil." 297 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Chancellor Huntington, of the Nebraska Wesleyan university, gave utterance to a similar brand of " Christianity " in an address to the students of his university. The Kev. John W. Malcolm, of Cleve- land, uttered the following noble protest against the cheap clamour of those who mistook their brutal desire for vengeance for a genuine sympathy : ' " Ah, my friends, a true sorrow does not play with language. A man who really mourns neither swaggers nor swears. People truly sad have few words and no revenge. It isn't possible for a man or woman to feel real grief and real revenge at the same time. It isn't possible for a man or woman in the tears of a wounded love to talk blood and bereavement in the same breath. All this bluster and threat have betrayed both a lack of character and the lack of a genuine sense of loss." A little later a wave of hysterical anti-anarchistic legislation swept the country. And what was the cause of it all ? This. Czolgosz as- serted that he had derived his murderous inspiration from a lecture delivered by Emma Goldman at Cleveland. The " Chicago Tribune " published an abstract of the speech referred to, from which it ap- pears that the speaker not only did not advocate assassination but op- posed it. There has never been anything, so far as we are aware, to indicate that the assassin acted on any other than his own initiative or that he took anyone else into his confidence. He himself stated emphatically that no one else had anything to do with his crime or knew of his intent to commit it. It will be seen, therefore, that the atrocious act was not part of a conspiracy and was in no way charge- able to anarchists as a class. Some years ago a Massachusetts religious fanatic offered up his son in sacrifice. He drew his inspiration from the Bible, but we are not aware that anyone proposed to interdict the Book on that account. An unhinged mind may draw inspiration for the foulest of crimes from the noblest sources. One other alleged case of " anarchy " among the " working classes " must be mentioned. We refer to the dynamiting of a railway sta- tion at Independence, in the Cripple Creek region, during the recent Colorado episode. Eegarding this, we need only say that it has never been proven that the miners had anything whatever to do with this. No miner has yet been convicted of having any connection with the tragedy, and the only clue that had any appearance of reality pointed directly to a man formerly employed by the so-called party of law- and-order, the Mine Owners' Association. In other strikes the story is much the same. If there is rioting it is almost invariably caused deliberately and with malice prepense by the " law-and-order " fac- tion. The reason for this is not far to seek. Let us examine into it. A strike is threatened. Labour, as is all but invariably the case, offers to arbitrate; capital almost always refuses to do so, generally replying with its favorite phrase " we have nothing to arbitrate." Even while we write, this familiar bit of history is repeating itself in the anthracite coal region. The employers' refusal to arbitrate shows a spirit of unfairness at the start, which effects not only their employes but the public opinion of their neighbourhood as well. A 298 THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE LAW strike or a lockout occurs, it matters not which, and employer and employed prepare for the conflict. The employer has learned that soldiers are the thing for him, particularly soldiers who are, in the first place, mere disciplinary machines and who, in the second place, know nothing of the facts. Soldiers have been known to lay down their arms rather than fire upon their friends, and they have also been known to make cash contributions to the fund of the very men they were supposed to suppress. All this the capitalistic side of the controversy knows very well. In seeking soldiers, therefore, the employers always look with longing eyes at the Federal troops. But how are they to get these? One easy way is to foment discord by Pinkerton thugs, or in any other way, until there is a pretext to claim that the U. S. mails are being interfered with. If the executive be of their sort, there need be no more truth in this claim than there was when President Cleveland invaded the statehood rights of Illinois by sending Federal troops to Chicago without the invitation, and against the protest, of the Governor of the State. Another common way of securing troops is to claim that the local police cannot or will not maintain order and protect property. A railroad company sets fire to a few of its cars, or sends its Pinkertons to create street brawls, and then asks for troops. Sometimes, if there be a strong color prejudice, they import gangs of the worst negroes procurable, trusting in the well-known weakness of human nature to do the rest. No community takes kindly to having soldiers quar- tered upon it. The presence of a bluejacket in such a capacity is an insult to the American idea, besides which, so corruptive is power, that the soldier cannot refrain from continually exceeding the authority vested in him. We shall see in due course several instances of this sort, and it is believed the thoughtful reader will be convinced that, in the over- whelming majority of cases where real anarchy is found to exist, it is directly chargeable to that class which is loudest in arrogating to itself the duty of preserving law and order. Let us consider first the lawlessness of the law. We have already elsewhere referred to certain phases of this subject, and shall confine ourselves here chiefly to the ever-growing abuses of injunctions. Comparatively few laymen are aware that the injunction as applied to labour disputes is a legal balloon. It is a structure absolutely with- out foundation. It rests on nothing. Originally it was built upon a temporary staging. Subsequently this was knocked from under it and demolished, and the superstructure, instead of having the good sense to fall to the ground, remained balloon-like floating in thin air. True to its gauzy and gaseous nature, it has grown bigger and bigger as the surrounding pressure diminished, until to-day it is threatening to overwhelm our most cherished institutions of liberty. This is no idle phrase of an alarmist. The injunction has already earned the hatred and contempt of all well-informed lovers of American prin- ciples. We cannot afford space to go into a detailed history of the application of the injunction to labour troubles. The subject is very ably treated by Mr. Henry George Jr. in his chapter on the " Use of the Courts by Privilege," in " The Menace of Privilege." The fol- 299 lowing brief outline extracted therefrom must suffice for present pur- poses. Mr. George says : " Our practice of applying injunctions to labour disputes originated with a case in England in 1868. Upon that foundation all our wonderful edifice of industrial court orders has been built up. And yet mark how unsubstantial this foundation! The English case is known as Springhead Spinning Co. vs. Riley (6 L. R. Eq. Gas. 551). In that case members of a labour union were re- strained from issuing placards which requested 'all well-wishers' of the union ' not to trouble or cause any annoyance to the Springhead Spinning Company Lees by knocking at the door of their offices, un- til the dispute between them and the self-actor reminders is finally terminated.' Vice-Chancellor Malms, who sat in the case, held that the defendant workmen were in this issuing of placards guilty of ' threats and intimidation, rendering it impossible for the plaintiffs to obtain workmen, without whose assistance the property became utterly valueless for the purposes of their trade.' The court, there- fore, held that it should interfere by injunction to restrain such acts, insomuch as they also tended to the destruction or deterioration of property/' Now this injunction was only temporary, and the Vice-Chancellor expressed doubts as to its standing on subsequent hearing, should argument be made for making the order permanent. He doubted if the court would be found to have jurisdiction in the premises. Ap- parently the issue was never further argued, probably - because the strike could not survive the temporary injunction. In such cases the effect of these orders or court is much as it would be were a man " temporarily enjoined " from eating or drinking anything and the date for final hearing set three months ahead, he would not be pres- ent to show cause why the injunction should not be made permanent. It was such ridiculous rulings as these we have cited that are hit off by the proverb, " First hang and draw, then hear the cause by Lind- ford's law." The order issued against the striking spinners "lapsed into des- uetude" and a year later, *1869, the same Vice-Chancellor issued a mate to it in the case of Dixon vs. Holden. This, not being appealed to a higher court, went the way of its fellow. In 1875, however, both these cases were cited as precedents for an injunction case known as the Prudential Assurance Co. vs. Knott (10 L. R. Chancery Appeals, page 142, 1875). This case, unlike its predecessors, was carried to the Chancery Court of Appeals, which is the highest equitable tribunal. This highest court deliberately, emphatically and unanimously repudiated the Vice-Chancellor's ac- tion. It was held that the Court had no jurisdiction to restrain the publication of a libel, as such, even if it is injurious to property. Referring to the Vice-Chancellor's restraining orders of six or seven years before Lord Chancellor Cains of the Appellate Court said : " I am unable to accede to these general propositions. They appear to me to be at variance with 'the settled practice and principles of this court, and I cannot accept them as an authority for the present application. I think that this appeal must be refused with costs." Lord Justice James said : " I think that Vice-Chancellor Malins, 300 THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE LAW in the case of Dixon vs. Holden, was, by his desire to do what was right, led to exaggerate the jurisdiction of this court in a manner for which there was no authority in any reported case, and no founda- tion in principle. I think it right to say that I hold without doubt that the statement of the law in that case is not correct." Lord Justice Melligh said : " I am also entirely of the same opinion/' Commenting upon these decisions, Mr. George says in " The Menace of Privilege " : " Could anything be stronger and clearer than this ? The Chancery Court of Appeals unanimously negatived Vice-Chan- cellor Malins's action on the ground that it was ' at variance with the settled practice and principle ' of the Chancery Court ; that it had 'no authority in any reported case'; that it had 'no foundation in principle.' " Yet clearly and emphatically as all this appears in the law reports, in 1888 twenty years after the Springhead Spinning injunction, and thirteen years subsequent to that injunction's repudiation by the Eng- lish Chancery Court of Appeals a Massachusetts court, in the case of Sherry vs. Perkins (147 Mass. 212), took Vice-Chancellor Malins's action as a precedent for the issuance of a similar restraining order. It was held that the displaying of a banner constituted intimidation, deterring others from working for the employer. The only visible sign of a conspiracy which the court found to exist was the following inscription upon a banner : ' Lasters are requested to keep away from P. P. Sherry's. Per order L. P. U.' " This enjoining order of 1888 in the Sherry vs. Perkins case began the long procession of American injunctions in labour disputes. And then when this plant, which had been uprooted from English soil, took root in American soil and grew to size and strength, behold what happened, all ye who put your faith in the consistency of courts ! The English Chancery courts began to cite the American equity courts for injunction precedents, entirely ignoring the former declaration of its own Chancery Court of Appeals that all such action was 'at variance with the settled (Chancery) practice and principle.' " To pile wonder on wonder, the Canadian courts have now begun to cite those recent English Chancery cases for the issuance of restrain- ing orders, and doubtless ere long our courts will quote the Canadian judges as additional injunction authorities. " Thus, while an attorney for a great monopoly corporation will now quote a perfect cloud of American and English labour injunction au- thorities, the facts are that they all sprang up in America since 1888, and that in England and America they came from a single temporary injunction issued by an English Vice-Chancellor in 1868, who had some doubt of his jurisdiction; which jurisdiction was subsequently declared by the highest equity court in England not to exist. "Upon such a foundation rests the recent great construction of la- bour injunctions." The extent to which injunction abuses obtain is well illustrated by a case now under discussion in the public prints. On the 23d day of February, 1906, Edwin R. Wright, President Typographical Union No. 16. and Edward E. Bessette, an organiser of the Union, were 301 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION arrested and sent to jail' for 30 days for contempt of an injunction issued by Judge Holdom in behalf of the Typothetffi, the employing printers' union. In addition they were fined $1000 and $50 re- spectively. The accused did not deny that they had used legitimate persuasion with offers of pay and expenses to any strike-breakers who would quit work, but they positively and circumstantially denied resorting either to violence or intimidation. At the hearing in proceedings for con- tempt before Judge Holdom, the defendants asked for a jury trial upon disputed questions of fact. This Judge Holdom denied. The defendants objected that he could not punish for contempt of the injunction until it had been sustained by the higher court before which it was then pending an appeal. Judge Holdom overruled this objection and tried the case himself upon affidavits, convicted the defendants and imposed the aforemen- tioned penalties. Here we see a judge granting an injunction which may or may not be just and equitable. From this the defendants appeal. Before the higher court reviews the order, the defendants are pronounced in con- tempt. They dispute certain allegations and ask that a jury shall determine these questions of fact. This the judge denies. He fur- thermore repudiates their right of appeal by rendering it abortive, since he punishes them for what he alleges to be an offence before the higher court decides whether or not they have offended. Plutarch said, " No man may be both accuser and judge," yet here is a man wh6 is not only both of these but is also maker of the law in question. When such things can occur we need not marvel at the collocation in the proverbial phrase, " Hell and chancery are always open." It is precisely as if a man who has appealed from a sentence of murder in the first degree should be executed during the pendency of his case before the higher court. It is a most unique way of mak- ing sure the defendant does not escape punishment, and it has the further peculiarity of doing away with all punitive distinctions be- tween guilt and innocence. As a result of this t*nd similar injunction abuses the Kansas So- ciety of Labour and Industry, meeting at Topekg, in February of this year (1906), passed a resolution urging " ' all labour and other organi- sations that have the public welfare at heart ' to consider whether the time has not come to hold a national conference for the purpose of agreeing upon the best plan for preventing further aggressions, re- covering lost ground, and securing such a basis for law as will in- crease instead of decrease respect for the courts." The Chicago typographical union recently passed the following reso- lution : " Resolved, That the president appoint a committee of five to draw up a plan of forming an anti-injunction league, the sole purpose of which shall be to compel every candidate for office, without regard to political affiliation, either national, State or municipal, to place him- self on record as opposed to the injunction as applied to trades unions, to the end that freedom of thought, action, and speech, the 302 THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE LAW foundations of American institutions, may be allowed the fullest lati- tude both in the case of employer and employe, as contemplated in the Constitution/' Commenting upon Judge Holdom's singular bias,, "The Public" prints the following editorially under the heading "More 'Govern- ment by Injunction ' " : "Judge Holdom, of Chicago, has availed himself of another op- portunity to strengthen his reputation as a ' government by injunc- tion ' judge. Acting as his own jury, he has convicted two officers of the printers' union of an offense unknown to the law inducing im- ported non-unionists to join the union and paying their expenses home, and has imposed a penalty in his own discretion. Under his sentence the men are now in jail. Holdom's decision was expressed in terms which clearly disclosed a bias that would have disqualified any man for jury service, but he refused to refer the case to a jury, and incompetency for bias is an unknown disqualification under the prac- tice and procedure of * government by injunction/ However, Judge Holdom is not the man to be criticised. He went frankly enough be- fore the public for reelection as an employers' judge. As such he was supported by employers' organisations. They knew and he knew that he was the kind of judge they wanted. If the labour organisations didn't recognise him as unfair, it was no fault of his. Some of them evidently did, for he was badly cut at the polls. But if they had been as solicitous for public interests as their employers were for ' business * interests, Judge Holdom would have to fight labour organisations, if he fought them at all, in a different and somewhat less influential ca- pacity." So replete with injunction outrages is our recent history that it is impossible within reasonable space to mention more than a few of the most flagrant. In an article entitled " The Abuses of Injunctions " published in " The Arena," June, 1903, Judge Seabury traces the rapid development of the injunction principle, showing how the wedge once entered was pushed nearer and nearer home at the behest of privilege. We cannot illustrate all the stages, but will advert at once to one of the most celebrated cases which has ever occurred, that growing out of the Pullman strike in 1894. The Pullman Company proposed to reduce wages and refused to arbitrate the question. As a consequence their employes struck. As they were members of The American Eailway Union, a boycott was declared on all Pullman cars. Eugene V. Debs, the president of the union, was arrested on July 10th upon indictments charging ob- struction of the mails and inter-State commerce. Commenting on this arrest, Mr. George says, in " The Menace of Privilege " : " He was arraigned, but, despite his demands to be tried, the case was abandoned by the prosecution for want of proper evi- dence, it was commonly believed at the time, in absence of adequate explanation. President Cleveland's Strike Commission subsequently declared, ' There is no evidence before the Commission that the officers of the American Railway Union at any time participated in or ad- vised intimidation, violence or destruction of property/ But if a jury 303 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION would not punish when it had no evidence, another way might be found. It was found through an injunction without a jury. " An ' omnibus' enjoining order was, on July 17, issued by Federal Judges Woods and Grosscup against Debs and the officers of his union, all of whom it specifically named. It also included all per- sons whomsoever (158 IT. S. 564). It was served on some persons in the accustomed way by presentation in person; but on all the persons not named it was served by publication in newspapers, tacking on telegraph-poles and on freight-cars and reading aloud to a great crowd of strikers and others. " Presumably on the ground that the American Eailway Union was obstructing the United States mails in spite of the restraining order, although the soldiers that President Cleveland insisted on sending into Chicago were sent to the stock-yards district, where there were no mail cars, Debs and others were arrested for contempt of court. They were not sentenced until December. Judge Woods, without trial of the cases before a jury, condemned Debs to six months' im- prisonment and his associates to three months'. Appeal was taken to the Supreme Court for release on habeas corpus, the ground being that an equity court had no right to issue such an injunction, and thus deprive men of trial by jury. But the higher court sustained the lower one." When the Supreme Court gets to the point where it can sustain such a decision as this, it is not to be marveled at that the thinking people of America have a growing distrust of their judiciary. No won- der that we see in the public prints an ever increasing number of paragraphs like the following : " When the justices of the .Supreme Court file into the court room to begin a session, an officer announces : ' Hear ye, the Supreme Court of the United States is now in session,' and then, as if inspired with prophetic vision or foreboding, he cries, ' God save the United States ! ' ; This reminds one of the story told of a somewhat ignorant and irascible Western judge who was noted for the frequency of his con- tempt proceedings. One day while walking along the street he was much annoyed by some mischievous boys. His ire was quickly aroused and he shouted to them : " You young ' varmints ' I'll fine everyone of you for contempt of court ! " To this threat the ringleader of the urchins jauntily replied, " but you can't, judge ! You're not in ses- sion now and we can't commit contempt." " Ye can't, eh ? " thundered His Honour. " I'd have you know that this court is always in session and is always an object of contempt!" Under the caption, " Do Judges Stagnate ? " Mr. John P. Altgeld, who certainly was well qualified to answer his own question, says, in " The Cost of Something for Nothing " : "The question is frequently asked: 'Why does a man cease to grow after he goes on the bench ? ' " As a rule, men elected to the bench have established a reputation of being men of strong character and growing intelligence, and if they had remained off the bench they would have continued developing. But as soon as a man is elected to the office of judge, all growth, 304 THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE LAW seems to cease; and after years of experience on the bench, he not only has not grown but he has deteriorated. " There are several reasons for this. In the first place, his active life ceases. He literally and figuratively sits down. Growth, strength and greatness come from contest." ... " Instead of the independence which comes from fighting life's bat- tles, which develops greatness, the judge too often, unintentionally and unconsciously, becomes merely the expression of what is for the time the dominant influence of the land. This dominant influence is like the pressure of the atmosphere; it envelops him, and is almost irresistible. It requires tremendous strength of character to rise above it and be guided solely by the pole-star of justice. Yet the judge who gives way to the pressure, and allows his high office to be used for purposes of oppression and of wrong, is a curse to his country." There is a growing sentiment in these United States that many of our judges as well as our lawyers fill the above specification far too well. " If the judge be your accuser, may God be your help," say the Turks, and it may be confidentially wagered that Mr. Eugene V. Debs, in common with many another who has been similarly deprived of the most fundamental and elementary rights of American citizenship, fully endorses the Moslem sentiment. When Powell said, " Nothing is law that is not reason," he had not been favoured with an acquaintance with our latter-day judiciary. Reviewing the progress of the injunction evil up to that time in '" Injunctions and Organised Labour," (see 17th Report American Bar Association), Mr. C. C. Allen says: "The Attorney-General of the United States, acting for the United States in the exercise of its sovereignty as a nation, has sued out injunctions in nearly every large city west of the Alleghany Mountains. Injunction writs have covered the sides of cars ; deputy marshals and Federal soldiers have patrolled the yards of railway termini, and chancery process has been executed by bullets and bayonets. Equity jurisdiction has passed from the theory cf public rights to the domain of political prerogative. In 1888 the basis of jurisdiction was the protection of the private right of civil property; in 1893 it was the preservation of public rights; in 1904 it has become the enforcement of political powers." We ask the Reader's special attention to the utterly indefensible action of President Cleveland during this strike, an act so palpable an infringement of statehood rights, so manifestly unconstitutional, so glaringly unfair and uncalled for, that history will reserve for it a foremost place full " on the line " in its Hall of Infamy. Had Presi- dent Cleveland been avowedly the attorney for the Pullman Company he could scarcely have shown a more partisan bias. Commenting upon this disgraceful incident, Mr. George says : " And most of this change came under the Sherman Inter-State Commerce Act, which organised labour had done so much to have passed against the trusts. Such a possible use of the law had never been dreamed of by workmen, whereas what they deemed the essen- tial feature of it was made a dead letter. President Cleveland during the Pullman strike actually selected as special counsel for the United 20 305 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION States Government, at Chicago, Mr. Edwin Walker, who was at that very time general counsel for the General Managers' Association, rep- resenting the twenty-four railroads centring or terminating in Chi- cago, and operating in utter defiance of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law/' Think of the unblushing effrontery of such a bias and note its re- sults. To make these clearer a word of explanation is necessary. In 1886 the twenty-four railroads centring or terminating in Chicago formed a voluntary, unincorporated body under the name of the General Managers' Association. Of this Association the Commission which President Cleveland ap- pointed at the close of the strike to investigate its causes and its course said : " If we regard its practical workings rather than its professions as expressed in its constitution, the General Managers' Association has no more standing in law than the old Trunk Line Pool. It cannot incorporate, because railroad charters do not authorise roads to form corporations or associations to fix rates for services and wages, nor to force their acceptance, nor to battle with strikers. It is a usurpation of power not granted." To this judgment Mr. George very properly adds, " The Commis- sion might have added that the association was obviously in conflict with the Sherman Anti-Trust Law." The real menace of this illegal but powerful association was not borne in upon the railroad employes until March, 1893, when it ar- rayed itself in solid phalanx in answer to the demand of the switch- men of each road for more pay. The association, speaking for all of the twenty-four roads at once, informed the men that they were al- ready paid enough ; if anything they were overpaid. "This was the first time," says the report of the Cleveland Com- mission, "when men upon each line were brought face to face with the fact that in questions as to wages, rules, etc., each line was sup- ported by twenty-three combined railroads. . . . This associa- tion likewise prepared for its use elaborate schedules of the wages upon the entire lines of the twenty-four members. The proposed object of these schedules was to let each road know what other roads paid. ... It was an incident of the General Managers' Associa- tion to 'assist' each road in case of trouble over such matters, one form of assistance being for the association to secure men enough through its agencies to take the places of all strikers." Now it was this very association which by its aggressiveness forced the general organisation, in 1893, of all the employes of these roads, under the name of the American Eailway Union, with Eugene V. Debs as president. Upon this point the aforementioned Commission is most explicit in its report, which calls 'attention to the fact that " it should be noted that until the railroads set the example, a general union of railroad employes was never attempted." Now, on June 22, the General Managers' Association assumed direc- tion and control of the employers' end of the strike. It stood for all the roads and used every resource known to or possessed by any of them, in crushing the strike 306 THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE LAW With this explanation we are now in a condition to understand the enormity of President Cleveland's course. We need not go ex- haustively into detail. One of the first means employed by the Gen- eral Managers' Association for the purpose of " crushing the strike " was to procure the appointment of the aforementioned Edwin Walker, as special counsel for the Government. Notwithstanding the fact that this same Edwin Walker was as that very moment counsel for the Managers' Association, President Cleveland made the appointment through Attorney-General Olney. Did ever any act assail the nostrils of Justice with a more putrid stench? Here was the chief executive, whose attitude should have been judicial, practically appointing one of the contesting parties to judge both his own case and that of his opponent! One of the litigants, as it were, was invited to mount the bench and determine both the law and the evidence. It was, of course, the beginning of the end, for " accusing is proving where malice and force sit judges." Nothing now remained for the General Managers' Association, a body existing in defiance of law but now practically made co-partners with Uncle Sam, but to go through such magician-like passes as it deemed necessary to keep up a show of respectability before the uncritical and draw the issue to a close pleasant to themselves as litigants, judges, jurors and all the court impedimenta common to a stone-blind Justice whose scales are over her eyes not in her hand. And thus it fell out. On a flimsy pretext, having no basis in fact, Walker "asked for and obtained the judicial and military arms- of the Federal Government to crush the strike. For it was Walker who petitioned and received from Federal Judges Woods and Grosscup the now famous or infamous blanket injunction referred to in a previous chapter. It was likewise Walker who asked for and obtained an army of Federal marshals. Later it was Walker who asked for and obtained Federal troops, writing Attorney-General Olney that, ' the aid of the regular army ' was necessary to enforce the orders of the court and to protect the railroad companies in moving their trains, freight and passenger, including the mails." According to the testimony of Mr. Cleveland's own commission, the mails were not accumulating and trains were running nearly on time, and there was very little disorder, up to the arrival of the Fed- eral troops on July 3d. We read that on June 30th the Superin- tendent of the railway mail-service reported to the department, " No mails have accumulated at Chicago so far; all regular trains are moving nearly on time with a few slight exceptions." We quote from Mr. George : " On July 2 the General Managers' Association published reports, stating that freight and passenger trains generally were running without interruption. The Strike Com- mission quoted the superintendent of police as saying : ' So far as I understand, serious violence or depredations had not been committed prior to the 3d of July, when the troops arrived.' According to the Chicago fire department's official report, the total damage up to July 6 had been less than $0,000. In addition to these facts the then mayor, John P. Hopkins, a political partisan of President Cleve- land's, testified before the Strike Commission : ' So far as I know, 307 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION ond I believe I am thoroughly conversant with the case, the police did all the work required of them. In fact, I have the assurance of the officials of the different railroads that they received the most efficient protection they had ever received during similar troubles. That condition of things existed until July 5.' " Indeed, there was so little trouble in Chicago up to this time that the mayor said there was no need of even issuing a proclamation against rioting; and he did not do so until July 6. And not until that date did he call for State troops. Governor Altgeld immediately sent a brigade. " Yet in face of all this the General Managers' Association obtained, first, the appointment of United States deputy-marshals and then, on July 3, United States regulars. Ostensibly these deputy-marshals and regulars were obtained to uphold the law and protect life and prop- erty. Really they were to uphold the unprecedented and revolution- ary injunction the General Managers had obtained from the Federal Court an injunction intended to crush the strike and the strikers' union. " In regard to the marshals, the Strike Commission in its report had this to say : ' United States deputy-marshals to the number of 3600 were selected by and appointed at request of the General Managers' Association and of its railroads. They were armed and paid by the railroads, and acted in the double capacity of railroad employes and United States officers. While operating the railroads they assumed and exercised unrestricted United States authority when so ordered by their employers, or whenever they regarded it as necessary. They were not under the direct control of any Government official while exercising authority. This is placing officers of the Government un- der control of a combination of railroads. It is a bad precedent, that might well lead to serious consequences.' " Governor Altgeld protested vigourously against Cleveland's invasion of the .State of Illinois by Federal soldiers and asked that they be withdrawn. The President replied that the troops were sent to Chi- cago strictly in accordance with the Constitution and the law. Reply- ing to this, and again asking that the troops be withdrawn, Governor Altgeld said: "The statute authorising Federal troops to be sent into States in certain cases contemplated that the State troops shall be taken first. This provision has been ignored, and it is assumed that the Executive is not bound by it. ... '' You calmly assume that the Executive has the legal right to order Federal troops into any community of the United States, in the first instance, whenever there is the" slightest disturbance, and that he can do this without any regard to the question as to whether that com- munity is able to and ready to enforce the law itself. And, inasmuch as the Executive is the sole judge of the question as to whether any disturbance exists or not in any part of the country, this assump- tion means that the Executive can send Federal troops into any com- munity in the United States at his pleasure, and keep them there as long as he chooses. If this is the law, then the principle of self- government either never did exist in this country or else has been de- 308 THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE LAW stroyed, for no community can be said to possess local self-government, if the Executive can, at his pleasure, send military forces to patrol its streets under pretence of enforcing some law. The kind of local self- government that could exist under these circumstances can be found in any of the monarchies of Europe, and it is not in harmony with the spirit of our institutions. " The Executive has the command not only of the regular forces of all the United States, but of the military forces of all the States, and can order them to any place he sees fit ; and as there are always more or less local disturbances over the country, it will be an easy matter under your construction of the law for an ambitious Executive to order out the military forces of all of the States, and establish at once a military Government. The only chance of failure in such a move- ment could come from rebellion, and with such a vast military power at command this could readily be crushed, for, as a rule, soldiers will obey orders." Governor Altgeld's protests against the chief Executive's invasive action were so unanswerable apparently that Mr. Cleveland dared not enter into discussion with him upon the subject. After death had forever silenced John P. Altgeld, Grover Cleveland published his views of the strike which had been history for ten years. The article appeared in " McClure's Magazine " for July, 1904. In the course thereof Mr. Cleveland intimates that Federal troops were dispatched to Chicago because "there was plenty of domestic vio- lence " there and because " very little mail and no freight was mov- ing." These statements are in direct and irreconcilable conflict not only with the testimony of the men who at the time of the strike held the offices of Governor of Illinois and Mayor of Chicago, but also with that of the General Managers' Association, the superin- tendent of Chicago police and of his own investigating commission. They are furthermore negatived by the indisputable fact that the very troops ostensibly despatched to " protect the mails " were sent to the stock-yards district where there were no mail-cars to protect. Nor should it be forgotten that the 3600 United States deputy- marshals "were selected by and appointed at the request of the Gen- eral Managers' Association and of its railroads." The railroads armed them, paid them and used them in the double capacity of United States officers and employes, so that we have here an actual concrete example of what has often been claimed, to wit, that favored corporations and individuals use government officials for their own selfish ends. Is not this a fine way to secure justice? Why not extend the principle and let, say, " The United Order of Benevolent Burglars " choose, arm and pay the policemen who are to patrol the districts in which they operate. If this were done, on pretence of protecting the property of the citizens at large, it would doubtless cause them all to sing that touching political refrain, " Give us four more years of Grover." Had the combined force, consisting of the General Managers' Asso- ciation, nearly four thousand United States deputy-marshals, the Fed- eral troops, the Federal courts, the Attorney-General and the Chief 309 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Executive, failed to " crush " the strike, what a shocking commentary it would have been upon official efficiency! Can we wonder that the respect for law is breaking down in the United States ? William Pitt said, " Where law ends tyranny begins." The great statesman and orator probably had no idea that he was voicing one of those Christian-Science sentences which are just as true stated backwards. Where tyranny begins law ends is quite as true as the original statement, provided by " law " we mean anything worthy the respect of a free and intelligent citizen. 310 CHAPTER IV THE COURTS VS. JUSTICE 311 The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government, presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the es- tablished Government. All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract or awe the regular delibera- tion and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. Washington Farewell Address. The Standard Oil Monopoly is well-known to be one of the arch-offenders of the age, an utterly conscienceless law-breaker and criminal. Prof. Frank Parsons The City for the People. 312 CHAPTER IV THE COURTS VS. JUSTICE HE almost unbelievable legal abuses which are the direct spawn of the government by injunction, to which this country has been subjected, have scarcely been more than hinted at in the preceding chapter. Hardly a week passes but some new outrage is perpe- trated upon the American principle, in the name of this legal quackery. Notwithstanding all this, however, we find no less a personage than Justice Brewer, of the Supreme Court, looking long- ingly forward to the time when the popular outcry against injunc- tions "will spend itself." How well this judge's position illustrates the marvelous foresight displayed by Thomas Jefferson, when he warned his countrymen more than a century ago that it is of the na- ture of courts to draw autocratic power to themselves. We extract the following from an editorial comment on Justice Brewer's utterances, printed in " The Public," of Chicago : "It" (the injunction) "is a device that originates not with the people but with the judiciary ; one which has been adopted contrary to custom, even judicial custom, and without statutory sanction; one which enables judges to enact special legislation in their own dis- cretion for each case as it comes before them ; and one which deprives persons, falsely charged with wrongdoing, of at least five elementary rights the right to an inquiry by a grand jury, the right to be con- fronted in open court with hostile witnesses and to cross-examine them, the right to know in advance the penalty they incur, the right to trial by jury, and the right to be tried only once for the same wrong. " When a Justice of the Supreme Court sanctions a judicial revo- lution which involves the abrogation of such rights, especially when that Supreme Court Justice is on record in an address before another bar-association some years ago, as having urged the future importance of the judiciary to the privileged classes as their protection against hostile legislation, the progress of government by injunction may fairly be regarded with even more alarm than its own inherent iniquity might warrant. What may be the limit of judicial usurpation? be- comes in those circumstances a burning question. If the judiciary may so far depart from its legitimate function of interpreting and applying the laws that the people enact through their law-making representatives if it may depart from that function so far as to set aside the very fundamentals of laws so sanctioned and to enact a new system to suit its own ideas of what the new times need, then how far in the way of usurpation may it not go ? " . . . " This reaching out for judicial power has gone so far in one di- 313 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION rection that the Supreme Court of New York has actually managed a notorious brothel through receivers (unknown to the court, to be sure, though not to the receivers), while in another direction the courts are grasping at the governmental powers of legislation and adminis- tration." . . . " When judges make their own law, apply it in their own way, try accusations under it according to their own standards, fix penalties to suit themselves, and all without other legal sanction than judge-made law and in total disregard of constitutional safeguards, they very easily fall into a line of conduct which fairly brings their impartiality under suspicion. Let that happen and the usefulness of the judiciary is practically at an end. This suspicion has already become so general in the United States, under the regime of government by injunction, that no one any longer expects impartial decisions in labor-injunction cases. Workingmen do not, and they are mad about it; employers do not, and they are glad of it. The demoralising effect is the same in either case/' Very much saner than Justice Brewer's ideas on injunctions are those of Judge Seabury, already referred to as the author of " The Abuses of Injunctions." He says : " The courts have not only prohib- ited persuasion, when accompanied by intimidation and threats, but they have actually denied the right of workmen peaceably to persuade their fellows to join them on strikes." As an illustration he cites the words of the court in the case of the York Manufacturing Company vs. Obedick, (10 Penn. D. Eep. 463), to wit: "It is seriously contended by counsel for the respondents that they have a legal right to ap- proach other workmen in the employ of the complainant, and to per- suade and induce them either to quit or not to accept such employ- ment. . . . There is no such legal right." Commenting on this Mr. George says in his " The Menace of Privi- lege": " In like manner ' there is no legal right ' for many things in the eyes of some of the Federal judges, who, owing their places not to popular suffrage, act as if above all regard for the body of the people. For instance, in 1899 an injunction, was issued out of the United States Circuit Court of West Virginia in the interest of the Wheeling Railway Company against ' John Smith and others/ without naming the others. It was the now familiar blanket type of injunction. Two men, not parties to the action, nor found to be agents of ' John Smith and others,' were punished for contenipt of court. Wherein were they in contempt ? asks a committee of the Social Reform Club of New York, appointed to report on the ominous progress of injunctions. The com- mittee answers : The men * were punished for contempt of court for, among other things, ' reviling ' and ' cursing ' employes of the rail- road company. If these men had not actually served out an impris- onment in jail for thirty days as a punishment for contempt of cor- poration, it might be thought that your committee had taken this example from opera bouffe. The legality of this punishment was never passed on by the Supreme Court, for the reason, as your com- mittee understand, that the parties were unable to bear the expense of taking it there, and so served their term in jail/ 314' THE COURTS FS. JUSTICE v "More recently, during a great coal strike involving most of the mines of West Virginia, United States Judge Keller, in the southern judicial district, issued a blanket injunction covering some fifty mines along or near the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. He prohibited even * assembling near ' the mines. He went further and restrained na- tional officers of the mine workers' organisation from purchasing and distributing food to the West Virginia strikers. At the same time Judge Jackson in the northern district issued injunctions very similar in import, and between the two judges most of the mines of the State were covered by restraining orders. Some of the national organisers of the mine workers' general organisation, disregarding Judge Jack- son's orders, were arrested and, by summary process and without a jury trial, were by him sentenced to imprisonment for contempt of court, the judge calling them ' vampires that live and fatten on the honest labour of the coal miners of the country.' " In another part of the article already mentioned Judge Seabury shows how these enjoining orders emanating from courts of equity are not only in defiance of the time-honoured principles of law but are invasive of fundamental rights. " Assuming," he says, " for the sake of the argument, that in every instance the workmen were engaged in acts in violation of the criminal law, these injunctions were unneces- sary and unjustifiable. If the acts were not criminal, then the theory upon which the injunctions were issued is incorrect, and they were admittedly without justification. If the acts were criminal, the crim- inal law provides the punishment to be imposed and the procedure to be followed. The fact is that the only reason for issuing injunctions in those cases, where the prohibited acts are in violation of the crim- inal law, is to dispense with a trial by jury. " Consider the protection with which the law, as a result of cen- turies of struggle and experience, safeguards the liberty of the lowest citizen. If he is charged with a crime, there must be a hearing before a magistrate, a grand jury must be satisfied that a crime has been committed, and that reasonable ground for believing the accused guilty exists. Upon the indictment found by the grand jury he is tried by a petit jury, and even their verdict, if improperly arrived at or contrary to the law, may be set aside upn appeal. This protection safeguards the rights of one accused even of murder. " How different is the new method, introduced by these injunctions. A judge sitting in his chambers, upon the ex parte application of a private person or corporation, makes an order commanding not only the defendant in the suit, but all the world, to do or refrain from do- ing certain things which are specified in the order. Those violating the order are summarily arrested and brought before the judge whose ukases they are accused of violating. He inflicts punishment upon them. He is judge, jury and executioner, and if he had jurisdiction, his acts cannot be reviewed upon appeal, and the accused is not en- titled to counsel. The committing magistrate, the grand jury, the petit jury, the right of appeal and the right to have counsel are all dispensed with. "Under this system a person can be punished twice for the same offense. He may be fined or imprisoned summarily for contempt in 315 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION disobeying an injunction issued against him, and for the criminal offense charged he may be fined and found guilty, and be subjected again to fine or imprisonment, or both. " The sweeping character of these injunctions may be realised, when it is recalled that they are issued not merely against the parties to the action, but against all mankind. In the Debs case, the injunction was issued against all the persons named in the bill, and against all the members of the American Railway Union who were engaged upon twenty-three railroad systems, and, lest some should be forgotten, against * all other persons whomsoever/ "In no legal sense is such an order an injunction at all. It is simply a general police proclamation, putting the community in general under peril of punishment for contempt if the proclamation is diso- beyed/' The unconstitutionally of the above mentioned procedure will be rendered apparent by a perusal of Articles V. and VI. of the Amend- ments. The former reads : . . . " Nor shall any person be sub- ject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb . . . nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. . . ." The latter reads : " In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an im- partial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." We see, therefore, that even the Federal courts have acted and are acting in utter defiance of constitutional guarantees. We submit that it is about time every American, who has any regard for his country's ideals or his own liberty, should consider just what this statement means. If his sacred bill of rights is to be interpreted with a garrote, the sooner he finds it out the better for him. If Americans generally come to accept as sober truth the Russian proverb, " Truth is straight but judges are crooked," these injunc- tion despots will have themselves to thank for it. We might fill the compass of this entire work with the recital of judicial crimes against liberty, equality and justice, but we must con- tent ourselves with selecting a few of the best known cases. Let us turn now to the use of the injunction to subvert the will of the people as expressed at the polls. It will astonish some of our readers to learn that in " free America " monopoly has used the courts to strike at the ballot itself. Such, alas, is the case ! Only a short time ago the combined railroad, mining and smelting monopolists of Colorado induced two or three judges of the Supreme Court to enjoin certain persons from committing election frauds in the 1904 gubernatorial election, election frauds, bear in mind, which were crimes under the law. This order had no just ground for existence, since the law had already provided for such cases of fraud. We shall see, however, why it was issued. After the election the judges who had issued the injunction ordered that all the ballots of certain voting precincts should be thrown out, "not," as -a well-known writer re- marks, " because the vote was tainted by fraud, as was commonly be- lieved, nor yet because the statutes authorise such action, for they do not. The exclusion was made solely on the ground that acts were committed in those precincts in violation of the injunction." . . 316 THE COURTS VS. JUSTICE Commenting on this singular perversion of a court of equity, Mr. Louis F. Post of Chicago said : " The integrity of elections in Colo- rado is by that decision removed from the protection prescribed by the election statutes; and the function of regulating the voting at elec- tions and determining the results is arbitrarily assumed by the Su- preme Court, sitting simply as a court of equity. So sitting, it makes no discrimination between honest and fraudulent voting, but throws out whole precincts upon learning that its injunction has been to any extent violated. In this way a Legislature is packed by the Supreme Court; not in regular statutory proceedings, but in extraordinary in- junction proceedings. If fear of popular outbreak does not deter them, even the governorship will probably be determined by these usurping judges ^ through this wholesale throwing out of precincts in proceedings for contempt of a ' prerogative ' writ of injunction." The above quotation is reproduced from " The Menace of Privilege," and Mr. George there makes this interesting comment upon it : "Mr. Post's observation was prophetic. Although on the face of the returns Alvah Adams was elected Governor by a large plurality, the Legislature, packed by the Supreme Court, seated J. H. Peabody in the Executive Chair, as a result of a post-election gubernatorial contest, the understanding being that Peabody would at once resign and give place to J. F. McDonald, who had run for the office of Lieutenant-Governor on the ticket with him. This was done, and the present Governor of the State of Colorado may properly be called an injunction-made Executive. " After such things what is not possible for courts sitting in equity ? " In " The Arena " for July, 1903, Mr. Ernest Crosby has an article upon injunctions which is so clear, so sane and so just that we feel warranted in quoting from it at considerable length. He says: " The proper functions of judges is to decide lawsuits between in- dividuals, but of late the idea seems to be growing in the -Judicial mind that they are called upon to govern communities. For in- stance, there have been many occasions on which a Federal Judge, arriving at some city in his circuit, finds a strike in progress, thinks that there is a likelihood of a disturbance of the peace, and imme- diately proceeds at the instance of the employers to issue a blanket- injunction, forbidding all the members of various trade unions, their abettors and friends, and, in fact, the general population, to per- form certain acts which he deems prejudicial to the public weal. It is quite clear that such action is in the nature of municipal government, and in no sense a judicial act at all. Our forefathers were very careful in separating the executive, legislative, and ju- dicial branches of the government; and many are the warnings which they gave us as to the danger of allowing one branch to en- croach upon the others, but an injunction of the kind described, if it forbids lawful acts, is virtually a piece of legislation, for it makes them unlawful, and if the court enforces obedience to it, it assumes executive functions. Such an injunction is, therefore, a double act of usurpation. In a State like West Virginia, for example, where there have been many flagrant cases of usurpations of the kind, the 317 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Governor and legislature must feel very small when a Federal Judge comes in sight, for he seems to wield a far-reaching and irresponsi- ble power which they cannot pretend to. He visits them not as a circuit Judge but as an imperial Satrap. " It is sometimes urged in defence of government by injunction that it ought to prevail when the ordinary government has shown itself inefficient. But clearly, if our -courts are to take the place of our governors and mayors and sheriffs, that power should be given to them by our constitutions, or, at least, by legislative act, and not seised upon by them without any statutory sanction. There exists already the remedy of mandamus by which a negligent official may be forced to do his duty. But this new injunction remedy puts the judge into the civil officer's shoes and supersedes him. The judge becomes legislator and executor of the law, and he is himself the sole judge of the validity of his actions. He makes lawful acts un- lawful, tries the alleged breaker of his new-made law without Jury and upon affidavit, without opportunity for cross-examining or even seeing the witnesses, and then he fixes the punishment, although, by the very fact of having forbidden the acts himself, he has virtually become an interested party in the case. It is disobedience to him, disregard for his dignity, which is really at stake, and yet he is the sole judge and executioner. Tyranny could go little farther in Eussia or Turkey/' That this is not an extreme statement we have already seen. United States Judge Keller granted an injunction during a coal strike involving most of the mines of West Virginia, against " as- sembling near" the mines, and even went so far as to restrain na- tional officers of the mine-workers' organisation from purchasing and distributing food to the West Virginia strikers. Similarly, during a strike of the street-railroad men in Waterbury, Superior Court Judge Elmer, of Connecticut, issued an omnibus order en- joining practically all the trade unionists of Waterbury as well as every sympathiser against " any act or language " tending to pre- vent persons from taking the strikers' places ; " against boycotting the plaintiff or its employes, either by threats, intimidation, unlaw- ful persuasion or otherwise; against giving any information, di- rections, instructions or orders to any committee, association, con- federate or other person or persons for the purpose of effecting any of the acts or things hereby enjoined." To the infraction of this pretty bit of legislation while you wait Judge Elmer attached a penalty of $10,000. In the course of " The Arena " article above mentioned, Mr. Crosby says : " It is obvious that an injunction must enjoin acts which are either lawful or unlawful. If they are unlawful, they are already forbidden by law, and the penal code is a standing injunction against them. Why, then, issue another injunction? If, on the other hand, the acts are lawful, why should they be forbidden? It is a dangerous legislative power to put into the hands of a single judge, and we have seen numerous examples of its abuse. Judges have enjoined the holding of meetings by societies in their own halls, and forbidden the use of ordinary persuasion on the part of 318 THE COURTS VS. JUSTICE members of labour unions, thus annulling, without any colour of right, the freedom of meeting together and of speech, which we had supposed to be among our most unquestionable privileges. Our Federal Judges axe the worst sinners, and the way in which they make interstate commerce and the circulation of the mails a pretext for substituting their authority for -that of State Judiciary is cal- culated to bring the courts into disrespect, and at the same time to centralise power in the Federal courts in a way which would have shocked the framers of the Constitution. Thos. Jefferson early ut- tered his fears in the premises, and history is proving them well founded. ' It has long been my opinion/ he says, (Works VII., 216), 'and I have never shrunk from its expression, that the germ of dissolution of our Federal government is in the constitution of the Federal Judiciary an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow), working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of Jurisdiction/ " Many people think (and among them not a few Judges) that an injunction interferes in some subtle way before the act anticipated is performed. This is nonsense. An injunction does nothing be- fore the act but to forbid it, just as law forbids a crime. It does not and cannot touch the prospective offender until he has of- fended. " It has no miraculous .antecedent power of prevention. It can do only two things make unlawful a lawful act, and provide for summary punishment for disobedience by proceedings in con- tempt." . . . " In view of the fact that government by injunction deprives the prisoner of trial by Jury, some reformers have concluded that it was only necessary to provide for such a trial. Such a remedy would be most inadequate. The' Jury could only consider the ques- tion of fact, whether or not the accused has disobeyed the injunc- tion, while the main issue, namely, whether the Judge had any right to enjoin the act, would be altogether beyond the scope of their functions. Such a law could only throw sand into the trade union- ists' eyes and prevent them from seeking real relief. The wisest course of action would be in the direction of securing Judges who 'sym- pathise with people rather than with dollars. Avoid voting for Judges, who, as lawyers, have been more loyal to corporate inter- ests than to Commonwealth, and, in the case of the Federal, district and circuit Judges, let us begin an agitation for their election by the people for a term of years. Unfortunately this would require an amendment of the United States Constitution. After all, a sound public opinion may be the best corrective of this unfortunate departure from conservative precedents. Let us all say what we think of this new Judicial tyranny, and if any Judge forbids us to exercise our right of free speech or of assembling peaceably together, let us openly disobey his order and associate ourselves, however humbly, with John Hampden and Patrick Henry, for ship-money and tea-tax were no less dangerous symptoms of tyranny than gov- ernment by injunction." 319 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Let us now consider the remarkable reign of anarchy on the part of the self-styled better classes which occurred in Colorado during 1903 and 1904. We refer to the conditions existing during the great strike of smelters and the miners of gold, silver and coal. We can offer only a cursory treatment of this episode, an episode in many respects the most disconcerting in all our national history. Those who desire to investigate the subject in detail are referred to the unsubsidised daily newspapers, " The Public," a Chicago weekly, to Book V., Chapter III., of "The Menace of Privilege," already frequently quoted, and to " The Reign of Lawlessness, Anarchy and Despotism in Colorado," by Ray Stannard Baker, published in Mc- Clure's for May, 1904. We extract the following facts chiefly from the last two sources. In this episode we find the Governor of Colorado following, in some instances, the pernicious precedent established by Grover Cleveland in the Chicago strike. Under the heading, " The Bayonet in Civil Affairs," Mr. George says anent this affair: " The real owners of Colorado are not the body of the citizens, but closely associated and harmonious mining, smelting and railroad corporations. What these corporations own they manage, subscrib- ing to either or both political parties, when it pleases them to do so; influencing elections when and in what manner they desire; ef- fecting or blocking or neutralising such legislation as they choose; swaying the higher courts, and to great extent directing adminis- trative government and the military arm when they deem that neces- sary. These owners of Colorado make and unmake the makers of laws as easily and quietly as they make and unmake the laws them- selves. " The coal mines are in the south-central part of Colorado. The miners had serious grievances. Constitutional and statutory pro- vision for their protection against robbery and persecution by the coal-mining companies were dead letters. At the time of the trouble the mines were owned mainly by two corporations the Victor Fuel Company and the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (now the Rocky Mountain Coal and Iron Company), the latter controlled by Mr. John D. Rockefeller and Mr. George J. Gould. The people of Colorado had by a very large majority ratified an amendment to the Constitution requiring the Legislature to pass an eight-hour law, but the Legislature, influenced, it was commonly believed, by the monopoly corporations, suddenly adjourned without taking such ac- tion. Thus these corporations annulled what the people had by constitutional mandate decreed. The coal miners saw but one re- course the strike. Thereupon the mine-owners immediately ap- pealed to the Governor, J. H. Peabody, for militia; they said, to protect life and property. There really was no danger to life or property. There were but a few cases of personal violence, and these probably had been provoked by assault upon the miners by sym- pathisers with the company; in one or two instances, it is suspected, by detectives in company pay, not an unheard-of proceeding in other 320 THE COURTS FS. JUSTICE coal regions. But it was necessary to show sufficient cause to have the troops, and the troops were necessary to break the strike. " Governor Peabody appeared ready to send soldiers. Only one thing barred him. He did not have the means to pay them. The Legislature had made no financial provision for the contingency of calling out the militia. The monopoly corporations quickly met this difficulty. They offered to furnish the State with all the money necessary to pay such soldiers as the Governor should call out, agree- ing to look for repayment of such advances by the passage of a special appropriation bill at a subsequent meeting of the Legislature. The Governor accepted the proffer and thus, in effect, sold the militia to the service of corporate privilege in Colorado, just as the Grand Duke of Hesse-Cassel sold Hessian troops to George III. for service in the British army against the patriots of this Eepublic during the Revolution. This was too much for even that high military author- ity, the Army and Navy Journal, which might have been expected to pass over the circumstances as justified by * military necessity/ That periodical said: ' But that he (the Governor) should virtually borrow money from the mine-owners to maintain the troops whom he had assigned to guard their property was a serious reflection upon the authorities of the State. That arrangement virtually placed the troops, for the time being, in the relation of hired men to the mine-operators, and morally suspended their function of State military guardians of the public peace. It was a rank perversion of the whole theory and pur- pose of the National Guard, and more likely to incite disorder than prevent it/ " Yet under these circumstances the troops were sent to the coal regions, and at their head the commanding general of the State militia, Adjutant-General Sherman M. Bell/ 7 . . . " General Bell is one of the kind of men who forget the rights and duties of the citizen when they don soldier clothes. Their first duty, they say, is to obey. General Bell received his orders from Governor Peabody, who had appointed him to his high command, and Bell obeyed like a Eussian military official at Warsaw. He arrested men and clapped them into jail without warrant and even without formal charge. He deported them out of the State for no other offence than that they were members of the miners' union. In these actions Governor Peabody upheld him. As no strike could succeed against a combination of mine-owners and soldiers, this one after long, weary months miserably failed; and such mine-workers as were permitted to go back to the coal mines were glad to return to employment under conditions even worse than those against which they had struck." It will be remembered that in the year preceding the strike Sen- ator James W. Bucklin, of Colorado, introduced an amendment to the Constitution, known as the Bucklin amendment, which was a veritable red rag to the bull of privilege. This amendment provided for local option in taxation, which is to say that it gave municipal- ities the right to determine how they should raise their taxes. It was thought that if this amendment became a law it would result 21 321 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION in heavily taxing the great mineral and railroad site-values of Colo- rado which now pay only inconsiderable taxes. The various monop- olies used both fair means and foul to defeat this amendment. The labour unions supported it, and this is thought to have led to the determination on the part of the monopolies to break the power of the unions at all costs. During the progress of the strike a railway station at Independ- ence was dynamited and fifteen non-union men killed. The Mine- Owners' Association and General Bell immediately charged this act to the unions. They assured the public that they had the most damning evidence against the union. It is but fair to assume that this was said simply to create a public sentiment adverse to the union miners and to get the people into a state wherein they would tolerate the crimes against liberty, law and order which they in- tended to perpetrate. .Moreover, there is good reason to suppose that they deliberately misrepresented the facts and knowingly and for their own ulterior ends deceived the public. This charge is made because, though they were loud in their assertions that they were in possession of such damning evidence implicating the union, they have never yet presented anything sufficient to convict a single man of connexion with the tragedy, and because, further, the only clue which seemed worthy of credence tended to implicate not the miners' union, but the Mine-Owners' Association itself. In short, it more than vaguely hinted that the explosion had been planned for the express purpose of putting the union in bad repute. If such were the case the loss of life was doubtless due to improperly timing the discharge. Commenting upon a report in reference to the Independence horror, " The Public " of June 25, 1904, says editorially : " If it be true that blood-hounds, when put on the trail of the miscreant who caused the dynamite explosion in Cripple Creek, Colo., by which a dozen non-union miners lost their lives, followed the trail to the houses of watchmen for the mine-owners, then W. J. Ghent ought to change the title of his Independent article from : ' The Next Step : A Benevolent Feudalism,' to : ' The Present Step : A Benevo- lent Assimilation, a la Filipino,' and alter the text accordingly." As in the case of the blowing-up of the Maine the truth will probably never be known. It seems most reasonable that in both cases the act was committed primarily to affect public opinion. However this may be, it should be remembered that long before this tragedy occurred the Citizens' Alliance and the Mine-Owners' Asso- ciation had procured a body of militia under command of the afore- mentioned General Bell, and that he had frankly stated that he proposed to " break up " the Western Federation of Miners and its supporting unions and to "run out" the most active members. " With an abundance of zeal and courage," says Mr. George, " General Bell thereupon had large numbers of union men arrested and locked up in military jails. No formal charges were preferred. And then began the policy of deportation which had been tried in the coal regions. Without trials, without other explanation than the curt one of ' military necessity/ rnen known to be unips m.en 323 THE COURTS VS. JUSTICE were put upon trains and shipped out of the State. To cap the climax, Charles H. Moyer, President of Western Federation of Miners, was arrested, put into the military prison and kept there for months, on what pretext neither Moyer, his attorneys, his union nor the public could learn. " Of all this Governor Peabody approved. He called it c military rule.' General Bell called it ' military necessity/ The general pub- lic called it ' martial law/ " Ignoring the deportations, Governor Peabody said : e I have only arrested men, and I hold them until I deem it proper to turn them over to the civil authorities for trial/ But he showed that he re- garded himself as judge and executioner, for he added, e I believe in stamping out this set of dynamiters, and intend it shall be done/ " The soldiers did not bother with fine distinctions. When accused of violating the Constitution of the State, Judge Advocate McClel- land exclaimed, 'To hell with the Constitution; we are not follow- ing the Constitution/ Colonel Verdeckberg, commanding officer in the Cripple Creek district, said, 'We are under orders only from God and Governor Peabody/ When asked how long martial law was to be enforced at Telluride, General Bell answered : t The sol- diers never will be taken out of there until we have rid the country of the cut-throats, murderers, socialists, thieves, loafers, agitators, and the like who make up the membership of the Western Federa- tion of Miners. We don't care what the Supreme Court, the news- papers or anybody or anything else does. The soldiers are going to stay there, regardless of court decisions; and if there is any more monkey business, there is going to be some much-needed shoot- ing/ " This remarkable speech had reference to an order issued on a habeas corpus writ by District Judge .Stevens to General Bell to liberate Moyer. The soldier not only announced that he would not obey the court order, but that he would put the judge into the military jail if he came near headquarters, continuing : ' If Sheriff Corbett takes me to Ouray, it will have to be over the dead bodies of all the soldiers under my command in this county. He has not men enough to do that/ " The power of the court being gone, Judge Stevens adjourned it and announced that he would thereafter adjourn from term to term until the court's mandates could be executed without military in- terference. " Appeal was then made to the Supreme Court of the State for a habeas corpus writ for Moyer. That tribunal granted a hearing/' The result of this hearing was that two of the three judges, to wit, Gabbert and Campbell, sustained the Governor in his extraor- dinary military arrests of Moyer and others and in his despotic de- portations. Judge Gabbert wrote the prevailing opinion, the main points of which Mr. George condenses in four paragraphs: " (1) The Governor has sole power to determine when a state of insurrection exists in any county in the State. The courts have no power to interfere with the exercise of this prerogative. 323 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION (2) The Governor has the right to use the military forces of the State to suppress domestic insurrection. He also has the power to order the imprisonment and the killing of insurrectionists, if in his opinion that extremity is necessary. (3) He can detain military prisoners until he decides that the insurrection is quelled. (4) The courts of the State have no right to interfere with the military authorities and their handling of prisoners. They have no power to attempt to discharge military prisoners." It is interesting to note that Judge Gabbert, who settled at Tel- luride in 1882, had formerly been a banker and had mining interests there, while Judge Campbell had formerly represented Colorado railroads and mining interests as corporation lawyer. The other judge, Mr. Eobert Wilbur Steele, had been an attorney also, but with a general practice. The following is an extract from Judge Steele's opinion : " It follows, of course, that if the present Executive is the sole judge of the condition which can call into action the military power of the Government, and can exercise all means necessary to effect- ually abate the conditions, and the judicial department cannot in- quire into the legality of his acts, the next Governor may by his , ukase exercise the same arbitrary power. If the military authority may deport the miners this year, it can deport the farmers next year. " If a strike, which is not a rebellion, must be so regarded because the Governor says it is, then any condition must be regarded as a rebellion which the Governor declares to be such; and if any con- dition must be regarded as a rebellion because the Governor says so, then any county in the State may be declared to be in a state of rebellion, whether a rebellion exists or not, and every citizen sub- jected to arbitrary arrest and detention at ffie will and pleasure of the head of the executive department. "We may, then, with each succeeding change in the executive branch of the Government, have class arrayed against class, and interest against interest, and we shall depend for our liberty, not upon the Constitution, but upon the grace and favor of the Gov- ernor and his military subordinates. . . . " The court has not construed the Constitution ; it has ignored it. And the result is that it has made greater inroads on the Con- stitution than it intended, and that not one of the guarantees of personal liberty can be enforced. . ; . " If one may be restrained of his liberty without charge being pre- ferred against him, every other guarantee of the Constitution may be denied him." It is wise to ponder well this lucid statement of fact. We see in this episode the fruit of the seed sown at Chicago by President Cleveland. This time it is a governor who arrogates the right, and the .Supreme Court sustains the arrogance, to decide out of his own inner consciousness whether or not an insurrection exists; whether or not soldiers are needed; whether or not the civil authority of the courts shall be superseded by his own despotic fiat 324 THE COURTS VS. JUSTICE enforced by bayonets; in short whether or not A.B.C. or D. have any rights whatsoever as American citizens which he is bound to respect. His conduct in these premises is well worthy a Eomanof Czar. Nor have we credited this unAmerican autocrat with his full measure of shame. The following calm indictment, from " The Menace of Privilege/' helps the total very materially. " Eeduced to its lowest terms, the highest court of Colorado, through the majority of its judges, abdicated at this most serious crisis. And when appeal was made to a Federal court, and Gov- ernor Peabody and Attorney-General Miller were cited to appear with Moyer on a writ of habeas corpus before United States Circuit Judge Thayer, sitting at St. Louis, Governor Peabody suddenly re- voked martial law in the district where Moyer had been imprisoned and turned him over to the civil authority, the sheriff, who imme- diately turned him over to the sheriff of Teller County, where mar- tial law still prevailed. Thus Moyer was technically out of the Governor's hands. He was technically in civil hands. But he was still virtually in the hands of the soldiers, as the sheriff of Teller County had been put in that office with the help of the soldiers. " And thus while the Governor avoided collision with a Federal court which did not appear to be under monopoly influence, he had, as Supreme Court Judge Steele implied, been restraining men of their liberty without preferring charges against them. More than this, he had been deporting men on the mere ipse dixit that he in- tended to get rid of labour unionists, socialists, agitators and the like. " He even closed up the Portland mine in the Cripple Creek district because that mine, continuing to run, employed union as well as non-union men, and the union men were suspected of contributing part of their earnings to the strike fund. It was announced that the Portland mine would be allowed to reopen only with men 'hold- ing cards issued by the Mine-Owners' Association a new kind of a labour union, but not one organised by and for the mass of labourers, but by and for the benefit of the Mine-Owners' Association. " In accordance with this proceeding, General Bell issued an order (Special Order No. 19) declaring that 'no organisation will be al- lowed., while this county (Teller) is under military control, to fur- nish aid in any form to the members of any organisation or their families in this county, unless . the same is done through military channels.' " The Governor and General Bell went even further than this. They, conspired to strike at the ballot itself. While Teller. County was under military rule the Governor and his Adjutant-General permitted a mob of respectable citizens of Cripple Creek, compos- ing the active members of the Mine-Owners' Association and the Citizens' Alliance, to force the sheriff, the county coroner, the county treasurer, the county clerk, a prosecuting attorney and a number of minor local officials to resign from their offices, to which they had been regularly elected, and the functions of which they had been performing so far as the presence of the soldiers would per- 325 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION mit. The mob of respectables carried firearms, and, in one or two instances, went so far as to display a noosed rope and threaten its use if necessary to compel compliance with their demands. To all the official vacancies men were appointed who were known to be in one way or another identified with the monopoly powers. " One of General Bell's declarations over his signature was : ' I am going to banish the agitators, and then I will establish a military quarantine that will keep them banished/ This was no idle boast. He meant it, and he acted upon it so long as his soldiers were cm duty. Indeed, in an interview with me, he said that he would not, if he had his way, restrict the use of soldiers to the mining regions. He would use them in the metropolis and capital of the State, Den- ver, and ' run out the bad men and ballot-box stuffers/ " And what was the net result of the strike-military term in Colo- rado? That in round numbers a thousand men were locked up in the military prisons without charges being preferred against them; that six hundred and fifty coal and metal miners were arbitrarily deported, some of them put down on the open prairie without food or shelter; that houses were searched and stores looted by so-called citizens' committees acting under the protection of soldiers; that local courts were prevented from exercising their functions; that regularly elected local officials were coerced into resigning and monopoly appointees substituted; that the Governor and militia, passively supported by an abdicating Supreme Court, did or helped to do all this ; that the cost for the militia exceeded $800,000, which the great parties at interest the Colorado monopolies paid, and for which they purposed some day to be reimbursed by a special legislative appropriation." In his " The Eeign of Lawlessness," already alluded to, Mr. Baker says : " And martial law has been neither gentle nor forbearing ; when accused of violating the Constitution, Judge Advocate Mc- Clelland remarked: ' To hell with the Constitution ; we are not following the Consti- tution/ "Colonel Verdeckberg, commanding officer in the Cripple Creek district, declared: ' We are under orders only from God and Governor Peabody/ "But, if military rule has been despotic, many citizens have been lawless, and civil government ineffective. The miners' union has broken the law, there have been dynamiting and assassination; the corporations have broken the law, there have been bribery and cor- ruption; the citizens' organisations, representing in some degree the great third party the public have broken the law; even the Legislature itself, wherein the law is made, has been lawless. We have to-day, indeed, in certain parts of Colorado, a breakdown of democracy, and, through anarchy, a reversion to military des- potism." . . . " The Major, well backed by his troopers, seises for military head- quarters a building owned by a private citizen. He marches to the seat of government and informs the mayor and the chief of police that unless they obey military orders he, the Major will seise 326 THE COURTS VS. JUSTICE the City Hall. He visits the office of the Victor Eecord and estab- lishes a military censorship. The editor is forbidden to print an editorial concerning these military doings, and the next morning, or maybe the morning after, the paper appears with a black-bordered column, significantly blank, as it happens in Eussia. " Having violated the rights of private property, overturned the people's government, suppressed free speech and a free press, the Major left armed men to patrol the city streets, and clattered away up the hill with his troop. " But the proclamation of the Fourth of December was only the formal dramatic declaration on the part of the Governor of a con- dition long existent. For some two months prior to this time the military forces had been practically in control. And it had not been pleasant martial rule. Soldiers are not that way." In treating of arrests without warrants, Mr. Baker tells how men were seised without warrants, even without any charges being made against them, locked up in an "unsavory place called a Bull-Pen and often kept for weeks, being denied communication with friends and relatives." Continuing he says : " As every one knows, the writ of habeas corpus is one of the most precious rights of the Anglo- Saxon, called by Blackstone the * second Magna Charta.' It has for its object the protection of the precious personal liberty of the free citizen it provides that he shall not be held a prisoner with- out due process of law. Judge Seeds ordered that the Bull-Pen prisoners be brought into court, that an orderly inquiry might be made as to whether any innocent man was deprived of his liberty. General Chase and General Bell, then in command, obeyed the writ in their own significant way. They surrounded the court house with armed men; they planted sharpshooters on the roofs of the buildings roundabout ; they set a gatling-gun in the street outside, and then they marched into court with an overawing force of troop- ers which they planted squarely in front of the judge's bench. When the judge approached his own court he was halted with a bayonet brought to his breast, and kept waiting the pleasure of an officer from Denver! After the bailiff rapped for order, Eugene Engley, former attorney-general of the .State of Colorado, one of the attorneys for the prisoners, declaring that no real justice could be administered in a court intimidated by armed men, left the room. * The constitutional guarantee that courts shall be open and free has been invaded and overthrown,' he said. But the judge finally decided that the prisoners, whatever their offence, must not be de- prived of their liberty without charges, and ordered that they be surrendered to the civil court. "WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENDED." "The generals deliberately violated the court order, and marched the prisoners back to the Bull-Pen, with the sharpshooters and the gatling-gun. They were subsequently released by special order of the Governor, but others were arrested repeatedly and held for con- siderable periods. And finally the Governor himself took the gravest 327 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION step which any executive officer in this country can take, a step for- bidden, except under the most stringent safeguards, by the consti- tution of practically every state .in the Union, including that of Colorado he suspended the writ of habeas corpus in the case of one Victor Poole, keeping him locked up without due process of law, for weeks." . . . " Small boys, and even women, one the wife of a merchant, were actually arrested for speaking disparagingly of the soldiers and sent to the Bull-Pen. Private homes, the castles of the citizens, were en- tered and searched without warrant. A squad of soldiers visited the home of Sherman Parker in the night, while Parker himself was away, aroused his wife from bed, forced her, in her night-clothes, in the presence of these men, to hold the lamp while they searched the house and found no arms. " In Cripple Creek, on December 28th, John M. Glover, former United States Congressman from Missouri, who stood upon his con- stitutional right to own and keep arms, (with undue truculency, it may be, though this does not alter the facts of the case), was at- tacked in his law-office by a 'squad of soldiers. He barricaded the door, and, when the troops attempted to force an entrance, he opened fire through the panels. The soldiers replied with a volley through the door and walls. Glover, shot through the arm, finally surrendered. His revolvers were seised and he himself detained a prisoner. " Doings not dissimilar to these also took place at Telluride. Cit- izens, some of whom owned property and had been long residents of the town, were arrested for vagrancy. Most of them were strikers; strikers by right, if they wished to strike, neither beggars nor vagrants, and having no specific charges of crime against them. Some of them were put to work like criminals in a chain-gang on the streets. "LEADERS EXPELLED FROM THEIR HOMES." " On January 4th, twenty-six men, including Attorney-General Engley, lawyer for the union ; Guy E. Miller, president of the union ; J. C. Williams, vice-president of the Western Federation of Miners; Charles D. Sumner, a newspaper man, and many strikers, all of whom had money, were taken by force, placed on board of a train under military guard, deported to the boundary line of the county, and ordered not to return. Some of these men had long been citizens of Telluride, owned property there, had their wives and fam- ilies there. Soldier guards turned back the banished citizens when they attempted to return to their homes. " To this, then, have we come in these American towns at the be- ginning of the twentieth century! And why is this so? Why have the people borne these appalling usurpations?" It must not be inferred that Mr. Baker places all the blame upon either side. He shows that the subversion of the will of the people unmistakably expressed at the polls was responsible for its full share of ill feeling on the part of the unions, whereas acts of violence on the part of union miners led to a belief that the unions countenanced 328 THE COURTS VS. JUSTICE such unlawful acts, and this angered their opponents. It is im- possible to do full justice to Mr. Baker's article in the space we are able to allot to it. The interested reader should peruse it in ex- tenso. Commenting on the Colorado crime, the (Omaha) "World-Her- ald" of June 17, 1904, prints the following: "Under the Consti- tution and in accordance with American principles, the Peabody government of Colorado, operated as it is to the partisan advantage of the mine owners and trust magnates who corrupted the Colorado legislature, is an official mob. Those who are so ready to condemn every lawless act charged to the Colorado working-man, while they have nothing but praise for the lawless acts attributed to the Colo- rado authorities, should pause and consider whether the greatest danger to society lies in the unofficial mob that may be readily put down by the strong arm of the law, or in the official mob composed of strong and determined men representing, for the moment, the authority of the Commonwealth, but acting as partisan guards for one of the parties to a great controversy." In regard to the question of the real conditions in the Colorado strike area preceding and during the trouble, we offer the following extracts from a signed article by James H. Teller, printed as Edi- torial Correspondence in " The Public " of Aug. 13, 1904 : " While the newspapers of the East have generally been quite fair in their comments upon the troubles in Colorado, they have accepted and given currency to statements, emanating from the mine owners, which do the State grave injustice. "It has been stated repeatedly that the calling of the militia was necessary because of a reign of terror in the mining camps to which troops were sent. The Western Federation of Miners is charged with planning and encouraging murder, train-wrecking and all forms of violence, and it is represented that in several counties its orders were so well obeyed that life and property were no longer safe. To these charges the Governor has given official approval in his proclamations declaring three counties in a state of ' insurrec- tion/ as well as in his several interviews and published defences. To be sure, insurrection is something more than the lawless and crim- inal conduct charged against the communities in question being equivalent to rebellion but alleged lawlessness and not revolution is the condition asserted as an excuse for the Governor's course. , " In justice to the State, it should be known that in truth no such lawlessness existed in any of the counties which were placed under military control. The ' insurrection ' was in every case a fiction deemed necessary as a basis for the order for troops. "But two definite charges of violence in the Cripple Creek dis- trict have been made; one of an attack upon Justice Hawkins, of Altman, which is alleged to have been to punish him for a decision unfavourable to a union miner. The other case is that of one Stew- art, who is alleged to have been beaten by union miners. Stewart's wife admits that she administered the beating in a family broil, and Stewart confessed as much to a police magistrate, who is au- thority for this statement. 329 "After the arrival of the troops, an explosion in the Vindicator mine resulted in the death of the superintendent and a shift boss. This was at once charged to the unions. But no evidence was pro- duced, and the coroners jury reported that it was unable to deter- mine the cause or to fix the blame. As the mine was under mili- tary guard, positive evidence of outside interference is necessary to show that the explosion was more than an accident. "It is declared, too, that the unions attempted to wreck a train loaded with soldiers and non-union men. But on the trial of the alleged wreckers, it clearly appeared that the loosening of the rail was the work of detectives of the Mine-Owners' Association, who employed a worthless character to testify to facts incriminating the president of one of the unions. Not only was the accused acquitted, but the cases against his alleged accomplices were all dismissed, while the principle witness for the prosecution, this tool of the de- tectives, was held for perjury committed at the trial." . . . " It is asserted, and apparently not without reason, that the strike was encouraged, if not actually brought about, by the mine owners, with a view to a disruption of the unions. With a vain, weak man in the executive chair, whether pledged to them in consideration of liberal campaign contributions or not, they might well deem themselves in a position to accomplish the long-cherished purpose of driving out organised labour. Events have proved that the Governor is willing to go to any lengths in support of the mine owners' crim- inal acts and purposes, and they have shown themselves utterly lack- ing in regard for law, and without the slightest feelings of human- ity. It is they and not the miners who have brought disgrace upon the State." During this strike almost every outrage known to a military des- potism was practised. No one was safe. A strict press censorship was established, as if Colorado had been Eussia. Telegraph and telephone lines were seised, in order that the real conditions should not reach the outside world. Such a course is utterly without justification, and could only have been followed to prevent the country rising en masse at the outrages being perpetrated. It cannot be contended that this was necessary in order to prevent information reaching the enemy, ex- cept upon the assumption that the great mass of the American peo- ple were at enmity with the entire despotism established from the Czar-Governor and his autocratic general, to the humblest soldier- machine. Heaven grant that this be so, for, if not, what hope can there be "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." We cannot do better than to close this episode with the following quotation from an editorial in the " Weekly Republican " of Spring- field, Mass., for June 17, 1904. "Practically speaking the mining regions of Colorado, where mili- tary rule prevails, are in the possession and ' government ' of a mob- The mob in this case is composed of the 'best citizens,' and is rep- resentative particularly of the property interests. Hence its extra- 330 THE COURTS VS. JUSTICE ordinary proceedings are viewed elsewhere with astonishment, but not alarm. If it were otherwise composed this country would be in a panic. If it were a mob of the propertyless classes which had thus gained the upper hand in the State of Colorado, and were closing the courts, compelling judges to decamp, locking up crimeless cit- izens in bull-pens, driving others out of the .State by hundreds, dumping them without food and shelter on the prairie of an adjoin- ing State, and destroying their property, and means of livelihood, this country would shake from end to end with consternation. " But we shall do well to view the rise and progress of this mob of the ' better classes ' with deeper feeling than one of astonishment. It is to be regarded with alarm. Eight and justice and law are no less menaced and outraged in this case than they would be in the other. Think of these acts of wholesale deportation of men ad- mittedly guilty of no offence save that of belonging to a labour union, which it is lawful for them to do! Think of separating them from their families and dumping them on a shelterless plain, where in turn they are taken in hand by the authorities there and started back being kicked back and forth as if they had no more right to a place on earth than an ownerless cur. Think of compelling a whole city council to resign and clear out because of suspected sym- pathy with labour unionism of forcing judges to make themselves scarce because they would maintain the rule of civil law of going from man to man and public official to public official with the ques- tion : Are you in sympathy with the right of labour to organise ? which, if answered in the affirmative, brings an enforced command to get away and never come back! Does anybody suppose a well- dressed mob, any more than one in overalls, can thus outrage justice and humanity without deplorable consequences? It is impossible." 331 BOOK VII CHAPTER I. LYNCHING. CHAPTER II. BREAKING FAITH WITH THE SIXTIES CHAPTER III. PEONAGE CHAPTER IV. THE DARK .SIDE OP THE LAW 333 The great King of Kings Hath in the table of his law commanded That thou shalt do no murder: and wilt thou, then, Spurn at his edict and fulfill a man's? Richard III. Cast not the clouded gem away, Quench not the dim but living ray, My brother man, Beware! With that deep voice which from the skies Forbade the Patriarch's sacrifice, God's angel cries, Forbear! Whittier Human Sacrifice. Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul, strange and unnatural. Hamlet. 334 CHAPTER I LYNCHING sustaining our contention that the United States is more rapidly receding from and repudiating its ideals than is the empire of the Sultan or the Czar, we have now to deal with a condition which, in all its awful details has not a parallel on the face of the earth. The negro is usually American born. He speaks the same language we speak. He worships the same God and adheres to the same creeds as his white brother. The Constitu- tion grants him all the rights it bestows upon the white citizen. Theoretically the law is colour-blind and the black and the white skin are all one to it. Practically in many instances the negro is dis- franchised, mobbed, his property destroyed, and his person seised without due process of law. He is denied the inalienable right of trial by jury and shot full of holes, hanged or even burned without so much as a pretence of trial. Nor is all this, as might be sup- posed, the work of the lower criminal classes. On the contrary, it is usually the work of the upper criminal classes who delight to call themselves the party of "law and order/' There are few sentiments possible to the human mind so indicative of petty narrowness, intellectual cowardice, and general moral punki- ness, as the sentiment of racial, religious or colour prejudice. Its presence invariably argues in its possessor a pitiful coarseness of fibre and lack of psychic resonance. Lynching is not, as so many ignorantly suppose, a mere transient affair confined to a few localities and directed solely against the un- fortunate members of a so-called inferior race. It represents a so- cial disease which is hourly gaining strength, widening its infested areas and increasing in virulence until it already looms large on the stormy horizon of the future. From being confined almost ex- clusively to the negro race and to the Southern States it has now spread to all but five States of the Union, and has begun to number members of the white race among its victims. Those who seek to palliate this great crime against justice, decency, and the laws of the land are wont to say that some such practice is necessary to protect the honour of women who live in the vicinity of negro settlements. They will argue that the coloured man is above all others brutal in this regard, yet, if we are correctly informed, the per capita record of such crimes against women committed in the state of Illinois by white men shows a higher average than that of any negro com- munity in the country. Writing in the " North American Review," for October, 1905, Cardinal Gibbons says: "According to the 335 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION report of a responsible writer whose statements have not been ques- tioned, there have been 2,875 lynchings from 1885 to 1903, in- clusive, and there are but 5 States in the Union in which these illegal acts did not occur. The States exempted from the crime are Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Utah." Cardinal Gibbons cites the story of the bloody feud carried on for a generation between two families on the border between Ken- tucky and West Virginia. The vendetta started by the murder of a member of one of the families to avenge some grievance. The victim's family retaliated by making reprisals, and so they kept on massacring each other almost to the present day, with the result that now both factions are well nigh terminated. Continuing, Cardinal Gibbons says : " In May, 1902, the wife of the station master was found murdered in a small town in South Carolina. Three negroes were suspected. They were hanged to trees and their bodies riddled with bullets. .Some time afterward, the husband of the murdered woman, overcome by remorse, confessed on his death-bed before several witnesses that he was the murderer." . . . "Lynch Law increases crime. Far from terrorising it inflames them with indignation, and incites them to perpetrate deeds of vio- lence on the weaker sex as much from a spirit of revenge as any- thing else. " From data before me I find that about 70 per cent of these who were punished by lynching in the Southern States between 1885 and 1903 were coloured. If the deeply rooted antipathy between the black and white races were removed or assuaged, these violent execu- tions would be considerably diminished." . . . " In the two lower counties of Maryland the white and black popu- lation are about evenly divided and the great majority are Catholics. Before service I have observed the white and black assemble in church and grounds and engage in friendly intercourse. I have never witnessed elsewhere such friendly treatment of the blacks by the whites. As far as my memory serves me there is not recorded one single instance of an outrage or a lynching in those two coun- ties." From investigation made by Dr. Cutler it appears that in twenty- two years, from 1882 to 1903, there were 3,337 lynchings, or an average of more than 150 per year. Apropos of the causes assigned for these crimes against civilisa- tion, Bishop Chandler of Georgia declared that "lynching is due to race hatred and not to any horror over any particular crime." To this he added the wise warning that, unless the practice be checked, it might produce anarchy, since men will go from lynching persons on account of their crimes to lynching them because of their re- ligion, politics, or business relations. The wisdom of this warning is shown in the fact that the record already begins to show cases of the kinds mentioned. Not very long ago the "New York Evening Post" made the statement that, out of the 1,032 whites then in Sing Sing Prison, 65 were there for rape, while, of the 143 blacks confined there, only two were there for that crime. The above figures show a ratio of some- 336 LYNCHING thing more than six to the hundred for the whites, while for the blacks the ratio is less than one and a half to the hundred. So far, therefore, as the records of this institution is concerned, it appears that the white race is guilty of this crime to an extent more than four-fold that of their coloured brothers. In an article published in " The Independent " of Sept. 29, 1904, Mr. Geo. P. Upton states, that a record of lynchings has been kept in regular itemised form, the accuracy of which has not been questioned even in the South. He says that since 1885 there have been 2,875 lynchings of which 2,499 have occurred in the South. These lynchings were not for the cause so commonly assigned, but were for no less than 73 different reasons. Apropos of this Mr. Upton says : " For criminal assault is not the ' usual cause,' as the Southern newspapers so often assert. Persons lynched for this crime since 1885 numbered 564, while 1,099 were for murder. Add- ing to the former those lynched for the double crime, or having been connected with it, the total is 702 as compared with 1,277 cases in which murder was directly or indirectly charged against the victims. " About one-third of the blacks and one-sixth of the whites were lynched for criminal assault. Of course white men are more liable to be hanged or sent to jail for their crime." He gives some of the other causes as follows : " For theft, burglary, robbery, on account of race prejudice un- known persons for unknown cause, some for being unpopular in the neighbourhood. Ten were found to be innocent when it was too late. Slander, etc. One young fellow was lynched for jilting a girl, who consoled herself by promptly marrying another. A reformer was lynched for advocating colonisation, a coloured man for enticing a servant away from her mistress, and a mountaineer for * moon- shining/ " Eeferring to lynchings and other murders which occurred in Statesboro, Georgia, " The Independent " of August 25th, 1904, re- marks editorially, in part : " Life is cheap, public vengeance pun- ishes wrong with no regard to law. There are more murders, says the responsible rector of a church in Birmingham, Ala., in that county than in all Great Britain, and none punished. Only occa- sionally do the people rise and lynch a man who has committed a crime unusually offensive. In a Colorado district law is forgot- ten, overturned, and 100 men are driven forcibly out of the State, and the people justify themselves on the ground that they are simply recurring to the original rights of the folk-mote the town meeting. " We would not have this barbarism known in China, Eussia or Turkey. How can President Eoosevelt protest against the massacres of Kisrjenef or Sasiin? Tell it not in St. Petersburg, publish it not in the courts of Stambul, lest Sultan and Czar shall send messages and deputations to Washington to protest against the barbarities of the Eepublic of the West." In a complimentary letter which President Eoosevelt sent to Gov. Durbin of Indiana, in August of 1903, condemning the negro lynch- 337 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION ings that have become so ominously prevalent, occurs the following: " It certainly ought to be possible by the proper administration of the laws to secure swift vengeance upon the criminal ; and. the best and immediate efforts of all legislators, judges and citizens should be addressed to securing such reforms in our legal procedure as to leave no vestige of excuse for those misguided men who undertake to reap vengeance through violent methods." Unless the President was singularly unfortunate in his choice of language unless, in short, the inevitable implication' of his phraseology belies his real sentiments, it would appear that he regards punishment by due process of law as merely a more regular form of reeking that ven- geance which is so often irregularly obtained through lynching. If our chief executive has not yet passed the brutal conception of pun- ishment for the sake of vengeance, is it to be wondered at that so many of our humblest citizens should revert to that savagery of the jungle which sees only reprisal in punitive acts. Discussing edi- torially the subject of lynching, "The Public" of Aug. 15, 1903, says, in part : " He who refrains from murdering merely because human law forbids it, and who promotes slavery because human law supports it, exalts human law above moral law. He is a mere legal- ist, not a moralist. Whether a thing is right or wrong, he cannot tell you until he has read the session laws. Such a man would commit murder without compunction, if human restraints were re- moved. Nor does he always require those restraints to be removed formally. Although the session laws are held in higher esteem by your legalist than is the moral law, he never hesitates to regard them as repealed the moment' he knows they cannot be enforced. Therein may be found an explanation of Negro lynching. Lynching is murder. It is morally wrong. Not only is it morally wrong, it is legally wrong. But in respect of Negroes its illegality has been informally set aside under certain circumstances. In the mind of the legalist, therefore, there is nothing wrong in murdering Negroes under those circumstances." In the summer of 1903, Prof. William James, the distinguished psychologist of Harvard, published an article in the " Springfield Republican," in regard to negro lynchings, in which he said : " I find it hard to comprehend the ignorance of history and of human nature which allows people still to think of Negro lynching as of a transient contagion destined soon to exhaust its virulence. It is, on the contrary, a profound social disease, spreading now like forest fire, and certain to become permanently endemic in every corner of our country, North and' South, unless heroic remedies are swiftly adopted to check it. ... The North is already almost as fully inoculated as the South, and the young white American of the lower classes is being educated everywhere with appalling rapidity to un- derstand that any Negro accused of crime is public spoil, to be played with as long as the fun will last. Attempts at general massacres of Negroes are certain to be the next thing in order, and collective reprisals by ' Negroes are equally certain. . The average church-going civilizee realises, one may say, absolutely nothing of the deeper currents of human nature, or of the aboriginal capacity 338 LYNCHING for murderous excitement which lies sleeping even in his own bosom. Eeligion, custom, law and education have been piling their pressure upon him for centuries mainly with the one intent that his homicidal potentialities should be kept under. . . . But the water-tight compartment in which the carnivora within us is confined is artificial and not organic. It never will be organic. The slightest diminution of external pressure, the slightest loophole of licensed exception, will make the whole system leaky, and murder will again grow rampant. . . . Negro lynching is already a permitted exception in the midst of our civilisation. . . . One or two real fanatics there may be in every lynching, actuated by a maniacal sense of punitive justice. They are a kind of * reversion/ which civilisation particularly requires to extirpate. The other accomplices are only average men, victims of the moment when the greatest atrocities are committed, of nothing but irresponsible mob contagion, but invited to become part of the mob and predisposed to the peculiar sort of contagion, by the dia- bolical education which the incessant examples of the custom and of its continued impunity are spreading with fearful rapidity throughout our population. Was ever such a privilege offered ? Dog-fights, prize- fights, bull-fights, what are they to a man-hunt and a Negro-burning ? " Discussing Prof. James's article, " The Nation " says : " The whole phenomenon, with the steady march of lawlessness and ferocity to the North, is enough to stagger the stoutest patriot. We are in the presence of a new national peril. Senator Tillman is quite right in maintaining that lynching can no longer be said to be sectional. As a nation, we are disgraced by it. As a nation we are also put in imminent danger by it. For let no man attempt to deceive the peo- ple with smooth words. Prof. James is irrefragable. A plague worse than the cholera is upon us. Epidemic lawlessness, stamped all over with fiendish brutality, is a thousand-fold more to be dreaded than epidemic disease. There is no need to waste breath in either describing or denouncing the frightful evil. Every man not steeped in ignorance or lapped in delusion knows what it is knows that it is not merely making us a hissing and scorn in the eyes of the world, but is undermining our own safety, and causing American society to revert to the time when no man knew at what moment a savage foe might not spring upon him from ambush. The time has passed to apoligise for lynching, or even to explain it; and we must all unite to put it down, if we would not see it topple all our laws and courts into the abyss." It will be remembered that we traced the cause of the awful Rus- sian atrocities to the belief on the part of the classes in power, that they were of quite different clay from those over whom they ruled. This same intellectual obliquity and its accompanying moral per- versity are precisely the basic causes of the present lynching mania, and it may be worth a moment's attention to see how this convenient position is arrived at. Like most of our intellectual infamies, the thought enters us through the back door of the mind, that dark and narrow portal through which we smuggle in our illicit desires. It is all a case of the wish being father to the thought. Class-conscious- ness, whether it makes toward lynching or the more pardonable phar- 339 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION isaical sin of social aloofness with its " I am better than thou " for a major premise, has ever at its root, latent if not active, a thievish desire to advance self at the expense of justice to others. It is the reverse of altruism. It is egoism unrestrained by any moral sense. It illustrates a total lack of the social sense, that sense, alas, which is so rare in this 20th century and seems daily to be growing rarer. Whoever claims for himself any social right which he does not frankly extend to his fellowmen may be fit for the jungle, but cer- tainly is unfit for anything worthy the name of civilised society. The rich man who thinks himself above the law which punishes the labourer is a savage who has yet to learn the very basic principle which makes society possible. The cleavage of humanity into class planes is the agreeable scheme by which those savages of the self-styled better class, who wish to rob the so-called lower classes of their rights, throw the sop of Cerberus to that rudimentary thing which they are pleased to call their con- science, nor is the condition thus brought about confined to the phys- ical and material plane. Your autocrat reasons thus, " I belong to a higher class. My sentiments are finer, my sensations keener, my ideals nobler than theirs. I am of finer clay. If they be men, then am I a God. If I am only human, they are but animals. It is use- less, ridiculous, to pretend that they feel as I feel or suffer as I suffer." This sophistical process brings them to the desired point where they are able to establish two courses of treatment, a generous and hu- mane one for themselves, a hoggish and brutal one for their fellow- man, while at the same time they make a pretence of saving the face of their conscience. The desire to save one's self-respect is inherent in each human being, and so tenacious is this wish that wicked men will deal to themselves the false shuffle of hypocrisy in the attempt to lend such an appearance of fairness to their nefarious game as shall even de- ceive themselves. It is only the hardened criminal who does wrong that he knows to be wrong, without any attempt to help his self-esteem by seeking to palliate or justify 'his offence. All this is particularly applicable to the subject of lynching. The mob-organised protectors of society lash themselves into a fury, where the offence for which they seek vengeance is heinous, by cries of " beast, animal, brute " and the like and by thoughts which would express themselves in language still more emphatic, could they command it, until they reach the condi- tion in which they deny that their intended victim is a human being possessing the same rights which they claim for themselves. Writing editorially upon this subject, " The Public " says, in part, in its issue of Aug. 15th, 1903 : " That which, primarily, makes these horrors possible at this stage of our civilisation, is a general deadening of the moral sense which has taken place within the past generation or two. " None but the very thoughtless can have failed to observe the loss of that moral sense in the body politic to which it was once possible to appeal. It has been so completely deadened in the individual that in almost any group, churches not excepted, a majority are not only 340 LYNCHING deaf to such appeals, but will bluntly subordinate moral considerations to selfish ones, or deny their existence altogether. " This tendency was most notable in the United States during the American war of conquest in the Philippines, and in England during the British war of conquest in South Africa. But it has been ob- servable for a long time in other connexions. " The moral element in the suffrage question, for instance, has been so far ignored in the South that even ballot-box stuffing, in order to deprive one class of the ballot, is approved by public opinion. Both North and South the same moral element has been denied in order to withhold the suffrage from women. Even women suffragists have denied it, so as to enable them consistently to advocate the suffrage for some women while insisting upon denying it to others. In the North especially it is denied for the purpose of propagating the idea of disfranchisement of the { lower class ' of white men. " These examples arise out of the ' better than thou ' feeling one expression of which is the comfortable idea that ' I am fit to vote, but you are not/ It is expressed by the millionaire with reference to the ' Alameda citizen ; ' by millionaires and * Alameda citizens ' together, with reference to the mechanic; by all three with reference to the common labourer; by the whole four with reference to the Negro; and by some Negroes with reference to others. This pharisaical feel- ing is a product of the conviction not alone that some men are in- ferior, but that the ' inferior ' ones have no rights which the ' su- perior ' is under any moral obligation to respect whether they be rights of suffrage, rights to work and own and trade the products of work, or even the right to live and when dying to die without being brutally tortured." . . . " Given a condition in which one class denies equal rights to an- other, and you have only to remove the restraints of statutory regu- lation to see the * inferior ' class disfranchised, robbed, mobbed, mur- dered and tortured, and the infamy applauded or excused by the public opinion of the ' superior ' class. The mania for lynching Negroes, this exhilarating man-hunt, in which white men are hunt- ers and Negroes the hunted, is not a Negro problem peculiarly. It is a man problem with a moral setting. Negro lynchings are only one expression of a general repudiation of the idea of a moral sense and moral obligations." . . . " And this running to cover from the demands of the moral law is what our people in all sections have been doing. Our colleges have taught the right of might as " scientific ' ; our lower schools have chorused the refrain ; our honoured statesmen have translated the dia- bolical doctrine into ' destiny determines duty ' ; even our churches have garbed it in ecclesiastical phrase and taught it as the religion of the righteous Nazarene. As with every new disorder our surgeons rush with ready knives to rip out an organ, so with every new demand for justice have our social leaders rushed upon the body politic to rip out a moral principle. At last none are recognised ; and the great cumbersome body politic, bereft of moral impulses, has begun to run amuck. Superficial differences of race have made the Negro its first victim. The labour question offers an inviting field for its insane 341 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION orgies, when .Negroes shall have come to be looked upon as small game 'for a man-hunt. Just where the dictator may step in no one knows. But his advent is certain if the moral insanity that cannot distinguish right from might continues/' . . . " So long as public opinion is swayed by the doctrine that might makes right, so long will that doctrine express itself terribly on the lower and more brutal planes of injustice. So long, also, will the teachers and exemplars of this indefencible doctrine be primarily responsible for those barbarous expressions of its true character. Its brutal manifestations will disappear when the doctrine is discarded. So, also, will those more subtle manifestations, whereby the privileged are enriched and the industrious impoverished, which make this phi- losophy acceptable among men of * light, leading and lucre,' . . . " Men without moral sense are murderers at heart, as Prof. James says, and are restrained from committing murder only by the pressure of customs and laws. When this external pressure is removed, such men will lynch, and hang, and burn, and shoot, and administer water-cures to Filipinos, and loot palaces in China, and do all manner of wickedness. They deny human equality, and to them there is no moral law. " But men with the moral sense are different. They are not mur- derers at heart. Realising that every man is their equal, knowing that no one's elementary rights are inferior to their own, perceiving that physical might is essentially a different thing from moral right, and having adopted moral right as their ideal, these men need no external restraints to hold their murderous instincts in check, nor any iron hand to prevent them from murdering their fellowmen. Abolish all municipal law, and they would nevertheless harm no one. " The fundamental cause of lawlessness, therefore, is false notions of human inferiority, and consequent indifference to the primary elements of the moral law; its remedy lies in the inculcation of re- spect for human rights and love for the moral law. In the degree in which the philosophy of moral right is propagated by pulpit, news- paper and high official, and takes possession , of the multitude, dis- placing the prevalent philosophy of physical might in that degree, and only in that degree, can the peace and order of a true civilisation reign undisturbed and unquestioned." The extent to which this crime of lynching is already practised is indeed appalling and constitutes a menace which every well-informed, public-spirited citizen must clearly recognise. Cases almost without number could be cited, but a few typical ones will serve as well as more. On the 21st of March, 1903, a remarkable address directed to the Emperors and Kings of the old world was made public at Cleveland. The address was from the American Negroes to the Powers of the Old World and had been adopted at a secret session of the Equal Rights Association, held at Cleveland on February 9th. It prayed for intervention in behalf of Afro- Americans in the United .States, who are described in it as being "brutally and bar- barously maltreated and basely compelled, for no crime or mis- demeanor, to suffer every indignity, cruelty and murder that inhuman, 342 LYNCHING fiendish nature can invent, by some of those who once held the Afro- Americans in bondage and slavery, or the descendants of those who once held the Afro-Americans in slavery and bondage in the United States, and who still without cause harbour in their hearts a deadly hatred against the Afro-American race." The address specifically asserts of Afro-Americans that from "one to five or more are either tortured, hung, shot or butchered and driven from their homes daily, while others are burnt to death at the stake. . . . And while the victims are writhing in pain in the fire, their ears, eyes and fingers are cut out and off for souvenirs, and pieces of their sizzling, frying and burning flesh are slashed from their burning bodies and are auctioned off to the highest bidder after this fashion, holding it up: 'Who wants a piece of nigger meat? Who wants a piece of nigger meat?' 'It is sold at 10 cents.' The heart is divided into quarters and is sold at 25 cents each." Continuing the address asserts that there is no redress to be had in the United States for these atrocities. " We have," it goes on to say, "time and again pleaded and appealed to Presidents, to Con- gresses of the United States, to enforce the laws and to stop that inhuman wholesale murder, that discrimination [against] and slaugh- ter of an innocent people, but every plea and appeal has been ignored." Then follows the coloured man's prayer to Europe for intervention, prayer the necessity for which should bring the hot blush of shame to the cheek of every liberty-loving American. To what a pass has come this great republic of the free, when a portion of its citizens, defenceless and persecuted with a barbarity and injustice worthy Apache savages, is obliged to make this appeal to Europe : " We, therefore, now, in the name of God Almighty, do hereby appeal to the Powers of Europe and to every civilised nation of the old world, through their representatives at Washington, D. C., to interfere in some way in behalf of the poor, downtrodden, outraged Afro-Ameri- can of the United States. The Americans intervened, so they claimed, for humanity, because of Spain's barbarous treatment of the Cubans. They drove the Spanish army from that island at the cost of many lives, censured the Spanish throne for wholesale murder, butchery and torture of innocent Cubans. . . . The foreign pow- ers have the same and a better right to interfere in defence of 10,- 000,000 people that are liable to be murdered at will by prejudiced classes. ... In God's name, will the king of England, will the emperor of Germany, will the czar of Russia, will the sultan of Tur- key, will the shah of Persia, will fie emperor of Austria, will the king of Italy, will the king of Greece, will the president of Switzer- land, will the king of Portugal, will the president of France, will the king of Sweden, will the king of Siam, will the emperor of China, will the emperor or the mikado of Japan, will the rulers of Belgium, Eoumania, Luxemburg, Montenegro and all other foreign powers in- terfere in some way in behalf of the suffering, outraged and mur- dered Afro-American people of the United .States, and thus save the name of Christianity from reproach, mockery and derision and the name of humanity from shame, ridicule and contempt, and civilisa- 343 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION tion, with all of its dear amenities, from disgrace, scorn and igno- miny ? " Think of a portion of our fellow-countrymen driven to desperation by American brutalities appealing to the Czar of Russia, the Sultan of Turkey and the King of Belgium for intervention and relief ! The lynching mania has spread till no class seems proof against it. The New York " Nation " of July 16th, 1903, expresses surprise that even the United States soldiers at Fort Leavenworth should attempt to lynch a negro. To us this seems a far more natural outcome than most of the other lynching atrocities. Soldiering is all but inevi- tably morally disorganising, and the step from summarily killing the technical enemy to one's country, whom one perhaps has never seen and of whom one personally knows nothing, to butchering one against whom one entertains an active, personal animosity, for a real, or imagined offence recently committed, is easy enough to take. The essential thing to remember is that killing, howsoever it may be done, whether illegally as a murderous act, or as the result of the legal verdict of twelve men, tends ever to decrease respect for human life. Commenting on the Fort Leavenworth episode,, the " New Nation " says : " Even United States soldiers at Fort Leavenworth [have] attempted to lynch a negro who had been in a fracas with one of their number. Where is this thing to stop? The fact that their regiments had seen service in the Philippines, and had there acquired the notion that ' niggers ' have no more right than wild animals, should furnish food for thought to startled Imperialists who are won- dering where the new ferocity against an ' inferior ' race got its fresh impulse." Under date of July llth, 1903, the San Francisco " Star " prints the following : " Eace hatred is as real and as frightful in its results in America as in Bussia. Only by justice is it to be escaped by any nation unfortunate enough to have within its borders two numerous and unassimilating races. . . . Alabama has disfranchised the negro. The next step in degradation after disfranchisement is phys- ical servitude, and the one result is certain to follow the other soon or late in every case where the departure from democratic principles once begins. This is the point which is always overlooked by those who would disfranchise the inferior in order that government may be improved. The result is always that government is made worse, be- cause the strong, finding the weak at their mercy, mould the laws into instruments of oppression. " The way out is easy if we are good enough to take it. We must trust democracy, respect the law, and protect the rights of even col- oured criminals. If we cannot find the virtue in ourselves to do this, then we are certain to suffer all the horrors of mob-law and anarchy on every occasion of public excitement. Unless the law protects the rights of black men, it will quickly cease to protect the rights of white men. Those who burn negroes are destroying the safe-guards of their own liberty." On the 4th of July; 1903, a mob at Evansville, Indiana, attacked the jail to secure possession of a negro named Lee Brown who was charged with shooting a policeman. While thus engaged the mob 344 LYNCHING was set upon in the rear by negroes and, failing to secure its vic- tim, it vented its wrath upon the negro quarters of the town. Later the militia tried to restore order. A pitched battle took place be- tween the mob and the troops. Nine persons were killed outright and at least thirty-five wounded, some of them fatally. Almost at the same time (on the 7th) a negro, who had fatally stabbed a white man, was taken from, the sheriff and lynched near Vicksburg, Missis- sippi. On July 28th, 1904, two Georgia negroes committed a brutal crime. They were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged on Sept. 9th. A mob composed of " best citizens " secured possession of the negroes under circumstances which indicated collusion on the part of the military who were ostensibly guarding them, and burned their victims at the stake with an indifference to human suffering and an insane and malignant brutality which cannot be called savage without slandering the instincts of the barbarian. This horror oc- curred at Statesboro, Georgia. Commenting upon it, the " New York Age " says : " And do the white savages of Georgia imagine that the black savages may never turn upon them and make a hell for the whole population while the frenzy lasts ? " Says 'the " Milwaukee Daily News " of Aug. 17, 1904, If there was ever an exhibition of the unfitness of a people to govern them- selves it was given at Statesboro, Ga., when the two Negroes, Paul Reed and Will Cato, were taken from the court-room in which they had been condemned to death through the orderly procedure of the law and executed by mob violence. Georgia may well hang its head in shame." Apropos of the same episode, the Dubuque " Telegraph Herald " says, in its issue of Aug. 21st, " This slaughter of human beings will carry retributive justice. The slaughterers cannot hope to escape just punishment for their wanton disregard not alone of statute law but of moral law as well. Human agency may suspend the operation of the former, but it is powerless to suspend the operation of the lat- ter. Above these white Southern fiends is the God who made them and their victims and regards both as His children, equal in His eyes. The South will one day pay a penalty so terrible as to bring it to its knees in humblest supplication for relief and forgiveness. ' As ye sin so shall ye suffer ; ' so is it written. And while the suffer- ing may not come to-day nor to-morrow, it will come one day in avenging fury." Says the Cleveland "Plain Dealer" of Aug. 17, "The butchery at Statesboro, Ga., of two Negroes under the most horrible circum- stances can be attributed simply and solely to a mob's relish for murder. . . . The simple truth about this and other affairs of the kind is that they deprive us of all claim to rank among civilised nations, for in no other enlightened country on earth would they be tolerated or, for that matter, thought of. Americans who prate of their government under law and especially boast of their capacity for the same, are guilty, several times a week, on an average, of precisely the same savageries which, when committed by a debased Eussian mob at Kishenef, or by fanatical Chinese Boxers, evoke such un- 345 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION stinted condemnation in this land of the free. Nor are these hor- rible manifestations of mob murder and evidence of the law's im- potence peculiar to any section of the country. Ohio is in no position to throw stones at Georgia, nor can New Jersey see to remove the mote from Colorado's eye for the beam in her own/' 346 CHAPTEE II BREAKING FAITH WITH THE SIXTIES 347 A mob's a monster with many hands and no brains. Against the wild-fire of the mob there is no defence. Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke, Passion and treason are the hands of sin. Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood! Over thy wounds now do I prophesy. Franklin. Shakespeare. Julius Ccesar. 348 CHAPTER II BREAKING FAITH WITH THE SIXTIES E Americans have a complacent way of expressing our horror for the ways of the unspeakable Turk, the un- utterable Russian and the inexpressible King of the Belgians. One would never gather from the typical American tone that we, as a nation, had any bar- barities or uncivilised tendencies of which to be ashamed. The national escutcheon, however, is not exactly immacu- late. On the contrary, it is rapidly becoming as spotted as the measles. One or two of the more recent lynching atrocities should be all to which we need to refer in order to show that outrages equal to anything Russia can produce, are taking place practically every day right here in "free America." It would seem as if the name Springfield were singularly fatal to the observance of law and order with regard to the coloured citizen. In March, 1904, an outbreak of whites against negroes took place in Springfield, Ohio. It began with the lynching of Richard Dixon, a Kentucky negro who had shot Charles Collis, a policeman. Later, on the 8th, a mob of 3,000 persons attacked the negro quarter of the town. The excuse given was that some negroes had been heard to threaten to avenge Dixon's lynching. The mob avowed its intention of destroying the buildings of all negroes, and killing every black who refused to leave the city. The Mayor appealed for State troops, who succeeded in preventing a clash between the blacks and whites, which would have meant great loss of life. As it was' the whites set fire to so- many buildings that the blaze in the negro quarter got beyond control and the fire department devoted its efforts to preventing its spreading. On the 9th there was not, according to local dispatches, a coloured man within the corporate limits of Springfield, a city having a coloured population of 15,000. And now in the Spring of 1906 comes another frightful outbreak against the negroes in the same city. A mob of 1,500 white men and boys made an assault upon the negro residential district on Feb. 27th, and held control of the city streets for hours. The mob was bent on lynching two negroes who had shot a freight brakeman. It tore out the furniture of a saloon, ruined the stock, and then set fire to the building and to several negro dwellings in the vicinity. After dark more negro property was burned, and the blacks were in a general state of panic and many began leaving the city. Treading close upon the heels of this last atrocity in Springfield, Ohio, comes the report of a lynching horror in Springfield, Missouri. Press reports under dates of April 15th and 16th, 1906, describe how 349 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION three negroes were lynched under a statue representing Justice which surmounted the electric-light tower. The victims were a negro by the name of Will Allen, charged with the murder of Rouark, committed last January, and Horace Duncan and James Copeland, who were suspected of assaulting a white domestic. All three negroes died pro- testing their innocence. Describing Allen's death a Boston daily says : " ' I swear that I am not guilty of killing Rouark/ were the last words of Will Allen, a negro . . . who, protesting innocence, was taken from jail early this morning by the mob that lynched Duncan and Copeland before midnight, and was hanged in the Public square to the same tower that had served as a scaffold for the two other negroes. The lynching took place under a statue representing 'Jus- tice' that surmounted the electric-light tower. Allen was calm and collected as he jumped from the tower upon which he had been com- pelled to ascend. The rope about his neck broke as his weight fell on it and he dropped into the pyre containing the charred bodies of his former companions in prison, Duncan and Copeland. He was immediately taken up the tower again, and again compelled to jump. This time his captors were more successful in their work." On April 16th the State Militia were in control, and on that date a Boston paper had the following headlines : " Springfield grovels in penitence. Negroes were innocent." It seems that, after the atrocious crime had been committed, the murderers comprising the mob slowly awoke from their insane carnival of vengeance to the realisation that the young woman assaulted had positively declared that Duncan and Copeland, two of the negroes lynched, were not her assailants. With this came the penitential revulsion of feeling. Gov. Folk said in reference to this incident : " When a mob takes the law into its own hands any member of it is guilty of murder." A clearer picture of this atrocity will be obtained from a perusal of the following paragraph from " The Public " of April 21st, 1906. " The latest outbreak of the brutal spirit of the white mob occurred in Springfield, Missouri. A white woman and her escort had been at- tacked by two Negroes, the young man being pounded to insensibility and the young woman outraged. On suspicion two Negro boys, about 21 years of age, were arrested and placed in jail. The young woman being called upon to identify them, declared positively that they were not her assailants. Nevertheless, the authorities retained them in custody; and just before midnight of the 14th, the day on which the assault occurred and the arrests were made, a mob surrounded the jail, captured these two Negro prisoners, hanged them both in the public square of the city, and saturating their clothing burned them while they hanged and were still alive. Maddened with the lust of killing and their murderous hatred of the Negro, the mob then turned back to the jail and capturing another Negro prisoner, held under vague suspicion of having some time before aided in the murder of a white man, they hanged and burned him with the others. The brutal scene is reported to have been witnessed by 5,000 persons." Apropos of the popular misconception that lynching is practised merely for the purpose of safe-guarding women, we quote the follow- ing from, the "Women's Journal" of March 19th. 1904: "Now 350 BREAKING FAITH WITH THE SIXTIES that Mississippi has burned a woman at the stake, perhaps the public will realise that lynching is not practised merely for the protection of women." In the "Toronto Weekly Sun" of Aug. 24, 1904, Dr. Goldwin Smith says : " There is no use in saying that this is indignation against crime, or even that it is hatred of race; it is devilish lust of cruelty, such as burned in the fiendish breast of the Iroquois. " Why are such things allowed to happen in a Eepublic which deems itself the -flower of enlightenment and civilisation? " The answer is, because there is no government in the United States. Government has been practically supplanted by the perpetual conflict and alternate domination of two factions, each of which is too dependent on mob favours to enforce the law. No such spectacle is presented in any other community pretending to civilisation." Those who believe that the lynching sentiment is visited solely upon the more serious offenders against social order will do well to peruse the article " Lawlessness against Lawlessness " by W. S. Scar- borough of Wilberf orce University Ohio. This article appeared in the "Arena" for Nov. 1900. From it we extract the following: " Edward McCarthy, a young white man who came to this city from New York several days ago, appeared before a police magistrate here in New Orleans. He was arrested yesterday morning to protect him from a mob, which was endeavouring to lynch him because of some remarks he made in connexion with the negro riot. McCarthy had said that negroes had white hearts were as good as white men and not all of them should be lynched because of the action of two of them. * Do you consider a negro as good as a white man? ' asked the judge. ' In body and soul, yes,' replied the prisoner. He was fined $25 or thirty days in. the parish prison. " This is only one of many incidents where blind, unreasoning preju- dice gets the better of judgment and defeats Justice. ... To fine a man for the expression of an honest opinion when he is asked for it is barbarism pure and simple. Such a judge has no business to sit upon a bench that represents justice." On June 23, 1903, an attempt was made to lynch a negro at Peoria, 111. The man was charged with committing a robbery. At a meeting of Chicago negroes, held at about this time, Ida Wells Bar- nett said, apropos of the treatment visited upon Negroes : " You cannot expect the white men to fight your battles when you will not fight them for yourselves. If the white men are our friends let them show us that they are by their actions and by giving us their pro- tection; but it is for us to arouse ourselves. Burning and lynching of Negroes is becoming so common in this country that the consciences of the people are becoming seared, and they no longer arouse popular indignation. I remember when the first Negro was lynched in this country, there was a cry sent up from every corner, but now it has got so that even ministers of the gospel, white men, mind you, tell the people from their pulpits that it is right to burn Negroes." Referring to the lynching of Johnson at Chattanooga, " Harpers Weekly" for April 7, 1906, prints the following: "The Supreme 351 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Court holds that the lynchers at Chattanooga were guilty of contempt of court; the Department of Justice insists that they were guilty of a violation of the Revised Statutes; while the President seems to feel that they were guilty of lese-majesty. Any, or all, or none of these views may be right, but the layman will have difficulty in seeing how the final solution of the controversy is going to help the victim, JOHNSON, any." It is unnecessary to cite more instances tending to prove the shock- ing prevalence of the lynching mania. This disease has seised upon us in a way and to an extent which will force us to treat it in a radi- cal manner. Its cause is to be found in a race hatred which, in its turn, is caused by, and is but one of, the manifestations of that " I am better than thou " feeling which is the root of all social cruelty and injustice. Those who endorse or seek to palliate lynching are wont to refer to the negro either as something less than human or as a hopeless savage incapable of the refinements of their civilisation, postulates which they straightway seek to prove by pursuance of a course so brutal that 999 negroes out of 1,000 would repudiate it with every drop of their Afro-American blood. For the sake of those who believe that the accident of colour has rendered impossible the negro's evolution, we shall take up the remainder of this chapter in an at- tempt to show the ridiculousness of such a position. At the very start let us clearly examine the logic of the subject. Were it contended that black blood tended to the highest possible at- tainments of civilisation, it would be necessary, in substantiation of such a claim, to cite innumerable cases both of black and white men, whose only distinction was that of colour, their histories, environments, etc., being the same, and to show that the black men, just because of this single factor of blackness, tended ever to outrun their white brothers in moral and social development. Were we taking such a brief to prove, ours would be the position of largest inclusiveness, and the burden of proof would justly rest upon us. But we are not taking the plaintiff's position, but are occupying, instead, that of the defendant. The plaintiff asserts that black blood is an insuperable bar to moral and social development. Those plaintiffs whom we are now answering contend that it is impossible, because of his race, for a negro to evolve into a high-minded cultured citizen, endowed with his full meed of the social sense. To disprove such a thesis we should not be obliged, as in the other case, to show any general tendency. We shall have only to find one single exception to this ridiculous bit of dogmatism in order to overthrow the whole absurd thesis, for, clearly, if a single black man can be found who is morally, socially, and in- tellectually great, no one can ever afterwards reasonably assert that black blood inevitably prevents such attainments. We shall confine ourselves to the consideration of but a few great coloured men. The list, however, might easily be extended, for, all things considered, and speaking with all due regard to their almost insurmountable handicap,, the coloured race has shown an evolutionary tendency toward better things which is little short of marvellous. The first negro to whom we invite attention was not only great in his own race, but carved for himself a place in history which, all things considered, 352 could not be filled by any white man who has thus far drawn the Ireath- of life. We refer to Toussaint L'Ouverture, the great St. Domingo chief, a full-blooded negro, without one drop of white blood in his veins. Regarding this man, Wendell Phillips, one of our greatest Americans, said: "My sketch is at once a biography and an argument a biography, of course very brief, of a negro soldier and statesman, which I offer you as an argument, in behalf of the race from which he sprung. I am about to compare and weigh races ; indeed, I am engaged to-night in what you will think the absurd effort to convince you that the negro race, instead of being that object of pity or contempt which we usually consider it, is entitled, judged by the facts of history, to a place close by the side of the Saxon. Now races love to be judged in two ways by the great men they produce, and by the average merit of the mass of the race. We Saxons are proud of Bacon, Shakespeare, Hampden, Washington, Franklin, the stars we have lent to the galaxy of history ; and then we turn with equal pride to the average merit of Saxon blood, since it streamed from its German home." . . . " In the hour you lend me to-night, I attempt the Quixotic effort to convince you that the negro blood, instead of standing at the bot- tom of the list, ^is entitled, if judged either by its great men or its masses, either by its courage, its purpose, or its endurance, to a place as near ours as any other blood known in history." Speaking specifically of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the great American said : " He had been born a slave on a plantation in the north of the island an unmixed negro his father stolen from Africa. If any- thing, therefore, that I say of him to-night moves your admiration, remember, the black race claims it all we have no part nor lot in it. He was fifty years old at this time. An old negro had taught him to read. His favorite books were Epictetus, Eaynal, Military Memoirs, Plutarch. In the woods, he learned some of the qualities of herbs, and was village doctor. On the estate, the highest place he ever reached was that of coachman. At fifty, he joined the army as physician. Before he went, he placed his master and mistress on shipboard, freighted the vessel with a cargo of sugar and coffee, and sent them to Baltimore, and never afterward did he forget to send them, year by year, ample means of support. And I might add, that, of all the leading negro generals, each one saved the man under whose roof he was born, and protected the family. "Let me add another thing. If I stood here to-night to tell the story of Napoleon, I should take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich enough to paint the great captain of the nine- teenth century. Were I here to tell you the story of Washington, I should take it from your hearts you, who think no marble white enough on which to carve the name of the Father of his Country. I am about to tell you the story of a negro who has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of Britons, Frenchmen, Spaniards men who despised him as a negro and a slave, and hated him because he had beaten them in many a battle. All the materials for his biography are from the lips of his enemies. 23 353 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION " The second story told of him is this. About the time he reached the camp, the army had been subjected to two insults. First, their commissioners, summoned to meet the French Committee, were igno- miniously and insultingly dismissed; and when, afterward, Frangois, their general, was summoned to a second conference, and went to it on horseback, accompanied by two officers, a young lieutenant, who had known him as a slave, angered at seeing him in the uniform of an officer, raised his riding whip and struck him over the shoulders. If he had been the savage which the negro is painted to us, he had only to breathe the insult to his twenty-five thousand soldiers, and they would have trodden out the Frenchmen in blood. But the in- dignant chief rode back in silence to his tent, and it was twenty-four hours before his troops heard of this insult to their general. Then the word went forth, " Death to every white man ! " They had fifteen hundred prisoners. Ranged in front of the camp, they were about to be shot. Toussaint, who had a vein of religious fanaticism, like most great leaders like Mohammed, like Napoleon, like Cromwell, like John Brown he could preach as well as fight mounting a hillock, and getting the ear of the crowd, exclaimed : ' Brothers, this blood will not wipe out the insult to our chief; only the blood in yonder French camp can wipe it out. To shed that is courage; to shed this is cowardice, and cruelty besides ; ' and he saved fifteen hundred lives." . . . " You remember Macaulay says, comparing Cromwell with Napo- leon, that ^Cromwell showed the greater military genius, if we con- sider that he never saw an army till he was forty; while Napoleon was educated from a boy in the best military schools in Europe. Cromwell manufactured his own army ; Napoleon at the age of twenty- seven was placed at the head of the best troops Europe ever saw. They were both successful; but, says Macaulay, with such disadvan- tages, the Englishman showed the greater genius. Whether you will allow the inference or not, you will at least grant that it is a fair mode of measurement. Apply it to Toussaint. Cromwell never saw an army till he was forty ; this man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his own army out of what? Englishmen the best blood in Europe. Out of the middle class of Englishmen the best blood of the island. And with it he conquered what? Englishmen their equals. This man manufactured his army out of what? Out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, de- based, demoralised by two hundred years of slavery, one hundred thou- sand of them imported into the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligible even to each other. Yet out of this mixed, and, as you say, despicable mass, he forged a thunderbolt and hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered; at the most warlike blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at the pluckiest blood in Eu- rope, the English, and they skulked home to Jamaica. Now if Cromwell was a general, at least this man was a soldier. I know it was a small territory; it was not as large as the Continent; but it was as large as that Attica, which, with Athens lor a capital, has BREAKING FAITH WITH THE SIXTIES filled the earth with its fame for two thousand years. We measure genius by quality, not by quantity. " Further, Cromwell was only a soldier; his fame stops there. Not one line in the statute book of Britain can be traced to Cromwell; not one step in the social life of England finds its motive power in his brain. The state he founded went down with him to his grave. But this man no sooner put his hand on the helm of state, than the ship steadied with an upright keel, and he began to evince a states- manship as marvellous as his military genius. History says that the most statesmanlike act of Napoleon was his proclamation of 1802, at the peace of Amiens, when, believing that the indelible loyalty of a native-born heart is always a sufficient basis on which to found an empire, he said : ' Frenchmen, come home. I pardon the crimes of the last twelve years; I blot out its parties; I found my throne on the hearts of all Frenchmen/ and twelve years of unclouded suc- cess showed how wisely he judged. That was in 1802. In 1800 this negro made a proclamation ; it runs thus : * Sons of St. Domingo, come home. We never meant to take your houses or your lands. The negro only asks that liberty which God gave him. Your houses wait for you ; your lands are ready ; come and cultivate them ' ; and from Madrid and Paris, from Baltimore and New Orleans, the immi- grant planters crowded home to enjoy their estates, under the pledged word, that was never broken, of a victorious slave. " Again, Carlyle has said, ' The natural king is one who melts all wills into his own.' At this moment he turned to his armies, poor, ill-clad, and half-starved, and said to them : ' Go back and work on these estates you have conquered ; for an empire can be founded only on order and industry, and you can learn these virtues only there/ And they went. The French admiral, who witnessed the scene, said that in a week his army melted back into peasants." Nor was the greatness of this man confined to attainments which might naturally be expected in his own day and generation. He was endowed with that rarest of all intellectual attainments, the general- ising mind. Furthermore, he had that gift of prophecy which has been defined as the knowledge of what ought to happen and the faith that it will come to pass. His foresight reminds one again and again of our own patriot seers, Jefferson and Franklin. Upon this subject Wendell Phillips says : " It was 1800. The world waited fifty years before, in 1846, Robert Peel dared to venture, as a matter of practi- cal statesmanship, the theory of free trade. Adam Smith theorised, the French statesmen dreamed, but no man at the head of affairs had ever dared to risk it as a practical measure. Europe waited till 1846 before the most practical intellect in the world, the English, adopted the great economic formula of unfettered trade. But in 1800 this black, with the instinct of statesmanship, said to the committee who were drafting for him a constitution : ' Put at the head of the chap- ter of commerce that the ports of St. Domingo are open to the trade of the world.' With lofty indifference to race, superior to all envy or prejudice, Toussaint had formed this committee of eight white proprietors and one mulatto not a soldier nor a negro on the list, although Haytian history proves that, with the exception of 355 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Rigaud, the rarest genius has always been shown by pure negroes. " Again, it was 1800, at a time when England was poisoned on every page of her statute book with religious intolerance, when a man could not enter the House of Commons without taking Episcopal communion, when every State in the Union, except Rhode Island, was full of the intensest religious bigotry. This man was a negro. You say that is a superstitious blood. He was uneducated. You say that makes a man narrow-minded. He was a Catholic. Many say that is but another name for intolerance. And yet negro, Catholic, slave he took his place by the side of Roger Williams, and said to his committee: 'Make it the first line of my constitution that I know no difference between religious beliefs/ " Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back with me to the commencement of the century, and select what statesman you please. Let him be either American or European; let him have a brain the result of six generations of culture; let him have the ripest training of university routine; let him add to it the better education of prac- tical life; crown his temples with the silver of seventy years; and show me the man of Saxon lineage for whom his most sanguine ad- mirer will wreathe a laurel rich as embittered foes have placed on the brow of this negro rare military skill, profound knowledge of human nature, content to blot out all party distinctions, and trust a state to the blood of its sons anticipating Sir Robert Peel fifty years, and taking his station by the side of Roger Williams before any Englishman or American had won the right; and yet this is the record which the history of rival States makes up for this inspired black of St. Domingo. " It was 1801. The Frenchmen who lingered on the island de- scribed its prosperity and order as almost incredible. You might trust a child with a bag of gold to go from Samana to Port-au-Prince with- out risk. Peace was in every household; the valleys laughed with fertility; culture climed the mountains; the commerce of the world was represented in its harbours/ 7 . . . " Of Toussaint, Hermona, the Spanish general, who knew him well, said : ' He is the purest soul God ever put into a body/ Of him his- tory bears witness, ' He never broke his word/ Maitland was travel- ling in the depths of the woods to meet Toussaint, when he was met by a messenger, and told that he was betrayed. He went on, and met Toussaint, who showed him two letters one from the French general, offering him any rank if he would put Maitland in his power, and the other his reply. It was, ' Sir, I have promised the English- man that he shall go back/ Let it stand, therefore, that the negro, truthful as a knight of old, was cheated by his lying foe. Which race has reason to be proud of such a record ? " . . . " I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word. 'NO RETALIATION' was his great motto and the rule of his life; and the last words uttered to his son in France were these: 'My boy, you will one day go back to St. Domingo; forget that France murdered your father/ I would call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and the State he founded went down 356 BREAKING FAITH WITH THE SIXTIES with him into his grave. I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire rather than per- mit the slave trade in the humblest village of his dominions. " You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read history, not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when truth gets a hearing, the muse of history will put 'Phocion for the Greek, and Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright, consummate flower of our earlier civilisation, and John Brown the ripe fruit of our noon- day, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE." The record of this one negro should be enough to reduce to the silence of shame every voice which would contend that African blood is sufficient to prevent the negro attaining to the highest flights of genius or civilisation which history has yet chronicled. Compare for a moment the author of " Up From Slavery " with the author of " The Leopard's Spots/' the one a black man, formerly a slave, and the other a so-called Christian minister and shining light in a southern Baptist church. Booker T. Washington is a negro whose conspicuous genius, goodness and sheer force of character have challenged the admiration of the world. The Eev. Thomas Dixon is a minister, a Baptist and a hater of black skins. In an article published in "Whim," entitled "The Tigers' Stripes," that brilliant publicist, Ernest Crosby, says, regarding the Rev. Thomas Dixon's " The Leopard's Spots," . . . "It tempts me to retort, ' Thou tiger, first wash the stripes out of thine own hide, and then shalt thou see clearly to wash out the spots out of thy brother's hide ; ' for it is in the spirit of the tiger rather than in that of the Christian minister that Mr. Dixon treats the delicate issues of the race question which is the subject of his novel." In the same article Mr. Crosby refers to the books which he found in the room assigned to him while staying at a tiny hotel in a remote southern village. The title of one of them was " The Negro a Beast, or In the Image of God." On the title page was the following: " The Negro a Beast, but Created with Articulate Speech and Hands that he may be of service to his Master, the White Man." Comment- ing upon this Mr. Crosby says : " Here was indeed a rich relic of the ancient South of slavery, a South that has passed away forever ! I looked down at the date and rubbed my eyes in astonishment. There must be some mistake. The book was printed in the year of our Lord 1900 ! And in one of the greatest cities of the South, too! And what do you suppose is the name of the publishing company which issues this precious work? It is called the * American Book and Bible House ! ' I turned over the pages of the book. It was an illiterate medley of folly and su- perstitition an attempt to prove by Scripture that the negro was not the descendant of Ham, and to show that the serpent in the garden of Eden was a black man ! It was just such a book as, if it had been produced by a negro, would almost have justified despair for his race. It is not remarkable, perhaps, that a single lunatic should have writ- 357 ten such a book but that a publisher should have been found for it, that commercial success should have been expected from it, that people should buy it and lay it on their bibles and leave it on their tables to insult the black men who saw it and astound the white all that was incredible. " It so happens that I was reading a book written by a negro at the same time and I took it from my portmanteau and laid it beside the other volume. My book was Booker Washington's ' Up From Slav-* ery ' a book which I had some difficulty in getting in a great south- ern city, and which proved conclusively that its author was one of the best and ablest men in this country, black or white, and it made me blush for my white race as I thought of these two authors together." In closing the above mentioned article Mr. Crosby says : " lit is to be hoped that there is some truth in the theory of reincarnation, for it affords such grand opportunities for poetic justice. If there is any- thing in it, the author of ' The Negro a Beast ' should make his next appearance as a full-blooded Congo black; the author of 'Leopard's Spots' would figure among the mulattoes from whom he wishes to save us; and the author of 'Up From Slavery,' well, if any man has earned a right to the whitest of skins (if he would like to have one) it is Booker Washington. And if these three gentlemen came on the stage again together, I am confident that we should find the last of the three exerting his powers for the benefit of the other two in a spirit of love to which they are total strangers." We have spoken of that great negro, Booker T. Washington, a man who has few living equals. As an educator he is doing a work of which any man might justly be proud. Though dealing with negroes whom we so flippantly set down as being of coarser and more sensuous clay than ourselves, he has made the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute a conspicuous exception to the record of all other American colleges with which we are acquainted. So far as we know, it is the only American University which prohibits the use of tobacco among its students. What think you would happen to Harvard were tobacco prohibited ? Yet the Harvard student has a white skin and is usually supposed to be fully endowed with an Anglo-Saxon's ability to resist all manner of vice. The students at Tuskegee are negroes. Their ideals are practically all in front of them, yet we see that they are able to comport themselves in a manner which shows a regard for each other and for their own self-respect which many a white man may well envy. The smoker who gives up his tobacco makes a sacri- fice which is of great significance. In the anarchist colony in Home, Washington, a similar disuse of tobacco is come to pass. We understand that only two members of the community now smoke. The other burners of the weed have de- veloped such a keen social sense that they consider it wrong to pollute the air of those who prefer to breathe the unadulterated preparation supplied by nature, and have voluntarily discontinued smoking. Ee- garding the use of the weetj in our colleges, Mr. Elbert Hubbard says, in " The Philistine " of June, 1906 : " At Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia and Princeton, cigarettes are optional, but when one sees the devotion to them, a stranger would surely suppose the practice 358 BREAKING FAITH WITH THE SIXTIES of cigarette smoking was compulsory. The boy who does not acquire the tobacco habit at college is a wonder. Many of the professors teach it." We quote the following from an open letter by Kelly Miller, Pro- fessor of Mathematics and Instructor of Sociology in Howard Uni- versity, Washington, as published in " The Public " of June 16, 1906, under the heading " A Negro's Reply to a White Man " : " Your fundamental thesis is that * no amount of education of any kind, in- dustrial, classical or religious, can make a Negro a white man, or bridge the chasm of the centuries which separates him from the white man in the evolution of human history/ This doctrine is as old as human oppression. Calhoun made it the arch stone in the defence of Negro slavery and lost." . . . " Within forty years of only partial opportunity, while playing as it were in the backyard of civilisation, the American Negro has cut down his illiteracy by over 50 per cent.; has produced a professional class some fifty thousand strong, including ministers, teachers, doc- tors, lawyers, editors, authors, architects, engineers, and all higher lines of listed pursuits in which white men are engaged. " That Negroes in the average are not equal in developed capacity to the white race, is a proposition which it would be as simple to affirm as it is silly to deny. The Negro represents a backward race which has not yet taken a commanding part in the progressive move- ment of the world. In the great cosmic scheme of things, some races reach the limelight of civilisation ahead of others. But that tem- porary forwardness does not argue inherent superiority is as evident as any fact of history. An unfriendly environment may hinder and impede the one, while fortunate circumstances may quicken and spur the other. Relative superiority is only a transient phase of human development." We invite the reader's attention to the fact that one of the greatest French novelists was the son of Louise Dumas, a black woman of St. Domingo. It is interesting to note in this connexion that " The first needle ever made in England was made in the time of Henry VIII. and made by a negro; and when he died, the art died with him. Some of the first travellers in Africa stated that they found a tribe in the interior who gave them better razors than they had; the irrepressible negro coming up in science as in politics. The best steel is the great- est triumph of metallurgy, and metallurgy is the glory of chemistry." The late Paul Lawrence Dunbar, author and poet, was a negro. So also is William Edward Burghardt DuBois, Professor of Economics and History at Atlanta University, sometime fellow of Harvard in Sociology and late assistant in Sociology at the University of Penn- sylvania, and author of several important works. We cannot do bet- ter in closing this chapter than to quote from a Chicago weekly an article by Mr. DuBois entitled " A Negro's Creed." We ask the Reader to figure out in his own mind the number of reincarnations which would be necessary, before such men as the author of " The Leop- ard's Spots " would be able to evolve to the level of this black man's creed. We hazard the opinion that if the statistical truth could be 359 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION known as to how many negroes are already trying to reach these ideals, and how many white men, even ministers and Pharisees in high places, either repudiate them or are indifferent to them, both totals would come as a great surprise to the average reader. Certain it is that the man who can pen such a creed, has no natural bar to the enunciation of the grandest social and moral truths : " I believe in God who made of one blood all races that dwell on earth. " I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and fea- ture, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development. " Especially do I believe in the Negro race ; in the beauty of its genius, the sweetness of its soul, and its strength in that meekness which shall yet inherit this turbulent earth. " I believe in pride of race and lineage and self ; in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves; in pride of lineage so great as to despise no man's father; in pride of race so chivalrous as neither to offer bastardy to the weak nor beg wedlock of the strong, knowing that men may be brothers in Christ, even though they be not brothers in law. " I believe in Service humble, reverent service, from the blacken- ing of boots to the whitening of souls; for Work is Heaven, Idleness Hell, and Wage is the ' Well Done ! ' of the Master who summoned all them that labour and are heavy laden, making no distinction between the black, sweating cotton-hands of Georgia and the First Families of Virginia, since all distinction not based on deed is devilish and not divine. " I believe in the devil and his angels, who wantonly work to narrow the opportunity of struggling human beings, especially if they be black; who spit in the faces of the fallen, strike them that cannot strike again, believe the worst and work to prove it, hating the image which their Maker stamped on a brother's soul. " I believe in the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and brag- gadocio of oppression and wrong; and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death of that strength. " I believe in liberty for all men ; the space to stretch their arms and their souls; the right to breathe and the right to vote; the free- dom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine and ride on the railroads, uncursed by colour; thinking, dreaming, working as they will, in a kingdom of God and love. " I believe in the training of children, black even as white ; the leading out of little souls into the green pastures and beside the still waters, not for pelf or peace, but for Life lit by some large vision of beauty and goodness and truth; lest we forget, and the sons of the fathers, like Esau, for mere meat barter their birthright in a mighty nation. " Finally, I believe in Patience patience with the weakness of the Weak and the strength of the Strong, the prejudice of the Ignorant and the ignorance of the Blind; patience with the tardy triumph of Joy and the mad chastening of Sorrow patience with God ." 360 CHAPTER III PEONAGE 361 Resolved, That the compact which exists between the North and the South is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell, involving both parties in atrocious criminality, and should be immediately annulled. Wm. Lloyd Garrison. Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves. David Oarrick. 362 CHAPTER III PEONAGE T has been contended by a great many that if the Civil War had never been fought, slavery as we knew it in ante-bellum days would have ceased. The argument, and it is a strong one, if indeed not unanswerable, presented by those who hold this view, is simply this, the economic slave of to-day would have driven out the chattel slave by the sheer force of com- petition. In the old days the slave-holder owned slaves of the African race. They cost him considerable sums of money and rep- resented, as it were, a large portion of his capital. If they were sick he was obliged to care for them in order to protect his invest- ment. If they died they netted him a loss. They were to him as are cattle to the stock-raiser. If they were to be sold, it was good business policy to house and feed them in a manner which should keep them in a sufficiently vigourous condition to render them attrac- tive to the prospective purchaser. If they were to be worked instead of sold, it was necessary likewise to care for them in a. way to prolong as much as possible their period of useful service. It was not good business, then, for the sake of a single year's increased output for an owner to over-work his slaves to the extent of breaking down their health and curtailing their future efficiency. Leaving out of the question entirely all sentiments on the part of the owner, except those of sordid, selfish, business gain, and it must still be admitted that the intelligent self-interest of the slave-owner dictated a policy toward his slaves which in some essential particulars ran parallel with the desires and well-being of said slaves. This is not to say that there were not other conditions which ren- dered slavery an insufferable outrage upon the finer sentiments of humanity. What is here to be shown is the relation of one kind of slavery to another kind. Look now at chattel slavery. It has been pointed out that in the hands of our great railroad managers the life of a locomotive is exceedingly short. The railroad expert ex- plains this by saying that the greatest efficiency has been reached by working each machine to its uttermost. This he says means that in a very short time it will break down. When this occurs, he says, the locomotive is not sent to the machine-shop hospital for a long course of repair treatment, but is promptly relegated to the scrap-heap, and a new leviathan put in its place. A moment's thought will show the Reader that, under present conditions, this is precisely what is occurring with the human engines of society. The efficiency theory of modern commercialism formulates itself thus, 363 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION start with new, young human engines, work them to the breaking point; when they break, throw them into the commercial scrap-heap. The establishment by our great monopolies of an age dead-line is an eloquent tribute to the truth of this assertion. Old men cannot hold the pace. They are not wanted. Out of them from day to day in- satiate commercial greed can get only what is put into them. Their physical bank-account is a mere hand-to-mouth affair. It is young men who are wanted, young men who can be drained of the reserve force stored up by childhood, young men full of ambition, domi- nated by a desire to do and become, capable of doing two days' work in one, a process of discounting the future, meaning prodi- gality now and physical bankruptcy later on. When these young leviathans break down, when the fires of enthusiasm .burn low in their grates and their running record begins to fall below that of the newer social machines, to the scrap-heap with them, and there an end! Modern commercialism is as hard as adamant, as cold as the polar frost, as keen-edged as the mathematical line. It has ceased to be moral, it has passed the point where it is immoral and has reached that lowest ethical sink known as the immoral. All distinc- tions of right and wrong seem to have broken down, until to-day your monopolist looks at any one who would mix business and morality much in the way that the creed-bound theologian of yore regarded any one who mixed ethics and theology. Our present economic slavery, as will be seen with the most cursory examination, has forged the monopolist many advantages which he would lose were his economic slaves to become chattel slaves. For instance, he pays the present slave barely enough to sustain him, in many cases too little to do this properly. He does not have to feed him with a view to the future, because the scrap-heap is always in sight. For this reason and for the further reasons that he does not propose to sell him and that he is interested not in the man himself but in his present product, he is not so particular of his slave's well-being. All he is after is the maximum of product for the minimum of out- lay. If his slave sickens he is threatened with no loss. He merely throws him upon the scrap-heap and fills his place with another victim. If he dies, it does not net him a loss. He simply fills his place again and goes merrily onward. Against such a system as this how could the chattel slave hope to compete? It will be noted that those who still seek the nearest possible approach to the chattel slavery of ante-bellum days are quite willing to omit one of the chief essentials of that system. They do not object to " owning " their slaves, provided they do not have to pay for them. This gives them all the advantages of chattel slavery without those disadvan- tages which make economic slavery so dangerous a competitor with it. For if the chattel slave can be had for nothing, there is nothing to hinder the introduction of the scrap-heap into that system, and if this could be done the great hasheesh-dream of modern greed would be realised in the attainment of something for nothing. If the slaves cost nothing, their death does not represent a loss of capital, and their master need not lie awake nights devising engines to keep them in good condition. This something-for-nothing competitor of 364 PEONAGE modern economic slavery is found in peonage and similar kinds of human enslavement. Those who flatter themselves that the tre- mendous outlay of blood and treasure made during the Civil War stamped slavery forever from the soil of the United States will do well to consider the facts presented in this chapter, for they are typical of a great deal more which could be said upon the same subject, if space would permit. For the sake of those readers who may not be familiar with peonage we will quote somewhat at length from " The New Slavery in the South," an article by a Georgia negro peon, which appeared in " The Independent," of Feb. 25th, 1904. It is a brief autobiography, and the editor of " The Independent " says, by way of an explanatory word, " The following article was secured by a representative of THE INDEPENDENT specially commissioned for this work. It is a reliable story, and, we believe, a typical one. It was dictated to our representative, who took the liberty to correct the narrator's errors of grammar and put it in form suitable for pub- lication." The narrator begins his story thus : " I am a negro and was born some time during the war, in Elbert County, Ga., and I reckon by this time I must be a little over forty years old. My mother was not married when I was born, and I never knew who my father was or anything about him. Shortly after the war my mother died, and I was left to the care of my uncle. All this happened before I was eight years old, and so I can't remember very much about it. When I was about ten years old, my uncle hired me out to Captain . I had already learned how to plow, and was also a good hand at picking cotton. I was told that the Captain wanted me for his house-boy, and that later on he was going to train me to be his coachman. To be a coachman in those days was considered a post of honour, and, young as I was, I was glad of the chance." The story then relates how he was put to work on a farm where the men got $3.00 a week and the women $2.00. He states that his uncle collected his wages, fed, clothed and gave him a place to sleep, allowing him fifteen cents a week for spending change. When he got tired of this arrangement he hired out to a new landlord for forty cents a day and one meal. To continue the story in his own words : " Bright and early one Monday morning I started for work, still not letting the others know anything about it. But they found it out before sundown. The Captain came over to the new place and brought some kind of officer of the law. The officer pulled out a long piece of paper from his pocket and read it to my new em- ployer. When this was done I heard my new boss say: ' I beg your pardon, Captain. 1 didn't know this nigger was bound out to you, or I wouldn't have hired him.' 'He certainly is bound out to me,' said the Captain. 'He be- longs to me until he is twenty-one, and I'm going to make him know his place.' " So I was carried back to the Captain's. That night he made me strip off my clothing down to my waist, had me tied to a tree in his back-yard, ordered his foreman to give me thirty lashes with a 365 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION buggy whip across my bare back, and stood by until it was done. After that experience the Captain made me stay on his place night and day, but my uncle still continued to * draw ' my money. " I was a man nearly grown before I knew how to count from one to one hundred. I was a man nearly grown before I ever saw a coloured school-teacher. I never went to school a day in my life. To-day I can't write my own name, tho' I can read a little. I was a man nearly grown before I ever rode on a railroad train, and then I went on an excursion from Elberton to Athens. What was true of me was true of hundreds of other negroes around me 'way off there in the country, fifteen or twenty miles from the nearest town. " When I reached twenty-one, the Captain told me I was a free man, but he urged me to stay with him. He said he would treat me right, and pay me as much as anybody else would." He relates how he made his mark upon a contract by which he agreed to stay with the Captain for a year, during which time he married Mandy, one of the servants in the " Big House." At the end of each year, he renewed his contract for the succeeding year until, in all, he had signed for five years. During the fifth year the Captain died, and his son took charge of affairs. The narrator thinks the son was a member of the legislature, as all the people called him Senator. The Senator asked him for a ten-year contract, which he signed. The story then continues: " Not long afterward the Senator had a long, low shanty built on his place. A great big chimney, with a wide, open fireplace, was built at one end of it, and on each side of the house, running length- wise, there was a row of frames or stalls just large enough to hold a single mattress. The places for these mattresses were fixed one above the other, so that there was a double row of these stalls or pens on each side. They looked for all the world like stalls for horses. Since then I have seen cabooses similarly arranged as sleep- ing-quarters for railroad labourers. Nobody seemed to know what the Senator was fixing for. All doubts were put aside one bright day in April when about forty able-bodied negroes, bound in iron chains, and some of them handcuffed, were brought out to the Sen- ator's farm in three big wagons. They were quartered in the long, low shanty, and it was afterward called the stockade. This was the beginning of the .Senator's convict-camp. These men were prisoners who had been leased by the Senator from the State of Georgia at about $200 each per year, the State agreeing to pay for guards and physicians, for necessary inspection, for inquests, all rewards for es- caped convicts, the costs of litigation and all other incidental camp expenses. When I saw these men in shackles, and the guards with their guns, I was scared nearly to death. I felt like running away, but I didn't know where to go. And if there had been any place to go to, I would have had to leave my wife and child behind. We free labourers held a meeting. We all wanted to quit. We sent a man to tell the Senator about it. Word came back that we were all under contract for ten years and that the Senator would hold us to the letter of the contract, or put us in chains and lock us up 36Q PEONAGE the same as the other prisoners. It was made plain to us by some white people we talked to that in the contracts we had signed we had all agreed to be locked up in a stockade at night or at any other time that our employer saw fit; further, we learned that we could not lawfully break our contract for any reason and go and hire ourselves to somebody else without the consent of our em- ployer; and, more than that, if we got mad and ran away, we could be run down by bloodhounds, arrested without process of law, and be returned to our employer, who, according to the contract, might beat us brutally or administer any other kind of punishment that he thought proper. In other words, we had sold ourselves into slavery and what could we do about it? The white folks had all the courts, all the guns, all the hounds, all the railroads, all the telegraph wires, all the newspapers, all the money, and nearly all the land and we had only our ignorance, our poverty and our empty hands. We decided that the best thing to do was to shut our mouths, say nothing, and go back to work. And most of us worked side by side with those convicts during the remainder of the ten years. " But this first batch of convicts was only the beginning. Within six months another stockade was built, and twenty or thirty other convicts were brought to the plantation, among them six or eight women! The Senator had bought an additional thousand acres of land, and to his already large cotton plantation he added two great big saw-mills and went into the lumber business. Within two years the Senator had in all nearly 200 negroes working on his plantation about half of them free labourers, so-called, and about half of them convicts. The only difference between the free labourers and the others was that the free labourers could come and go as they pleased at night that is, they were not locked up at night, and were not, as a general thing, whipped for slight offences. The troubles of the free labourers began at the close of the ten-year period. To a man, they all wanted to quit when the time was up. To a man, they all refused to sign new contracts even for one year, not to say any- thing of ten years. And just when we thought that our bondage was at an end we found that it had really just begun. Two or three years before, or about a year and a half after the Senator had started his camp, he had established a large store, which was called the commissary. All of us free labourers were compelled to buy our supplies food, clothing, etc. from that store. We never used any money in our dealings with the commissary, only tickets or orders, and we had a general settlement once each year, in October. In this store we were charged all sorts of high prices for goods, be- cause every year we would come out in debt to our employer. If not that, we seldom had more than $5 or $10 coming to us and that for a whole year's work. Well, at the close of the tenth year, when we kicked and meant to leave, the Senator, he said to some of us with a smile (and I never will forget that smile I can see it now) : ' Boys, I'm sorry you're going to leave me. I hope you will do 367 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION well in your new places so well that you will be able to pay me the little balances which most of you owe me/ " Word was sent out for all of us to meet him at the commissary at 2 o'clock. There he told us that, after we had signed what he called a written acknowledgment of our debts, we might go and look for new places. The storekeeper took us one by one and read to us statements of our accounts. According to the books there was no man of us who owed the Senator less than $100; some of us were put down for as much as $200. I owed $165, according to the book- keeper. These debts were not accumulated during one year, but ran back for three and four years, so we were told in spite of the fact that we understood that we had had a full settlement at the end of each year. But no one of us would have dared to dispute a white man's word oh, no; not in those days. Besides, we fel- lows didn't care anything about the amounts we were after getting away; and we had been told that we might go, if we signed the acknowledgments. We would have signed anything, just to get away. .So we stepped up, we did, and made our marks. That same night we were rounded up by a constable and ten or twelve white men, who aided him, and we were locked up, every one of us, in one of the Senator's stockades. The next morning it was explained to us by the two guards appointed to watch us that, in the papers we had signed the day before, we had not only made acknowledgment of our indebtedness, but that we had also agreed to work for the .Senator until the debts were paid by hard labour. And from that day forward we were treated just like convicts. Eeally we had made ourselves life-time slaves, or peons, as the laws called us. But, call it slavery, peonage, or what not, the truth is we lived in a hell on earth what time we spent in the Senator's peon camp. " I lived in that camp, as a peon, for nearly three years. My wife fared better than I did, as did the wives of some of the other negroes, because the white men about the camp used these unfortunate creatures as their mistresses. When I was first put in the stockade my wife was still kept for a while in the " Big House," but my little boy, who was only nine years old, was given away to a negro family across the river in South Carolina, and I never saw or heard of him after that. When I left the camp my wife had had two children for some one of the white bosses, and she was .living in fairly good shape in a little house off to herself. But the poor negro women who were not in the class with my wife fared about as bad as the helpless negro men. Most of the time the women who were peons or convicts were compelled to wear men's clothes. Sometimes, when I have seen them dressed like men, and plowing or hoeing or hauling logs or working at the blacksmith's trade, just the same as men, my heart would bleed and my blood would boil, but I was powerless to raise a hand. It would have meant death on the spot to have said a word. Of the first six women brought to the camp, two of them gave birth to children after they had been there more than twelve months and the babies had white men for their fathers ! " The stockades in which we slept were, I believe, the filthiest places in the world. They were cesspools of nastiness. During the 368 PEONAGE thirteen years that I was there I am willing to swear that a mattress was never moved after it had been brought there, except to turn it over once or twice a month. No sheets were used, only dark-coloured blankets. Most of the men slept every night in the clothing that they had worked in all day. Some of the worst characters were made to sleep in chains. The doors were locked and barred each night, and tallow candles were the only lights allowed. Eeally the stockades were but little more than cow-lots, horse-stables or hog- pens. Strange to say, not a great number of these people died while I was there, tho' a great many came away maimed and bruised and, in some cases, disabled for life. As far as I remember only about ten died during the last ten years that I was there, two of these being killed outright by the guards for trivial offences/' . . . "Barring two or three severe and brutal whippings which I re- ceived, I got along very well, all things considered ; but the system is damnable. A favourite way of whipping a man was to strap him clown to a log, flat on his back, and spank him fifty or sixty times on his bare feet with a shingle or a huge piece of plank. When the man would get up with sore and blistered feet and an aching body, if he could not then keep up with the other men at work, he would be strapped to the log again, this time face downward, and would be lashed with a buggy-trace on his bare back. When a woman had to be whipped it was usually done in private." " The working day on a peon farm begins with sunrise and ends when the sun goes down; or, in other words, the average peon works from ten to twelve hours each day, with one hour (from 12 o'clock to 1 o'clock) for dinner. Hot or cold, sun or rain, this is the rule." " To-day, I am told, there are six or seven of these private camps in Georgia that is to say, camps where most of the convicts are leased from the State of Georgia. But there are hundreds and hun- dreds of farms all over the State where negroes, and in some cases poor white folks, are held in bondage on the ground that they are working out debts, or where the contracts which they have made hold them in a kind of perpetual bondage, because, under those contracts, they may not quit one employer and hire out to another, except by , and with the knowledge and consent of the former employer. One of the usual ways to secure labourers for a large peonage camp is for the proprietor to send out an agent to the little courts in the towns and villages, and where a man, charged with some petty offence, has no friends or money, the agent will urge him to plead guilty, with the understanding that the agent will pay his fine, and in that way save him from the disgrace of being sent to jail or the chain- gang! For this high favour the man must sign beforehand a paper signifying his willingness to go to the farm and work out the amount of the fine imposed. When he reaches the farm he has to be fed and clothed, to be sure, and these things are charged up to his ac- count. By the time he has worked out his first debt another .is hanging over his head, and so on and so on, by a sort of endless chain, for an indefinite period, as in every case the indebtedness is arbi- trarily . arranged by the employer, in manj cases it is very evident 24 369 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION 'that the court officials are in collusion with the proprietors or agents, and that they divide the ' graft ' among themselves. As an example of this dickering among the whites, every year many convicts were brought to the .Senator's camp from a certain county in South Georgia, 'way down in the turpentine district. The majority of these men were charged with adultery, which is an offence against the laws of the great and sovereign State of Georgia ! Upon inquiry I learned that down in that county a number of negro lewd women were em- ployed by certain white men to entice negro men into their houses; and then, on certain nights, at a given signal, when all was in readi- ness, raids would be made by the officers upon these houses, and the men would be arrested and charged with living in adultery. Nine out of ten of these men, so arrested and so charged, would find their way ultimately to some convict camp, and, as I said, many of them found their way every year to the Senator's camp while I was there. The low-down women were never punished in any way. On the contrary, I was told that they always seemed to stand in high favor with the sheriffs, constables and other officers. There can be no room to doubt that they assisted very materially in furnishing labour- ers for the prison-pens of Georgia, and the belief was general among the men that they were regularly paid for their work. I could tell more, but I've said enough to make anybody's heart sick. I am glad that the Federal authorities are taking a hand in breaking up this great and terrible iniquity. It is, I know, widespread throughout Georgia and many other Southern States. Since Judge Speer fired into the gang last November at Savannah, I notice that arrests have been made of seven men in three different sections of the State all charged with holding men in peonage. Somewhere, somehow, a be- ginning of the end should be made. " But I didn't tell you how I got out. I didn't get out they put me out. When I had served as a peon for nearly three years and you remember that they claimed that I owed them only $165 when I had served for nearly three years, one of the bosses came to me and said that my time was up. He happened to be the one who was said to be living with my wife. He gave me a new suit of overalls, which cost about seventy-five cents, took me in a buggy and carried me across the Broad Eiver into South Carolina, set me down and told me to 'git.' I didn't have a cent of money, and I wasn't feeling well, but somehow I managed to get a move on me. I begged my way to Columbia. In two or three days I ran across a man looking for labourers to carry to Birmingham, and I joined his gang. I have been here in the Birmingham district since they released me, and I reckon I'll die either in a coal mine or an iron furnace. It don't make much difference which. Either is better than a Georgia peon camp. And a Georgia peon camp is hell itself ! " In its issue of June 27th, 1903, after commenting upon a Wilming- ton, Delaware, lynching and burning at the stake which occurred on the 22nd of , June, " The Public " prints the following: " To lend a new aspect to this race war, news is beginning to come up out of the rural districts of Alabama and Georgia of a system of negro peonage, not far removed from slavery, which it appears has long pre- 370 PEONAGE vailed in those remote regions. Two prosecutions for this form of crime have come before the Federal courts, one in Alabama and the other in Georgia. In the Alabama case, J. W. Pace, a leading planter of Talapoosa county, pleaded guilty in the United States court at Montgomery, on the 24th, to eleven indictments returned against him by the Federal grand jury. His attorneys filed demurrers in each case, which the court overruled. He then entered pleas of guilty and appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans. On his plea of guilty the court sentenced him to five years' imprison- ment in each case, to be served concurrently. 'Pending appeal he is under $5,000 bail. In the Georgia case, three young farmers Slay, Clarkson and Turner were convicted in the Federal court at Macon, also on the 24th, of having seised' a negro debtor of theirs, and, by whipping, forced him to work for them. They were sentenced to fines of $1,000, and required to pay $100, the remainder of the sentence be- ing suspended, pending their good behaviour." On the 17th of July, 1903, at Montgomery, Alabama, the Federal grand jury returned 99 indictments against 18 persons for enslaving negroes under the peonage system. Commenting upon this subject, a Chicago weekly prints the following news note : " The first sen- tence for negro peonage to be actually executed was begun at At- lanta, on the 2d. The convicts are George D. Cosby and Barancas Cosby, two white men who had pleaded guilty before the Federal court at Montgomery, Ala., of holding negroes in involuntary servi- tude. The case against these men, as stated by the United States at- torney, bears out the rumours and newspaper reports of peonage that have for some weeks been coming to public attention. According, to the United States attorney, the prosecution was prepared to prove, in the case of George D. Cosby, that he held Lum Johnson, a negro, in a condition of peonage ; that there was a conspiracy between J. W. Pace and the Cosbys and the justice of the peace; that several other negroes Eina Scott, Ella Johnson and Ann Scott were also ar- rested on frivolous charges and carried before Justice Kennedy, who did not fine them, but made them think he had fined them, and that the Cosbys and Pace had paid their fines. They were thus induced to sign contracts to work, and they were worked under guard, locked up at night, and beaten unmercifully at times." In a later issue of the same paper we find the following : " Al- though a white man has been imprisoned for negro peonage in Ala- bama, this was upon his plea of guilty. The first trial in these peonage cases has resulted in a disagreement of the jury. The de- fendant in the case was Fletcher Turner. He was tried in the Fed- eral court at Montgomery, Ala. The case for the prosecution was closed on the 8th. Its character may be inferred from some of the testimony as reported by the Associated Press. A former police officer named Dunbar testified that he had sold three negroes to Turner for $40, they having been fined $33 for some petty offence, and that he had thus made $7 by the transaction. In the conclud- ing testimony for the State, the maltreatment of one of these negroes was brought out, and it was further shown that this negro's father had finally sent a man to Turner with about $48 to buy his son's 371 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION liberty, which he did. When he arrived at Turner's farm, he found the peon in a sawmill, stark naked, and it was explained that he was worked this way to prevent his escape. The case went to the jury on the 10th, when the judge, Thomas G. Jones, delivered an extraordinary charge. He is reported to have denounced the at- torneys for the defence for trying to play upon the feelings of the jury and to have said that if the negroes were arrested for nothing and sold as alleged, then it was ' a damnable thing.' The jury soon reported a disagreement, and Judge Jones ordered them back to their consultation room with this admonition: ' Under an earnest and solemn sense of duty as to the verdict you ought to render in this case, to appeal to your manhood, your sense of justice, and your oaths not to declare that a jury in the capital of Alabama would not enforce the law of the United States because it happened that a negro was the victim of the violated law and the defendant is a white man, or because it may be a disagreeable or pain- ful duty to you. If you do such a thing you are perjured before God and man.' " But the jury were still unable to agree, and on the 13th they were discharged. They are reported to have stood 6 to 6." Writing upon the negro question Mr. Louis F. Post, the Chicago publicist, says, in part : " We shall never be rid of the negro ques- tion in our politics so long as a 'white man's government' class in- sists upon restoring negro slavery. We do not mean, of course, that any class insists upon restoring slavery in its old form. That form is dead. But the thing survives. Our allusion is to such devices as the 'black codes' which followed emancipation, to the systems of negro peonage which have come in vogue through distortions of the criminal law, to the barbarous chain-gang practices of Georgia just revealed by the democratic decision of a Federal judge, to the evasive disfranchisement laws which make this peonage and barbarism pos- sible, to the rabid race hatred and contempt which deny equality of legal rights to negroes and regard them as out of their 'proper place ' when they are out of menial servitude. The negro question is in the last analysis nothing but a phase of the labour question set in ebony." We extract the following from an article on peonage in the " Out- look " of July 18, 1903. Referring to the case of a negro woman, the article says : " She was charged with living in adultery and with bigamy, arrested, and put in jail. " After three weeks' incarceration it was discovered that she had been legally married and she was released. In the meantime she had employed a lawyer to defend her, and to pay the lawyer's fee, the Mc- Rees carried her to their camps to work put the amount, which they considered to be worth fourteen months' servitude. She was there nine months and during that time was locked up nights until the last two weeks, and whipped twice with a leather strap as wide as your four fingers." Lest it should be thought that peonage is an abuse practised only against negroes, we hasten to inform the Reader that such is far from the case. Those who are familiar with recent press reports will not 372 PEONAGE need to be told that white slavery flourishes in many of our large cities. As we write, the subject is undergoing earnest public discussion in New York City. Concerning this enslavement of whites, " The Public" printed the following editorial in its issue of Sept. 12th, 1903: " A case of white peonage has now come to light in Alabama to supplement the practice of black peonage which has prevailed in that and neighbouring .States. From black to white is an easy transi- tion. Poor whites, North as well as South, who join in the hue and cry against the negro race, little suspect the tendency of what they do. Let the negro be deprived of natural rights on account of his black skin, and poor whites will soon be driven into the same pro- cession on account of their empty pockets. In illustration of this tendency we are confronted not only with the white peonage case in Alabama, but with several similar cases in Michigan. These have been discovered at Kalamazoo, where the proprietor of a shoe-blacking stand has been detected in buying a Greek boy. It appears that this is only one instance. Boys are said to be picked up every year in Greek cities and sold into slavery in the United States." Apropos of this subject, we extract the following from " The Menace of Privilege " : " Eev. Dr. Behrends, describing the block bounded by Canal, Hester, Eldridge, and Forsyth streets (lower East Side), says: ' In a room 12 by 8 and 5y 2 feet high, it was found that nine persons slept and prepared their food; ... in an- other room, located in a dark cellar, without screens or partitions, were together two men with their wives and a girl of fourteen, two sin- gle men and a boy of seventeen, two women and four boys nine, ten, eleven and fifteen years old fourteen persons in all/ " Can virtue withstand the temptations and weaknesses of such con- ditions? Would it be anything short of a miracle if 'red-light' dives and less miserable brothels did not flourish in such surround- ings? What Miss Frances A. Kellor has to say in an account of her investigations in employment agencies brings a flood of testimony. When in a certain instance it was hinted that the supposed situa- tion was not in every way desirable for a young girl, the woman proprietor shrugged her shoulders and said : * I don't care for what purpose you want her. I give you a girl for a waitress you do what you please with her when you get her there.' Says Miss Kellor : ' Only too often did we find old, grey-haired women and young wives and mothers sending into such places, without hesitation, their own countrywomen, who, but for them, were friendless in a new country, and when they knew they would come back physical and moral wrecks and utterly unfitted for any honest work. . . . Figures can -only be approximate, but it is no exaggeration to say that in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, about seventy-five per cent, are not averse to sending women as employes to questionable places, and from forty to sixty per cent, send them as inmates, obtaining their consent where possible.' "When it comes to trying to live by making children's dresses at the rate of 35 cents a dozen or children's aprons with ruffles and 373 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION sashes for 45 cents a dozen, vice holds out new allurements. Women are compelled to enter bread-winning fields hitherto given up solely to men. And positions are too often accepted where, if the regular pay is low, it is understood important extras may be earned ' in other ways/ " The public of New York has recently been aghast to find that it had in its ' red-light ' dens, with their ' cadets ' or procurers, their thin young girls and their brass checks, a horrible species of Oriental slavery. Yet it is a slavery not arising from innate depravity. Nor is it imported. It is made by social conditions. It is a fruit of pov- erty, and that in the metropolis of our country/' On March 8th, 1906, the Boston press prints an account of the kidnapping of a former Boston man into slavery and his punish- ment for attempting to escape. The gentleman in question was Charles S. O'Brien, who, according to his story written to 'a friend, was drugged in Miami, Florida, and shanghaied to one of the Florida Keys, "where he was marooned and forced into slavery, then sen- tenced to endure two months of torture in a chain-gang for attempting to escape." On March 15th, 1906, the Boston press printed the story of Alfred Michaelson, of Roxbury, Mass., described as the first Boston man to return from " white slavery " on Florida Keys. We extract the following from the " Boston Post " of the above date. " Between 40 and 50 Boston men are now white slaves on one of the Florida Keys, Alligator Reef Island. Every man says he'll go to his Con- gressman as soon as he escapes. The place is hell, and the men can't escape through the armed guards." . . . " Broken in health as the result of working knee-deep in fever trenches and suffering from a skin trouble resulting from innumerable sand-fly bites, Michaelson told his story of white slavery only by exerting what strength was left to him. ' Some of our Boston men who have mysteriously dropped out of sight are in those death-exhaling trenches,' he said. ' I know of from 40 to 50 strapping Hub fellows who are down there unable to escape and with their mail cut off/ ' ; The next day, March 16th, the Boston press, under the caption of " ' White Slave ' Who Escaped Tells Tale," printed the story of Den- nis F. Shiels of South Boston. We quote the following from the article : " Dennis F. Shiels, of 398 K street, South Boston, the first Boston man able to return home from ' white slavery ' endured on the Florida Keys, told a tragic tale of suffering in fever trenches and described the method used in a certain employment office on William street, New York city, to lure men into involuntary servitude. He says that 270 men there would, if armed, murder the guards, seise a boat and escape." The trial of Bertha Claiche, a white slave of New York, has had the effect of arousing public opinion in regard to this nefarious traffic. A tithe of the horrors which occur will never be unearthed, but enough is already known to show beyond a peradventure that an actual chattel slavery with all its attendant horrors exists, not only in the South, but, to some extent, in all our northern centres. Its presence is but part and parcel of the breaking-down of social moral- 374 PEONAGE ity in the United States. Indeed, to such a condition have we come that we have already passed the early stages of flat denial. We have now gotten to the point where bipeds calling themselves men are boldly affirming the commercial necessity of various forms of slavery. In connexion with this subject we quote the following from that care- ful and conservative periodical, " The Outlook " (issue of July 18, 1903) : "But if it were true that cotton cannot be raised by free labour, it would not alter the resolve of the Nation. If we cannot have both cotton and liberty, we will have liberty and get along with- out cotton. The argument of the peonage planter is the argument of the sordid money-getter in all sections and at all times. ' We must close our mines and factories if we cannot employ children/ is the argument for child labour. ' We cannot get an adequate return for our money if we are compelled to build sanitary houses/ is the argu- ment of the coffin-building landlords. ' We cannot compete with the shrewd and shifty Jews, therefore their massacre is an economic necessity/ is the argument of Kishenev. And the answer is always the same : manhood is worth more than money." In closing this subject we beg to submit that the American peon, whether a white or a black slave, is a lasting reproach to our boasted civilisation, and goes far to prove that we are slipping away from national ideals faster than any other nation on earth. 375 CHAPTER IV THE DARK SIDE OF THE LAW 377 The Chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous. Macaulay On "Warren Hastings. Mastering the lawless science of our law, That codeless myriad of precedent, That wilderness of single instances. The more corrupt the state, the more laws. Aimer's Field. Tacitus Annales. A corrupt judge does not carefully search for the truth. Horace Satire. 378 CHAPTER IV THE DARK SIDE OF THE LAW T is not so very long ago that in England there were held to be but three thoroughly high-toned avoca- tions, the church, the army and the law. Within the memory of' the present generation Mr. Gladstone cut this number down to two, declaring that there were but two thoroughly respectable call- ings open to a young man, the army and the church. If a young man of "good family" coveted a more productive occupation, his aspirations were usually frowned upon. We in Amer- ica have been more or less tinged with this same barbaric heritage, and it is regrettable that to-day we exhibit so marked a tendency to look with ever increasing favour upon the military, that unless things change, we will not long be behind England in the matter of admira- tion for brass buttons and gold braid. It is a singular comment upon human nature that, in singling out three callings for a special social laudation, it should choose the three named, all of them to a great degree, and often totally, unproductive, or worse. The soldier, as such, never produces. His mission is to destroy. The lawyer, as such, rarely increases production, but often is second only in de- structiveness to the soldier. The clergyman may be a factor in pro- duction, but often, it must be confessed, he is little more than an un- productive consumer. At its best the ministerial function would, of course, have a high social value, but it is only of late years, it seems 'to us, that the clergy have begun to be an active factor for good in social matters, and even now there is a long list of clericals who are a most virulent and active menace to American progress. We prophesy that the time will yet come when the professions or avoca- tions, which have dowered the human race with pretty much all the benefits it has ever received will be those which are held in highest esteem. In considering the subject of this chapter, we shall do well to begin by tracing briefly the genesis of the lawyer. The law has been defined as "common sense made mandatory/' and Burke termed it " beneficence acting by rule." All this, however, was long ago. No well-informed man to-day regards the law of our land either as " common sense " or " beneficence." Any man who has acquired a nine-days' sight knows perfectly well that the laws are made by, and for the protection of, the propertied class. More than this, they are executed with studied discrimination for the purpose of favouring the aforesaid class. Even as we write, an act before the legislature is being defeated by corporate interests, simply because it provides that 379 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION its violation shall be punished by imprisonment, instead of the time- honoured alternative, fine or imprisonment. In a preceding chapter we have alluded to the same thing in the national legislature. They of the propertied class, in whose interest legislation is made, are willing to take their chances in preventing their indictment, if their wrong- doing be discovered, and, in the event of their being indicted, of manipulating the law so as to escape conviction, provided that, should an unforeseen combination of circumstances really convict them, they should not be sent to the prison intended solely for the poor man. That the ethics of lawyers is singularly unreliable is proverbial. The Danish proverb, "* Virtue in the middle' said the devil when seated between two lawyers," is typical of a semi-humourous character- isation of the legal profession. The French are even less compli- mentary when they say, " Until hell is full no lawyer will be saved." The German proverb reads, " When the lawyer acts according to his conscience, the blind man will believe what his eyes see." The Italians put the matter thus, " Of three things the devil makes a salad, lawyers' tongues, notaries' fingers, and the third shall be nameless," while the Dutch say, " The better lawyer, the worse Chris- tian." These views are not confined to any one age or to any one nation, and they are so general that they must represent a large de- gree of fact. We find Goldsmith saying, " Laws grind the poor and rich men rule the law," while Pope has the couplet, " The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine." When Peter the Great was in London he pointed to some English barristers wearing their wigs and gowns and asked, " Who are those men ? " " Lawyers," was the reply. " Lawyers ! " ejaculated Peter. " What is the use of so many ? I have only two in my whole em- pire, and I mean to hang one of them as soon as I return." There are, of course, many fine men in the legal profession, but they are not able numerically to raise the general average of legal goodness much above the slough of corruption. The fact of the matter is, that the study of law and its practice is doubly corruptive. First, because it deals with relations, which are man-made and arti- ficial and the constant consideration of which tends to unmoor the character, injure the sense of proportion, and replace absolute ethics with expediency. Second, because the mind of the lawyer searches not so much for the truth as for what can be made to appear truth. He has ever a brief to prove, and it is his constant tendency knowingly and intentionally to exaggerate the importance of all evi- dence making toward his side of the issue, while he denies, conceals, refuses to recognise, or minimises every fact tending to disprove his thesis. That legal usage justifies and applauds this sort of thing, is nothing to us. It is fundamentally wrong and its influence most corruptive, nevertheless. Of all men in the world there are none who so love truth as those who give their lives to the cause of physical science. The reason for this is not far to seek. Their case never closes, and their findings are always subject to appeal. If their wish 380 THE DARK SIDE OF THE LAW played father to the thought to-day, so that they fitted facts to their theories instead of theories to the facts, to-morrow would expose the deception and subject them to ridicule. Suppose now that the sci- entist should evolve a theory and then, in his determination to secure its acceptance, should falsify his experiments, misinterpret his ob- servations, write large all the facts tending to prove his postulate and suppress and distort those which would immediately expose its falsity, and suppose .he should do this knowingly and habitually year after year, in short, suppose this were considered the proper thing for a scientist to do, what think you would be the effect upon the char- acter of the scientist, on the one hand, and the public's confidence in his alleged findings, on the other? Would it not be about that of the average lawyer as estimated by the average layman? Would any sane man consider the assertion of a Choate in regard to a case which he was trying as worthy the same amount of credence which would be given to a statement of fact made by a Charles Darwin? Most assuredly not. In a very able article entitled " The Reign of Law," by Julian Hawthorne, published in " Wilshire's Mazagine," December, 1905, we find the following : " There is another class of law-breakers, much in evidence of late, and more menacing to the integrity of our law than are the technically criminal classes; and that is, the lawyers. These men are outlaws scientifically and by profession, and instead of risk- ing penalties they are paid for tKeir work. They make it the study of their lives to find holes in our statutes through which their crimi- nal clients can escape. Lawyers who prosecute criminals have a meagre time of it there is no money or reputation to be got from that branch of the business. The ' great' lawyers are the ones who defend crime and perplex or delay justice. No one pays much to have the law carried out it ought to carry itself out. But people will gladly pay fortunes to have the law outraged, and the profes- sionals who outrage it are caressed and flattered and regarded as the lights of the bar. Here, then, we have the singular spectacle of sons prostituting their mother, and making money and winning glory out of her shame. Ancl the fact that they do win glory explains how they are able to make money. It is that they have the sympathy and support of the public. They would not dare to do their work in the teeth of public anger and detestation. They would not be hired to do the work, because their clients would be intimidated before- hand by the popular menace. But, because we approve of such pro- ceedings, they exist." Referring to the higher exponents of the law, Mr. Hawthorne points out the grave menace which Jefferson so clearly foresaw more than a century ago, a menace which the great author of the Declaration of Independence pointed out again and again. Mr. Hawthorne says: l: Another deadly foe to the law is the Bench, from the august thrones of the Supreme Court of the United States down to the cane-bottomed chair of the municipal police justice or country judge. Judges are sometimes corrupt, and they are often narrow, prejudiced, bigoted, partial, ignorant, swayed by politics, intemperate, cowardly, or indifferent But all that does comparatively little harm; judges 381 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION have always been like that, and the judge who is not purified and greatened by his office is quite certain to be morally worsened by it. The real mischief of the Bench begins when it is upright and in- telligent. This is no cheap paradox the upright judge is a despot, from whom there is no appeal. " The .Supreme Bench of this country is the most dangerous of menaces to human liberty and social development. For there is nothing beyond it ; it is the last resort of suitors its decision is binding and final. And yet it is human, finite, fallible, and even susceptible to political bias. We have the extraordinary spectacle of a nation calling itself democratic, being ruled or limited by an oligarchy, in which is vested the interpretation of the law. Seven or eight frail human' beings, like you or me, are given the power, un- der certain easily qonceived conditions, of absolutely controlling the destiny of . the Bepublic. There can be no redress, except through impeachment ; but impeachment can be enforced only when the judges can be proved to have violated the law. But suppose the law is not violated by them that law itself was made by another set of frail human beings, namely, by Congress. Who is to control Congress and the Supreme Bench in alliance ? Nothing, except revolution. " But it will be answered, obviously, e Why should they be con- trolled? If we are to have any law at all, is it not as safe in their hands as it could be in anybody's ? We are limited by natural law just as much as by human, and we do not complain. What is the differ- ence ? ' " W T ell, it is thus that we arrive at the vitals of my subject. "Human law is not Divine law, not natural law; it is or it is based upon the moral law; and our moral law, however just and logical it may seem to us to be, is inevitably concerned, not with what we inwardly are, but with what we outwardly appear to be, or with what we do. From the standpoint of moral law, then, a well- behaved devil is a better citizen than a contumacious angel. There- fore, the moral law provokes hidden evils in the community. They are hidden, because they fear the penalties o,f overt defiance; and the reason they fear the penalties is, that the penalties are physically enforced. The moral law is, in other words, a law of force in the last resort ; and such a law does not make men good ; it does nothing to reform human nature; it simply induces good manners, so to ren- der human association possible. For love it substitutes fear, instead of brethren it creates hypocrites, and in place of a heaven on earth it supplies us with a white-washed hell." It is the business of the lawyer to sell his advocacy, and, if suc- cessful in his profession, he does this so frequently that he is more than apt to come ultimately to think that advocacy exists for no other purpose than to be sold. That honest lawyers exist men whose clear vision for justice and truth is never blurred by personal motives, is a most eloquent tribute to the incorruptible grandeur of certain rare members of the human race, for it must be admitted that the psychology of the legal profession is more corruptive than that of any other so-called legitimate vocation. Consider for : a moment the governmental corruption which is being laid bare on every hand 382 THE DARK SIDE OF THE LAW in a way that fairly breaks the teeth out of our strenuous President's muck rake, and then ask yourself what is the lawyer's part in all this infamy. Of the ninety Senators in the 3rd Session of the 58th Congress on March 4th, 1905, we have been able to ascertain the professions of eighty-six, the other four having since died. Of these eighty-six, fifty-three are or have been practising lawyers, and several others were educated to the law but have not practised. It will be seen, therefore, that the august body of men, which supplies the material for Mr. David Graham Phillips' " The Treason of the Senate," is more than sixty per cent, composed of lawyers. The overwhelming legal presentation is of course out of all just proportion. In connexion with this subject, we quote the following from a well known Boston lawyer, Prof. Frank Parsons; it will be found on pages 692-3 of his " The Story of New Zealand : " " The lawyers and their families con- stitute less than half of one per cent. (.4 of 1%) of our people, yet they have 60% of the representatives. It is true that lawyers are experts on the law, or ought to be, and we need the advice of a few good counsellors in our legislative bodies, but the wisdom of filling our halls of legislation with lawyers is very questionable. Most of them who get to Congress are attorneys for giant corporate interests more or less opposed to the public interest, and about all of them are subject to the psychology of their profession, which means that their advocacy is for sale that is a lawyer's training and profession, to sell his abilities as an advocate. Big corporations, trusts and com- bines employ lawyer representatives to plead their cases in court and represent their interests in other ways. The attorney gets full of his client's ideas and interests, and sees things from his standpoint, so that even without any direct bribery or conscious immorality, the cor- porations usually have no difficulty in controlling a legislative body composed of lawyers. Yet our farmers and voters in general con- tinue to send a class of men whose profession it is to sell their advocacy, to the very place where the corporations most want to buy advocacy, instead of sending men whose psychology and training would lead them to advocate what they believe to be right and noth- ing else." In his contrasts between the United States and New Zealand the same author says : " The United States is in form a republic, but in fact, at least so far as the National Government is concerned, it is largely a Government by wealth, a plutocracy an aristocracy of industrial power. New Zealand is in form an imperial province, but in fact it is substantially a republic. The will of the great body of the common people is in actual control of the Government.- " Years ago the larger part of the United States was really a re- public, but the power of the people has gone down as the power of wealth has risen, till now the Government often represents, the cor- porations and party machines more fully than it represents the public. The trusts and monopolies have more influence in our legislative bodies than the people." . . . " The movement of the last decade has been toward plutocracy in the United States, and away from it in New Zealand, 383 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION "Our people have an easy-going confidence in the future of the Republic because of its wonderful history. We boast of our freedom, while a new tyranny is silently but rapidly growing round us. New Zealand has awakened from the dream of confidence, and knows that political liberty is not safe till industrial liberty is established and the Government rescued from the hands of the monopolists. " In New Zealand organised labour uses the ballot to accomplish its ends, but in America the workingmen carefully refrain, for the most part, from using this greatest of all the powers they possess." . . . " Legislation is for sale in the United States. It cannot be bought in New Zealand." The words of another lawyer, an essentially great and profoundly good man, are instructive on this subject. Their author was him- self an eminent jurist and a man who earned well the right to be considered one of our great Americans. We refer to John P. Altgeld, ex-governor of Illinois. The extract is from the chapter on lawyers in " The Cost of Something for Nothing." " No class of men wield more influence in American affairs than lawyers. Their experience gives them a familiarity with all branches of business, and a knowl- edge of all classes of men." . . . " They have almost monopolised the legislative and judicial branches of our government, and have been very prominent in the executive branch. Even when not seeking positions themselves, they are, by reason of their readiness and experience, employed by selfish interests to manipulate conventions and control nominations. It is in some sense true that the American Government has been a lawyer's government." . . . " In the nature of things, the lawyer should be not only learned, but he should develop into a man of broad culture. Having to deal with great principles of justice, he should be above the very thought of trickery and mean things. Theoretically, the lawyer is not em- ployed to win cases, but to see that the law is properly applied to his client's case. He is an officer of the court, and is supposed to assist the court in the administration of justice." . . . " It is a sad comment on human nature, that while the profession of law should produce great characters, the harvest in that regard has been meagre. " Even before commercialism degraded the profession, there was a tendency to become narrow and petty. This was due to the fact that the courts in their practice had made the law a mesh of technicalities. Instead of getting at the merits of a controversy at once, and de- ciding it, there was a persistent effort to find out how not to do it. This turned the eye of the profession to little things, so that many men have entered the law, possessing splendid ability, fine education, and high aspirations, who after twenty years of practice become mental and moral mummies. It requires great strength of character to rise above the environment. " In so far as the courts or the lawyers indulge in quibble and refinement, the profession of the law has a belittling and a degrad- ing tendency. In just so far it paralyses the intellect and shrivels the soul. No quibbler ever becomes great. He is like a hen scratching 384 THE DARK SIDE OF THE LAW in a barn-yard, he never looks out over the barn-yard fence. He holds his eyes so close to the ground seeking his daily food, that he never gets a view of the vast fertile landscape just outside. " The advancing intelligence of the world gradually made the prac- tice of law more reasonable; and then came a degrading commer- cialism which used the profession as a convenience. " Instead of viewing everything from the lofty standpoint of an honourable profession, there was a constant tendency in lawyers to sink to the level of trained conveniences, to the level of hired men, shrewd and able and in the market, ready to take anybody's money and to try to win his case for him, whether right or wrong. And that fatal fallacy began to take possession of the legal mind, that a man may do things as a lawyer that he could not do as an honourable citizen. This absurd sophistry has ruined more lawyers than has any other one thing. Once inoculated with this idea, a lawyer is lost. The effect is perceptible almost immediately. He sinks to the level of a trickster. The cellular structure of his brain changes ; the expression of his eyes changes; and although a temporary success may attend his course, there can be but one ending to his career. Nothing more true was ever written than that ' tricks destroy the trickster/ " The writer has had reasonable opportunities, at the bar, the bench, and in public life, to notice the career of all classes of lawyers, and he has seen no exception to the rule that tricks will destroy the trickster. After each successful trick the man is weaker, and in- stead of growing he deteriorates. A moral, mental, spiritual and physical atrophy destroys him. " A lawyer may get a reputation because he has won cases, even if he won them by questionable methods; and a reputation for winning will bring him business, and for a time he may flourish. If he is a man of strong physique and mentality, he may seemingly escape pay- ing the just penalty of his acts; and then the whole burden of expia- tion falls upon his children. And yet, mental suffering is not often paraded before the world; and a lawyer who has suborned witnesses and packed juries, who has bribed officials and falsified records, and thus balked justice, must be hardened indeed if he has no pangs of conscience, no bitter regrets that he has allowed himself, because of his greed, to become one of the worst enemies of mankind." The following opinion, held by one of the greatest orators who ever lived concerning one of the greatest advocates who ever lived, is interesting at this juncture. Thus said Wendell Phillips of Rufus Choate : " The honours we grant mark how high we stand, and they educate the future. The men we honour, and the maxims we lay down in measuring our favourites, show the level and morals of the time. Two names have been in every one's mouth of late, and men have exhausted language in trying to express their admiration and their respect. The courts have covered the grave of Mr. Choate with eulogy. Let us see what is their idea of a great lawyer. We are told that ' he worked hard,' ' he never neglected his client,' * he flung over the discussions of the forum the grace of a rare scholarship,' 25 385 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION ' no pressure or emergency ever stirred him to an unkind word.' A ripe scholar, a profound lawyer, a faithful servant of his client, a gentleman. This is a good record surely. May he sleep in peace! What he earned, God grant he may have! But the bar that seeks to claim for such a one a place among great jurists must itself be weak indeed; for this is only to make him out the one-eyed monarch of the blind. Not one high moral trait specified; not one patriotic act mentioned; not one patriotic service even claimed." . . . " Incessant eulogy ; but not a word of one effort to lift the yoke of cruel or 'unequal legislation from the neck of its victim; not one attempt to make the code of his country wiser, purer, better; not one effort to bless his times or breathe a higher moral purpose into the community; not one blow struck for right or for liberty, while the battle of the giants was going on about him ; not one patriotic act to stir the hearts of his idolaters; not one public act of any kind what- ever about whose merit friend or foe could even quarrel, unless when he scouted our great charter as a ' glittering generality/ or jeered at the philanthropy which tried to practise the Sermon on the Mount ! When Cordus, the Eoman Senator, whom Tiberius murdered, was addressing his fellows, he began : ' Fathers, they accuse me of illegal words; plain proof that there are no illegal deeds with which to charge me.' So with these eulogies, words, nothing but words; plain proof that there were no deeds to praise. " The divine can tell us nothing but that he handed a chair or a dish as nobody else could ; in politics, we are assured he did not wish to sail outside of Daniel Webster; and the Cambridge Professor tells his pupils, for their special instruction, that he did not dare to think in religion, for fear he should differ from Southside Adams ! The Professor strains his ethics to prove that a good man may defend a bad man. Useless waste of labour! In Egypt, travellers tell us that the women, wholly naked, are very careful to veil their faces. So the Professor strains his ethics to cover this one fault. Useless, Sir, while the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. " Yet this is the model which Massachusetts offers to the Pantheon of the great jurists of the world ! " Suppose we stood in that lofty temple of jurisprudence, on either side of us the statues of the great lawyers of every age and clime, and let us see what part New England Puritan, educated, free New England would bear in the pageant. Rome points to a colossal figure and says, ' That is Papinian, who, when the Emperor Caracalla murdered his own brother, and ordered the lawyer to defend the deed, went cheerfully to death, rather than sully his lips with the atrocious plea; and that is Ulpian, who, aiding his prince to put the army below the law, was massacred at the foot of a weak, but virtuous, throne.' " And France stretches forth her grateful hands, crying, ' That is D'Aguesseau, worthy, when he went to face an enraged king, of the farewell his wife addressed him, * Go ! forget that you have a wife and children to ruin, and re- member only that you have France to save.' " England says, ' That is Coke, who flung the laurels of eighty years 386 THE DARK SIDE OF THE LAW in the face of the first Stuart, in defence of the people. This is Selden, on every book of whose library you saw written the motto of which he lived worthy, 'Before everything, Liberty!' That is Mansfield, silver-tongued, who proclaimed, 'Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs 4 Receive our air, that moment they are free.' 'This is Romilly, who spent life trying to make law synonymous with justice, and succeeded in making life and property safer in every city of the empire. 'And that is Erskine, whose eloquence, spite of Lord Eldon and George III., made it safe to speak and to print.' " Then New England shouts, ' This is Choate, who made it safe to murder; and of whose health thieves asked before they began to steal.' " We have stated that there is one law for the poor man and an- other for the rich man. The following extracts from an address de- livered to the prisoners in the Chicago Jail by Mr. Clarence S. Dar- row, one of our brightest contemporary lawyers, bear upon this point. " Some so-called criminals and I will use this word because it is handy, it means nothing to me I speak of the criminals who get caught as distinguished from the criminals who catch them some of these so-called criminals are in jail for the first offences, but nine- tenths of you are in jail because you did not have a good lawyer, and of course you did not have a good lawyer because you did not have enough money to pay a good lawyer. There is no very great danger of a rich man going to jail." . . . " In England and Ireland and Scotland less than five per cent, own all the land there is, and the people are bound to stay there on any kind of terms the landlords give. They must live the best they can, so they develop all these various professions, burglary, picking pockets and the like." . . . " Because the fellows who control the earth make the laws. If you and I had the making of the laws, the first thing we would do would be to punish the fellow who gets control of the earth. Nature put this coal in the ground just as much for me as it did for anyone, and nature made the prairies up here to raise wheat for me as well as for them; and then the great railroad companies came along and fenced it up. " Most all of the crimes for which we are punished are property crimes. There are a few personal crimes, like murder but they are very few. The crimes committed are mostly those against property. If this punishment is right the criminals must have a lot of property. How much money is there in this crowd? And yet you are all here ior crimes against property." If any of our readers imagine for a moment that the law. is en- forced against the rich man as it is against the poor man, we sug- gest that he get himself into court, and then, when he is questioned upon the stand, that he answer after the fashion of Mr. H. H. Eogers, and see what happens. 387 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION " The Arena " for March, 1906, prints the following under the heading, " How Mr. Rogers' Buffoonery and Openly Insolent Con- tempt for the High Court Alarmed His Associates " : " Mr. Rogers, the present fighting front of the Standard Oil Company, was less fortunate than some of his partners. He was caught before he could escape and was haled before the commissioner appointed to take evi- dence. Then it was that the American Republic and the world beheld an amazing example of the insolent contempt which this money- mad representative of the most corrupt and corrupting system en- tertained for the authority of the higher courts of the land. Mr. Rogers alternately played the buffoon and the insolent money-lord who feels himself above law and the courts. He sandwiched his positive refusal to answer the questions asked with cheap jokes and gibes, making a spectacle that alarmed his confederates. They were evading the court summons; they were to all practical purposes fugitives from justice, and they were giving the country a danger- ous example of the lawlessness of corporate wealth, when it cannot make the laws and control the courts. But Mr. Rogers' contempt for law and the high courts was a little too obvious. It might be well to let the people .understand that the courts could do nothing with the Standard Oil Company, but it was not wise to be too blatant in imparting the information. Hence on one day we find those three conspicuous organs of corporate and privileged wealth and reaction, the ' New York Sun/ ' Times ' and ' Evening Post/ remonstrating with the indiscreet high-priest of plutocracy." In another portion of the same issue we find the following : " The action of the Standard Oil magnates in the present case gives em- phasis to the recent declaration of the well-known Republican organ, the ' Daily Eagle/ of Wichita, Kansas, which recently published the following as coming from a member of the Standard Oil Company : "We are bigger than the government. .Standard Oil is stronger than the United States. We own the senate and the house. If you pursue your investigations beyond the point necessary to fool the public we will have you removed. We can secure the instant deposi- tion of the secretary of commerce and labour, Mr. Metcalf, and the commissioner of corporations, Mr. Garfield. If you persecute us in the slightest degree you will be out of your job, and if you keep at the business you will find what we say is absolutely true. Rockefeller is a bigger man than Roosevelt. " Like the revelations of the insurance investigation, the high- handed stand taken by the Standard Oil Company is of immense value at the present time, demonstrating anew the growing insolence and presumption of the despotism of wealth an insolence and presump- tion that suggest in a striking manner the spirit evinced by Charles I. and James II. of England, which resulted in the decapitation of the one and the flight of the other; the spirit evinced by George III. toward the Colonies, which led to the founding of the American Republic; and the spirit evinced by the Bourbon kings toward the people of France, which resulted in their overthrow and the estab- lishment of the Republic of France. " The American people to-day are in the presence of a commercial ' 388 THE DARK SIDE OF THE LAW despotism quite as arrogant, heartless and oppressive as the political despotism which resulted in the birth of modern democracy. If free institutions are to be preserved; if the happiness, prosperity and de- velopment of all the people are to be the master or controlling aim of government^ if freedom, justice and fraternity are to be aught but empty words, the feudalism of wealth built on privilege must be over- thrown. Economic emancipation must complement political emanci- pation" , Referring still to the unequal administration of the law we excerpt the following from "The Dark Side of the Beef Trust": "And the pure-food laws, and laws prohibiting the adulteration of foods, do not seem to apply to the giant in control of our animal foods ; no more do the laws in regard to commerce, or interstate commerce, or the secret combinations to systematically rob the people by destroy- ing competition. It has become to be an admitted fact that there are laws for the poor and laws for the rich; that the laws for the poor must be enforced for the better protection of society ; and that the laws for the rich are not meant to be enforced, but that the com- mon people may be the more easily blinded while the bandit of the trust is collecting the levy." Apropos of this subject, " The Wall Street Journal " of March 26, 1906, prints the following, regarding "Rich and Poor in the Law " : " Mr. Perkins ought not to be made to suffer because he is rich, a partner of Mr. Morgan and a director of powerful corpora- tions. Nor should he be excused because he is a leader in the finan- cial world. What would Mr. Jerome do if Mr. Perkins, instead of having been vice-president of the New York Life Insurance Com- pany, had been vice-president of ' The Carpenters' Benevolent Asso- ciation, No. 3 ? ' Would Mr. Jerome be solicitous about proof of intent before bringing an indictment, and become angry at a judge and sarcastic at an ex-judge and bitter in denunciation of news- papers, because they held a different opinion from his on the subject, if Mr. Perkins had not been what he is? . . . There is a dan- gerous feeling among many that there is one law for the rich man and another for the poor, and that the case of a poor man would not have aroused the solicitude as to proof of intent, which District Attorney Jerome displays in regard to the case of Geo. W. Perkins." Suppose two men are arrested for drunkenness, one a millionaire, the other a workingman without resources. The next morning each receives as his sentence $10 or thirty days. Surely this is even- handed justice, you say ; but consider it a moment. What is the pur- pose of punishment? Ignoring those who seem to consider punish- ment as an act of vengeance., we must admit that punishments have no other reason underlying them than the theory that they act as deterrents and tend to promote social order. We are not here con- sidering those punitive measures which seek to repair a damage done by the payment of its equivalent. If, then, punitive measures are used solely for the purpose of inflicting hardships which shall act as deterrents, is it not clear that justice demands that upon the same crime shall always be visited an equal hardship? The fine of $10 is but a hundred-thousandth part of the millionaire's resources, a veri- 389 table nothing which he pays with less sacrifice than would be repre- sented by the forfeiture of a one-cent postage-stamp by the average labourer. The poor drunkard, however, finds his case very different. Ten dollars is probably more than he has, if he be an habitual tippler it is more than his all, and he goes to jail. Hftw much of a deterrent, think you, would the fine of a one-cent stamp be to him? When you determine this amount, you have only to set below it a good round figure for a denominator, in order to form a sufficiently ac- curate estimate of the sacrifice which a ten-dollar fine inflicts upon a millionaire. This alternative punishment, devised for the sake of punishing the poor and exempting the rich, is one of the most crying evils of our legal system, an evil which will have to be remedied before thoughtful people will be able to regard the alleged justice of the law in any other light than a Machiavelian joke. Another abuse which calls for at least passing notice is the cow- ardly methods pursued by many attorneys during trials. Presuming upon the protection of the court, they defame witnesses and insult them with a brutal rudeness which, if used upon the street, would be considered tantamount to an assault. Should the witness, how- ever, retort in kind, he is summarily dealt with. How judges ex- pect to uphold what they are pleased to call the " dignity of the law" by constantly permitting these insults to truth, to fair play, and to decency, they may -be able to explain. It is certainly quite beyond the ken of laymen, unversed in those intellectual somer- saults and handsprings which form the stock in trade of most legal lights. A goodly per cent, of lawyers may justly be regarded as de facto disturbers of the peace to whom blackmail is often their readiest asset. Nor is this confined to that class of lawyers who chase am- bulances in the hope that they may trump up a damage case. We do not, of course, contend that reputable attorneys are guilty of black- mail, but we do contend that more than one law-firm, enjoying a most lucrative practice and a fair degree of lay-confidence, is guilty of just such disreputable methods. One of the busiest firms in Boston, whose name is as familiar as that of any legal firm in the city and whose cases crowd the court calendars, habitually resorts to every sort of crooked procedure known to "shysters/' and that without apparently adversely affecting their income. All reputable lawyers, of course, are aware of this firm's methods and despise both them and the men who stoop to them, yet to see the senior trickster in court day after day and to witness the judicial deference bestowed upon him as one of the court's best customers, is an instructive, if sicken- ing, sight. When such men as these, can, with the full knowledge of their colleagues and of the courts, cut a swath through society like the path of the locusts, or the wake of the army-worm, is it any wonder that we are confronted, everywhere we look, with outrages committed in the name of the law ? Coke said, "A common error makes law/' and to-day society groans, not only because of the bad laws, but because of flagrant violations of all law practised by those whose duty it should be to protect the sanctity of justice. Erskine said, "A prisoner is cov- ered all over with the armour of the law." Yet, despite this, the 390 THE DARK SIDE OF THE LAW " sweat-box " flourishes in our large cities, depriving men of their fundamental rights as citizens and human beings. In a case which came up in New York in the spring of 1902, Justice Mayer granted a motion made by defendant's lawyer, praying for the suppression of . admissions made by his client to police detectives in whose custody she was, without any previous warning that she was not obliged to make statements unless she wished to, and that, if she should make any, they might be used to convict her. Concerning this, " The Public " says editorially, in part, " Justice Mayer must be a veritable Daniel come to judgment, for in this decision he has delivered a decisive blow at the police ' sweat-box ' system, which has been prac- tised for years by the police in all the great cities, and at which, law- less as it manifestly is, judges in the criminal courts have winked. " The extent of this illegal practice may be inferred from the plea of the assistant district attorney to Justice Mayer, in the case alluded to. He urged the judge not to make the decision he did because it is going to work the greatest innovation in the system in vogue, not only in the city of New York, but over the entire country. Thou^ sands of cases have been decided in court here on statements made by prisoners to officers before the arraignment in court. " The general nature of this ' sweat-box ' system is well known, yet it is tolerated because its victims are usually friendless persons ac- cused of crime. It is a system of torture applied for the purpose -of extorting confessions/' At about the time President McKinley was assassinated the "Minneapolis Journal" gave a candid and approving description of the " sweat-box " system. It said : " The practice of ' torturing ' suspected criminals to wring from them information that will lead to the apprehension and punishment of accomplices is followed gen- erally throughout the country, and is almost invariably a speedy and satisfactory method, leading in many cases to the discovery of insti- gators for whose crime their dupes or tools would otherwise have suffered alone. "While admitting that very drastic measures are adopted in the ' sweat-box ' in order to extract a confession from suspects, the police officials seldom divulge the nature of the process employed. There is no set method in use. Each prisoner when taken into the ' sweat-box ' is given different treatment, depending entirely on his temperament and mental condition and the degree of anxiety on the part of the police to make him talk. Often it is only necessary to browbeat and threaten the witness or to harrow his feelings by some of the numberless methods known to an experienced police officer. " But often prisoners are not to be scared by threats or ' bulldosing ' methods, and when these means fail, torture is used as a last resort. It is applied unflinchingly and relentlessly, and with such severity that the prisoner is frequently rendered wild or insane with fear and pain. Human endurance and self-control fail before some of the methods employed. Probably the most common method of forcing confession from unwilling lips is to string the prisoner up by the thumbs. This will fetch the majority of criminals to terms, for the \ 391 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION intense pain such treatment induces will subdue the most stubborn spirit. " But if the prisoner maintains his defiance after this torture, the inquisitors are not balked, by any means. There are other more pain- ful tortures, and while they do not rival the methods of the old Span- ish inquisition in their cruelty or barbarity, they are just as effective. " Whatever the people may mean by ' pincers ' can be as well in- ferred as described. Ordinarily the torture for it is nothing more is specially devised to fit the particular case under consideration. If the police are satisfied that any person possesses information which may reveal the principals or participants in a great crime, they will get it, and they feel justified in employing any means, no matter how severe and cruel, if it will result in a confession." Commenting on this " The Public " says, in the issue above re- ferred to : " When it is considered not only that the tortured prison- ers are plied with questions without any notice to them that it is their legal right to make no disclosures, but also that our constitu- tions forbid unusual punishments and cruelty even to convicted criminals, the litter disregard of law involved in this brutally in- quisitorial ' sweat-box ' system cannot but excite the indignation of all men who really respect the law. It is a system which puts the sworn officers of the law who practise it upon the criminal level of the ' anarchist ' as they describe him. " The police are usually reticent, as the ' Minneapolis Journal ' says, about their ' sweat-box ' methods ; but from items written by police- court reporters, and the disclosures of victims, it is reasonably in- ferred that there' are three degrees. The first degree consists in impressing the prisoner with the idea that he must answer questions whether he wants to or not. This is entirely lawless, as the decision of Judge Mayer now points out. Having so impressed the prisoner, all kinds of ingenious, irritating and confusing questions are asked. Under such an ordeal shrewd and self-governed criminals may come out first best; but the timid, the slow of thought, the unsophisticated and frightened prisoner who is innocent, may very easily be, and he not infrequently is, led into a tangle which fixes apparent guilt upon him. " An instance of the first degree in the ' sweat-box ' was given simply as matter of current news not long ago in one of the Chicago papers. The prisoner's name was Thombs. He was in the custody of the police, whose sole duty it was to keep him safely for trial. But they violated their duty and the law by subjecting him to a ' sweat-box' experience. We quote the report : f For over an hour Thombs was kept under fire. He was told all about how he had abused his wife, Minnie Ristau, and compelled her to work for him and support him. Tombs did not know where the information came from nor how much of it the police had in re- serve, and he soon weakened. Then Lieut. Haines switched suddenly and asked Thombs whether he had ever been at Cedar Lake, Ind. The question caught Thombs off his guard and he answered ' Yes/ Thombs scarcely had made this admission when Lieut. Haines bom- barded him with a string of questions in the same line. It was all 392 THE DARK SIDE OF THE LAW too rapid for Thombs's slow mind, and, apparently without realising what he said, he told the lieutenant that three years ago, in 1898, he and his ' wife ' had driven to Cedar Lake together. He declared they had come back together also. Thombs had said too much, and Lieut. Haines could get no further admissions. In the afternoon Capt. Wheeler tried another sweat-box method. Thombs declared at first that he wished to make a statement. When told to go ahead he launched into a tirade on Mrs. Severs, whom he at once connected with the Cedar Lake charge. He asked the police to send for Mrs. Severs and his wife, and begged that he be kept at the police station until his brother-in-law could see him. Then Capt. Wheeler began. Thombs's heavy features did not move at first, but soon he began to flinch. Finally the prisoner began to weep, but it was not from grief. The man was racked by rage. 'I never abused my wife. I would hang for her if I had to/ he shouted. ' I love her. I never threatened to throw my baby out of the window. That .Severs woman has told you all this, and she is the one that hatched up the Cedar Lake story/ Capt. Wheeler ended the interview, and Thombs, with his cloth cap pulled down over his eyes, was handcuffed to a police- man and taken to the county jail. He will not be questioned by the police any further on the Larson murder unless he wishes to confess/ " On the following day the police captain who conducted this ' sweat- box ' proceeding was quoted in the news columns of one of the papers as saying about this case: ' It has been the most trying police investigation in the history of the Chicago department. The alleged alibi produced by Thombs up- set us, and for a few hours the police were lost. But we set about to knock the alibi sky-high, and in this we succeeded. Thombs while in my custody put up a defiant air, but I am positive that before his case reaches the grand jury he will break down and confess. He told me on Saturday that all that kept him from making such a confession was the warning of his lawyer/ " There is an instance of the first degree. Could anything be more defiant of law? The second and third degrees are known only to police inquisitors and their friendless prisoners. It is generally be- lieved, however, that they consist in physical torture. The second degree is described by some as including sudden and violent changes of temperature, accompanied by probing and confusing questions, until the victim's nervous system gives way and he answers at the wiil of his official but lawless persecutors. If this fails, the third degree in which, perhaps, a brilliant light is steadily directed at the victim's eyes, both while he is awake and when he tries to sleep is resorted to. That there certainly is a ' third degree' is fairly evident from the following item in a New York news report in the ' Chicago Tri- bune': ' The passage of this ' third degree ' from police headquarters, so far as official support is concerned, took place to-day, when Com- missioner Partridge and District Attorney Jerome had a conference. The 'third degree' is to be left out of the methods of the district attorney's office in preparing prosecutions. While it has never be- 393 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION come a habit there, as it was at police headquarters and even at police stations, nevertheless it is not unknown.' " In closing its editorial " The Public " says : " If inquisitorial pro- ceedings are necessary, let them take place only in the presence of a responsible magistrate, as in the courts of first instance in Europe, where the prisoner can have some responsible protection. Let the inquisition be no longer allowed in the inner rooms of irresponsible police detectives, where the prisoner has no protection at all and is at the mercy of merciless men. " Of course a law providing for an inquisitorial examination of prisoners charged with crime would be invalid, for, under the Eng- lish and American theory of the administration of justice, no man can be compelled to give evidence against himself. But if such pro- ceedings would be without constitutional validity, surrounded as the prisoner would be with judicial safeguards, what shall we say of the same kind of proceedings when they are carried to the extent of cruelty by policemen unchecked by judicial restraints? On what other basis can any man justify lawless proceedings of that sort than that he has turned ' anarchist ' and cares nothing for the sanctity of law?" When that neat little farce known as the Meat Trust Prosecution was being played before a spell-bound, or at all events trust-bound public, so much difficulty was experienced in getting evidence against the trust, owing to the great secretiveness of its members that the " Red Wing Argus," a Minnesota Weekly, trenchantly remarked, " Well, then, why not try the water-cure ? " Witnesses from the Philippines say it is harmless and refreshing. When they suspected natives of having guns, they applied it, and, they add, ' we got the guns/ The government suspects these men of using instruments of warfare against the people of the United States, but the evidence is concealed. Imagine one of Knox's lieutenants coming in to report: 'We applied the water-cure/ and grinning, ' we got the evidence/ " You can't imagine it ; it is unthinkable ? Thank God it is un- thinkable. And yet the police in the large cities use daily devices of that sort, what they call the sweat-box method, against vulgar criminals. Where they know a man is guilty, but have no evidence, where they suspect he is guilty, where they believe he ought to be guilty if he isn't, they put him in the sweat-box. Wherein is it worse before the law to apply the sweat-box method to Morgan or Rocke- feller or Armour or Swift, than the Red Leary or Six-Fingered Jake ? Are they not equal before the law, are they not presumed to be in- nocent until they are proved guilty ? " If the gravity of the offence is to measure the severity of the means employed to gain evidence, the argument is all on the side of applying it to the conspirators against the people. Red Leary snatches a pocketbook; the beef trust takes the meat out of the mouths of whole communities. Six-Fingered Jake pilfers a hand- kerchief ; the great robbers loot a continent/' That the " sweat-box " system of torture not only exists, but is actually defended is the astonishing truth. We quote the following 394 THE DARK SIDE OF THE LAW from a Chicago periodical of Aug. 30, 1902: "Inspector Shea, of the Chicago police department, defends the ' sweat-box ' with the same audacity that characterised Mayor Harrison's defence of it. He tries to convince the public that the ' sweat-box ' harms no innocent man and leads to the conviction of guilty men. But not one word has he to say of the law which guarantees immunity to innocent and guilty alike from ' sweat-box ' persecution. The question is not whether the laws for the protection of the rights of persons charged with crime are good laws. Good or bad, they exist. The question, therefore, is whether policemen shall obey them or may defy them. If the ' sweat-box ' is a desirable adjunct to the police function, let it be established by law. But until it has been so established, let us not allow ourselves to become apologists for crime by getting befogged in the sophistries of law-breaking policemen." Under date of Oct. 25, 1905, the " Cleveland Plain Dealer " printed the following : " It is clearly incumbent upon someone at least to inquire to what extent the practice prevails in flat violation of the fundamental law, for that it does prevail is beyond contradiction. Often the process consists merely of browbeating and bullyragging a prisoner, who may be no more than a suspect, but that more extreme measures have been resorted to in dealing with a particularly stub- born subject is more than suspected. . . . It is worthy of remark, too, that the victim of this savagery is invariably a prisoner without money or friends. None of the ' aristocracy of crime ' are ever sub- jected to the third degree. On the contrary they are treated with a consideration, not to say deference, and sometimes by courts as well as police, that gives too much colour to the assertion so often heard that there is one law for the poor and another for the rich. If the 'third degree' should be applied to a thieving bank-president the whole country would be made to ring with the outrage, and the ' third degree ' would become on the instant as extinct as the ' boot ' or the rack. Nor are the police wholly to blame. They are not as a rule a fine-grained gentry, and their continual contact with the crim- inal element has the inevitable effect of blunting sensibilities none too keen in the first place. Probably many of them honestly believe that the end justifies the means. But they have superiors to whom they are amenable, and it is upon these that the responsibility for the abuse of the ' third degree ' ultimately rests." It is quite unnecessary to treat this matter more at length. Enough has been presented conclusively to show that we not only have a system of torture in the Philippines, but that we have one right here at our own doors. We do not have to go back to the dark ages, nor to a foreign country, to find inquisitorial methods in full vogue. These criminal practices against alleged criminals are not only with- out any legal warranty whatsoever, but are in the flattest contradic- tion to the American principle and the Constitution of the United States. We call attention to these facts, since they show most con- clusively how rapidly we are slipping away from the ideals of our forefathers. They who think such crimes can be practised upon the alleged criminal class without spreading further, have read history, even recent history, to very poor purpose. We have seen how, to cite 395 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION a single instance, the postal censorship began by restricting the rights of those whose business did not conform to popular ideas of morality or public policy, and how from this the contagion of injustice gradu- ally widened its area until it was made practically to attack the con- stitutional right of freedom of belief and its expression. The plain fact of the matter is that the perpetration of a wrong against indi- viduals however unpopular or undeserving, reacts upon the public conscience -with a deadening effect which permits ever-increasing in- roads upon the rights of constantly widening masses of the people. A democracy can only exist so long as its people consider a govern- mental offence against one as the concern of all. The body politic, like the body corporate, owes its health to the perfect interrelation of its parts. As well might the brain neglect to protect the heart from injury and expect the well-being of the physical body of which both mem- bers formed a part, as for one member of a social body to be indiffer- ent to the rights of another member thereof while expecting to main- tain the health of said society. The cell-like units of society are not egocentric and independent units. They are bound together by a social gravitation -which ramifies the whole body politic, so that the slightest disturbance in any part of the structure is felt throughout the mass. An offence against the humbler classes seems, like the breaking down of the white corpuscles of the blood, to be a relatively small matter at the start, but when, as is inevitably the case, the evil increases and social tubercles form ending in tissue-degeneration in the social body which day by day grows worse until finally the death of Liberty ensues and with it disappears all worthy the name of society. He is a coward who asks of another what he will not grant himself, and he is dead to all finer sense of manhood who will not protect all others in each and every right he demands for him- self. The Gillette System for Social Eedemption is devised with es- pecial care upon these points ; under it all men will be brothers in effect twin brothers, for the elder brother principle, with all the in- justices inherent in primogeniture, both literal and figurative, will be banished forever from the face of the earth.* * For a brief outline of the System, see Appendix A. 396 BOOK VIII CHAPTER I. POLITICAL CORRUPTION CHAPTER II. A KINGDOM OF THE DOLLAR CHAPTER III. MUNICIPAL CONDITIONS CHAPTER IV. THE FATHER OF GRAFT THE BUSINESS MAN 397 Given a few men who own the land on which all mankind must live and work; given a few men who own all the valuable public franchises, given a few men who have enormous special privileges, and it makes no difference how much money there is in the country, or how it is furnished. Under conditions which will allow every man freely to produce wealth and freely exchange it, a system of free banking will contribute greatly to the prosperity of the whole people. The money question, like all other problems of the time, is to be solved by more freedom and not by more interference. Bolton Hall in Free America. Once the people could be fooled with the story that their poverty was the will of God. After a time, when men came to know that this was not true, " scientists " like Professor Huxley tried to show that all the in- justice and inequality in the distribution of wealth was due to natural laws. Now that it has proved that this is also a lie, the men who profit by monopoly seek, by appeals to national prejudice and race hatred, to delude the people into running after a false remedy, and so to neglect the true one. Can the people be fooled all the time? Ibid. Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats, And ask no questions but the price of votes. Sam'l Johnson Vanity of Human Wishes. Corruption is a tree, whose branches are Of an immeasurable length: they spread Ev'ry where; and the dew that drops from thence Hatn infected some chairs and stools of authority. Beaumont and Fletcher Honest Man's Fortune. The restrictions -which well-meaning conservative men think necessary in the introduction of the referendum, for example, remind one forcibly of the provision in the charter of the first German railway, that a high fence must be erected on both sides of the track to avoid the mental disorders which would be caused by the sight of a rapidly moving train. C. J. K., in The Rate of Human Progress. The Public. 398 CHAPTEE I. POLITICAL CORRUPTION HE discovery of the germs of a malignant disease in the blood of a patient is a warning to the wise phy- sician that there is trouble ahead, and he does not think it necessary in reporting the result of his diag- nosis to enlarge upon the fact that there are many diseases with which his client is not afflicted. He informs him, if he thinks it wise to be perfectly frank, that he has tuberculosis, and advises him what to do. He might, were he an irrepressible optimist, take an hour of his time in pointing out dan- gers which his patient had escaped, but, since his purpose is to show how actual evils can be successfully combatted, he confines himself strictly to that issue. The daily paper, which reports a murder, occurring, let us say, in a country town, does not waste any space upon the fact that the said town contained a great many citizens incapable of committing murder. In like manner, in pointing out the diseases which sorely afflict the American body politic, we do not find it necessary to enlarge upon the well-known fact that all Ameri- cans, even all American politicians, are not corrupt. There are doubt- less Senators who are not in the least vendible and judges who do not receive railroad passes and who are neither consciously nor uncon- sciously prejudiced in favour of transportation or any other corporate interests. To pile Pelion on Ossa, there are most likely some lawyers who would sooner lose a case in the interest of justice than win it in defiance thereof. All this may be true without in the least affecting our fundamental contention that morality in America is on an Alpine down-grade, with everything greased for the occasion. We do not claim that there are not some healthy cells in the body politic, but we do contend that their number is proportionately, shamefully small, that it is hourly growing smaller and that there are in the social organism enough robust, octopus-like germs to make short work of the little that is left, unless their malevolent course is speedily checked. The habitual optimist has been a facile tool for evil in the hands of the professional corruptionist. Wherever deeds have been too hideous to be seen in their full atrocity, there has the opti- mist ever been found with his rosy glow-lamp dimly lighting the picture, softening the obtrusive hardness of its outlines and so blurring its perspective and losing its details that it might almost pass for a monochrome of virtue. Under his rosy lamp the hideous frown of imperialism has been made to pass for the beneficent smile of patriot- ism. The abuses of the .Supreme Court, a body which is perhaps the gravest menace to American America which to-day confronts our 399 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION country, the pink-eyed optimist has bedizened in the cap, bells and motley of his own folly, under the fallacious impression that he was clothing Justice in unsullied ermine. Upon every occasion and in every department he has innocently become the devil's secretary. Nor has the smell of sulDhur alarmed in the least his self-centred conscience. He has promptly concluded that the odour was the result of a beneficent attempt on the part of his divinely good principals to smoke the aphis from off the tree of life. It would be easy to show that this sort of " optimism " is not real optimism at all, that it has in it nothing either regenerating or constructive, but is what Mr. Louis F. Post, in his " Ethics of Democracy/' calls " spurious optimism." Under this heading he says : " While pessimism as a philosophy has been correctly characterised as a species of atheism, that characterisation is certainly not true of all fault-finding; and when fault-finding is called pessimism and then indiscriminately de- nounced as atheism, which is quite a usual thing, the characterisation is so unjust as to warrant the retort in kind that the optimism which consists in applause-making is devil worship. Indeed, what but devil worship can it be to make applause for wrong-doing? " Optimism, as too commonly understood and boastfully inculcated, is a spurious thing. So far from being a living protest against atheism, as genuine optimism is, it is nothing better than a manifes- tation of mental and spiritual indolence. ' Things have always come out right, and they always will ! ' laughs the spurious opti- mist." . . . " Too lazy mentally to think, too lazy spiritually to desire to act, they hail contentment as a virtue, and denounce as a pessimist who- ever disturbs their indolent serenity. " Think for a moment of the attitude of these spurious optimists. It is not for them to consider indications of social stagnation or de- cadence, nor to work for social improvement. Leave all that to God ! To doubt the certainty of progress is to doubt Him. Are we as a nation breaking away from our democratic moorings and drifting as the republic of Eome did, into a whirlpool of imperialism ? ' Never fear ! God will take care of us. Don't blaspheme Him by urging that the prow of the ship of state be turned in another direction. He will do that Himself if it is for the best. Let us enjoy the exciting voyage. Don't be a pessimist ! ' Are our institutions making classes of very rich and very poor, of luxurious idlers and impoverished workers ? ' Impossible. God is too good to allow that, and He is too wise and powerful to need advice or help from us. Let us laugh at these idle fears and enjoy the unparalleled progress we are making. Don't be a pessimist ! ' " That is not genuine optimism. It is only the pathetic optimism of the child in a boat, gliding swifter and swifter down Niagara Kiver, on toward the brink of the thundering cataract, that claps its hands in baby glee at the flowers along the banks as they rush by, until the boat topples on the very edge of the abyss. It is too late then for genuine optimism. " Optimists of that spurious sort, who are really the most dangerous of pessimists, never tire of cheerfully assuring everybody that 'the 40Q POLITICAL CORRUPTION world moves onward and upward in spite of grumblers and fault- finders/ They seldom reflect that it is those they call grumblers and fault-finders, the people who ' rail/ as they would put it, at commu- nity evils the anti-monarchy Sam Adamses and Patrick Henrys, the anti-slavery Garrisons and Beechers, the anti-monopoly agitators of our own time who compel the world to move onward and up- ward. Yet evils must be rejected if progress is to be made. No community any more than an individual soul ever learned to do well without first ceasing to do evil. It is contrary to the natural order. ' Cease to do evil ; learn to do well/ expresses the universal sequence of human progress. And as no imperfect individual would ever cease to do evil if the grumblings and fault-findings of his conscience did not spur him to it, so no community evils would ever be put aside if it were not for the grumblers and fault-finders who disturb the social calm by demanding that society cease to do evil in order that it may learn to do well. " What happy-go-lucky optimists have ever contributed to the on- ward and upward movement of the world ? None. They seem to sup- pose that the world moves on and up, not in consequence of impulses from so-called ( pessimists/ who agonise for it, dying daily upon ten thousand crosses for the remission of its sins, but through some di- vinely miraculous influence if they belong to a church, or some atheistically evolutionary process if their affiliations are ' scientific/ " Of all the departments of life none has withstood the black-is- white hallelujahs of the " spurious optimist " so well as politics. All attempts to gild the modern politician seem only to have had the effect of making his native brass look still more brazen, until, at present writing, one might rake the country with a fine-tooth comb without finding a corporal's guard, outside of lunatic asylums, who are not fully aware of the extreme dishonesty of American politics. It is common knowledge that the post-bellum amendment to the Federal Constitution, designed solely for the purpose of safeguard- ing the political rights of the black man, has failed utterly in accom- plishing that purpose, but has been used instead to enslave the white man at the behest of monopoly and through the instrumentality of a conveniently willowy judiciary. The Southern negro is openly dis- franchised by every possible means and upon all occasions seeming in the opinion of politicians to warrant it. Voting-booths have even been placed where they could only be reached by a ladder, and then this ladder has been monopolised, throughout the entire time the polls were open, by white men whose snail-like movements effectually prevented the casting of the black vote. We quote the following from a speech entitled "The Disfranchisement of the Negro," delivered by the Hon. Albert E. Pillsbury, on the 12th of Feb., 1903, in Faneuil Hall, Boston : " There are some of us, at least, who under- stand that, until every black man's rights are secure, no white man's rights are safe." . . . "The South received the constitutional amendments with a sort of sullen submission so long as Federal bayonets were in sight. When the Federal troops were withdrawn from the South in 1877, the whites proceeded to strip the negro of his political rights, by mob- 20 401 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION bing and shooting him if he tried to exercise them. This disturbed some sensitive minds at the North; and, what was of more conse- quence, it made political capital for the Eepublican party. Accord- ingly, they looked for a better device, and found one. For shooting, they substituted cheating. The tissue ballot was as sure as the bullet, and it looked less offensive. They made no secret of this. The Charleston man who claimed to have invented them showed me his collection of fraudulent ballots in 1880, and boasted of the success of the scheme. " The Republican party kept up the attempt to vindicate the laws and maintain the political rights of all citizens, irrespective of colour, until the so-called ' force bill' of 1890 had to be abandoned, because it was evident that public sentiment in the North was less resolute in support of it than was the public sentiment of the South against it, and that to press it would create ' unpleasantness ' with our South- ern brethren. " The South took this as the signal that the North had abandoned the negro. Then they threw off the mask, and began openly and on a large scale the process of his complete disfranchisement by consti- tutional provisions. Mississippi led the way, South Carolina followed, then Louisiana, and Alabama, and Virginia, and so on. The country has looked on with indifference while the negro has been stripped of his constitutional rights, and a state of things established so much worse, politically, than before slavery was abolished, that while but three-fifths of the negroes were then counted in the basis of represen- tation, they now are all counted, while the white men do the voting and exercise all the political power. In the former slave states there was in 1900 a coloured population, in round numbers, of eight mil- lions, calling for forty representatives in Congress. These forty rep- resentatives are sitting there, making laws to govern us, though few if any of them have a constitutional right to their seats. In the five states which have already disfranchised the negro by their consti- tutions there is a coloured population, in round numbers, of four millions, practically excluded from the suffrage, while twenty repre- sentatives are sitting and voting in Congress in their right." Mr. Pillsbury went on to state further, that the South had no objection to the negro as a negro, but that they would not accept him as a citizen, saying : " And one of the leading reasons why they will not accept him as a citizen, as they openly avow, is that it will impair his usefulness as a labourer. They mean to reduce him, and they are reducing him, to a state of servitude as complete actually, if not legally, as his former state of slavery. The old axiom of the slave-owners was that * capital should own labour/ This is practically what they are now aiming at, and what they are likely to accomplish if we stand indifferent. Indeed, it is already being done. Read the peonage laws of Alabama and other states, if you doubt it." Referring to the Fifteenth Amendment, the speaker enunciated the following great truth : " More than this, it was adopted as a measure of high political wisdom, in view of the fact, which a few far-sighted statesmen saw then, and sooner or later the blindest of us will come to see, that free institutions can stand only on the basis of equal 403 POLITICAL CORRUPTION rights, and that no great body of citizens can be defrauded of their rights without corrupting the whole political body and putting in peril the rights of all the rest. And, finally, it was adopted to make im- possible the very thing which the Fourteenth Amendment left open, and which has now happened, the actual exclusion of millions of citizens from the suffrage, while those who exclude them retain the political power to represent them in Congress and in the choice of presidents. Some of the northern apologists for this crime are fond of saying that President Lincoln never would have favoured negro suffrage. One of the last declarations of Lincoln, whose prophetic vision had 'already forecast this issue, was that negro suffrage would have to come, on grounds both of justice and expediency. Have we abandoned Abraham Lincoln to follow Elihu Root? " If any man supposes that we can safely submit to have the funda- mental law of the United States defied and set at naught by disfran- chising the negro race, he is not fit to be entrusted with political power. The general reasons against it are enough, but let me put a concrete case. Some day there will be a presidential election so close that it will turn upon a handful of electoral votes. Each state has a 'number of electoral votes equal to the whole number of senators and representatives in Congress ' to which the state may be entitled.' The Eepublican party, in order to retain power, will then be obliged to raise, and of course will raise, the question of the right of the electors of the states which have disfranchised the negro to vote in the choice of president. We shall then have this issue precipitated upon us under the most difficult and exciting conditions, and the result will be a convulsion that will shake the government to its foundation. The dispute of 1876 was but a passing breeze in comparison with the storm that may burst upon us if we leave the question to be dealt with in the fiercest heat of party passions, with the possession of the gov- ernment at stake." Quoting the words of Lincoln addressed to his countrymen in 1857 : "In your greedy chase to make profit of the negro, beware lest you cancel and tear to pieces the white man's charter of freedom,"- Mr. Pillsbury concluded : " Have they forgotten the price they had to pay to save the white man's charter? Every dollar of it, and every drop of blood, was the price of injustice to the negro. Shall we pay the price again ? or shall we act on that prophetic admoni- tion, and act in time ? " This is no new condition. It is so old, so well known, so matter of course, that it scarcely -attracts more than a passing comment from those who witness it. Nor is this form of political corruption di- rected solely against the black race. The history of the Bucklin amendment in Colorado will be profitable reading to any one suffi- ciently uninformed still to think that the white man has escaped this baneful, political corruption. Another form of political corruption, for which a new word has been coined, is what is called " Ripperism." In explaining this term, and at the same time citing some of its applications we cannot do better than to quote from an editorial in " The Public " of April 26, 1902. 403 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION " Political movements toward industrial justice seem likely to fmd~ their starting-points in cities. Cleveland and Toledo are just now instances in point. The latest newspaper word, is the verb active to ' tomjohnsonise/ The answer of the plutocrat is the new expression ' ripperism/ " The cities which become imbued with real democratic Democracy, and show symptoms of putting it into effect in the form of laws for the municipal ownership of public utilities, or the placing on the monopolies of something like their true share of the burden of taxa- tion, are to be disciplined and plundered at once by ripper legislation. Indeed in Pennsylvania ripperism was inaugurated for plunder rather than party advantage; and the extent of the stealings of the Quay machine, in the form of franchise grants in cities, made at Harris- burg in defiance of the wishes of the people of the cities interested, together with the shamelessness of the robbery, has been something to excite the astonishment and horror of the civilised world. " The Eepublican majority in Ohio is said to be casting about for means to deprive Cleveland of local self-government by a ripper bill to balk Mayor Johnson; and a modified form of ripperism has been used in Michigan, to hold in check the progessists of Detroit. " Kipperism is based upon the idea that cities are mere creations of the state legislature, with no inherent right to self-government. Pennsylvania courts have long held to this view; and Quay and his crowd found the laws all in their favour. But in Michigan a different state of things existed. " Largely through the opinions and writings of one man, Michigan's great constitutional lawyer, Thomas M. Cooley, ripperism in Michi- gan has to overcome the obstacle of a splendid series of Supreme Court decisions upholding the inherent right of local self-government in cities. In Pennsylvania, when it is the desire of an unscrupulous machine to rob cities, all that is necessary for the state legislature to do is to pass an act removing the mayor and common council and appointing machine parasites, either resident or non-resident, armed with the requisite licence to steal. This has been done time and time again in Pennsylvania. But in Michigan, and all states following the same rule of law, some mode must be found of doing the same thing through the medium of locally elected officers. So we find the Michi- gan ripper bills but a faint shadow of those of Pennsylvania. Boards are reorganised by state laws, and the appointment of the new boards placed with mayor or council, as one or the other happens to be for the moment ' right ' on the question. But the ghost of Cooley still pronounces its ' Thou shalt not ' against the real thing in ripperism. " For the courts of Michigan have spoken in no uncertain tones on this point. They have said that the city existed anterior to the state,- and the right to build cities and to govern them is a right which men had before any state constitution was adopted. They have said that back of the written constitution is an unwritten constitution, under which cities have the right to local self-government/' It will be remembered that " ripperism " was made to do yeoman service in 1902 against the reforms of Tom Johnson, Mayor of Cleve- land, Ohio. The legislature of the state was practically in the hands 404: POLITICAL CORRUPTION of that great corrupter of political morality, the late Mark Hanna. The first attack upon the city of Cleveland was made on April 17, 1902, and consisted of the passage of a bill taking the control of the park system of Cleveland away from the city and placing it under a special board. On the first of May another " ripper " bill was passed as a republican party measure. This was a tax-board " ripper " bill, the object of which was to legislate out of office in Cleveland the city tax-board, appointed by Mayor Johnson, and to provide that any county auditor may request and secure from the state board of appraisers and assessors the appointment of a tax review to supersede all other taxing bodies. The cause of this was the attempt on the part of the Johnson board to raise the valuation for taxation of local monopolies, includ- ing street railways, to the 60 % basis at which other kinds of property are appraised for taxation. This lawless " ripperism " in Ohio was by no means confined to the city of Cleveland. The city of Toledo came in for its share also. The object of the Toledo outrage was to obstruct the administra- tion of Mayor Samuel M. Jones, known as " Golden Eule Jones," and to serve the party machine. For these purposes the legislature legis- lated the police commission, of which Mayor Jones was ex-officio president, out of office, and authorised the governor to appoint a police board in its place. Mayor Jones refused to submit to this action. The matter was considered by the whole board, which adopted resolutions from which the following is an extract : " Resolved, That we regard this act of the legislature as a species of tyranny that we as free men must resist, as a meek surrender of our responsibilities would prove that we are unworthy of the confi- dence reposed in us by the voters who elected us; and, further, be it resolved that the chief of police is hereby instructed to take his orders from this board as heretofore. 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God/ K Commenting on these high-handed practices, " The Columbus Press" says, under date of April 29, 1902: "Director Salen, of Mayor Johnson's cabinet, hits the nail on the head when he says that each city should have absolute home rule and form its own govern- ment. Home rule is being made more popular as an issue by vicious ripper legislation, not only in Ohio but in other states. The people of any organised community should be best qualified to determine the form of local government they want. If the legislature, as Mr. Salen suggests, would put an end to ripperism forever by passing an enabling act permitting municipalities to have their own constitutional conven- tion and establish a system of home government subject to ratifica- tion by a referendum, our state Solons would find something more useful to do during a session of the legislature than connive and con- spire to rip, reorganise and disorganise the system for governing our chief cities. Home rule in temperance laws and home rule in tax- ation do not comprehend all the vital interests of a community, but the reasons advanced in favour of these issues could easily be broadened into arguments in favour of absolute home rule on all local affairs." Referring to the same subject, " The Cleveland Plain Dealer " said, 405 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION in its issue of May 4, 1902: "' There is a bare possibility of the Ohio Kepublicans going into the municipal ripping ring just once too often/ says the ' Washington Post/ And just once is quite often enough to insure the usual penalty." In considering present political corruption we cannot refrain from mentioning the last Mayoralty election in New York. On this occa- sion certain sections of the metropolis presented a "hells-kitchen" aspect which we do not believe could be duplicated anywhere in the world outside of the United States. Certainly such atrocities would not be tolerated in any other civilised community, if we are war- ranted in so characterising this country. While it is not easy to bring such accusations home in specific in- stances, for reasons which will be apparent, yet it is well known, by all those enlightened upon such subjects, that the police of many of our large cities are directly in league with the criminals they are sup- posed to hunt. This is notoriously true, for example, of New York. Not only are houses of ill fame, kitchen bar-rooms and gambling resorts protected and exploited by the police, but they actually divide plunder with pick-pockets and sneak-thieves. Concerning this subject Mr. Henry Crcorge, Jr., says, in his " The Menace of Privilege " : " What fosters the police blackmail evil is the policy so prevalent in this country of late years of using criminals to catch criminals. This makes a back-door connexion between the police and what might be called ' the instituted criminals.' It is told as illustrative of this connexion that a certain judge complained at New York Police Headquarters that he had had his pocket picked while crossing Brooklyn Bridge, and had lost his watch, the number of which he gave. A detective was put upon the case. A few hours later report was made to the judge that he must have been mistaken ; that he must have lost his watch somewhere else ; that the department had means of locating every watch stolen on the bridge during the last forty-eight hours and that no watch bearing the number he had given was among them ! " It is furthermore a solemn fact that corruption money is actually used by the Police Department and the District Attorney's Office in New York City to get evidence against infractors of the liquour laws and against disreputable houses. On file in the Controller's office in New York may be seen the approved and paid bills of * plain clothes men ' and ' special detectives ' for clothing outfits, theatre tickets, sup- pers, carriages, wines and women. Controller Edward M. Grout early in his administration made a vigourous and indignant public protest against this use of public moneys, but the District Attorney's office and the Police Department said the practice was necessary, and dis- cussion of the matter soon dropped; but not the practice, which has continued." He says further, " Criminal gangs flourish in particular localities until their too brash operations at last raise such a public outcry as to cause them to be routed out by the police. For that matter, it is too plain to be ignored or denied that the police organisation itself in the greater cities is made largely particeps criminis. Many police chiefs, superintendents, inspectors and captains, not in New York 406 POLITICAL CORRUPTION alone, but in most of the cities, have, with but brief interruption, regularly demanded and regularly received heavy blackmail as the price of blindness to vice and crime. " It is true that the infraction of puritanical sumptuary laws, which is made a penal offence, is the cause of many arrests. Yet, being on the statute books, they should be obeyed. And it should be the duty and practice of the law's municipal servants to see to their enforce- ment. But it is seriously and credibly charged that, while the ar- rests in the city of Philadelphia for the year 1903 amounted to the enormous number of 75,699 cases, a great number of most serious cases of vice and crime were overlooked by the police for blood-money. " The ratio of arrests in Philadelphia for 1903 was one person out of every seventeen of the population. " That is exceeded by New York and Chicago only in the greater gravity of offence. The cases of four young men in the latter city illustrates the nature of these crimes. Gustav Marx, age twenty-one; Peter Niedermeyer, age thirty-two; Harvey van Dine, age twenty- one ; and Emil Roeski, age nineteen, acting together, committed eight murders and at least one hundred hold-ups. The most significant fact in relation to these young men was that they were American born, and belonged to what many might regard as middle-class families. They but imitated those driven to such things by poverty, or the fear of it. " And if present tendencies continue, we shall soon have among us a horrible practice which has caused such grave scandal in England the crime of murdering children for the insurance placed on their lives. Not only have such atrocities been detected of late, but also cases where men, without their knowledge, were insured for a few hundred dollars, and then mysteriously died. A series of such cold- blooded crimes occurred recently in Bayonne, New Jersey, one of he commercial and industrial suburbs of New York City. " Mr. S. S. McClure shocked the thoughtful of the country by quoi> ing, in ' McClure's Magazine,' for December, 1904, a summary of statistics on murders and homicides throughout the country, collected by the ' Chicago Tribune/ and covering twelve years ending 1902. These figures seemed to prove that in 1904 there were four and a half times as many murders and homicides for each million of people in the United States as there were in 1881." The favourite habit of the optimistic American in such cases is to lay all these atrocities at the door of immigration, but those who are looking for the truth, rather than for a pleasant and lulling sedative pill of optimism, will have no difficulty in seeing that this is an expla- nation which does not explain. Mr. George has the following foot- note referring to this subject : " Mr. McClure says that, taking the census for 1900 as a basis, from only one country sending us emigrants Russia, which sent us only 1-23 part of all that came that year was there a higher murder and homicide rate than in the United States. And even in Russia the rate but slightly exceeded ours. The remaining 22-23 of the immigrants came from countries no one of which has half as many murders and homicides per million popula- tion as we have. See ' McClure's Magazine,' December, 1904." 407 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION If there be any who still believe morality in this country is not breaking down, we invite them again to consider the astonishing show- ing of the city of brotherly love for the year of our Lord 1903, to wit, one person arrested out of every seventeen of the population. In regard to present-day corruption and its effect upon the courts, the legislatures, and the ballot-box, Mr. Thomas W. Lawson says, in his " Fools and Their Money," published in the May, 1906, " Every- body's Magazine " : " It is through this machinery that the * .System ' is enabled to prevent the present laws being enforced or the making of new laws which would reverse it. To this I know the entire brood of theoretical reformers will object. I am not dealing in theories but in hard, cold practicalities. Illustration : " Heinze, Cole, Ryan, Rogers, and their ilk make by a trick one hun- dred millions of securities. They exchange them for the dollars of the people. The people go to law to get back their money. These ' System ' votaries use, if necessary, one-half of their spoils, fifty mil- lions of dollars, to 'educate' the courts and law-enforcers. Courts and the law-enforcers, being human, are ' educated/ Had the peo- ple fifty millions, and were they willing to meet the ' .System * in its 'vile methods, there might be some show for them, but having been robbed of one hundred millions, they have no fifty millions to stack up against the * System's ' pile they have nothing to stack up against the ' System's ' pile. Hence present and future unhappy con- ditions. " So it is with the ballot-box. When the time comes for the people to stack up against the Heinze-Cole-Ryan-Rogers gangs with their scores of hundreds of millions, they will have about the same chance as eighty million snow-flakes would have of extinguishing the fires of hell. Again I hear the theorists protest, and loudly proclaim that the ballot-box is the panacea for all our ills. Yet each of the Big Three insurance companies not only admitted that the policy-holders' money had been contributed to campaign funds to be used in perpetu- ating the control of vested interests at the polls, but the 'System's' great votaries who act as trustees for the policy-holders' money stood up in their boots when caught and boldly swore that this money had been given to the Republican party to save the nation from anarchy. And McCall, on his death-bed, declared that if he had the opportunity he would do it over again, and this in the face of the fact that a large proportion of the policy-holders of the Big Three were Democrats, who at the time were working and spending their own money to defeat the Republicans. Even the great 'Andy' Hamilton, who admitted having spent a million and a half to three millions of the policy- holders' money in ' educating ' legislatures and courts, returned from Europe for the express purpose of appearing before the New York Legislature and openly glorifying that act and others akin to it yes, and the New York Legislature cheered him to the echo ! " Regarding the Insurance Corruption recently unearthed, it is inter- esting to note that the ledger assets and income of the Equitable Assurance Society is approximately $440,000,000, while its paid-up capital is only 1-4400 of that amount. Now whoever controls the majority interest in this $100,000 capital controls the business of the 408 POLITICAL CORRUPTION company. In reference to this subject Mr. Henry George, Jr., says, in his " The Menace of Privilege " : " Gay young Mr. James Hazen Hyde owned $50,200 par value of this Equitable stock. He therefore was in the end the master of the Equitable Society. He transferred that majority interest to Mr. Thomas F. Eyan. The purchase price was presumably several million dollars, for while the par value of this block of Equitable stock can, by the limitation of the charter, earn only $3,514 per annum in dividends, the control of the society, and the handlings of its moneys is worth millions. " Mr. Ryan, who thus became the virtual master of the Equitable, also is believed to control the big Mutual Life and the smaller Wash- ington Life Insurance Companies. The ledger assets and incomes of the three companies approximate $1,000,000,000 ! " Why does Mr. Ryan want control of these enormous funds ? Not because he wishes to engage in the life insurance business. He may know little and care less about such a business, considered in itself. He desires control of its great investment funds because he wants to name the investments in which the funds shall be placed. For many years it was the policy of the insurance companies to invest largely in United States, State and municipal bonds. Late reports show that now such bonds constitute but a small fraction of one per cent, of their assets. What are those assets? Largely railroad stocks and bonds. And who controls the railroads ? Mr. Ryan and his railroad- king and banking friends. Mr. Jacob H. Schiff admitted before the Legislative Investigating Committee in New York, that his banking house had sold many million dollars' worth of securities to the Equi- table. Mr. Schiff is and was during these transactions on the finance committee of the Equitable .Society, and the transactions were con- ducted in the teeth of the insurance statutes of the State of New York, which expressly forbids the director of an insurance company from participating in any way in the purchase for such company of securi- ties of another company in which he has interest. " And the relation that Mr. Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., bankers, held toward the Equitable Life, Mr. George W. Perkins of J. P. Morgan & Co., bankers, held toward the New York Life Insurance Company. As finance committee chairman of the latter company, Mr. Perkins sold to it large quantities of securities of companies pro- moted by his own banking house. " Is it not clear that men of the Morgan and Ryan type possess great financial powers arising from the privilege of incorporation, and, be- hind that, of transportation, and other privileges? And these privi- leges and powers give them potency in legislation by which to protect what they have and to acquire new privileges and powers. This is constantly shown in our Federal and State capitals, where the lobbies are supported by Privilege. Did not Mr. George W. Perkins, chair- man of the finance committee of the New York Life Insurance Com- pany, testify before the legislative investigating committee that his company made a contribution of $48,000 to the Republican National Committee- fund in the presidential contest of 1904-, and that it like- wise made a $50,000 contribution to the same fund in each of the immediately preceding contests ? Did it not further appear from tes- 409 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION timony that the ' big three ' insurance companies, New York, Equi- table and Mutual, were in the habit of paying regularly into a legis- lative fund ' to effect legislation? ' ' Referring to the shady business methods of the said Insurance Companies, the same author says : " And what can be made of the books of such banking and fiduciary magnates at the best, when Mr. Perkins, chairman of the finance committee of the New York Life Insurance Company, testifies under oath in the legislative investiga- tion that his company, not wishing to have the public find a certain investment of $800,000 in the bonds of the International Mercantile Marine Company, exchanged those bonds on December 31, 1903, with J..P. Morgan & Co., of which firm Mr. Perkins is a member, for a check of the same amount, $800,000, and then, on January 2, 1904, reexchanged check and securities? In this way the insurance com- pany, in its sworn report to the Insurance Commissioner of New York, could show $800,000 cash assets, instead of that particular amount of the Marine Company's bonds." . . . " President McCall, of the New York Life, testified before the legislative investigating committee that his company alone paid one Andrew Hamilton nearly $800,000 within a period of five years, mostly for ' watching.' For no part of this large sum does a receipt seem to have been asked or given. Mr. Hamilton was merely looked to for ' results.' That this ' watching ' takes an active as well as a pas- sive form is evident from the shaping of life-insurance legislation. Such a policy of ' watching ' and ' shaping ' is of long standing. Mr. Henry B. Hyde, founder of the Equitable company, for instance, as early as 1867, secured an amendment to the insurance law of the State of New York, striking out the requirement that insurance com- panies must pay dividends to their policy-holders every five years, and provided instead that they may declare dividends ' from time to time/ This ' from time to time ' clause has ever since remained the language of the New York law, with the result that dividends of the insurance companies incorporated under it are as elusive as the jam that Alice in Wonderland complained of ' jam yesterday and to-morrow, but never to-day.' '' 410 CHAPTER II A KINGDOM OF. THE DOLLAR 411 At length corruption, like a general flood (So long by watchful ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun. Pope Moral Essays. The movement of thought and events in America is in the direction of direct legislation as is also the general trend of political history through- out the civilised world. All over the world, the current sets from despot- ism to democracy. Thrones have been crumbling for a hundred years, Constitutions have been written and are growing more and more liberal, giving the people larger and larger powers. The whole movement is toward the full and effective sovereignty of the people in the expression of which direct legislation performs so indispensable a part. Our century is filled from end to end with the growth of the people's power. The progress of civilisation means the uplift of the common peo- ple. Prof. Frank Parsons The City for the People. But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels. Tennyson Locksley Hall. Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trusts and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people. Henry Clay Speech at Lexington. Patricians and plebeians, aristocrats and democrats, have alike stained their hands with blood in the working out of the problem of politics. But impartial history declares also that the crimes of the popular party have in all ages been the lighter in degree, while in themselves they have more to excuse them; and if the violent acts of revolutionists have been held up more conspicuously for condemnation, it has been only because the fate of noblemen and gentlemen has been more impressive to the imagination than the fate of the peasant or the artisan. Fronde's " Ccesar." 412 CHAPTER II A KINGDOM OF THE DOLLAR T is a bit jarring to our national egotism to learn that other countries do certain things in a way which leaves us far in arrears, yet since we are after the unvarnished truth we must confess that such is the case. In insurance matters, not to mention many other departments of human activities of which the same might be said, Germany can teach us much upon the subject. New Zealand is so far beyond us that she seems to have passed out of our range of observation. Switzerland leads us here, as in most other things political and social. Comparing the corrupt methods in vogue in the United States with the better political and social con- ditions in Switzerland, Mr. Charles Edward Russell says, in the April, 1906, installment of his " Soldiers of the Common Good," published in " Everybody's Magazine " : " Whether we like or dis- like the admission we shall confess, if we know them intimately, that the Swiss fare exceedingly well. In Switzerland are no trusts, no criminal conspiracies of capital, no ' Systems,' no Standard Oil Com- panies,- no advancing and swelling money autocracies to corrupt the courts and seise the government, no special enactments are favoured speculators, no purchased elections, no political bosses, no crooked Congressmen, no greasy Senators elected by the railroad companies, no public officers maintained by thieving corporations, no Aldriches, no Depews, no Platts, no Forakers, no persons that in the least re- semble this precious crew. In Switzerland is no gang of public plun- derers operating under the shield of the Government, no theft of the public lands, no exchange of campaign subscriptions for Government favours, no John D. Rockefeller, no H. H. Rogers, no Ogden Armour, no Pierpont Morgan on a great scale or a small is none of these, nor likely to be. Finally, in Switzerland is no menace that the country's resources will be absorbed by a few individuals, no tremen- dous threat of the accumulative power of great fortunes." . . . " The Swiss conception of a public office seems equally odd. Cer- tain men are hired to do what the Swiss people tell them to do. That is all. A Swiss public officer would not think it well to take office and then refuse or neglect to perform the duty he was hired to per- form; he would not think it conducive to health. If he were put into office to prosecute public thieves he would proceed to prosecute them. They might be some of the best fellows in the world* and great friends of his party and otherwise admirable; he would plod on and prosecute them, And he would convict them. And they would be sentenced to prison. And there would be no new trials, no reversals, 413 no stays, no delays. Once condemned, the criminals would go to prison and remain there until their sentences expired, and meantime fare exactly like any other thieves. And that seems to be one good reason why there are no public thieves in Switzerland. Thieving is not a healthful occupation there; people do not yearn for it. In America a judge of a Federal Court found on investigation that the Beef Trust had been violating the law. He issued an injunction for- bidding it to continue to violate the law. For two years nothing was done to enforce that injunction, and nothing has ever been done to punish the Trust for the offences of which the judge had found it guilty. The method in Switzerland is different very different, in fact. There are no unenforced laws nor disregarded injunctions in Switzerland. On the whole the Swiss method seems to have advan- tages. It saves the law from falling into general disrepute. It dis- courages gentlemen from operating Amalgamated Copper deals. It bars out bribery factories such as Mr. Lawson has described in Massachusetts. It saves the country from the spectacle of Attorney- Generals apparently in league with lawbreakers. We had a case in America once where a Federal District Attorney wanted to indict some very notorious Trust-thieves, and an Assistant Attorney-General of the United States traveled from Washington to Chicago to prevent the indictment. The Swiss method would seem to obviate such travel and have other commendable points about it. I should like to see the Swiss method tried once in America. It might reduce our house- hold expenses." . . . " Insurance scandals and swindles such as we have recently been regaled with could never occur in Switzerland. This Government looks upon insurance as a thing vitally concerning most of its citizens and to be watched lest the public interests suffer. Therefore, it keeps the insurance companies under incessant supervision and inspection. They must show what they do with their money, and if they fall to fooling with their reserves and surpluses, out they go from Switzer- land. There are no profitable ' side syndicates ' for insurance direc- tors here, no stock pools, no checks for Mr. Depew, no dinners for actresses, no campaign subscriptions. The Government would in- stantly detect the missing money and demand to know about it. For- eign insurance companies doing business in Switzerland must make regular returns of all the policies they issue and invest a certain pro- portion of the total in Swiss property, and this property the Govern- ment is prepared to confiscate at any time for the benefit of the policy- holders." It will be remembered that the insurance investigation brought to light some most unsavoury facts in connexion with press corruption. It was shown that the Insurance Companies bribed the newspapers to print false news for the sake of misleading public opinion, and that these reports were printed not as paid advertisements but as news items, despite the fact that the companies paid as high as a dollar a line in some cases. The following article taken from the " New York Herald " of Oct. 25, 1905, explains the situation with sufficient thoroughness. Should 414 A KINGDOM OF THE DOLLAR the Reader wish more, he is referred to almost any other New York papers of the same date: " MUTUAL LIFE PAYS A DOLLAR A LINE FOR ' WHITEWASH.' DESPATCHES TELLING OF ' FAVORABLE ' WORK IN INQUIRY PRINTED BY NEWSPAPERS. $14,000 THE COST TO POLICY HOLDERS. $8,000 a Year ' Specialist ' Explains His Method and is Sure He Earns His Salary. ALLAN FORMAN HIS AGENT. John R. Hegeman of the Metropolitan, Tells of Loans to Himself and to Mr. McCall, of New York Life. " That the Mutual Life Insurance Company is at present maintain- ing a publicity bureau for the purpose of presenting to readers throughout the country favourable reports of the present legislative inquiry and is paying for such publications at the rate of one dollar a line to newspapers which consent to print them, was proved yester- day before the Armstrong committee. " Charles J. Smith, who is employed at a salary of $8,000 a year to do this work in connexion with other duties, testified that about $14,000 had been expended from the company's funds in this partic- ular enterprise within a few weeks. Mr. Smith prepares the notices, which include only such facts as may be elicited showing the affairs of the company in a roseate light, and sends them to Allan W. For- man, the editor of a publication known as the ' Journalist,' and Mr. Forman, through his so-called ' telegraph news bureau ' procures the publication of these laudatory reports in various publications through- out the country. " Six despatches have been sent out since the Mutual came under Mr. Hughes' scrutiny! Vouchers showed that something more than $11,000 had already been paid to Mr. Forman in connexion with this service and that the bills are not all yet received. " It was testified that all this matter is inserted under the guise of genuine news despatches from New York, that some newspapers charge more than a dollar a line for such service and others less, but that Mr. Forman lumps the contract at the dollar-a-line rate for each, and succeeds in printing the despatches sometimes in as many as one hundred newspapers outside of New York city. " Evidence was also elicited corroborating the statement made last week by the 'Herald' that the advertising accounts of the Mutual Life show an apparent discrepancy which leaves more than $300,000 415 unaccounted for. It appeared that a portion of the funds devoted to advertising purposes had been handled by Andrew C. Fields, the chief of the Mutual's supply department and its versatile legislative agent in Albany, whose whereabouts is now unknown to the com- mittee. Mr. Hughes informed Mr. Beck, counsel for the Mutual, that he would expect the proper officer of the company to account for this seeming discrepancy in the expenditures charged to advertising." Eeferring to political corruption funds, Mr. Henry George, Jr., says, in " The Menace of Privilege ": " Indeed, if only a few of the stories flying about were true, the Albany legislative session of 1904- 1905 was a carnival of putrescence. Those who profess to watch and understand assert that during that brief period the gas monopoly must have spent in round figures $500,000 in fighting legislation adverse to its privileges; that the Pennsylvania Eailroad Company must have paid out as much to effect legislation relative to its new underground terminal in New York city; that the other steam rail- roads must have spent at least half that amount in buying favours for themselves; that the Interborough Company (elevated and subway in New York city) must have spent a quarter of a million for legis- lative favours and protection; that the Bell telephone spent at least $150,000 to head off public investigation and a forced wholesale reduc- tion of its extortionate tariff rates; that the great insurance com- panies, because of the astounding state of things revealed by the Equi- table Society scandal, were forced to spend half a million to kill in- vestigating bills; and that other miscellaneous privileged interests were compelled to put up perhaps another $500,000 either to promote desired or to kill objectionable legislation. This would make an aggre- gate of $2,650,000, three-quarters of which, it is computed, went to the Eepublican party organisation, that being the majority party in the Legislature; and the other quarter paid out to individual mem- bers." With regard to this Insurance corruption, " The Evening Post/' Hartford, Conn., prints the following under the heading, " Eespec- table Crime " : " If taking money from the treasury of an insurance company and donating it to a political campaign committee is not a crime, what is it? . . . What right has the official, because he happens to be a Socialist, and therefore believes that the country and consequently the company would be benefited by the election of the Socialist national ticket, to give the money paid in by Eepublicans, Democrats and Independents to the Socialist national committee? By the same course of reasoning the official who happens to be a Uni- versalist in religion, might think that the country and consequently the insurance company, would be benefited by the supremacy of the Universalist church, and that he had a right to donate to the Uni- versalist committee the money paid into the insurance company by Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopalian and Unitarian. The in- surance company is organised to' insure people and not to save the nation." Is it any wonder that the Eev. C. H. McDonald, a coloured preacher, who was called upon to deliver the invocation at the opening of the day's session of the Assembly at the State Capital at Albany, April 416 A KINGDOM OF THE DOLLAR 28, 1905, should have felt moved to allude in his prayer to the bare- faced condition of bribery and graft which was evident upon every hand ? In the course of the invocation he said : " Oh, thou merciful God, we thank thee this morning for the realisation that thou art the Supreme Legislator of the universe. Bless the members of this dis- tinguished body, and when life's journey is at an end, we ask Thee to bring us to that General Assembly where Jesus Christ will be the Speaker, and business shall be transacted without graft or the dicta- tion of lobbyists." That graft is not confined to state governments but that the dis- ease is also undermining the national morality the well-informed have known for a long time. On May 26, 1906, a special to a New York paper from Washington stated that nearly $20,000,000 of government funds had been misapplied or otherwise taken, and that Congress pro- posed to take steps to ascertain what had become of this money and also how much money appropriated by Congress had disappeared without an accounting. The article continues : " The astounding discovery has just been made that during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, the enormous sum of $19,887,866 was expended in the various executive departments without a scratch of the pen in the way of bookkeeping to indicate how it was utilised. It is expected that an equal or larger amount will be found to have melted away the three following years. A total discrepancy of $100,000,000 between the appropriations of Congress and the expenditures of the executive departments is not impossible. " The reports of the various department auditors show that for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, an aggregate of $114,025,497 was expended. This covers the nine executive departments, the civil serv- ice commission, the government printing-office, the Smithsonian insti- tution and the interstate commerce commission. " The director of the census, in compiling and reporting the con- gressional appropriations for that year, finds an aggregate of $133,- 913,363. The difference, for which there is no accounting, being $19,887,866. " The appropriations committees of the senate and house have gone over these surprising figures and reached the conclusion that imme- diate action is essential to learn where the government money is going, and for what purpose it is being used. " On Monday Eepresentative Tawney will offer a joint resolution in the house and Senator Perkins will present the same in the senate providing for a congressional committee of six, three senators and three representatives, to sit during the summer and thoroughly investi- gate the discrepancy covered in the figures for 1903 and subsequent differences, if any exist. It is believed that the resolution will be adopted." Despite all these indisputable facts there are still to be found 'punky intellects who cry out as a response to the suggestion of munici- pal ownership that they are afraid the utility in question will be dragged into politics. In our own town, for example, are not a few -'who look askance at municipal lighting for just this reason, or more properly speaking, lack of reason. One would think, to hear them 27 417 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION voice their horror of political influence being applied to what should be a purely business proposition, that they were as ignorant as babe& of the present condition of the lighting companies, on the one hand, and the further fact, on the other, that their own town, like most other Massachusetts towns, was in the hands of a little political ring, the members of which appear to feel, and on some occasions seem to show, the supremest contempt for the wishes of the average citizen. This condition of affairs is not peculiar to our own town ; it is gen- erally an epidemic condition throughout the country. We cite the case of our own town, for the sake of being specific on the one hand, and because, on the other, we have a first-hand knowledge whereof we speak. We recall instances where politicians railroaded through a town-meeting resolution to the end that the legislature should be in- duced to pass compulsive legislation where permissive legislation would have served the purpose equally well and would have at the same time preserved, as far as possible, the home-rule rights of the town. Though governed ostensibly upon the town-meeting principle, there is a wide distrust of the people, and .efforts are continually in evidence to restrict as far as possible the power of the voter. Things which should be considered and discussed in open town-meeting are buried in committee where they often die still-born, or, failing that, are acted upon in a way that leaves the voter no means of determining what attitude his several official servants took upon these important matters. The result is that, when election day comes around, he is unable intelligently to select those officials whose conduct has expressed his desires, or to register his protest against those public csrvants who have been weighed in his balances and found wanting. Indeed, within the last few weeks we have witnessed the singular spectacle of a voter rising in our town caucus and apologising for asking for an ex- pression of the views of a candidate for nomination and these views which the voter desired pertained to a most important town mat- ter of years standing an old sore as it were. Think of such a con- dition of affairs in an intelligent community ! Imagine, if you can, such a thing occurring in New Zealand or in Switzerland. The fact of the matter is that the town-meeting spirit is gradually dis- appearing along with our other cherished ideals, and, as if by the irony of fate, the soil made sacred by the blood of our revolutionary fore- fathers leads all the rest in this sad degeneracy. In order to show how pernicious is every encroachment upon tl. 5 self-government of the town-meeting principle it may not be amiss Li quote the following from a sermon delivered May 28, 1905, by tho Eev. Herbert S. Bigelow, of Cincinnati, Ohio : " Before our ancestors conquered old England they had their home in the forests of Germany. Each clan dwelt in a community by itself, which was called the mark or the town. Each town had its folk-mote. This was an assembly of all the people, which met once a year or oftener. All laws were pro- posed, discussed and passed by this assembly. Each citizen had voice and vote, and the folk-mote was a pure democracy. " This system of popular government was transplanted into Eng- land. The English township corresponded to the mark, and each 418 A KINGDOM OF THE DOLLAR township had its popular assembly, or folk-mote, through which the people governed themselves directly. " In the course of time the liberties of the English townships were encroached upon, but when the Pilgrim fathers arrived in the New World, they reestablished township government in its purity under the name of the town-meeting. " In New England the township was the political unit. The people elected no law-makers. They came together in their town-meetings and made their own laws. Each town was a little republic. Popular sovereignty was not merely a theory; it was a fact. The power to make laws was not delegated, as now, to a few. In New England the town-council included all the citizens, and each man had a vote on the laws he was expected to obey. "John Fiske declared the New England town-meeting to be 'the most complete democracy in the world,' and ' the best political train- ing-school in existence.' Thomas Jefferson said it was 'the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation.' " In the course of time these towns elected delegates to a general as- sembly but, unlike our present State representatives, these delegates were under the direct control of their constituents. We petition our representatives. They instructed theirs. Speaking for the town- meeting of Boston, in 1764, Samuel Adams delivered an address to the newly elected delegates to the Massachusetts legislature, inform- ing them that the townsmen ' have delegated to you the power of acting in their public concerns in general as your own prudence shall direct you; always reserving to themselves the constitutional right of expressing their mind and giving you such instruction upon par- ticular matters as they at any time shall judge proper.' " It will be seen from the above that Samuel Adams considered offi- cials as public servants who might, properly, at any time be instructed by the people in regard to their wishes. Things have changed amaz- ingly since then. Officials now comport themselves as if they were rulers and the humble voter, if he lack the power of making his pres- ence politically felt, receives scant courtesy from them. The main tendency to apotheosise the dollar and to look upon the " business man " as something only short of divinity is responsible for a goodly portion of municipal inefficiency. This is not to say that the man of business may not be a most estimable person and a most eligible candidate for office, but it is to say that the pursuit of business is one of the cheapest of human activities. When we say cheapest we do not mean that any ignominy of necessity attaches to it. What we would say is that those attributes of character which go to make up to-day's successful " business man " are not especially grand or worthy. Busi- ness is simply the Nimrod tendency brought down to date. Your business man is a sort of commercial hunter, seeking to replenish his larder. It is of course necessary to eat, and business is an essential factor of modern society, but we have assuredly " o'ersprung our saddle," in our latter-day fulsome laudation of money-getting. In his lecture entitled "Life without Principle," that profound phi- losopher and man of all time, Henry D. Thoreau, said: "This 419 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle ! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no Sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easily buy a blank book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for business ! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business" When we add to this apotheosis of the " business man " as such the undue respect paid to the utterances of lawyers and their prevalence in political positions, we are able to understand how it happens that intelligent American communities, with all their history of great deeds and their elevated ideals, are to-day politically fifty years be- hind several foreign pocket principalities that could be mentioned. If we are to attain to anything worthy the name of the higher civili- sation, we shall have to put in office men whose horizon is not limited by the nearest dollar in sight, or rendered perpendicular by legal sophistry. What is needed is men of cosmopolitan intellect, men whose horizon is the universe and whose knowledge and interests em- brace the whole human race and sweep outwardly to the remotest speck of star-dust. The tendency toward concentration in govern- ment is now, always was, and ever will be pernicious. The intelli- gent voter must insist upon the maximum amount of decentralisation which is attainable. The power which comes from the people must be given back to the people. Our government to-day is a hydrostatic miracle. The stream has risen higher than its source. If this mir- acle be capable of any explanation, it is that the force-pump of graft has raised the stream geyser-like far above the source of its waters. In a memorial address delivered May 30, 1906, at the Purdue Uni- versity, J. F. Hanley, Governor of Indiana, spoke at length upon the subject of public graft. In the course of his address he made the following prediction, which is at the same time a warning. We take this extract from a partial report of the Governor's speech pub- lished in the " Cincinnati Enquirer " : " The American people are at the beginning of a great revolution. As yet there is in a literal sense no call to arms. There are no drum-beats, no bugle-blasts ; but the revolution is upon us. "Stupendous social, economic and political changes are involved. Deeply imbedded in the very core and centre of this revolution, run- ning like a thread of gold through all its shifting scenes and chang- ing forms, are certain fundamental principles of human rights and of human liberty, and unless we, in our day, and especially you in your day, possess a willingness to seek for these and the wisdom to find them and the patriotism and the courage to proclaim them, ' to stand by them and save 'them when found, the call -to arms!, the drum- beats, the bugle-blasts, the serried ranks, the marching' columns and 420 A KINGDOM OF THE DOLLAR the battlefields will come to us and to you as certainly as in the past they came to our fathers. " The criminal aggressions of incorporated and aggregated wealth against the individual must be stayed by legal regulations and whole- some laws courageously enforced, or history will repeat itself in your day as it has in the past. You will no more be exempt than other generations have been. 'Progress must and will be made. " I do not look with pleasure either upon the ' muck rake ' or the ' muck-raker,' but either is better than the { muck bed.' And as long as the muck bed remains I hope the * muck-raker ' will continue to expose it and to lay it bare, that the people may come to hate it, to de- spise the greed that feeds it, and to forsake every man whose hands are soiled with its pollution." We have seen that there is one law for the poor and another for the rich. We have recently witnessed the spectacle of an oil magnate flippantly defying the mandates of the courts. It will be remembered that Herman S. Hadley, attorney-general for the State of Missouri, who instituted proceedings against the Standard Oil Trust for viola- tions of the Missouri laws, went in person to New York to take evi- dence under the laws of that State for use in Missouri. Commenting upon this episode a Chicago weekly says: "Among the witnesses he examined was H. H. Eogers, who refused to answer important questions, and was consequently brought before the New York courts in proceedings for contempt. On the 31st the New York court sus- tained Mr. Eogers." This could, of course, have easily been prophe- sied, for this is the same Eogers who, according to Mr. Thomas Law- son, exhibited to Clark of Montana a written document showing that two over a majority of the United States Senate were pledged in writ- ing to do the bidding of Standard Oil in the matter at issue between them. To put it in Mr. Lawson's own words : " At the appointed time the great manipulator, as calmly as though he were exhibiting a bill of sale for a car-load of barreled petroleum, allowed Clark to inspect a list of two over a majority of our grave and reverend seign- iors." This is the Eogers who, according to the report to the Danish government made by Captain W. Christmas, Dirckinch, Holmfeldt, Oct., 1901, and published in our own " Congressional Eecord " of March 27, 1902, page 3340, boasted that he could swing more than two dozen votes in the Senate. In the report Capt. Christmas says : " Mr. Eogers is a man about sixty, extremely wealthy, but, in spite of his large fortune of about $50,000,000, is exceedingly desirous of making more. He is the most active of the .Standard Oil Company, and is both hated and feared in the money world on account of his absolute inconsiderateness in his money operations. : . . . Mr. Eogers was evidently dissatisfied because I had taken hold of the sale of the islands, and he repeated several times, * I wish to make money by this, and don't you forget it.' ): This is the Eogers regarding whom Mr. Henry George, Jr., prints the following paragraph on page 258 of "The Menace of Privilege": " In Delaware Addickism is a synonym for political putrefaction. A detailed charge made by Mr. Thomas W. Lawson of Boston that Mr. Henry H. Eogers, vice-president of the Standard Oil Company, paid 421 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION in cash a quarter of a million dollars as a bribe for the vacation of a receivership of the Addicks Bay State Gas Company, has been con- firmed by several, among them ex-United States Senator Anthony J. Higgins. Mr. Eogers has not taken the trouble even to deny the charge through the press." The following clipping from the " Plain Dealer," entitled " A Model Witness " suggests very vividly Mr. Rogers' answers upon the witness stand. " The opposing counsel : * What is your name ? ' " The witness, appealing to the judge : ' Am I obliged to answer this ? ' " The judge : < You are.' " The witness : ' My name is Todgers/ * First name ? ' 1 1 decline to answer/ ' On what ground ? ' ' It would be construed into a reflection on the good taste of my parents/ ' Where were you born ? ' * I decline to answer/ 'Why?' ' Because all my information on the subject is of the hearsay character/ * But you were there at the time ? ' ' I decline to admit it/ ' What is your age ? ' ' Before answering I desire to consult with my attorneys/ ' What is your ostensible business ? ' ' I do not remember/ ' Are you in any way connected with the Ramrod trust ? ' ' I do not remember/ ' What is its capitalisation ? ' ' I do not remember/ ' What is your salary ? ' ' I do not remember/ ' Are you married ? ' ' I do not remember/ " The judge : * The hearing will now be adjourned until ten a. m. to-morrow. And I want to congratulate the opposing counsel on the marked progress they have made in advancing the case/ '' The subserviency of high national officials to the dictates of privi- lege is so well known that it scarcely excites comment. Everywhere the eye meets clippings like the following, printed as an Exchange in a Kansas weekly : " * The first duty of a leader, civil or military, is to lead/ said President Roosevelt in his Portsmouth speech. We thought the first duty was to compromise with Aldrich. " It is interesting in this connexion to peruse the following from John Adams' " Opinions of Philosophers " : " Sidney says, * No sedition was hurtful to Rome, until, through their prosperity, some men gained the power above the laws/ ' ; The state legislatures are if possible even more vendible than the national legislature. We are wont to consider the State of Massa- 422 A KINGDOM OF THE DOLLAR chusetts as about as high-toned as any in the Union, yet this is the awful indictment which Mr. Thomas W. Lawson brings against it, on page 140 of " Frenzied Finance " : " The Massachusetts Legislature is bought and sold as are sausages and fish at the markets and wharves. That the largest, wealthiest, and most prominent corporations in New England, whose affairs are conducted by our most representative citi- zens, habitually corrupt the Massachusetts Legislature, and the man of wealth connect&d with such corporations who would enter protest against the iniquity would be looked on as a 'class anarchist/ I will go further and state that if in New England a man of the type of Folk, of Missouri, can be found who, after giving over six months to turning up the legislative and Boston municipal sod of the past ten years, does not expose to the world a condition of rottenness more rot- ten than was ever before exhibited in any community in the civilised world, it will be because he has been suffocated by the stench of what he exhumes." Later on, in "Everybody's" for July, 1906, Mr. Lawson altered the above indictment as follows : " For years the Massachusetts Legis- lature, neither questioning nor hesitating, had done the bidding of King Dollar. Debauchery of the ballot-box, bribery in city and State offices, the purchase and sale of verdicts in the courts, and perjury everywhere were the proofs of obedience, of the subjection of the boot- blacks to the padrone. During these years the law-makers and law- administrators were at all times on the block to the highest bidder. I have told you that they were bought and sold as are sausages and fish at the market and wharves. I TELL YOU NOW THAT THEY ARE BOUGHT AND SOLD LIKE PUTRID SAUSAGES AND STINK- ING FISH, IN BULK, AT FERTILIZER PRICES." That the present condition of corruption is fast effacing all our great American ideals, he who runs may see ; but there are not a few Avho will be surprised to learn that even the lives of innocent men have ceased to be safe from the terrible Juggernaut of greed. We have seen that the so-called Chicago anarchists were martyrs rather than criminals, and from all appearances there is now in progress .a cold-blooded and brazen conspiracy to hang labour officials who are obnoxious to the " system/' The course thus far pursued by the hire- lings of Mammon has been in defiance of all law, of the fundamental rights of American citizens and of the simplest tenets of social de- cency. On the night of December 30, 1905, Ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg, of Idaho, was assassinated by a bomb placed in such a position that it would explode when he opened his front gate. On the night of February 17th, Charles Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners, was arrested in Denver. William Haywood, the Secretary of the organisation, and C. A. 'Pettibone, a former official, were also arrested. Commenting on this summary proceed- ing, Joseph Wanhope says, in an article entitled, " The Haywood- Moyer Outrage," written " on the spot," (see " Wilshire's Magazine " April, 1906) : "There is little doubt but that the crime was per- petrated by some miner who had suffered from his cruelty in the * bull pen ' in 1899. At least this theory is far more probable than one now in circulation that his death was due to the vengeance of cattle breed- 423 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION ers who were angered against him on account of his connexion with the sheep industry. While there is and has been for years a feud between the cattle and sheep raisers, and many murders have resulted therefrom, all of these so far have been through the medium of fire- arms, bombs never being used in this particular warfare. " This was the chance the mine-owners were looking for. If this crime could be charged to the officials of the Western Federation of Miners, it might be possible to destroy them under that pretext. ".So, on the night of February 17th, a sudden coup was decided on, and put into operation." . . . " The arrest was secretly and illegally carried ou,t. The wives and families of the men were given no intimation of what had happened. The prisoners were held a few hours in the county jail, and then rushed by special train into Idaho. The Federation attorney, Mr. Eichardson, who attempted to secure the release of the prisoners on a writ of habeas corpus, based on the unlawfulness of the arrest, describes the history of the transaction as follows : ' It reads like one of the raids of Dick Turpin or of Robin Hood. It was gentlemanly in the extreme, but it was dastardly in the execu- tion.' " That the writ of habeas corpus was denied was to be expected. It was not probable that the conspirators would permit any such fool- ishness to rob them even temporarily of their prey. Possession was more than nine points of the law in this case, and it proved to be all of it. The Federation attorneys have appealed to the United States Supreme Court. " Then came the opportunity of the press to play its part. The guilt of the prisoners was at once assumed. A torrent of lies, rumours, reports and alleged confessions poured forth through the columns of the press almost hourly, to be contradicted in the succeeding issues, and new stories fabricated." . . . " The accused men, on their arrival in Idaho, were placed in the penitentiary at Boise. Though waiting trial, they were assigned to the quarters of prisoners already convicted. Moyer and Haywood occupied separate cells, one between them being occupied by a convict or more likely a detective assuming that character. The rules ap- plied to them were those for convicts. Their correspondence was lim- ited to one letter every two weeks. Mrs. Haywood, a helpless invalid, assured me the other day that she had received but one letter from her husband since his arrest. " Word now comes that this has been changed under protest of the attorneys against its illegal character, and the prisoners have been removed to the jail at Caldwell, which is surrounded by armed men, on account of the alleged desperate characters of the accused." Commenting upon this episode under the title of " The Colorado Assassination Conspiracy," " The Public " of March 17, 1906, says editorially : " Eeports of a horrible conspiracy to assassinate were published over the country early this week. The charges are against leaders of the Western Federation of Miners, the socialist labour organisation which has its headquarters at Denver. If these charges are true, there can be no reasonable sympathy with the men accused. 424 A KINGDOM OF THE DOLLAR Their crime merits unsparing condemnation and relentless punish- ment. But as published the charges do not bear the earmarks of truth. They rest upon a fantastic confession purporting to have been obtained from an alleged accomplice by means avowedly unlawful and through nerve-racking methods; and the corroborative facts are such as might easily be ' faked ' by detectives. The whole affair has less the appearance of the discovery of a conspiracy of assassins than of an effort to arouse public prejudice against men about to be tried for their lives men who are innocent but whom the Standard Oil crowd have marked for hanging. That there has been a conspiracy to assassinate is true beyond peradventure ; but whether the prisoners or their prosecutors are the conspirators is an open question." It will be remembered that the labour leaders who have been ar- rested were at the head of the recent strike in Colorado, a strike in which the so-called better element, as we have seen, resorted to extremes of lawlessness, the like of which has never before been wit- nessed in this country. It was during this strike that General Bell, according to press reports, adopted the following high-toned motto, " To hell with the constitution ; we'll give them post-mortems." The lawlessness practised in the Colorado strike was in the interests and at the instigation of the mine-owners who were determined to break the Miners' Union. These mine-owners are a part of the Standard Oil crowd, and they are the same conspirators who apparently are now seeking to convict Mover, Haywood and Pettibone by means as ridiculous as they are outrageous. The following editorial from a Chicago weekly is pregnant with suggestiveness. It is from the pen of a lawyer, Mr. Louis F. Post, and reads thus : " In connexion with the kidnapping under legal forms, by a private detective, of three citizens of Colorado, upon charges of having conspired to murder an ex-governor of Idaho, certain considerations should not be ignored, for corporation tools are endeavouring to build up a public sentiment hostile to the prisoners. We allude to the case of the officers of the Miners' Union who are now awaiting trial in Idaho upon the basis of alleged confessions of the self-confessed murderer. The accused are labour leaders; their prosecutors, the employers of the private de- tective who has constructed the case, are an inner circle of the Stand- ard Oil crowd. The labour leaders in question were at the head of the recent strike in Colorado, which grew out of the corrupt refusal of a legislature subsidised by the employing interests to obey an eight- hour-day amendment to the State constitution, and in connexion with which the executive authority of Colorado was used against the strik- ers and others in a manner fundamentally lawless. The murder in question, that of ex-Gov. Steunenberg of Idaho, occurred long after his influence and personality had ceased to be of the slightest concern to any labour leader or organisation. Now, under these circumstances, what are the probabilities as to who are the real conspirators to whom Steunenberg's murder should be attributed? " Motive is a primary consideration in determining guilt in crim- inal cases. But these labour leaders had no reasonable motive for murdering Steunenberg. On the other hand, the conspirators in the mine-owners' crowd had an obvious motive for his murder, if thereby 425 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION they might bring about the condemnation and execution of these labour leaders, and forestall criminal prosecutions of themselves upon an overturn in Colorado politics. Again, murderous tools do not hire themselves out for murderous exploits to persons powerless to protect them. The labour leaders could offer no immunity, even though will- ing to pay for the crime. But the other side were rich enough to pay far more liberally, andjaowerful enough to afford the murderer protection. According to the alleged confessions, the accused labour leaders were idiotic in their selection of a murderous tool, idiotic in their modes of payment for murder, without motive for the murder in question, and manifestly impotent to protect the murderer. Not so with the inner circle of the mine-owners' union, which comes into close relations with the Standard Oil crowd. They had a powerful motive, they could pay without stint, their tool could trust to their power for immunity, and the circumstances are precisely what they might be expected to be had the murderous conspiracy originated with them. This is a trail which should not be overlooked by the Idaho authorities if they are hunting the real murderers. If, how- ever, they are engaged in helping the latter to consummate a con- spiracy, they are following the correct course by diverting attention from all these significant probabilities." Eeferring to the kidnapping of these officials of " The Western Fed- eration of Miners," a Kansas paper, says : " From the moment of the arrest of these men they were denied access to friends, families or attorneys. Kidnapping in this country is a felony. To conspire to kidnap a person is a second offence. That Moyer, Haywood and Petti- bone were kidnapped is not denied. It is also apparent, and can be proved in court, that Governor McDonald and his aides acted in col- lusion, jointly conspired, to kidnap the men whom they charge with the responsibility of the Steunenberg assassination. It remains to be seen whether the governor and his pals are convicted of conspiracy and kidnapping and condemned to a felon's sentence." "FIRST INSTANCE ON RECORD." " This is the first time in the history of this country that the gov- ernors of two states conspired to take persons from one state into another without first giving them an opportunity to apply for a writ of habeas corpus. Heretofore it has been the custom that, before the liberty of any person was taken from him, constitutional methods were employed, and the statutes of the state in which he resided were complied with to the letter. . When the prosecuting attorney of Canyon county, Idaho, drew up the warrants and made out the papers for the arrest of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, he knew that neither of these men were in Idaho at the time of the commission of the crime with which they were charged. The governor of Idaho and the gov- ernor of Colorado knew the situation, and knew this to be the fact. Yet, regardless of the federal constitution, and in plain violation of the statutes of Colorado and Idaho, McDonald and Gooding de- liberately, illegally and clandestinely conspired and confederated to deprive the officials of the Western Federation of Miners of their 426 A KINGDOM OF THE DOLLAR liberty, spirit them secretly away to another state and there hold them on the infamously trumped-up charge of murder." Apropos of this Mr. Hugh 0. Pentecost, lawyer and lecturer, said in part, in an address delivered on March 26, 1906, in Lyric Hall, New York city, upon the subject of the arrest of Moyer and Haywood: " During this strike three startling crimes were committed. One of them was the pulling out of some spikes which held the rails of a railroad track in place, apparently for the purpose of wrecking a train. Curiously enough, the engineer of the next train that came along had a suspicion that something was wrong, and stopped his train! It is natural to suppose that he was told. A number of union men were arrested and charged with pulling the spikes because a man by the name of McKinney and another man confessed to having pulled the spikes at the instigation of the officers of the union just such a case as this. On the trial, under cross examination, both these ac- cusers confessed that they were lying. McKinney himself said that he had been told by a representative of the mine-owners that if he would lay that charge to the officers of the union they would give him a thousand dollars in cash, immunity from punishment, and transpor- tation for himself and family to any part of the world that he wanted to go. Carroll D. Wright reports that to the president ; it is not my story. So there is one case where the mine-owners hired men to make exactly this kind of charge against the officers of the union. If they would do that in one instance, is there any reason to believe that they would not in another? There were two other occasions of the same nature, and in all three instances the labour men were acquitted. " Do you say it is inconceivable that great and reputable financiers could be guilty of putting up such a plot as the accusing of Moyer and Haywood and the others of the crime of murder? Standard Oil is a large owner in those mines. J. P. Morgan, George Gould, Meyer Guggenheimer, and western capitalists are behind the capitalist end of this controversy. We know that in one case I have already de- tailed to you they did hire men to make accusations against innocent men, charge them with a crime that would have sent them to the gallows. And anybody that will read the history of the growth and development of the Standard Oil Company will not have much diffi- culty in believing that they would be guilty of anything whatever to accomplish their purpose. " Now, mind you, I do not pass judgment. I do not say whether Moyer and Haywood and the others are guilty or not. I am talking about probabilities. I ask you what motive these splendid men (for they really are great men, high-minded, peace-loving men), what motive would they have to assassinate ex-Governor Steunenberg? The troubles were all over. Steunenberg was no longer governor of the state. What motive could they have had for this savage, cowardly, contemptible assassination? Just bare, bald revenge for something that was past and gone ? It is inconceivable ! On the other hand, what motive have the mine-owners for arresting these men? The motive to break up the union, for until the union is broken up they cannot reduce the miners to abject submission. So I say, that these men are guilty is inconceivable. There would be no sense in their 427 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION being guilty. It would be not only an act of insanity, but an act of stupidity. " And, lest I forget it, let me say that under the laws of this, state (I don't know what the laws of Idaho are, though I think it must be the same there) the evidence which they have against these men would not be sufficient to warrant their arrest, even. The law of New York very wisely says that no one can be convicted of a crime upon the evidence of an accomplice, unless that testimony is otherwise cor- roborated. Would any sane person believe the word of a man who says that he has committed thirty murders, and of another man who is, to say the least, a cur, for a man who will commit a crime with another man and then ' peach ' is unworthy of belief. Would you take the word of these two men against the word of these labour lead- ers whose characters are stainless and whose lives are known and read of all men ? Would you, if you were on the jury, think the word of Orchard and Adams any evidence at all ? " At the conclusion of his address, the speaker said: " If these men are to be tried unfairly, with a packed jury, and without any evidence at all, believe me, the class that hangs them in that way will have to pay the price to the very last farthing." Implicated in this conspiracy against the Western Federation of Miners, if such it be, and it certainly seems to bear all the hall- marks of a conspiracy, is the Pinkerton detective, McPartland, regard- ing whom we read that the " New York Sun " recently published " a two and a half column exposure," and also that the " New York ' Evening Post/ the Wall Street organ, has told of his ruthless crime without reserve." We extract the following from an article in a Kansas paper, entitled " McPartland, the Pariah " : " On page 233 of the ' American Law Review,? the best authority on the history of law, and which necessarily is unbiased, is to be found the following statement : ' Jame$ McPartland, selected by Allan Pinkerton, at the behest of the capitalists, went, under the assumed name of James McKenna, among the Molly McGuires in 1873, became officer and very promi- nent in a district union of that order. Murders were committed. McPartland instigated them, aided and abetted the crimes, accord- ing to testimony adduced and used by the defence for the sole purpose of using his participation as evidence in the prosecution of his alleged accomplices; seven of them were hanged, although McPartland's testimony of their guilt should have required corroboration." Apropos of the part played by another shady character, one Harry Orchard, the " Chicago American " says, in commenting upon the charge of murder against Moyer and Haywood growing out of Orchard's confession: "It is based upon the confession of a man, Orchard, known to be guilty of murder. This man confesses to par- ticipating in thirty murders or more, and his evidence is to be taken to swear away the lives of three men, honourable, respected and hard- working hitherto. < The murderer whose ' confession ' is expected to hang three others, tells some cock-and-bull story about a detective talking to him ' of his mother and making him confess,' with tears running down his cheeks. 428 A KINGDOM OF THE DOLLAR "A man who has done the things that this Orchard confesses to doing, that this informer confesses to doing, would murder his own mother for a small reward." The difference of attitude of the monopolist class toward organisa- tions of capital and organisations of labour is indicative of a total blindness to justice, and it presages grave trouble in the near future. The interests of labour and of capital are identical. They are both, as it were, in the same boat, and both should join forces to fight their common enemy, Monopoly. Instead of this, however, the capitalist falls an easy prey to the thousand and one pit-falls by which the monopolist foments discord between him and the labourer. That which is capital to-day was labour yesterday, that is to say, it was in process of creation as wealth. It is ridiculous to talk about an " ir- reconcilable conflict" between to-day's labour and yesterday's labour, while ignoring the pregnant fact that the real conflict is between those who create wealth and those who steal it, namely, labour and capital, on the one side, as creators, and monopolists on the other, as thieves. We cannot better close this subject than by the following quotation from an address delivered by Eobert G. Ingersoll some fifteen years or so ago, and published in the press of the country at that time : " Capital has always claimed, and still claims, the right to combine. Manufacturers meet and determine prices even in spite of the great law of supply and demand. Have the labourers the same right to consult and combine ? The rich meet in the bank, club house or parlour. Workingmen, when they combine, gather in the street. All the organised forces of society are against them. Capital has the army and navy, the legislature, the judicial and executive departments. When the rich combine it is for the purpose of ' exchanging ideas.' When the poor combine it is a ' conspiracy.' If they act in concert, if they really do something, it is a ' mob.' If they defend themselves it is treason. How is it the rich can control the departments of gov- ernment? In this country the political power is equally divided among men. There are certainly more poor than rich. Why should the rich control? Why should not the labourers combine for the purpose of controlling the executive, the legislative and judicial de- partments? Will they ever find how powerful they are? A cry comes from the oppressed, the hungry, from .the downtrodden, from the unfortunate, from the despised, from men who despair and from women who weep. There are times when mendicants become revolu- tionists when a rag becomes a banner, under which the noblest and the bravest battle for right." 429 CHAPTER III MUNICIPAL CONDITIONS 431 That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy. Macaulay On Mitford's History of Greece. Our law classes cities with women as _ having no right to self-govern- ment a fact which may be regarded as' affording legal grounds for the custom of calling a city " she." . . . Boston is the city of which I am speaking. A little while ago she wished to run a wire from the City Hall to the Old Court House, either over or under the little back street 50 or 60 feet wide that lies between the two buildings. The object was to enable the city to light the Old Court House from the dynamo in City Hall. A bill was introduced for the pur- pose, accompanied by petition of the mayor of Boston (House Bill No. 747, 1898), but the electric companies did not wish municipalities to use a dynamo in a public building to operate lights outside of the building, and the Legislature refused to pass the bill, and Boston cannot run a wire between two of her own buildings over or under her own street. A municipality has no independent initiative of its own, and it is the only human thing in America that hasn't got it. The nation has a right of independent initiative in national affairs, the state in state affairs, and the individual in individual affairs, but the municipality must have permission from the legislature for everything it does. . . . It is bad enough to hold life as a tenant at will, but even that might be endurable if the city were allowed to have the attributes of a living being while entrusted with existence. But, to have no power of self activity; to be required to get permission to move! that is unbearable. Prof. Frank Parsons The Bondage of Cities. " In calculating what a man ' stands for ' " continued the Colonel, " you must consider his week-day occupations and not merely his Sabbath-day devotions or diversions. You must consider how he gets his dollars and not how he disburses his dimes. If he builds his fortune on fraud and chicanery, on stolen franchises, and padded balance sheets, on unfair re- bates, and rotten lobbies, it is quite immaterial whether his private hobby be Sunday-schools or draw poker. Indeed, when he gets drunk and paints the town red, like an honest knave, we feel a certain humourous sym- pathy for him that dries up entirely when we see him on his knees be- fore the deified egoism that he mistakes for God." " But can't a man be a great promoter and exploiter and still be a good citizen? " asked Barlow. " He can," answered Colonel Lumpkin, " but it isn't necessary. We are talking about the essential functions of profit conveyors, and not about accidents of taste or ornamentation." " The point is this, Barlow," said Judge Docket, interrupting. " You may be too scrupulous to float my little conspiracy against the public weal, but that doesn't close the deal. You simply don't fit into this particular pipe-line but some other capitalist will. His morals and not yours must, therefore, measure the ethics of the guild." John M. Palmer The Morals of Mammon. McClure's, July, 1906. The reason sometimes given for the legislative power of strangling a municipality is that it was created by the legislature, and as the breath of life was breathed into it by the state authorities they have the right to withdraw the said breath at their pleasure. On similar grounds a par- ent would have a right to murder his child, and we should go back to the Roman plan of placing the power of life and death in the head of the family. Moreover, private corporations, as well as public, are created by the legislature and if creation confers a right of limitless modification 432 even to dissolution in the one case, why not in the other? Finally, cities and towns are not created by the legislature. They may exist and fre- quently have existed without any legislature, and before there was any legislature. Their existence gives them the right of local self-government. People living together in the same locality have a right to associate them- selves for the accomplishment of common purposes, and to control their local affairs without dictation from distant cities and without permission from any legislature. Prof. Frank Parsons The Bondage of the Cities. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free, honour- able alike in what we give and what we preserve. Abraham Lincoln. Where bastard Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves. Moore. You have among you many a purchas'd slave, Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules, You use in abject and in slavish parts, Because you bought them. Merchant of Venice. The very mudsills of society . . . We call them slaves. . . ". But I will not characterise that class at the North with that term; but you have it. It is there, it is everywhere, it is eternal. James H. Hammond. 28 433 CHAPTER III "Man is the most wonderful grafter of all the works of God." Philistine. MUNICIPAL CONDITIONS N"E of the things which astonishes the Swiss in visiting America is the amazing amount of fuss and feathers we make over our elections, and he is often apt to think indeed many of us make the same mistake ourselves that all this bustle is indicative of a re- markably keen, active and deep-seated interest in affairs political. He does not know, how should he that a good 99 per cent, of all this is spurious, the fanfaronade of designing poli- ticians anxious to stir up a tumult upon the waves of which they may float into office. We are a strange lot. If a man stop on the sidewalk and look straight up into the air, the next man will do likewise, and so on until a crowd has gathered. A few well-paid political bell-wethers are all that is needed to lead us political sheep into the party shambles. With patriotism the story is precisely the same. We shout and burn much money on the 4th of July. We wave flags and sing patriotic songs on many occasions. We have a regular system of so-called patriotic instruction in our public schools. In short, we flamboyantly parade and stamp the letter of patriotism upon all our transactions, yet its spirit is as dead among us as the mummy of Eameses I. In our own town of Arlington, within a stone's throw of ground which drank itself sacred with patriotic revolutionary blood, we have heard much to-do about flags, curfews and patriotic celebrations, the echoes of which eloquent speeches had scarcely ceased to resound in our town-hall before those fundamental principles of liberty and equality, for which our forefathers sacrificed their lives, were challenged and made to run a disgraceful gauntlet for their very existence. To these people, and they are representative of a general conditton, patriotism is a matter of powder, noise, fustian and bunting. They laud, in their eloquent Fourth of July orations, those grand Americans who wrote our charter of liberties, and gave us our Constitution, coupling in the same breath in fulsome praise the names of executives who have trampled upon the Declaration of Independence and distorted the Constitution until its framers would scarcely recognise it. We have kept the shell and thrown away the meat. A great philosopher has asked, " Have we no culture, no refinement, but skill only to live coarsely and serve the devil ? to acquire a little worldly wealth, or fame, or liberty, and make a false show with it, as if we were all husk and shell, with no tender and living 434 MUNICIPAL CONDITIONS kernel to us? Shall our institutions be like those chestnut-burrs which contain abortive nuts, perfect only to prick the fingers? " America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be fought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense that is meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself from a political tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and moral tyrant." " The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life." We have ex- changed the spirit of our forefathers for a petty, miserly hunger for the dollar. Politics, so far from being a function of good government, has degenerated into a specialised graft. Though we have been told again and again that they are best governed who are least governed, yet we multiply laws, muddle our statutes and make the social machine a mechanism so complicated that it consumes in friction a foot-ton for every foot-pound of beneficial result. All this needless threshing about naturally impresses a .Swiss and leads him to wonder if there is some deeply hidden reason, which he is un- able to comprehend, why we should use a pile-driver to break an egg- shell. Thoreau said : " Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously per- formed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body. They are tVi/ra-human, a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half consciousness of them going on about me, as a man may become con- scious of some of the processes of digestion in a morbid state and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called. It is as if a thinker submitted himself to be rasped by the great gizzard of creation. Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of eloquence. Thus our life is not alto- gether a forgetting, but also, alas ! to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as ewpeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever-glorious morning. I do not make an exorbitant demand, surely." It will be seen that the great philosopher did not believe in the necessity of a social earthquake upon every election day, yet we do not consider that he thought it unnecessary that men should perform their duties to society at the polls. With prophetic vision he seems to have seen, in imagination, the day when good government shall have become a sort of social instinct, and shall be demanded and secured as a mere matter of course. Does this seem a millennial im- possibility? How many things, think you, would all voters have to realise in order to produce this result, supposing every man knew that the least governed are the best governed; that all concentration in government is pernicious and not to be tolerated; that all representa- tion should be direct ; that nominations should be by the people and not by machines; that candidates for nomination should be required 435 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION to fully express their views upon all important issues; that any re- calcitrant or unfaithful official should be subject to immediate recall; that the Constitution was a menace to justice and a weapon ideally fitted to the hand of the iniquitous; that it should be abolished and that the will of the people, properly expressed, should be the highest law of the land; that all government flows from the people and that the people should at all times be able to make it flow this way or that, or stop its motion in any particular, altogether; that power is always corruptive and that, as Lincoln said, no man is great enough to rule his fellow man; that the idea of a government of the many by an intelligent few is one of the devil's best efforts, which would quickly and inevitably result in a government of the many by the intelligent few, for the intelligent few, and in spite of the many. Were these things realised, how long would it take before our political activities were reduced to the smoothness of healthful subconscious functioning? We are deeply sensible of our aches and our ailments, and this terrific political consciousness is after all but an eloquent tribute to our diseased condition. In Switzerland elections are fre- quent and simple, and the Swiss goes to the polls as we gb to the post-office. He does not have to make a day of it, and, so far as we are aware, no especial precautions have to be taken, as with us, to prevent his getting drunk. Here great care has to be taken lest the bibulous celebrate the shell-game just played upon them in copious libations poured out to the god of political chicanery. It has been fashionable of late years in this country to seek to palliate the un- savoury fact of our political corruption by laying the blame upon the foreign population. We are told that it is the foreigner who has lowered our American standards and poisoned our ideals. This con- fession that the American character was too weak to maintain itself in its own home, surrounded by an environment of its own making, fortified by grand precedents and ideals and illumined by the en- lightened torch of advanced civilisation against a relatively few igno- rant and uncultivated foreigners, foreigners without resources, strang- ers to our land, our language, climate, usages, manners and customs, seems to them the preferable horn of the dilemma. To us it is the most humiliating form confession could take. If these poor apolo- gists are right, we have not only not been able to assimilate our immi- grants, we have not even swallowed them, while on the contrary, they have swallowed us. It is with pleasure, therefore, that we submit facts showing the utter untenableness of this position. We have de- generated, but our degeneracy is American not foreign, and, more than this, if we are to again sub-divide, we shall find its source among the so-called better class or the presumably more American Americans, if we were to borrow the social prejudices of the aforesaid apologists. The most corrupt area in the United States has the highest per cent. of American population to be found in any similar area. We refer to the city of Philadelphia, which has 47 per cent, of its population native-born of native-born parents, being the most American of our greater cities. We shall see that this city is, in the language of Dr. Parkhurst, " comfortably rotten." W. J. Ghent says, in " Mass and Class/' that an adequate history 436 MUNICIPAL CONDITIONS of graft in the United States " would require a greater quantity of print than that contained in the latest editions of the Encyclopedia Bfitannica." This history he asserts " would rightly begin with July 4, 1776, not because that date marked the beginning of graft, but because it marked the beginning of the United States, and it would continue to the last hour before going to press." He annotates this statement as follows : " The captious, if they choose, may take the alternative date, April 30, 1789." In 1902 and 1903 Mr. Lincoln Steffens published a series of ar- ticles pertaining to the corrupt Conditions of several American cities. Later Mr. Steffens published the articles under the title, " The Shame of the Cities." The articles are so ably written and are so crowded with appalling facts conservatively stated that it is hard to quote from them, since one scarcely knows where to stop. They should be read in extenso in order properly to appreciate the extent of our municipal corruption. In the introduction to this work Mr. Steffens emphasises several points of view which seem to us quite as im- portant as anything contained in the articles themselves. He says: " The misgovernment of the American people is misgovernment by the American people. "When I set out on my travels, an honest New Yorker told me honestly that I would find that the Irish, the Catholic Irish, were at the bottom of it all everywhere. The first city I went to was .St. Louis, a German city. The next was Minneapolis, a Scandinavian city, with a leadership of New Englanders. Then came Pittsburg, Scotch Presbyterian, and that was what my New York friend was. ' Ah, but they are all foreign populations,' I heard. The next city was Philadelphia, the purest American community of all, and the most hopeless. And after that came Chicago and New York, both* mongrel- bred, but the one a triumph of reform, the other the best example of good government that I had seen. The ' foreign element ' excuse is one of the hypocritical lies that save us from the clear sight of our- selves. " Another such conceit of our egotism is that which deplores our politics and lauds our business. This is the wail of the typical American citizen. Now, the typical American citizen is the busi- ness man. The typical business man is a bad citizen; he is busy. If he is a ' big business man ' and very busy, he does not neglect, he is busy with politics, oh, very busy and very businesslike. I found him buying boodlers in St. Louis, defending grafters in Minneapolis, originating corruption in Pittsburg, sharing with bosses in Philadel- phia, deploring reform in Chicago, and beating good government with corruption funds in New York. He is a self-righteous fraud, this big business man. He is the chief source of corruption, and it were a boon if he would neglect politics. But he is not the business man that neglects politics; that worthy is the good citizen, the typical business man. He too is busy, he is the one that has no use and therefore no time for politics. When his neglect has permitted bad government to go so far that he can be stirred to action, he is un- happy, and he looks around for a cure that shall be quick, so that 437 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION he may hurry back to the shop. Naturally, too, when he talks politics, he talks shop. His patent remedy is quack ; it is business. ' Give us a business man/ he says, ('like me,' he means). 'Let him introduce business methods into politics and government; then I shall be left alone to attend to my business.' " There is hardly an office from United States Senator down to Al- derman in any part of the country to which the business man has not been elected ; yet politics remains corrupt, government pretty bad, and the selfish citizen has to hold himself in readiness like the old volun- teer fireman to rush forth at any hour, in any weather, to prevent the fire; and he goes out sometimes and he puts out the fire, (after the damage is done), and he goes back to the shop sighing for the business man in politics. The business man has failed in politics as he has in citizenship. Why ? " Because politics is business. That's what's the matter with it. That's what's the matter with everything, art, literature, religion, journalism, law, medicine, they're all business, and all as you see them. Make politics a sport, as they do in England, or a profession, as they do in Germany, and we'll have well, something else than we have now, if we want it, which is another question. But don't try to reform politics with the banker, the lawyer, and the dry-goods mer- chant, for these are business men and there are two great hindrances to their achievement of reform : one is that they are different from, but no "better than, the politicians; the other is that politics is not ' their line.' . .- . " The politician is a business man with a specialty. When a busi- ness man of some other line learns the business of politics, he is a politician, and there is not much reform left in him. Consider the United .States Senate, and believe me. " The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism ; of credit, not honour; of individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle. ' My business is sacred,' says the business man in his heart. ' Whatever prospers my business, is good ; it must be. Whatever hinders it, is wrong; it must be. A bribe is bad, that is, it is a bad thing to take ; but it is not so bad to give one, not if it is necessary to my business.' ' Business is business ' is not a political sentiment, but our politician has caught it. He takes essen- tially the same view of the bribe, only he saves his self-respect by piling all his contempt upon the bribe-giver, and he has the great advantage of candor. ' It is wrong, maybe,' he says, ' but if o, rich merchant can afford to do business with me for the sake of a convenience or to increase his already great wealth, I can afford, for the sake of a liv- ing, to meet him half way. I make no pretensions to virtue, not even on Sunday.' And as for giving bad government or good, how about the merchant who gives bad goods or good goods, according to the demand ? " Mr. Steffens also considers in his introduction the question of whether or not the people really want good government, and he calls attention to the fact that Tammany says they don't. He asks if the people are any better than Tammany, and raises the question as to whether or not our corrupt government is not representative. He 438 MUNICIPAL CONDITIONS contends that if simple honesty, courage and efficiency were practised by the individual, it would result in a " revolution more radical and terrible to existing institutions, from the Congress to the Church, from the bank to the ward organisation, than Socialism or even than anarchy," and he goes on to say, " No, the contemned methods of our despised politics are the master methods of our braggart business, and the corruption that shocks us in public affairs we practise our- selves in our private concerns. There is no essential difference be- tween the pull that gets your wife into society or a favourable review for your book, and that which gets a heeler into office, a thief out of jail, and a rich man's son on the board of directors of a corporation ; none between the corruption of a labour union, a bank, and a political machine; none between a dummy director of a trust and the caucus-bound member of a legislature ; none between a labour boss like .Sam Parks, a boss of banks like -John D. Eockefeller, a boss of railroads like J. 'P. Morgan, and a political boss like Matthew S. Quay. The boss is not a political, he is an American institution, the product of a freed people that have not the spirit to be free. " And it's all a moral weakness ; a weakness right where we think we are strongest. Oh, we are good on Sunday, and we are ' fearfully patriotic ' on the Fourth of July. But the bribe we pay to the janitor to prefer our interests to the landlord's, is the little brother of the bribe passed to the alderman to sell a city street, and the father of the air-brake stock assigned to the president of a railroad to have this life-saving invention adopted on his road. And as for graft, railroad passes, saloon and bawdy-house blackmail, and watered stock, all these belong to the same family. We are pathetically proud of our demo- cratic institutions and our republican form of government, of our grand Constitution and our just laws. We are a free and sovereign people, we govern ourselves and the government is ours. But that is the point. We are responsible, not our leaders, since we follow them. We let them divert our loyalty from the United States to some * party ' ; we let them boss the party and turn our municipal democra- cies into autocracies and our republican nation into a plutocracy. We cheat our government and we let our leaders loot it, and we let them wheedle and bribe our sovereignty from us. True, they pass for us strict laws, but we are content to let them pass also bad laws, giving away public property in exchange ; and our good, and often impossible, laws we allow to be used for oppression and blackmail. And what can we say? We break our own laws and rob our own government, the lady at the custom-house, the lyncher with his rope, and the cap- tain of industry with his bribe and his rebate. The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit." Mr. Steffens calls attention to the strong "hush-up" tendency which is so much in evidence in certain quarters. He says : " Who says 'Hush,' and 'What's the use?' and 'All's well/ when all is rotten? It is the grafter; the coward, too, but the grafter inspires the coward. The doctrine of ' addition, division, and silence ' is the doctrine of graft. ' Don't hurt the party,' ' Spare the fair fame of the city,' are boodle yells. The Fourth of July oration is the ' front ' of graft There is no patriotism in it, but treason. It is part of 439 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION the game. The grafters call for cheers for the flag, ' prosperity,' and ' the party,' just as a highwayman commands ' hands up,' and while we are waving and shouting, they float the flag from the nation to the party, turn both into graft factories, and prosperity into a speculative boom to make 'weak hands/ as the Wall Street phrase has it, hold the watered stock while the strong hands keep the property. ' Blame us, blame anybody, but praise the people/ this, the politician^ advice, is not the counsel of respect for the people, but of contempt. By just such palavering as courtiers play upon the degenerate intellects of weak kings, the bosses, political, financial, and industrial, are be- fuddling and befooling our sovereign American citizenship; and likewise they are corrupting it. "And it is corruptible, this citizenship. 'I know what Parks is doing/ said a New York union workman, ' but what do I care. He has raised rily wages. Let him have his graft ! ' And the Phila- delphia merchant says the same thing: 'The party leaders may be getting more than they should out of the city, but that doesn't hurt me. It may raise taxes a little, but I can stand that. The party keeps up the protective tariff. If that were cut down, my business would be ruined. So long as the party stands pat on that, I stand pat on the party/ " The people are not innocent. That is the only ' news ' in all the journalism of these articles, and no doubt that was not new to many observers. It was to me. When I set out to describe the corrupt systems of certain typical cities, I meant to show simply how the people were deceived and betrayed. But in the very first study St. Louis the startling truth lay bare that corruption was not merely political ; it was financial, commercial, social ; the ramifications of boodle were so complex, various, and far-reaching, that one mind could hardly grasp them, and not even Joseph W. Folk, the tireless prose- cutor, could follow them all." This is a most important assertion. It is a humiliating confes- sion that our corruption, instead of being confined to politics, is far more wide spread, undermining as it does our finances, our commerce, and even society itself a humiliating confession, yet it must be made, since it is true in every respect. This condition of affairs seems to be the full fruitage of what showed colour in the bud many years ago; even in Emerson's day affairs were so bad that the great optimist stigmatised them in no uncertain terms. What would he say were he to write of present conditions? In his "Man the Re- former" he says: "It cannot be wondered at, that this general inquest into abuses should arise in the bosom of society, when one considers the practical impediments that stand in the way of virtuous young men. The young man, on entering life, finds the way to lucra- tive employments blocked with abuses. The ways of trade are grown selfish to the borders of theft, and supple to the borders (if not beyond the borders) of fraud. The employments of commerce are not in- trinsically unfit for a man, or less genial to his faculties, but these are now in their general course so vitiated by derelictions and abuses at which all connive, that it requires more vigour and resources than 440 MUNICIPAL CONDITIONS can be expected of every young man, to right himself in them ; he is lost in them ; he cannot move hand or foot in them. " Has he genius and virtue ? the less does he find them fit for him to grow in, and if he would thrive in them, he must sacrifice all the brilliant dreams of boyhood and youth as dreams ; he must forget the prayers of his childhood ; and must take on him the harness of routine and obsequiousness. If not so minded, nothing is left him but to begin the world anew, as he does who puts the spade into the ground for food. " We are all implicated, of course, in this charge ; it is only necessary to ask a few questions as to the progress of the articles of commerce from the fields where they grew, to our houses, to become aware that we eat and drink and wear perjury and fraud in a hundred commod- ities." . . . " I leave for those who have the knowledge the part of sifting the oaths of our custom-houses; I will not inquire into the oppression of the sailors; I will not pry into the usages of our retail trade. I content myself with the fact, that the general system of our trade (apart from the blacker traits, which, I hope, are exceptions de- nounced and unshared by all reputable men) is a system of selfishness; is not dictated by the high sentiments of human nature; is not measured by the exact law of reciprocity ; much less by the sentiments of love and heroism, but is a system of distrust, of concealment, of superior keenness, not of giving but of taking advantage." . . . " I do not charge the merchant or the manufacturer. The sins of our trade belong to no class, to no individual. One plucks, one dis- tributes, one eats. Everybody partakes, everybody confesses with cap and knee volunteers his confession, yet none feels himself ac- countable. He did not create the abuse; he cannot alter it. What is he ? an obscure private person who must get hfs bread. That is the vice that no one feels himself called to act for man, but only as a fraction of man. It happens therefore that all such ingenuous souls as feel within themselves the irrepressible strivings of a noble aim, who by the law of their nature must act simply, find these ways of trade unfit for them, and they come forth from- it. Such cases are becoming more numerous every year. " But by coming out of trade you have not cleared yourself. The trail of the serpent reaches into all the lucrative professions and prac- tices of man. Each has its own wrongs. Each finds a tender and very intelligent conscience a disqualification for success. Each re* quires of the practitioner a certain shutting of the eyes, a certain dapperness and compliance, an acceptance of customs, a sequestration from the sentiments of generosity and love, a compromise of private opinion and integrity. Nay, the evil custom reaches into the whole institution of property, until our laws which establish and protect it seem not to be the issue of love and reaso*n, but of selfishness.". 441 CHAPPTER IV THE FATHER OF GRAFT THE BUSINESS MAN 443 Dividend Checks Don't Record all the Facts. When you receive your quarterly check from the Consolidated Traction Company, it is so clean and crisp, and so prettily engraved that you never think of the iniquities it stands for. It does not bear an itemised state- ment of your share in the profits of corrupting the government of your native city. It does not specify the amount of your investment in the dishonour of aldermen and legislators. It does not remind you of your responsibility for the fanciful document that the company swears to as its balance sheet. It does not bring to your mind the misery and filth of the crowded slums that must continue to exist because your dividend re- quires the perpetuation of five-cent fares. It does not te"ll you of the il- literate gamins who are crowded out of school because your directors have understated to the Tax Commissioners by just as much as they have over- stated to the Railroad Commissioners. These, and many other essential factors of maximum profit are considerately kept from your delicate sensi- bility; and so, when your check is cashed, you can indulge your benevolent instincts by making a little contribution for the conversion of the Sene- gambians, and another to provide hymn-books for the dear little Hotten- tots. John M. Palmer The Morals of Mammon. McClure's, July, 1906. Cities have no independent initiative of their own. They belong to the dependent and defective classes. . . . They have as a rule no recog- nised right to choose their own officers. . . . They have as a rule no recognised right to control and manage their own property. . . . They have no recognised right to continued existence no recognised right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. . . . Neither a franchise grant, nor the charter as a whole, is regarded as a contract, or within the protection of the Federal Constitution. Prof. Frank Parsons The Bondage of the Cities. The City for the People, not for the politicians and monopolists. The bondage of cities to legislatures, councils and corporations must cease; the people must own their government. Private monopoly in government and in public utilities must give place to public ownership, and our cities must be managed, not in the interest of any individual or class but in the interest of the whole people. Prof. Frank Parsons The City for the People. 444 CHAPTER IV THE FATHER OF GRAFT THE BUSINESS MAN HE grave remarks of Emerson just quoted are most pregnant with meaning. The social system under which we live is a system devised by selfishness, main- tained by selfish activities, and tending ever to become more and more selfish. To this pernicious system, rather than to any inherent badness in the individuals suffering under it, is due practically all of the long retinue of ills with which we are afflicted. In " Free America/' by Bolton Hall, we find the following note- worthy passages: " One of the most curious of delusions is the be- lief that widespread and deep-rooted evils can be cured by trifling remedies. Thus, for the ills arising from political corruption and misgovernment by organisations formed for the purpose of securing political offices, we find it gravely suggested as a remedy that we should ' elect good men to office/ Apart from the absurdity of di- viding men into the good and the bad, this plan for abolishing effects without touching causes is ridiculous. 'Political corruption is not, as some moralists seem to believe, the result of men's sinful nature, nor is it due to unscrupulous 'machines.' It has its origin in the con- ditions which keep large numbers of people in involuntary idle- ness; which every year force ten thousand business men into bank- ruptcy; which make a struggle for a bare subsistence the lot of the great majority of the voters of the country; and which create large classes ready to ally themselves for gain with adventurers who trade as professional politicians. Having its roots thus deep in the rotten soil of ignorance and violation of economic laws, it is easy to see that the efforts of ' Good Government Clubs,' ' Municipal Reform Leagues/ and similar organisations of well-meaning citizens must fail to accomplish the ends for which they are working. So long as law- created conditions prevent the masses from acquiring intelligence or using their intelligence for useful purposes, so long will it be impossible to have clean politics. " A number of well-meaning persons think that the corruption of politics can be cured by what is called 'civil-service reform/ Their chief representative is the ' New York Evening Post/ a journal which, like most of our prominent dailies, is owned by vested interests, but demands good government and honesty in public affairs. The ' Post ' declaims against the ' hungry horde of office seekers/ who seek employment as the reward of their political service, but has not a word to say against the system which forces men to struggle for the small salaries Q| most Government positions. Prating of 445 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION official honesty while upholding gigantic exactions under legal forms is saving at the spigot to waste at the bung. " That government officials should be selected solely on the ground of fitness, everyone will admit. But no change in the method of appointing such officials can give us ' pure politics ' so long as there are a hundred men looking for each office. " Senator Ingalls was right. ' The purification of politics is an iridescent dream ' under the present economic system. Patchwork tinkering with ballot reform, proportional representation, or any other proposed scheme of government can do little toward real relief from the tyranny of the boss or the corruption of the party ma- chine. No patent idea of non-partisanship in municipal elections, or of ' good citizens acting together ' in state and national elections can vote knowledge out of ignorance, or honesty into men forced by the hope of sorely needed employment to support politics which they know to be dishonest. " Akin to the plans for political reform is the belief that if we can only prevent bribery at elections we shall insure a free and unbiased expression of the public will. So we have laws imposing severe penalties on any one who directly or indirectly gives or receives any consideration for votes. Of course these laws are violated, but even though they were strictly enforced they would only change the form of bribery from cash to some promised benefit. Thus we find a great political party making a direct appeal for support on the ground that if successful the burden of national taxation will be increased in order to benefit the workers employed in certain industries, while vigourous work in each campaign is prompted by the knowledge that success would mean the appointment of the workers to office. This is no less a bribe because it is a general offer of public funds in aid of certain private persons, yet the moralists who are shocked at the payment by John Jones of $3 for William Smith's vote, have little or nothing to say about the corrupting of voters by wholesale. " A few years ago there was a general demand for ' ballot reform ' or a change in the method of casting ballots for government officers. Much was claimed for the ' Australian ' voting system as a means of promoting the election of honest and independent candidates. But although ' ballot reform ' has been adopted in thirty or more states we find to-day that the party machine is nearly as strong as ever, and is able to thrust its nominees on the public as it did under the old system. And this must continue while politics, or the busi- ness of electing lawmakers, affords an opportunity for money-making to men who cannot get a living by honest industry. " Honesty is a good thing in politics, as well as in private busi- ness. We should have business methods in all public affairs. The rule of corrupt political machines should be thrown off. The will of the people, and not of a self-constituted boss, should prevail. But to try to secure these desirable ends in political life, while main- taining a system which invites and encourages the opposite condi- tions, is nonsense." . . . " Make the masses of the voters prosperous and independent of the few offices to be doled out to political partisans, and abolish the 446 THE FATHER OF GRAFT power of legislatures to confer special privileges, and there will soon be an end of the evils which the 'good' reformers are trying to cure with bread-pills and sugar-and-water draughts. " If the ' Good Government ' advocates really wish to succeed, let them help to abolish the causes of involuntary idleness and poverty. That done, they will find that the symptoms of social disease which they take to be the disease itself, will quickly disappear. "As a means of getting what we want we should of course have popular election of Senators, and we will get it. Something has been accomplished and much is to be hoped for as effective methods of expressing our will from the Initiative and Referendum, and more from Proportional Eepresentation. " Until we get these, the ' Winnetka plan/ first tried at the home of the late Henry D. Lloyd, in Illinois, works well and immediately. It consists simply in requiring from each legislative candidate before voting for him at election, a written pledge to introduce or sup- port one resolution in his own assembly of lawmakers. This reso- lution provides that upon the written request of five per cent, of the voters any proposed law shall be put to popular vote before it goes into operation. So far, for plain reasons, such pledges have been kept. " These reforms, known as ' Direct Legislation/ are vigourously pushed, more owing to Mr. Eltweed Pomeroy, of Newark, New Jer- sey, than to any other one man in the United States. " Mr. Pomeroy will gladly send information as to plans and prog- ress, so that it is not necessary here to enlarge on this splendid move- ment, which is one of the most encouraging signs of popular awaken- ing." In his introduction * Mr. Steffens, after considering conditions in several cities, speaks of the City of Brotherly Love, as follows: " But it was not till I got to Philadelphia that the possibilities of popular corruption were worked out to the limit of humiliating con- fession. That was the place for such a study. There is nothing like it in the country, except, possibly, in Cincinnati. Philadelphia certainly is not merely corrupt, but corrupted, and this was made clear. Philadelphia was charged up to the American citizen. " It was impossible in the space of a magazine article to cover in any one city all the phases of municipal government, so I chose cities that typified most strikingly some particular phase or phases. Thus as St. Louis exemplified boodle; Minneapolis, police graft; Pittsburg, a political and industrial machine; and Philadelphia, gen- eral civic corruption; so Chicago was an illustration of reform, and New York of good government. All these things occur in most of these places. There are, and long have been, reformers in St. Louis, and there is to-day police graft there. Minneapolis has had boodling and council reform, and boodling is breaking out there again. Pitts- burg has general corruption, and Philadelphia a very perfect po- litical machine. Chicago has police graft and a low order of ad- ministrative and general corruption which permeates business, labour, * See " The Shame of the Cities." 447 and society generally. As for New York, the metropolis might exemplify almost anything that occurs anywhere in American cities, but no city has had for many years such a good administration as was that of Mayor Seth Low." Calling attention to the conservatism of the article, Mr. Steffens states that every one of the articles was an understatement, especially where the conditions were bad, and he cites in proof of this that those who are well-informed in the matters treated express sur- prise that he reported so little. One St. Louis newspaper, he says, stated that " The facts were thrown at me and I fell down over them." Continuing, he says, " There was truth in these flings. I cut twenty thousand words out of the Philadelphia article and yet I had not written half my facts. I know a man who is making a history of the corrupt construction of the Philadelphia City Hall, in three volumes, and he grieves because he lacks space. You can't put all the known incidents of the corruption of an American city into a book." . . . " After ' The Shame of Minneapolis/ and ' The Shamelessness of St. Louis/ not only did citizens of these cities approve, but citizens of other cities, individuals, groups, and organisations, sent in invita- tions, hundreds of them, ' to come and show us up ; we're worse than they are/'' Mr. Steffens calls attention to a most important fact when he states, "The great truth I tried to make plain was that which Mr. Folk insists so constantly upon: that bribery is no ordinary felony, but treason, that the ' corruption which breaks out here and there and now and then ' is not an occasional offence, but a common prac- tice, and that the effect of it is literally to change the form of our government from one that is representative of the people to an oli- garchy, representative of special interests. Some politicians have seen that this is so, and it bothers them. I think I prize more highly than any other of my experiences the half-dozen times when graft- ing politicians I had 'roasted/ as they put it, called on me after- wards to say, in the words of one who spoke with a wonderful solemnity : ' You are right. I never thought of it that way, but it's right. I don't know whether you can do anything, but you're right, dead right. And I'm all wrong. We're all, all wrong. I don't see how we can stop it now; I don't see how I can change. I can't, I guess. No, I can't, not now. But, say, I may be able to help you, and I will if I can. You can have anything I've got.' '' .Space will not permit of doing anything like full justice to the facts unearthed by this patient and conscientious journalist, and we must content ourselves with but a few citations. In the article en- titled " Tweed Days in St. Louis " we find this : " The corruption of St. Louis came from the top. The best citizens the merchants and big financiers used to rule the town, and they ruled it well. They set out to outstrip Chicago. The commercial and industrial war between these two cities was at one time a picturesque and dramatic spectacle such as is witnessed only in our country. Busi- ness mea were not mere merchants and the politicians were not mere 448 THE FATHER OF GRAFT grafters; the two kinds of citizens got together and wielded the power of banks, railroads, factories, the prestige of the city, and the spirit of its citizens to gain business and population. And it was a close race. Chicago, having the start, always led, but St. Louis had pluck, intelligence, and tremendous energy. It pressed Chicago hard. It excelled in a sense of civic beauty and good government; and there are those who think yet it might have won. But a change occurred. Public spirit became private spirit, public enterprise be- came private greed." In this article we find a description, by one of Mr. Folk's grand juries, of the House of Delegates; from it we extract the following: " Our investigation, covering more or less fully a period of ten years, shows that, with few exceptions, no ordinance has been passed wherein valuable privileges or franchises are granted until those interested have paid the legislators the money demanded for action in the par- ticular case. Combines in both branches of the Municipal Assem- bly are formed by members sufficient in number to control legisla- tion. To one member of this combine is delegated the authority to act for the combine, and to receive and to distribute to each member the money agreed upon as the price of his vote in support of, or oppo- sition to, a pending measure. So long has this practice existed that such members have come to regard the receipt of money for action on pending measures as a legitimate perquisite of a legislator." Commenting on this Mr. Steffens says: "In order to insure a regular and indisputable revenue, the combine of each house drew up a schedule of bribery prices for all possible sorts of grants, just such a list as a commercial traveller takes out on the road with him. There was a price for a grain elevator, a price for a short switch; side tracks were charged for by the linear foot, but at rates which varied according to the nature of the ground taken; a street im- provement cost so much; wharf space was classified and precisely rated. As there was a scale for favourable legislation, so there was one for defeating bills. It made a difference in the price if there was opposition, and it made a difference whether the privilege asked was legitimate or not. But nothing was passed free of charge. Many of the legislators were saloon-keepers it was in St. Louis that a practical joker nearly emptied the House of Delegates by tipping a boy to rush into a session and call out, "Mister, your saloon is on fi re / but even the saloon-keepers of a neighbourhood had to pay to keep in their inconvenient locality a market which public interest would have moved." . . . "A member of the House of Delegates admitted to the Grand Jury that his dividends from the combine netted $25,000 in one year; a Councilman stated that he was paid $50,000 for his vote on a single measure. " Bribery was a joke. A newspaper reporter overheard this conver- sation one evening in the corridor of the City Hall:: ' Ah there, my boodler ! ' said Mr. Delegate. * Stay there, my grafter ! ' replied Mr. Councilman. ' Can you lend me a hundred for a day or two.?' 2 449 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION ' Not at present. But I can spare it if the Z bill goes through to-night. Meet me at F 's later/ ' All right, my jailbird; I'll be there/ " . . . " Pitiful ? Yes, but typical. Other cities are to-day in the same condition as St. Louis before Mr. Folk was invited in to see its rot- tenness. Chicago is cleaning itself up just now, so is Minneapolis, and Pittsburg recently had a bribery scandal ; Boston is at peace, Cincinnati and St. Paul are satisfied, while Philadelphia is happy with the worst government in the world. As for the small towns and the villages, many of these are busy as bees at the loot." . . . " In all cities, the better classes the business men are the sources of corruption; but they are so rarely pursued and caught that we do not fully realise whence the trouble comes. Thus most cities blame the politicians and the ignorant and vicious poor. " Mr. Folk has shown St. Louis that its bankers, brokers, corpora- tion officers, its business men are the sources of evil, so that from the start it will know the municipal problem in its true light." Coming now to the article, " Philadelphia : Corrupt and Con- tented," we are obliged to forgo citations from the other articles Mr. Steffens says : " Philadelphia is one of the oldest of our cities and treasures for us scenes and relics of some of the noblest tradi- tions of ' our fair land/ Yet I was told how once, ' for a joke/ a party of boodlers counted out the ' divvy ' of their graft in unison with the ancient chime of Independence Hall. "'Philadelphia is representative. This very 'joke,' told, as it was, with a laugh, is typical. All our municipal governments are more or less bad, and all our people are optimists. Philadelphia is sim- ply the most corrupt and the most contented. Minneapolis has cleaned up, Pittsburg has tried to, New York fights every other elec- tion, Chicago fights all the time. Even St. Louis has begun to stir (since the elections are over), and at the worst was only shameless. Philadelphia is proud; good people there defend corruption and boast of their machine. My college professor, with his philosophic view of 'rake-offs/ is one Philadelphia type. Another is the man, who, driven to bay with his local pride, says: 'At least you must admit that our machine is the best you have ever seen/ " Disgraceful ? Other cities say so. But I say that if Philadelphia is a disgrace, it is a disgrace not to itself alone, nor to Pennsylvania, but to the United States and to American character." . . . " The Philadelphia machine isn't the best. It isn't sound, and I doubt if it would stand in New York or Chicago. The enduring strength of the typical American political machine is that it is a natural growth a sucker, but deep-rooted in the people. The New Yorkers vote for Tammany Hall. The Philadelphians do not vote; they are disfranchised, and their disfranchisement is one anchor of the foundation of the Philadelphia organisation. " This is no figure of speech. The honest citizens of Philadelphia have no more rights at the polls than the negroes down South. Nor do they fight very hard for this basic privilege. You can arouse their Republican ire by talking about the black Republican votes lost in the Southern States by white Democratic intimidation, but if you 450 THE FATHER OF GRAFT remind the average Philadelphia!! that he is in the same position, he will look startled, then say, ' That's so, that's literally true, only I never thought of it in just that way/ And it is literally true. " The machine controls the whole process of voting, and practises, fraud at every stage. The assessor's list is the voting list, and the assessor is the machine's man. * The assessor of a division kept a disorderly house ; he padded his lists with fraudulent names registered from his house; two of these names were used by election officers. . . . The constable of the division kept a disreputable house; a policeman was assessed as living there. , . . The election was held in the disorderly house maintained by the assessor. . . . The man named as judge had a criminal charge for a life offence pending against him. . . . Two hundred and fifty-two votes were returned in a division that had less than one hundred legal votes within its boundaries/ These extracts from a report of the Munici- pal League suggest the election methods. The assessor pads the list with the names of dead dogs, children, and .non-existent persons. One newspaper printed the picture of a dog, another that of a little four-year-old negro boy, down on such a list. A ring orator in a speech resenting sneers at his ward as ' low down ' reminded his hearers that that was the ward of Independence Hall, and, naming over signers of the Declaration of Independence, he closed his highest flight of eloquence with the statement that ' these men, the fathers of American liberty, voted down here once. And/ he added, with a catching grin, ' they vote here yet/ Eudolph Blankenburg, a per- sistent fighter for the right and the use of the right to vote (and, by the way, an immigrant), sent out just before one election a regis- tered letter to each voter on the rolls of a certain selected division. Sixty-three per cent, were returned marked * not at/ * removed/ * de- ceased/ etc. From one four-story house where forty-four voters were addressed, eighteen letters came back undelivered; from another of forty-eight voters, came back forty-one letters; from another sixty- one out of sixty-two; from another, forty-four out of forty-seven. Six houses in one division were assessed at one hundred and seventy- two voters, more than the votes cast in the previous election in any one of two hundred entire divisions." Continuing Mr. Steffens shows how the few who may attempt to vote are intimidated. Repeating is done boldly. The fraudulent voting usually proceeds without violence; there usually being more jesting than fighting. The reader is told, however, that the police are there to use violence if necessary, and it is related how several citizens told Mr. Steffens that they had seen the police "help to beat citizens or election officers who were trying to do their duty, then arrest the victim." Mr. .Steffens calls attention to the fact that Mr. Clinton Eogers Woodruff, the executive Council of the Municipal League, has pub- lished a booklet of such cases. Describing further the election frauds the author says, " A friend of mine told me he was on the lists in the three wards in which he had successively dwelt. He votes personally in none, but the leader of his present ward tells him how he has been voted. Mr. J. C. Reynolds, the proprietor of the St. 451 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION James Hotel, went to the polls at eleven o'clock last election day, only to be told that he had been voted. He asked how many others from his house had voted. An election officer took up a list, checked off twelve names, two down twice, and handed it to him. When Mr. Eeynolds got home he learned that one of these had voted, the others had been voted. . Another man said he rarely attempted to vote, but when he did, the officers let him, even though his name had already been voted on; and then the negro repeaters would ask if his * brother was coming 'round to-day/ They were going to vote him, as they vote all good-natured citizens who stay away. 'When this kind of man turns out/ said a leader to me, * we simply have two repeaters extra one to balance him and one more to the good.' If necessary, after all this, the machine counts the vote 'right,' and there is little use appealing to the courts, since they have held, except in one case, that the ballot box is secret and cannot be opened. The only legal remedy lies in the purging of the assessor's lists, and when the Municipal League had this done in 1899, they reported that there was ' wholesale voting on the very names stricken off.' '' .Speaking of the then State boss, the late Matthew S. Quay, Mr. Steffens says : " Quay has made a specialty all his life of reformers, and he and his local bosses have won over so many that the list of former reformers is very, very long. Martin drove down his roots through race and religion, too. Philadelphia was one of the hot- beds of ' knownothingism.' Martin recognised the Catholic, and the Irish-Irish, and so drew off into the Eepublican party the great nat- ural supply of the Democrats; and his successors have given high places to representative Jews. ' Surely this isn't corruption ! ' No, and neither is that corruption which makes the heads of great edu- cational and charity institutions 'go along,' as they say in Penn- sylvania, in order to get appropriations for their institutions from the State and land from the city. They know what is going on, but they do not join reform movements. The provost of the University of Pennsylvania declined to join in a revolt because, he said, it might impair his usefulness to the University. And so it is with others, and with clergymen who have favourite charities; with Sab- bath associations and City Beautiful clubs; with Jawyers who want briefs; with real estate dealers who like to know in advance about public improvements, and real estate owners who appreciate light assessments; with shopkeepers who don't want to be bothered with strict inspections. " If there is no other hold for the ring on a man there always is the protective tariff. ' I don't care,' said a manufacturer. ' What if they do plunder and rob us, it can't hurt me unless they raise the tax rates, and even that won't ruin me. Our party keeps up the tariff. If they should reduce that, my business would be ruined."' That the corruption in Philadelphia was not confined to adults or to members of the male sex will be seen from the following : " The other ' instances of brazen abuse of power ' were the increase of pro- tected vice the importation from New York of the 'white slavery system of prostitution,' the growth of ' speak-easies,' and the spread of gambling and of policy-playing until it took in the school chil- ' 452 THE FATHER OF GRAFT dren This last the 'North American' exposed, but in vain till it named police officers who had refused when asked to interfere. Then a judge summoned the editors and reporters of the paper, the mayor Director English, school children, and police officers to appear before him. The mayor's personal attorney spoke for the police during the inquiry, and it looked black for the newspaper till the children began to tell their stories. When the hearing was over the judge said : < The evidence shows conclusively that our public school system in this city is in danger of being corrupted at its fountain ; that in one of the schools over a hundred and fifty children were buyers of policy, as were also a large number of scholars in other schools. It was first discovered about eighteen months ago, and for about one year has been in full operation/ The police officers were not punished, how- ever." As might be expected, even the educational system was honey- combed. It was discovered that not only did successful applicants for teachers have to have a pull, but that they were regularly assessed an appreciable portion of their salary. This was carried on in the most unblushing manner. As pertinent to this subject we quote as follows : ' e That corruption had reached the public schools and was spreading rapidly through the system, was discovered by the ex- posure and conviction of three school directors of the twenty-eighth ward. It was known before that teachers and principals, like- any other office holders, had to have a ' pull ' and pay assessments for election expenses. ' Voluntary contributions ' was the term used, but over the notices in blue pencil was written ' 2 per cent,' and teachers who asked directors and ward bosses what to do, were advised that they wpuld ' better pay.' Those that sent less than the amount sug- gested, got receipts : ' check received ; shall we hold for balance or enter on account ? ' But the exposure in the twenty-eighth ward brought it home to the parents of the children that the teachers were not chosen for fitness, but for political reasons, and that the political reasons had become cash. " Miss Eena A. Haydock testified as follows : ' I went to see Mr. Travis, who was a friend of mine, in reference to getting a teacher's certificate. He advised me to see all of the directors, especially Mr. Brown. They told me that it would be necessary for me to pay $120 to get the place. They told me of one girl who had offered $250, and her application had been rejected. That was before they broached the subject of money to me. I said that I didn't have $120 to pay, and they replied that it was customary for teachers to pay $40 a month out of their first three months' salary. The salary was $47. They told me they didn't want the money for themselves, but it was necessary to buy the other faction. Finally I agreed to the proposi- tion, and they told me that I must be careful not to mention it to anybody or it would injure my reputation. I went with my brother to pay the money to Mr. Johnson. He held out a hat, and when my brother handed the money to him he took it behind the hat.' " All readers of the public press are familiar with the John Wana- maker franchise episode, in which Mayor Ashbridge, of Philadelphia, signed charters for franchises which lost the city of Philadelphia 453 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION $2,500,000 signed them after Mr. Wanamaker had sent him an offer of $2,500,000 for the franchises to be given away and had de- posited $250,000 as a guarantee of good faith. The Mayor threw Mr. Wanamaker's communication into the street unread and signed the ordinances. As is usual in corrupt areas efforts were made to muzzle the press and prevent boodling exposures which might exasperate the people. Of this Mr. Steffens says : " There is no check upon this machine excepting the chance of a mistake, the imminent fear of treachery, and the remote danger of revolt. To meet this last, the machine, as a State organisation, has set about throttling public criti- cism. Ashbridge found that blackmail was ineffective. Durham, Quay, and Governor Pennypacker have passed a libel law which meant to muzzle the press. The Governor was actuated apparently only by his sufferings from cartoons and comments during his campaign ; the Philadelphia ring has boodling plans ahead which exposure might make exasperating to the people. The Philadelphia ' Press/ the lead- ing Eepublican organ in the .State, puts it right : ' The Governor wanted it (the law) in the hope of escaping from the unescapable cartoon. The gang wanted it in hope of muzzling the opposition to jobs. . . . The act is distinctly designed to gag the press in the interest of the plunderers and against the interest of the people.' * In " The City the Hope of Democracy," Mr. Frederic C. Howe says: "We may safeguard our communities by reform associa- tions, by the adoption of improved charters, by the abolition of the spoils system and the like; we may develop civic morality to a high level, we still have the 'twentieth man/ the man wno is not bound by our organisations, the man who will not accept the new standards of conduct, but who will secure control of the party, dictate its nomi- nations, bribe a city council, and, if necessary, the state legislature as well, in order to secure a franchise. " Does this seem an overdrawn picture too narrow an explanation of the evil of city administration ? Then read the tale of municipal corruption portrayed by J. Lincoln Steffens in ' The Shame of the Cities/ It is true, Mr. Steffens does not limit the indictment to the privileged corporations. He lays the offence at the door of ' busi- ness/ But it is business, plus franchises and privileges, that has overturned our cities and brought shame to their citizens. For wealth without privilege does not organise to control parties, pri- maries, or conventions. The retail dealer, wholesale dealer, or manu- facturer is not found in the council chamber. His offence is one of indifference. He probably cannot name the alderman from his ward. To him politics is a nuisance. He wants nothing from the city, for his business requires no favours. It depends upon his own energy, thrift, and enterprise. Chicago, e Half Free and Fighting On/ as Mr. Steffens says, is not fighting business. Her Municipal Voters' League was not called into being as a vigilance committee to protect the city from ordinary wealth. During the past ten years, Chicago has been like a beleaguered camp, not for protection from without, but for protection from some of her own citizens. The contest within the city has been like that of the Guelphs and Ghibel- lines of Florence and the mediaeval Italian cities. And to-day in 454 THE FATHER OF GRAFT Chicago, there is a powerful class who say : ' Oh, damn reform ; it hurts our business/ It is the $75,000,000 of franchises that is hurt by reform. ' Anarchy/ privilege calls it, or ' socialism/ But again, it was not business that was hurt, it was graft. It was graft born of railway and gas franchises that turned Chicago over to the ' grey wolves' of the Council. It was such graft that made the office of alderman worth fifty thousand dollars a year. " In 1896, the Council granted away six franchises of great value, despite the protests of the public. Some of these grants were made to a dummy who represented the Council combine. Some were used as ' strikes' on the existing companies. The city got nothing from any of them. Ultimately, the Council was syndicated. The po- litical machinery of the city was reduced to a System. But the System did not stop there. It could not, even if it would. It ran into the state. It organised both the Republican and the Democratic parties. It nominated and elected not only the members of the Council, the mayor, and the tax assessors, it entered state politics as well." . . . "Across the State of Illinois lies St. Louis. This city has been bound, gagged, and reduced to submission for so many years that the people hardly comprehend free government. They scarce remem- ber the meaning of democracy. They are like castaways on a Pacific isle, who forget their mother-tongue from disuse. So St. Louis had ceased to expect, ceased almost to believe in public honesty. And when Joseph W. Folk, as Circuit Attorney, began his indictments, the people stood dazed, unheeding, and without understanding the language which he used. The boodlers and the business men asked one another : * What does he want ; what is his price ? ' They treated the city as a mastiff might his kennel. It was their domain, they had owned it for so long. So felt the English Stuarts towards Hampden. So the French Bourbons toward the Third Estate. Folk was an anachronism in Missouri. He is so still to a large portion of St. Louis. He excites the curiosity of the System as well as its anger and chagrin. " Here, as in Chicago, the fight has not been against business wealth, against property as such. The fight that has taken the lid off the city has shown that it was the franchises for street-railways, contracts for electric lighting and the like that led to the syndicating of Boss Butler, the millionaire blacksmith. Through him the System con- trolled the election machinery, reduced the police to a Hessian brig- ade, and organised the entire city administration for private graft. It was to secure a street-railway franchise that $125,000 was de- posited in one of the trust companies of the city under an agree- ment that it was to be delivered to the Council combine when a fran- chise had been granted. It was another street-railway franchise, secured at a cost to the promoter of $250,000 in bribes, that was afterwards sold to a New York syndicate for $1,250,000. In neither of these instances did the city receive anything. It was franchise legislation that led the street-railways to the state capital, where they organised the Legislature and paid $250,000 to the representa- tives of the people, for privileges that the railways did not possess, 455 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION and could not secure from the city. It was for a lighting contract with the city of St. Louis that $47,500 was distributed by Boss Butler to the members of the Council combine, under the very eyes of indignant citizens, who sat in the Council gallery, ignorant of what was going on. " Who were the beneficiaries of these privileges ; who have since de- fended Butler and the indicted public officials? It was the rich and influential citizens of St. Louis. It was they whom Butler repre- sented. It was they who had organised the Democratic party, and through Butler dictated its nominations even for the Bench, and controlled the administration of justice for the protection of their friends and representatives. It was these men who opposed Folk. It was these men who trampled under foot the election laws, filled the booths with repeaters, and openly counted out the properly elected representatives of the people who were hostile to their designs." Later on, in his chapter on " The Source of Corruption," Mr. Howe says : " Everywhere the cause is the same. It is privilege, not wealth, franchises, not business, the few, not the many, that have overthrown our cities within the past few years. There is scarcely a large city of the country in which the public-service corporations do not control or constantly seek to control the government. In many instances the Council is theirs, prior even to election. Through an alliance with the party, the corporations dictate aldermanic nomi- nations. They supply candidates with funds, and place the machin- ery of the party at their disposal. Once elected, the alderman is controlled by friendship, favour, bribery, or the party caucus. The latter is used on the honest official, who would hotly resent direct bribery. In fact, as employed in city, state, and national affairs, the caucus is used quite as often to compel obedience to some corrupt proposition as for any other purpose. If this proves ineffectual, the official is ostracised from the party councils, is charged with a be- trayal of party principles, and is treated as a pariah. In this way he is excluded from nomination on the party ticket." . . . " On a larger scale, party machinery is used for similar purposes in the state. Party control is usually concentrated in one, or at most, in two hands. This control is gradually being centred in the United States .Senate. It is no longer necessary to see the organisation, but only the party boss. And through this ' fence ' men are nomi- nated for the Bench and for the higher state offices with a knowledge approaching certainty as to what they will do under a given set of circumstances. Many, possibly most of them, are free from cor- ruption through direct bribery or dishonesty, but through previous contact, pecuniary or political obligations, their attitude can be fore- cast with precision." In his excellent work, " The Bondage of the Cities," Prof. Frank Parsons calls attention to the ridiculous interference to which the state legislatures subject the cities. He says : " In the Minnesota statutes of the last session (1897) I find: ' Cities are authorised to compromise and settle claims. Empowered to repair market houses and city property. Authorised to issue bonds for water works, hospitals, etc, 456 THE FATHER OF GRAFT Time for payment of local improvement assessments extended. Empowered to prevent fights, disorderly conduct, etc. Empowered to change abandoned cemeteries into parks. Empowered to take bequests in trust for public libraries. Cities over 50,000 authorised to buy any water plant or combined water and light plant in operation in such city. Fire limits may be prescribed by Councils, etc., etc.' " Think of it ! A city has to have legislative permission to com- promise and settle a claim, to repair its own property, to change its own cemetery into a park, buy a water or light plant, or take a be- quest for a public library ! No individual of age and apparent dis- cretion, nor any association of individuals whatever, except a munici- pality, would think of asking permission to repair its own property but a city or town well, it would ask permission to sneeze if it needed to perform that operation; it can't even stop a fight legally till the legislature says it may." Showing how we are deprived of our natural rights at the be- hest of corporations, Mr. Parsons says : " One of the strongest illus- trations of the severe State paternalism to which our cities are subject is the fact that a city of half a million people cannot connect two of its own public buildings with an electric wire, the city being un^ able to obtain legislative permission against the opposition of the electric companies. Boston is the city of which I am speaking. : A little while ago she wished to run a wire from the City Hall to the Old Court House, either over or under the little back street 50 or 60 feet wide that lies between the two buildings. The object was to enable the city to light the Old Court House from the dynamo in City Hall. A bill was introduced for the purpose, accompanied by petition of the mayor of Boston (House Bill No. 747, 1898), but the electric companies did not wish municipalities to use a dynamo in a public building to operate lights outside of the building, and the Legislature refused to pass the bill, and Boston cannot run a wire between two of her own buildings over or under her own street. " A municipality has no independent initiative of its own, and it is the only human thing in America that hasn't got it. The nation has a right of independent initiative in national affairs, the state in state affairs, and the individual in individual affairs, but the munici- pality must have permission from the legislature for everything it does." Which last remark he annotates as follows : " It is bad enough to hold life as a tenant at will, but even that might be en- durable if the city were allowed to have the attributes of a living being while entrusted with existence. But, to have no power of self activity; to be required to get permission to move! that is unbear- able." A most impressive instance of corruption resulting from corpora- tion influence is instanced in Mr. Charles Edward Russell's " The Greatest Trust in the World," beginning in "Everybody's Maga- zine " for February, 1905. In the August, 1905, instalment of this series Mr. Russell uncovers the most unblushing thefts practised upon the Chicago water department by the Beef Trust plutocrats. Thefts so atrocious in their conception and so brazenly defiant of law and 457 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION public opinion in their execution that a few years ago they would have seemed simply incredible. To-day, however, the American peo- ple are awaking, if slowly, yet surely, to a realisation of the un- pleasant fact that there is absolutely no barrier which honesty, patriotism, religion, public opinion or common decency of any kind can raise which will withstand, for an hour, the onslaughts of our latter-day organised greed. Mr. Russell says : " The water depart- ment of the Chicago city government customarily issues every sum- mer a series of frantic warnings to the inhabitants of the great South Side, telling them that they must be careful and abstemious about the use of the city water because there is very little of it. What! With all Lake Michigan at their doors? Yes, all Lake Michigan is at their doors; and yet of the precious stuff these people must use none to sprinkle lawns nor to lay the dust, and even with these re- strictions, and all possible care, dwellers in upper tenements may sometimes have not enough water wherewith to wash dishes nor their own hands. Parts of the South Side are densely populated. Some- times the great southwest wind blows for days up from the black, baking prairies, the withering simoom of the West, and in the swelter- ing heat water is as necessary as air, and in the upper tenement ovens women toil breathless up and down stairs with pitchers to get a few drops of the hoarded thing that lies in inexhaustible supply in the cool lake almost in their sight. Butwhy? Because the packing-houses steal the water. They steal it summer and winter, spring and fall, but in the summer the general consumption is the greatest, and then the results of the stealing be- come apparent, and women toil with the pitchers. " Steal harsh word, is it not ? And you think I should not use it here, do you not? But observe: The thieving is perfectly well known and has been for years. The packing-houses must needs use vast quantities of water, especially in summer. Some floors must be kept constantly flooded with running water; many streams must always be playing where the slaughtering goes on. Water is a great matter in Packingtown. Now in Chicago the city owns and operates the water supply. Large users of water are supplied through metres and pay according to the amount they consume. For a long time the small sums paid for water by the packing-houses had aroused annual comment. The initiated, to be sure, understood well enough why the payments were so small, but the general public is not usually in the initiated class. In 1900 the uninformed public broke out into such general clamour about the obvious leakage that the city authori- ties (somewhat belatedly, one would think) began an investigation. Men with pick-axes and spades uncovered the public mains about Packingtown. Before long they had discovered that every consid- erable packing-house had secret connections with the water supply. There were pipes of various sizes, three inch and four inch, six inch and eight inch, each leading from the city's conduits to the works of some packing-company. In some cases tunnels had been driven un- der the streets to the mains, and taps inserted. In one case the mains themselves had been diverted from the highway through the works, and on these city-owned pipes one firm had planted three great pumps, 458 THE FATHER OF GRAFT busily engaged in drawing water. And for all this supply thus sur- reptitiously obtained the packers paid not a cent. '' The facts about these discoveries were incontrovertible. The men with the pickaxes laid the illegal connexions bare to the day-light; anybody might go and see them. .Seven secret pipes were discovered leading into the Swift plant; practically every packing-house was shown to have like connexions. A twelve-inch pipe ran the entire length of Packingtown; and was illegally tapped wherever water was needed. In some places, as the work progressed, fresh excavations were found, and secret pipes that had been hurriedly broken off and removed. Former employes of the packers told how the connexions had been made at night and by gangs of men instructed to silence. First and last, probably fifty illegal connexions were found. One of them was an engine with two valves, one labelled City Water ' and the other ' Cistern Water/ and the ' City Water ' connexion was an eight-inch pipe through which the water was stolen. In one packing- house the city authorities broke off and sealed up its illegal conduit, and instantly on the metre the registration of paid water jumped from 5,000 cubic feet to 34,000 cubic feet a day." Mr. Russell then goes on to show how the public indignation de- manded that someone should be punished for these outrages. The worst offenders were the larger houses. What did they do? They simply pushed a straw dummy between themselves and public indig- nation, to act as a buffer or cushion to deaden the impact thereof. Apropos of this condition Mr. Kussell says: "But the public de- manded some action about the water thefts; some one must be pun- ished. ( Certainly/ shouted the State Attorney's office, virtuously ex- cited, ' some one must be punished ! ' Presently it produced the horrible villain and with loud acclaim and much smug satisfaction led him to the altars of sacrifice. And who was he? One Harry H. Boore, a mild, inoffensive gentleman, manager of the Continental Packing Company. Now the Continental Packing Company, a small independent concern, was at that time hanging by three fingers to the gunwale of existence; a good smart rap at any time would have knocked it off into the Trust maw, where, by the way, it now reposes. The amount of water that this concern had stolen was small, and of the thieving Mr. Boore probably knew as little as any other executive in Packingtown. Nevertheless he was haled along, indicted, tried, and on February 18, 1901, he was convicted of stealing $14.96 worth of water ! And in this august and terrible manner did Justice shake her sword and vindicate herself in Cook County. This was the be- ginning; also the end. Mr. Boore, it is almost superfluous to say, did not go to the bridewell. On July 10 another court granted him a new trial. Whereupon his indictment, with the indictments of four others as obscure as he, was allowed to glide conveniently into the Saragossa Sea of forgotten things, whence it has never returned. " And how about the big thieves, the companies with the eight-inch pipes and the companies with the pumps? Good sir, or madam, do not distress yourself about these; they went their placid way un- harmed. The illegal pipes remained as before; also the pumps, in cood working order. The diverted city mains were not restored to 459 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION their proper positions; the fraudulent connexions continued to per- form their usual functions, the thieving taps were not discontinued; summer after summer the Water Department repeats its frantic warnings, and tests recently made with a pitometer showed that the water stealings in Packingtown amount to one billion gallons a year. " Strange ? Not in the least. Any other condition would be strange. The great packing-houses are, and always have been, independent of and superior to law. If they were amenable to law, could they con- tinue to dose products of theirs with preservative chemicals injurious to health ? How are they able to dodge the statutes governing under- billing and inspection? How do they avoid paying the State of New York the millions they owe it for butterine penalties? How did they manage to emerge unharmed from the terrible ' embalmed bee.f ' revelations of the Spanish war ? How did they escape prose- cution when more American soldiers fell before their deadly beef than were hit by all the Spanish guns? How did they control the gov- ernment on that occasion? How have they controlled it so often since? The Standard Oil is, of course, a very efficient Trust. But you have not known even the Standard Oil Company to exercise a power like to this. The Standard Oil Company usually conforms to at least a semblance of law ; it has never openly defied injunctions, trampled on statutes and dictated to national, state, and city govern- ments. " We have laws to secure for us pure food ; we have laws for the in- spection of meat products. In Packingtown these laws are a jest. Every year there thousands of cows that never should be slaughtered are cut up for food. Go there as a visitor, and neatly uniformed attendants escort you through a corner of the works where butchers in immaculate attire perform for the delectation of the 'grand stand, and believing you have seen slaughtering, you marvel at the exceeding neatness and cleanness of everything. You have seen a show, you have been at a play. The real work is done where no outsider can see it; attempt at any point to wander from the beaten path and see how swiftly you will be driven back. Policemen and watchmen guard every avenue. You shall see nothing but what the company is will- ing to show you, the play actors with their white aprons, the girls in neat dress/* It is interesting to note the following passage which Mr. Kussell publishes under the heading, " Possible Cures for a Huge Evil." " What is the remedy ? What are we going to do about it ? " There is no remedy unless we are willing to look upon the issue as essentially as issue of morals and not of business. We shall have to come to a state of mind in which we oppose such a combination as this, not because it compels us to lose dollars, but because it is funda- mentally and eternally wrong, because it means high treason to the Republic and all the Republic stands for. Until we are willing to admit that what is involved here is a principle vital to human liberty and progress, and until we are willing to make sacrifices for that principle and to stand for it through any chance of personal loss, we do but waste time to cry out against any trust. Opposition based upon balance-sheets is mere foolery." 460 THE FATHER OF GRAFT The direful effect of municipal corruption is too patent on every hand long to escape attention, but the general chaos which obtains in municipal activities with its unbearable burden of wastefulness is more apt to be overlooked. We have seen in days gone by a Boston thoroughfare torn up by a Gas Company one week to the great inconvenience of the public, and then, almost as soon as it was repaved, it was again torn up in the interests of some other public utility. This lack of esprit de corps is a fair illustration of the general chaos which pervades all our municipal systems, to a greater or less degree. Those which are efficiently organised do not feel the blight so severely as their less fortunate fellows, but they all feel it a vast deal more than is pleas- ant. This chaos, like most of our other evils, results from a false major premise. It has been said that England lost her liberties through a chain of right reasoning from wrong premises, and it is a similar menace which at the present moment confronts America. It is a much easier thing and requires much less ability to draw conclusions from ac- cepted premises than to establish correct premises ourselves, since the latter requires but the proper adjustment of the conclusions to the premises, while the former demands the adjustment of the premises with each and every other fact in the universe. By reason of this fact only the broad, generalising intellects, with mental hori- zons which ocean-like wash the shores of the farthest stars, can safely be trusted to lay down those primal postulates from which the human race is to draw the conclusions which make up its conduct of life. If now, while the good Homer nods, they give forth as a major premise something which, however plausible it may seem, will not stand the test of time, a hardship inestimable, a misery incalculable, a chaos ineffable is sure to result. Such is our present condition, the whole superstructure of our civilisation is built on rotten piles, and it is the object of the Gillette system to make this fact plain, and to lead the human race to a reconsideration of its long-accepted major premise, a major premise to whose falsity we owe almost every throb of anguish which the great social heart of humanity has ever felt. We believe that from the Gillette Syllogism can only flow har- mony, happiness, universal brotherhood, liberty, justice, peace on earth and goodwill to man.* * For a brief description of the Gillette System see Appendix " A." 461 BOOK IX CHAPTER I. INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION CHAPTER II. SOME EESULTS OF COMMERCIAL CENTRIPETALISM CHAPTER III. DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES CHAPTER IV. THE CRY OF THE STOMACH CHAPTER V. SWINE AND SWINE 463 Lo! as the wind is so is mortal life, A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife. Edwin Arnold The Light of Asia. Life treads on life, and heart on heart; We press too close in church and mart To keep a dream or grave apart. E. B. Browning A Vision of Poets. Anyone who is prosperous may by the turn of fortune's wheel become most wretched before evening. Ammianus Marcellinus Historia. " Then the quest of the maximum profit is not the final aim of society after all?" asked Comegys. " By no means," said Colonel Lumpkin. " It is merely the law of busi- ness. Society has a number of interests that cannot be measured in com- mercial arithmetic. Indeed, if you come to think of it, the problem of good government is quite essentially different from the problem of Mam- mon. It is as essentially generous and altruistic as the problem of Mam- mon is selfish and brutal." . . . Your Napoleon of finance may imagine that he wants good government, but as he expects any particular government to be amenable in so far as his little franchise, or land grant, or subsidy, or tariff schedule is concerned, the concerted influence of his class must necessarily be oblique. Good government from his point of view is frequently an impertinent obstacle to getting the maximum profit, and therefore political corruption is an integral part of his business system. Government of interests, by interests, and for interests is a very different proposition from govern- ment of the people, by the people, and for the people. John M. Palmer The Morals of Mammon. McClure's, July, 1906. The consumer will be forced to organise in self-defence, as labour and capital have been. Walter O. Cooper Fate of the Middle Classes. Labour and capital will get together, just as surely as co-operation suc- ceeds conflict in every phase of human endeavour. Labour and capital, shooting at each other, hit the consumer. The con- sumer is on the firing line without a gun. Ibid. Now comes a new kind of combination in which labour plays an im- portant part. Organised labour has begun to league itself with organised capital. This adds a new factor to the problem and contributes a new ele- ment of strength to the institution which is revolutionising industry. The world has concerned itself a great deal about the abuse of power by organised labour and unified capital, but no one seems to have lost any sleep about the danger that is sure to arise from the well-nigh irresistible power which the union of these organised classes will confer upon the leader who is powerful enough and wise enough to command such an army of industry. Iota. 464 CHAPTER I INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION A merger is a larger body of water connecting two large bodies of water. Sat. Evening Post. The coffin trust has raised the prices 25 per cent. The medical as- sociation is trying to agree on a minimum birth fee. From the cradle to the grave the plain people pay. Ex. HE general tendency of evolution has made itself felt in commercialdom by the building of large and larger aggregates. Segregation and specialisation have been followed by an integration of which the Trust is a conspicuous example. In " The Organi- sation and Control of Industrial Corporations," by Mr. Frank Edward Horack, the author says, under the heading, " Beginning of the So-called ' Trusts ' " : " This crusade against rail- road combinations and the power they wielded did much, no doubt, to stimulate the public mind against ordinary commercial combina- tions when they began to make themselves manifest. The trust movement is said to have begun about 1872 with the formation of the anthracite coal combination, but the violent agitation against such combinations did not begin until about 1887 and 1888. It has been kept up more or less ever since, however, and has been productive of six investigations by legislative authority, and extensive study by numerous voluntary organisations/' Despite all these investigations and the fraud, corruption and ex- tortion they have unearthed as well as the legislation which has fol- lowed them, the Trusts still exist and flourish. The fact of the mat- ter seems to be that the Trust, despite all its infamies, and Heaven knows they are legion, yet contains a vital principle which is in accord with nature's law. If this be so, it behooves us to discover what this principle is, and to direct our energies, not to an attempt to abolish the trust itself, but, rather, to depose it from its present position of a brutal, riotous and slave-driving master to its proper place of an orderly, kind and efficient servant. When through the agency of a trust competition is wiped out and increased efficiency attained by converting commercial chaos into order, a great eco- nomical advantage has been secured. The immense cost of advertis- ing consumes and wastes the commercial energy just as clearly as sanding the bearings of a dynamo would waste its driving energy and reduce its efficiency output. Are we so foolish that we love labour for its own sake? Do we wish a thing to be wasteful simply that it may take more labour to each unit of output? If so, we are 30 465 on an intellectual parity with that prison disciplinarian who, in order to impress the criminals in his charge with the dignity of labour, forced them to wheel a pile of sand from one end of the prison-yard to the other on Monday and to wheel it back again on Tuesday. We have, it is true, our own occidental standards of labour, standards which the oriental finds it extremely hard to understand. The eastern nations find it difficult to see why a man should put forth any effort which is not necessary. We are all familiar with the story of the Chinaman who, when he saw some Americans dancing, asked what they did it for, if they were paid for it,- and why they did not hire some one else to do it for them, as they did in his country. Along the same line is the anecdote told by George Francis Train in his "My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands/' Mr. Train says : " I took passage in the P. & 0. boat, the Erin, Captain Jameson, and supposed, of course, that I should have a stateroom. But I was to meet with another Chinese sur- prise. A great Chinese mandarin, going from Hongkong to .Shang- hai, had engaged the whole cabin. I was very desirous to see this great personage, and soon had the opportunity. It is my practice, when at sea, to take exercise by walking rapidly up and down the deck, thus covering many miles a day. I was taking my daily exer- cise the day when the mandarin came on board ship, and every time I passed the cabin I noticed that he followed me with his eyes. And so we kept it up for some time, I walking as unconcernedly as I could, and the great mandarin watching my movements as curiously as if I were some strange animal. " After a while he called the first officer, and asked what I was doing. ' Walking up and down the deck,' he was told. * But why does he do it? Is he paid for it?' The officer told him it was for exercise. ( What is that ? ' asked the Chinese great man. This was explained to him, but he could not understand why any one wanted to walk up and down, and do so much unnecessary work. The Chinese are not averse to work; indeed, they are one of the most industrious people n the face of the earth, but they do not do unnecessary work, having, I infer, to do as much necessary work as is good for them. And this great dignitary pointed to me with scorn and said : ' Number one foolo.' I hardly need explain that 'number one/ throughout the far East, means the superlative degree. " This mandarin was the great Li Hung Chang, who has been sum- moned by his emperor to save the country from the terrible Tai-ping rebellion. He was on his way from Canton to Shanghai. He there called in the splendid services of three great foreigners the French- man, Bougevine, the American, Ward, and the Englishman, ' Chinese ' Gordon; but it was largely and chiefly due to the stubbornness and genius of Li that the empire was saved to the Manchus, at a cost, it is estimated, of twenty millions of lives." When we consider the matter closely we cannot but realise that any engine which creates wealth more economically than its com- petitors is, in so far, a beneficence. That it does at the same time other things which are not only helpful, but heinous, is a sepa- rate proposition to be separately met. That the trust, as it exists 466 INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION to-day, is enabled after cheapening production and driving out com- petition to practise an extortion limited only by the amount of ex- ploitation that people can be made to stand; that it has the power to set its iron heel in the sweating face of labour; that it succeeds in subverting justice; that it buys judges, defies the law, bribes state legislatures and even goes to the door of the national Congress and makes its blatant brags that it can " swing twenty-six votes in the Senate, and don't you forget it;" that it subsidises the press and fills with its tainted gold the ministerial hand upon the pulpit Bible; that it maintains a politico-economical professorship for the ex- press purpose of teaching falsehood and digging pitfalls for the feet of the unwary; that it has corrupted public morality, subverted the political will of the people and made of the Declaration o Independ- ence and the United States Constitution twin door-mats whereon to wipe its plutocratic feet : that it has poisoned our food supply, selling canned death to our soldiers, till more died from this traffic of greed than fell victims to Spanish bullets; that it enters the home and foists its venomed food in a hundred different forms upon all its in- mates thrice a day; that it has also laid its slimy, snake-like, oc- topodoid tentacles upon the morality of the American home, forcing thousands of women to choose between paying its infamous social price by starvation or a life of shame ; in short, that it seems, in its fright- ful inroad upon human society, to have applied the malevolence of the Devil with the omnipotence of God ; that it has done these things is indeed a terrible indictment, an indictment which quite excuses the average citizen in his indignant determination to end the nuisance once and for all, if he can but see a way to accomplish that result. The hypocritical and high-handed robbery of the coal barons has gone far toward setting that raw-hide thing, known as the American patience, up to the breaking tension. The average American resents being treated as an ignorant ass, and the fact that the coal barons, from the sacrosanct Mr. Baer to the cheapest hypocrite in his class, have so treated him again and again is but another evidence "that whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." Slowly but surely the people are coming to learn that these men are not subject to any of the laws which govern them, and, what is still more menacing to plutocratic greed, they are beginning to ask themselves why min- ing lands worth $30,000 an acre should be taxed on a pasture-land valuation, say, of $3.00 an acre, to the double end that these lands might be held out of use, the production of coal restricted and prices so forced up to an extortionate rate, on the one hand, while, on the other hand, every stick of timber in the homes of the poor should be taxed to make up the deficit. In the Appendix to his " Moonblight and Six Feet of Homance," Mr. Dan. Beard says under the caption, " SOME FACTS SHOWING How THE PEOPLE ARE COMPELLED TO PAY EXORBITANT PRICES FOR COAL BECAUSE OF THE MONOPOLY IN COAL LANDS AND IN TRANS- PORTATION/' "At a hearing before the New York State Railroad Commission, (March 14, 1900), when the railroad syndicate was try- ing to prevent the proposed independent railroad from securing the franchise by claiming that it was not a public necessity, Mr. Thomas 467 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION P. Fowler, then president of the New York, Ontario and Western Eailroad, made this startling admission : ' Without some restriction . . . stove coal would be a drug at two dollars a ton' " This was not an extravagant statement. Anthracite sold in Phila- delphia for only $8.50 a ton when it had to be mined by hand and hauled by horses; while now, with the cost of production greatly re- duced by modern machinery, coal of the same grade sells in Philadel- phia for from $6 to $6.50 a ton. There is enough coal in known deposits to last hundreds of years; we may thus see that the high price is not due to scarcity. " The haul to New York is 180 miles and the rate $1.55 per ton. That this rate is extortionate and rendered possible only by the monopoly enjoyed by the railroads, will not be seriously questioned by any thoughtful and disinterested person who is cognisant of the facts involved. In this connexion it is interesting to note that corn was hauled from Iowa to the seaboard, in 1898, for thirty cents a ton per hundred miles, and that bituminous coal was for some years (and possibly still is) hauled to Lake Erie from Pittsburg and a radius of forty miles around that city for ninety cents a ton, the distance being from 140 to 180 miles. " Mr. Thomas W. Phillips, member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in his supplemental report says : ' Mr. H. G. Brooks, an independent coal operator of Pennsylvania, testifies that 43,000,- 000 tons of anthracite coal are yearly carried by rail to market at three-fourths cents per ton per mile in excess of the rates charged for carrying bituminous coal. This is $322,000 per mile of excess charge for the year's product, or $46,762,500 for the average haul of 145 miles to the general market, or over $1 a ton. This overcharge, which is greater than the interest on our national debt, is made pos- sible by the railroad monopoly ' community of interests/ and by the limited area of the hard coal supply. By discriminating against in- dependent operators the railroads have forced many of them to sell their properties, until, at the present time, more than nine-tenths of the anthracite coal deposits is owned, and more than three-fourths of the entire yearly product is mined by eight lines of railroad that are substantially in entire union of interests/ " In another part of the same Appendix Mr. Beard says : " The con- centration of capital in the hands of an ever-diminishing number of over-rich men has proceeded with rapidly accelerating momentum. The increasing arrogance and insolence in the attitude of the enor- mously rich beneficiaries of monopoly in land and in transporta- tion, toward their employes, 11,3 consuming public and the govern- ment, has been such as to raise the question ' Who are the real out- laws ? ' and to call forth stron j protests and notes of warning from some of the most eminent and conservative statesmen and students of political problems and tendencies." Eegarding this subject the Hon. Eichard Olney, former United States Attorney-General and .Secretary of State, said in an article in a " Boston Herald " of October, 1902, in reference to the multi- millionaire heads of the various coal companies : " Who are they that make so extraordinary an assumption and were so insistent upon the 468 INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION suppression of lawlessness in the mining regions? Why, the most unblushing and persistent of lawbreakers. For many years they have defied the law of Pennsylvania which forbids common carriers en- gaging in the business of mining. For years they have discriminated between customers in the freight charges on their railroads in vio- lation of the Interstate Commerce law. For many years they have unlawfully monopolised interstate commerce in violation of the Sher- man anti-trust law. Indeed, the very best excuse and explanation of their astonishing attitude at the Washington conference is that, hav- ing violated so many laws for so long and so many times, they might rightfully think they were wholly immune from either punishment or reproach/' The Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania provides that " No incorporated company doing the business of a common carrier shall, directly or indirectly, prosecute or engage in mining . . . or in any other business than that of common carriers." Yet according to the report of the Department of Labour, May, 1903, page 448, the Anthracite Commission accepts the statement that 91 per cent, of the mines are actually owned by the transportation companies, while 5.29 per cent, more are controlled by them. Mr. Beard says, in the Ap- pendix already referred to, " Just prior to the completion of this ar- rangement, in 1899, the Eeading road elected its president, Mr. George F. Baer, president of the Temple Iron Company, a small concern with an old charter, increased the capital stock of that company from $250,000 to over $5,000,000, and began the business of owning coal land and mining coal. This is in direct violation of the Pennsylvania State Constitution/' . . . "The directors of the Temple Iron Company are the presidents of these railroads: Philadelphia and Eeading; Central Kailroad of New Jersey; New York, Lake Erie and Western (Erie); Dela- ware, Lackawanna and Western; Lehigh Valley; Delaware and Hud- son Canal Company; New York, Ontario and Western; Delaware, Susquehanna and Schuylkill. Under the guise of the Temple Iron Company these presidents hold monthly meetings and fix the price of coal, and the consumer has learned that this price is limited only by what he can be forced to pay. " There are at the present time about 150 individual owners of anthracite coal lands. Of these lands the railroad syndicate owns 70 per cent, and directly controls nearly 20 per cent, more, while the owners of the other 10 per cent, are under the thumb of the syndicate/' As a typical example of oppression and arrogance on the part of " Christian men," Mr. Beard offers the following. The letter re- ferred to therein was written by Mr. George Baer and may be found in full in "The Independent" (New York) for August 28, 1902. " One of the worst features of this notorious ' community of inter- est' is the fact that it has driven the individual owners to acts of lawlessness, oppression, and downright petty meanness of which one might hesitate to believe that any human being would be guilty, if it were not that they are spread upon the records of the Anthracite Commission. 469 "This, too, notwithstanding that the most conspicuous of the coal barons wrote : * The rights and interests of the labouring man will be protected and cared for, not by the labour agitators, but by the CHRISTIAN MEN to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country!' On May 9, 1902, less than four months before the date of this remarkable let- ter, in answer to a proposition that Archbishop Ireland, Bishop Potter and a third party to be chosen by them should act as arbitrators, this same writer told Mr. John Mitchell that : ' Anthracite mining is a business, and not a religious, sentimental or academic proposi- tion. . . . Nor can I call to my aid as experts in the mixed problem of business and philanthropy the eminent prelates you have named ! ' " During the recent coal strike it will be remembered that one of the great coal-mining firms, which are styled ' independent ' and which stood shoulder to shoulder with their fellow-monopolists in their untenable position that there was nothing to arbitrate, demanded of the President that he send Federal troops to tneir aid. Had the demand been granted one may conjecture what would have been ex- pected of the ' boys in blue ' by the testimony before the Anthracite Commission, in December, 1902, which showed that this same firm kept a woman, widowed by a mine accident, and her two boys work- ing thirteen years to pay up an old rent bill of $396; that they evicted an aged miner, who for nineteen years' work never saw but $50 in money, in the rain, with no possible shelter for eight miles, because his son was an officer in the union; and that they evicted another miner, half blind and crippled by mine work, with his sick wife, and her mother, aged 101 years, in a storm." (The wife died within a month of the eviction.) "In the latter case, the sheriff ap- pealed to the head of the firm which ordered this eviction for a little more time for the unhappy miner, and got the answer : * They must get out in five minutes/ When, in another instance, a collection of some $180 was taken up by the miners for a man crippled in the mine, this same firm held out $56 for a bill for rent and groceries. " A mine owner in the role of a feudal baron, demanding assistance in putting down a rebellion of serfs, is a convincing illustration of the reality of our industrial slavery. If Abraham Lincoln were alive to-day he would say of this man as he did of Mr. Douglass, in Oc- tober, 1864 : ' I DENY HIS RIGHT TO GOVEEN ANY OTHER PERSON WITHOUT THAT PERSON'S CONSENT/ " But this mine owner is not alone in his arrogance. President Oly- phant, forgetful of the statement of his fellow-monopolist Mr. Fowler, that only the absence of competition made coal cost above $2 a ton, said that ' the devilishness of the miners raised the price of coal 50 cents a ton' (from $4), while counsel for the Eeading railroad said that ' for more than a quarter of a century the people of New York have wrung the bowels out of the coal region of Pennsylvania, prac- tically getting their coal for nothing and whining like a pack of whipped dogs when a decent remunerative price is asked by the miners/ " The treatment received by the miners during the strikes which have 470 INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION occurred has been of the most brutal and un-American sort. This is well illustrated by the following episode, which we extract from Mr. Beard's work. It has a most pertinent bearing upon the ques- tion of whether or not the United States has forsaken its own great ideals, for those of Russian despotism. "In the fall of that year (1897) there was a strike which, while only a partial tie-up, will long be remembered for the massacre at Lattimer, near Hazleton, September 10, 1897. One hundred and fifty unarmed strikers, car- rying an American flag, on their way to ask the miners at Lattimer to strike, were halted by the sheriff and one hundred deputies armed with Winchesters furnished by the mine-owners. The strikers soon found that their country's flag was no protection to them, for when they refused to turn back they were fired on. Twenty-one were killed, of whom sixteen were shot in the back. The sheriff at first claimed that he had been knocked down, but after telling several stories, decided to deny having given the order to fire. When war- rants were issued for the deputies, the constable attempting to serve them was jailed by the soldiers." From this it will be seen that we are fast adopting the militarism of European despotism; add to this the more recent Colorado out- rages and we may easily realise how it happens that so many thinking men regard Washington as a sort of suburb to St. Petersburg. Others who fear the German peril rather than its more severe Russian fel- low are more and more frequently expressing their thought in stinging bits of sarcasm like the following, which contains more than a sem- blance of truth, from " Harper's Weekly " : " The discovery that the Kaiser is four months older than President Roosevelt will come as a surprise to persons who thought they were twins." The lawlessness and corrupt practises of the coal trust and its associate railroad com- bines are but typical of the other trusts. We are all too familiar with the ship-building and steel trust's flimflam games, as well as with the Standard Oil's carnival of iniquity, and the Beef Trust's gentlemen's agreement among hogs, to need any extended further enlightenment upon these topics. That our legislatures are governed by and in the interests of the railroads and the trusts is a fact of common knowledge. Year after year railroad corruption has become more brazenly flagrant, and year after year the service it has rendered to the public has become poorer, less certain and convenient and more and more hazardous to life and limb, until to-day statistics show that a brakeman cannot live and keep all his limbs more than seven years upon the average, and how about the patrons of the roads? The public prints teem with acci- dents in which passengers are killed by scores. Here is an example from a single issue, in fact, from a single page of a single issue of a Boston paper, an example fairly typical of many other similar re- ports of railroad fatalities which could be cited. We refer to the "Boston American" of March 17, 1906, from which we copy the following headings : No. 1. "3 Dead, 1 Dying. In Crash of Trains on B. & M. Misunderstood Order Cause of Wreck in New Hamp- shire No Block Signals." (This wreck occurred in what is known as Butcher's Hill cut near Lawrence corner. The engines were 471 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION reduced to scrap iron, and cars piled up and thrown down a steep embankment, blocking the Worcester and Nashua division of the Boston and Maine road for hours.) No. 2. " Train ditched : Score injured." (More than a score of persons were injured_, in the wreck of a Chicago train on the Monon railroad which jumped the track at Horseshoe Bend near Bedford, Indiana.) No. 3. " Operator's Sleep Cost Lives of 35. Trains Crash Owing to Neglect of Man who should have given Engineer Orders." (Thir- ty-five people were either killed outright or roasted to death as the result of the Utah & California Express No. 3, from Denver heavily laden and travelling 40 miles an hour, crashing into a local passenger train). ' So hazardous has railroad travel become as the result of the inefficiency which ever follows quick upon the heels of moral degen- eracy that the Editor of " The Outlook " says apropos of accidents : " It is becoming as perilous to live in the United .States as to partici- pate in actual warfare.* To show how utterly unnecessary is this great loss of life, how, in short, it is part and parcel of the general breaking down of respect for human life in this country, we offer the following comparative tables from " Hazell's Annual " for 1904. KILLED. INJURED. United Kingdom 1 in 19,975,800 1 in 2,244,472 United States 1 in 1,622,267 1 in 78,523 * As we are about to go to press news 'comes of another fearful accident on that travesty of transportation systems known as the Southern Rail- way. An accident of somewhat unique significance, marking as we are told the first instance in the country's history where a railroad president was killed while travelling upon his own road. Commenting upon this ac- cident and the death of Mr. Samuel Spencer, Mr. Arthur Warren says in part in the Boston Herald of Dec. 3, 1906, " Among many trials of an active life, I have been compelled to endure many journeys on the South- ern Railway. Never in its trains for years have I been on time when consigning my poor bones to the mercies of the wondrous organisation which controls so much of the traffic of the South. But unpunctuality in the extreme, with hours of delay, is not the only risk of the traveller on that ' system ' of single tracks. The risk of life and limb, as shown by the record of accidents on the Southern in the past 10 years is suffi- cient to illustrate the charge I make of recklessness, of carelessness, of in- difference to the risk of human life. Prom the point of public convenience and safety, there may be worse managed railways than the Southern in some parts of the earth, but I have not found them, though travelling in many countries. The conditions that prevail on the Southern are not pe- culiar to it; they are characteristic of most of the mileage of American railroads they differ in degree, not in kind. The American public is largely responsible for the railway accidents which kill and maim more persons than war slays and wounds. The tremendous slaughter which takes place annually on our railroads is prob- ably known to everybody in the country. There is hardly a day in which the press does not record some detail of it, and, every little while, popular attention is drawn to the fact that our trains kill and maim more per- sons in a year than do the military and naval battles of the world. This country is alone in this fearful pre-eminence. But what is done to change this sanguinary reputation? Nothing. . . . The railway pass has been one of the preventives to railway improvement. It has silenced 472 The proportion of railway servants killed or injured to the number employed in the United Kingdom and the United States were as follows : KILLED. INJURED. United Kingdom 1 in 10,144 1 in 747 United States 1 in 357 1 in 19 Slason Thompson in "World's Work" for Sept., 1903, gives the following table : NUMBER OF PASSENGERS CARRIED TO ONE KILLED. United States 2,153,469 United Kingdom ' 7,420,000 Germany 9,778,000 France 4,821,000 Eussia 1,444,000 The following table taken from the reports of the Interstate Com- merce Commission and published in Mr. Robert Hunter's " Poverty " illustrates how terribly hazardous is the work of the railroad employe. Year Employes Passengers Other Persons Total Killed Injured Killed Injured Killed InjuredKilled Injured 1897 1,693 27,667 222 2,795 4,522 6,269 6,437 36,731 1898 1,958 31,761 221 2,945 4,680 6,176 6,859 40,882 1899 2,210 34,923 239 3,442 4,674 6,255 7,123 44,620 1900 2,550 39,643 249 4,128 5,066 6,549 7,865 50,320 1901 2,675 41,142 282 4,988 5,498 7,209 8,455 53,339 1902 2,969 50,524 345 6,683 5,274 7,455 8,588 64,662 Commenting on this table Mr. Hunter writes, " These figures are frightful. In 1901 one out of every 399 employes was killed and one out of every 26 was injured. The trainmen, such as engineers, firemen, conductors, etc., are the greatest sufferers. One was killed for every 137 employed, and one was injured for every 11 employed. It is difficult to believe that such slaqghter is permitted to go on year after year. It would seem as if the owners of the railroads would make the safety of their workmen their first obligation; but, strange as it is, they resist powerfully every attempt made to have them adopt safety appliances. The energetic efforts of the Interstate Com- merce Commission have been but partially successful in compelling criticism in the press, in the Legislature and at Washington. The pub- lic has been educated to regard our methods of railroad operation as, if not perfect, then the best possible in an imperfect world. Most persons seem to think that the mishaps which occur are unavoidable, and they think so because they are not acquainted with better methods for avoiding them. . . . The slaughter on our railways is more wonderful than the slaughter in the packing-houses of Chicago, and the lives that are lost seem to be about as cheap as the lives of the hogs and the cattle. But government inspects the slaughter of the beasts and leaves the slaugh- ter of the men and women to go gaily on in the name of progress, and for the sake of dividends." 473 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION the railroads to put on such appliances as are necessary in order to diminish the number of accidents and fatalities. Up to the present the Commission has not been successful in compelling the railroads to introduce the Block System, which would greatly diminish the number killed and injured. The railroads consider this system an ' unwarranted luxury/ just as a few years ago they considered the automatic coupler an * unwarranted luxury/ Such increased ex- penses for the safety of the employes reduce profits, and with that only in view the railroads either forget, or have no concern for, the families whose bread-winners are lost or injured by this criminal policy of preferring murder to decreased dividends." . . . " Many railroad systems have resisted and violated the law com- pelling them to put on automatic couplers, and they are now fighting the introduction of the Block System, both of which improvements are designed to prevent accidents and injuries." . . . " In case of accidents, ' company ' physicians and lawyers hasten immediately to the place of the accident, and, if possible, persuade the workmen to sign contracts by which they agree, for some small immediate compensation, to release the company from any further liability. I have known many, many cases where workmen have, for a few dollars, signed away their rights to sue when their injuries have been as serious as the loss of a leg or arm. In the seventeen years ending June 30, 1902, 103,320 persons were killed and 587,028 in- jured by the railway industry." 474 CHAPTEE II 475 A power has arisen up in the Government greater than the people them- selves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks. John C. Calhoun In the U. 8. Senate. Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another. Homer The Iliad. Accident is commonly the parent of disorder. Gibbon. The optimist is an accomplice of the grafter. The concentration of so many branches of trade in the hands of a few individuals, so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses a yoke little better than slavery. Pope Leo XIII. Think'st thou there are no serpents in the world But those who slide along the grassy sod, And sting the luckless foot that presses them? There are who in the path of social life Do bask their spotted skins in Fortune's sun, And sting the soul. Joanna Baillie De Monfort. Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made, To turn a penny in the way of trade. Cowper Table Talk. 476 CHAPTER II SOME RESULTS OF COMMERCIAL CENTRIPETALISM T will be seen from the tables presented in the fore- going chapter that in this respect of railway ineffi- ciency as in many other respects the United States is a close second to Russia. In those countries where human life is of little value railway accidents will be frequent and their mortality high, while, con- versely, those countries which hold human life dear will show few accidents and low mortality. Our American railway corporations con- sider it cheaper to kill their servants and their passengers than to maintain a high efficiency of service. The practice, almost universal with corporations, of making use of employers' liability associations is chargeable for much of the mortality among employes. Such asso- ciations ought, in the interests of public policy, to be brushed from the face of the earth. Were it not for them and ,the supineness of our courts and legislatures, safety-coupling devices, block-signal sys- tems, automatic electrical devices, and the like means of guarding their own servants and the public would become a necessity and their adoption an event of the near future. Not only are the fatalities second only to those of Russia, but it is a most important fact to note that they have increased during the last few years very much in excess of the increase in mileage. On June 30, 1897, the railway mileage in the United States was 184,- 428.42, while on the same date in 1904 the mileage was 213,904.34. This shows a mileage increase over 1907 of 29,475.92 miles, or an in- crease of approximately 16 per cent. It will be seen from the follow- ing table of railroad accidents annually occurring in the United States from June 30, 1897, to June 30, 1904, that, while the mileage in- crease is only 16 per cent., the increase in the number of killed is more than 56 per cent, and in the number of injured it is more than 129 per cent. . Well may we ask what the next decade will show, when we con- sider that in seven short years the railway mortality has increased more than 50 per cent, in excess of the mileage increase, while the in- crease of injured is more than 113 per cent, greater than said mileage increase. It will not take the mathematically inclined long to figure out at what period, upon this rate of increase, the railroads will be decimating our population. The table is as follows : Railroad Accidents in the United States from June 30, 189-7, to June 30, 1904. .. 477 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION KILLED. 1897 6,437 1898 6,859 1899 7,123 1900 7,865 1901 8,455 1902 8,588 1903 9,840 1904 .' 10,046 INJURED. 36,731 40,882 44,620 50,320 53,339 64,662 76,553 84,155 In "Wilshire's Magazine" for January, 1906, W. J. Ghent publishes an article entitled " Peace more Bloody than War." Eef erring to our Civil War as "the great killing/' a title which has frequently been conferred upon it, he shows that the fatali- ties in the northern army during the four years of the Civil War reached a total of 150,224, this figure being for deaths exclusive from disease. This shows a yearly average of 37,556. Mr. Ghent estimates the Confederate yearly average as 24,411, making the total yearly average for both sides 62,122. These fatalities he points out occurred in " a struggle to the death, wherein every device, every energy which men can employ against one another for the destruction of life were employed." In comparing these figures with " the horrors of indus- trial militarism," Mr. Ghent points out that the killings on inter- state roads for the year ending June 30, 1904, are reported as 9,984, while the woundings number 78,247. He says that the State roads probably had 975 deaths and 7,500 woundings, to which should be further added the casualties of the trolley lines, approximately 1,340 killed and 59,169 wounded. He submits the following tables, com- paring these figures with the losses on both sides in the Battles of Gettysburg, Chancellorsville and Chickamauga. LOSSES IN THREE BATTLES. (both sides.) 1863. KILLED. Gettysburg 5,662 Chickamauga > 3,924 Chancellorsville 3,271 12,857 LOSSES IN RAILROAD ACCIDENTS IN 1904 * KILLED. Interstate roads 9,984 State roads 975 Trolley lines (Estimated) 1,340 WOUNDED. 27,203 24,362 18,843 69,408 WOUNDED. 78,247 7,500 52,169 12,299 137,916 *For further data upon this subject and for some notable accidents which have occurred since writing the above, see Appendix B. 478 COMMERCIAL CENTRIPETALISM Continuing Mr. Ghent states that the factories probably destroy more lives than the railroads. He considers the census bureau sta- tistics of factory casualties given in Bulletin No. 83 as ridiculous. He says : " Were the factories placed under a Federal supervision law, and were their owners compelled to report accidents to the authorities, a vastly different condition would be revealed. For the coal mines, on the other hand, we have something like authentic figures. The United States Geological Survey reports the casualties in mining coal for the year 1901 as 1,467 killed and 3,643 wounded. Except for the low ratio of wounded to killed, this would make a fair comparison with any one of a number of important engagements during the Civil War. Pennsylvania alone furnished an industrial Bull Bun. BATTLE OF BULL RUN, 1861. KILLED. WOUNDED. Federals 470 1,071 Confederates 387 1,582 857 2,653 PENNSYLVANIA COAL MINES, 1901. KILLED. WOUNDED. Anthracite 513 1,243 Bituminous . . 301 656 Total 814 1,899 With reference to this decreasing value of life and also of the fostering care which courts bestow upon railroads, we quote the fol- lowing from " The Menace of Privilege," by Henry George, Jr. : " Nothing seems so cheap as human flesh and blood among the poor of our great cities. And now and then comes a pronouncement from a court of law that emphasises this. One such was made by William G. Gummere, Chief Justice of the .Supreme Court of New Jersey New Jersey, the great trust-incorporating State. A child had been killed in a street railroad accident in Jersey City. The parents brought suit for $50,000 compensation. Justice Gummere ruled that a child's life is financially not worth more than $1 to its parents. By that ruling the jurist became popularly known as * Dollar-a-life Gummere/ After stubborn fighting in the courts, and taking the case to the highest tribunal in the State, Justice Gummere was over- borne and $1,000 awarded the parents of the dead child." In an anonymous article entitled " An Appeal to our Millionaires " and published in " The North American Eeview " for June, 1906, an article, by the way, which has attracted wide-spread attention, the author thus comments upon the carelessness of human life ex- hibited in some quarters : " One does not wave a red flag in the face of a bull unless he has good reasons for wishing to inflame the bull; but, unfortunately, our millionaires, and especially their idle and 479 degenerate children, have been flaunting their money in the faces of the poor as if actually wishing to provoke them to that insensate rage which is akin to madness, and leads ' to murder and the breaking up of laws/ In the sweep of a great current, it is foolish to exaggerate the influence of a small rivulet which joins it, but let us consider for a moment one matter of very minor importance, except as showing an apparent actual desire on the part of the rich to draw upon them- selves the hatred of the poor. The motor-engine is not only a most valuable invention for many purposes, but it offers those rich enough to afford it a very attractive mode of travel, and has undoubtedly not only come to stay, bu to increase rapidly in use, as it ought. When cars are of a size proportioned to the width of the highway on which they run and are propelled at moderate speed, they are used without serious danger or discomfort to any other person using the highway or living beside it. Nobody has ever, been hurt or seriously annoyed by an automobile of proportionate size going at ten miles an hour. But the rich prefer to buy immense cars which take almost all of a narrow street or road, and to drive them on all streets and roads, narrow or wide, at such speed as imperils the lives and limbs of everybody in their path ; and merely for their own selfish pleasure they afflict the poor and their children, well or ill, in their wayside homes, with offensive noise and clatter and more offensive odour, and cover them with thick layers of dust, as they do all the travellers they pass ; and they actually kill other people on the highway if they are not able to run fast enough to escape them, and then the great car speeds away. ' The Sun ' of New York reported the other day the killing of two aged women and one child; on another day two children were killed; on another day one child was killed and a labouring man with his dinner-pail on his arm. The newspapers this morning report the running down of two working-men on their way to work and a Catholic priest on his way to church. Since New- Year's Day these great cars, simply for the pleasure of their occu- pants, have killed more people on the public highways than were killed in the war with Spain. " Of course, there is nothing novel in this form of showing contempt by the rich for the rights of the poor on the public highways. Here is a sketch, by a master hand, of a parallel scene in Paris, just before France was drenched in the blood of her ' wealthy classes ' : ' With a wild rattle and clatter the carriage dashed through the streets and swept round corners with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping by a street corner, at a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry and the horses reared and plunged. But for this the carriage probably would not have stopped, for carriages often drove on and left their wounded or killed behind them. * What has gone wrong ? ' asked the Marquis, calmly looking out. ' A. child has been killed/ was the answer, and he replied : ' It is extraordinary to me that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is forever in the way ! ' and then the Marquis drove on to his grand 480 . COMMERCIAL CENTRIPETALISM chateau. But in the morning he was dead with the knife of the dead child's father in his heart.' " Changing ' carriage ' to e motor-car,' how much all this reads like an incident of to-day, except that here, fortunately, we are in no danger of the taking of life for life." The carelessness of human life exhibited by railroad corporations is by no means confined to that particular class of corporations. We have seen how the Beef Trust has ploughed a wake of death and desolation which a malicious and robust cyclone would never cease to " blow " about, so proud would it be of its efficiency. Those who wish to know where the .Standard Oil stands upon such matters, are referred to Henry Demorest Lloyd's "Wealth against Common- wealth," to Miss Ida Tarbell's " History of the Standard Oil " and to Thomas W. Lawson's arraignment of the system in his " Frenzied Finance." The menace of the Trusts is making itself felt along a hundred and one lines. These lying corporations make a specialty of spreading falsehood. Their corruptive influence not only enters the Court-room to befoul with bribery the judicial ermine, but it extends to the College, to the University, yea, even to the Pulpit itself, setting up its false guide-boards to allure the unwary out of the paths of truth and rectitude and into the quagmire of trust-made falsehood, in order to poison the minds of our youth, setting before their young eyes the bestialising standards of greed. Our magazines were only recently filled to the point of nausea with Captain-of-Industry articles inspired by trustdom, in which commercial freebooters, who should have been doing time in the penitentiary, were held up to the laudation of American Youth with the constantly implied advice, Go thou and do likewise. As a sample of the falsehood which is rife, railway, telegraph, and telephone companies publish and circulate interpreta- tions of the law which are false and which they know to be false, and they do this for the purpose of deceiving those who may have claims against them. They defy the law, and seem to care no more for a legislative regulation than the Coal Trust does 'for a constitutional provision. When the last war-tax was placed upon telegrams and the like it was decreed that the telegraph companies and not the public should bear this burden. Did they do so? By no means. They insisted that the sender of the message should pay 26 cents where he had formerly paid 25. If he had enough Americanism left in him to object to the outrage, he was told to pay the extra cent under protest and then to sue for its recovery. As an illustration of the utter disregard for the truth evinced by corporations, we offer the following table with its unblushing falsification of facts within the easy reach of any one who will take the trouble to look. The table is taken from Mr. Frank Parsons' " The Telegraph Monopoly," and we give in connexion with it Mr. Parson's comments thereon as fol- lows : " The private telegraph charges of America are more than double the public telegraph rates of Europe. " The Western Union has endeavored to overcome the force of this tremendous fact by asserting that the rate is a matter of distance and that the distances are greater here, and tables of distances and charges were presented to committees of Congress for the purpose of 3J 481 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION* proving the assertion. Unfortunately for the Western Union the Wash burn Committee consulted geographies and telegraph maps and found that the length of telegraph routes between the cities of Europe were strangely minified in the Western Union statement, while the distances between American cities were mysteriously larger than those Bet down in maps and geographies. Here are some examples: TABLE III. TELEGRAPH DISTANCES. WESTERN UNION TRUTH FROM LONDON TO STATEMENT, MILES. IN MILES. Dover 50 82 Plymouth 190 246 Paris 200 313 Eeims 250 400 Hamburg 380 556 Munich , .540 800 Berlin 560 722 Prague 600 958 Madrid 750 1,225 Rome 850 1,349 Naples 950 1,510 St. Petersburg ^. . . . . 1,160 1,806 " Not one single distance is correctly stated. It is necessary in nearly every case to add at least one-third and often more than one-half of the stated distance to obtain the real distance. The sum of the stated distances was 15,724 miles, and the sum of the real distances was 22,578 miles, or almost one-half more than the Western Union's statement. To show the falsity of statements about American routes it was not even necessary to disturb the dust on the geography the statement was its own refutation; for example, the distance from Memphis to New York was placed at 2,000 miles, while in other tables of the same Western Union testimony the distance was said to be 1,000 miles. So the distance from New York to Chicago was placed at 750 miles, and to Galena at 1,400 miles, though Galena is only 185 miles from Chicago. Substituting the true distances in the comparison of telegraph charges in Europe and America, the com- mittee obtained very different results from those of the Western Union statement/' The public is quite familiar with the manner in which the Beef Trust decreased the price of cattle on the hoof at the same time that it raised the price of dressed meats. "The gentlemen's agreement among hogs " abolished all competition. It being prearranged that all buyers should offer but the one price, the seller had to take that or nothing. This is a little trick of the Trusts. The Grain Trust used the same method of throttling competition. In his " The Grain Trust Exposed" Thomas D. Worrall says: "I am not overstating the facts when I say there is scarcely a station in Nebraska where the 482 COMMERCIAL CENTRIPETALISM local man has not been forced to divide his business with the line companies, and at every grain station where there are none but line companies the business is always divided and the same prices paid all the time, except in cases where one buyer was stronger than the others and got more than his share. In this case the buyer who was ahead would reduce his price y 2 cent or 1 cent a bushel until his competitor could buy enough to catch up. " A. E. Gates for a number of years was confidential man for the manager of the Omaha Elevator Company. It was his duty to keep accurate account of all purchases of grain, by his own, company and by competing companies, at all stations at which the Omaha company operated, so that he could tell at a moment's notice how they stood on a division at any particular station. Should their agent fall be- hind in any considerable amount instead of punching him up and encouraging him to do better business they would merely insist, under the terms of the agreement, that the other fellow grow lazier and more inattentive to business. If this were not enough, and farmers insisted on selling to him anyhow, the opposition agent who was ahead must say that his elevator was full, or the machinery was broken, or lower his bids. " This scheme and plot against the farmers of Nebraska was worked successfully for year after year. The farmers sometimes believed there was competition over the buying of their grain, and that they were selling in a fair and open market, when there was in fact not even the semblance of competition and the whole play was cut and dried in advance to milk that trusting and unsuspecting son of toil of every last penny fhat could be gotten out of him. It was under- stood, perhaps I had better mention, that no matter how far behind an agent got on his ' share ' under no circumstances must he pay more than card price to catch up ; it was always the other fellow who must pay less. I have known, many times, of cases where two or even more buyers would get on a load of grain and bid against one an- other, apparently, when it had all been arranged beforehand just who was to buy the load and at what price. But the farmer, having sold to the last and highest bidder felt good all over and laughed to him- self and sometimes told his neighbors for miles around that the grain buyers at his station got to bucking on his grain and raised the price 3 or 4 cents a bushel. All such schemes and tricks as these were sanctioned by the secretary and members of the Nebraska Grain Dealers' Association." If the Eeader is interested in the iniquities of the Grain Trust we recommend a perusal of Mr. Worrall's exposure. Concerning the lawlessness of the Beef Trust we offer the follow- ing, from a work written " by a practical butcher, with forty years' experience in the cattle and. meat business, and many years manager of a cold-storage beef house for one of the chief packers of the trust." The work is entitled, " The Dark Side of the Beef Trust," and in it the author, Mr. Herman Hirschauer, says: "But it has remained for the American, . in his pursuit of gold, to ignore all laws, both human and. divine ;.. to JgnOre the rights and privileges of his. neigh- oour, and even to place in jeopardy the health and lives of all peoples 483 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION in every community. In no other country in the world could such a state of affairs exist as is countenanced in the free Republic of the United States of America, as regards animal food. In no other country in the world are the lives of all the citizens made subject to the commerce of the necessary food products as here in the Land of the Free. In no other country in the world are the law-makers and law-making and law-interpreting powers so absolutely mute in the presence of greed and gain as in ' My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty/ In every other civilised country, in the world, the manufacture or sale of unclean, impure, or adulterated foods is made a crime by law, and nowhere on the face of the globe is it counte- nanced as it is in America. The colossal Beef Trust, founded on the commerce of the food of the people, while it levies its greed on the necessities of life, yet places in jeopardy the lives of its victims called, by courtesy, customers or patrons, that it may traffic in a food supply which all peoples, from the beginning of time, have con- sidered unclean, unwholesome, unhealthy, and dangerous to health and life, and turn into gold that which has heretofore been cast upon the dung heap." Regarding Trusts in general Mr. H. C. Richie sounds the follow- ing warning note at the close of his " Trusts versus The Public Wel- fare " : " Are our people insensible to the dangers confronting them in the creation of a plutocracy through the medium of industrial com- binations that deny to individual firms and corporations the right to engage in the manufacture of such articles as they produce, and that limits production and employment to the end of increasing their earn- ings to swell the accumulated wealth of plutocrats? Is not that ac- cumulated wealth a menace to our citizens of limited means who are desirous of engaging in the manufacturing business but are debarred because of the certainty of their destruction by aggregated capital? Is it not a menace to the rights and well-being of the toilers of the country? Is there not danger in its possessors establishing a scale of wages that will impoverish and degrade the wage-earning class ? ' 111 fares the land to hastening Ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay.' " No writing, however great its length and scope, conveys a more forceful warning or puts so clearly the dangers confronting us by the formation and operation of the combinations now controlling the manufactures of the country than does the following which is taken from an address delivered by Judge Grosscup, of Chicago, before the students of the University of Nebraska, at Lincoln, on the trust ques- tion. He said: ' A widespread withdrawal by the people at large from general ownership in the properties of the country cannot but be fraught with the gravest danger. ' Such withdrawal will diminish, if not destroy, popular interest in national prosperity; for from those only who have a stake in pros- perity can we expect great interest. It will kill off cotnp'etition ; for the competitor of the trust must itself be a trust, and there will' be 484 no independent field from which to recruit the means to create such competition. It -will discourage still further the wage-earners in any hope of becoming part owner, and thus deepen and widen the existing gulf between capital and labour. It will sap to its foundation the real strength of government; for government must be built on the inter- ests, as well as the affections of the people governed. An industrial system subject to such indictment is a rising menace to free govern- ment itself/ " We have now to consider a most important industrial effect of the trusts. Monopolising, as each one does, the whole or a large part of its particular industry and being hedged about by special privileges which -make successful competition a practical impossibility, they are able so to control the labour market that the employe, unless backed by a powerful organisation of fellow labourers, is absolutely at their mercy. We have seen how the system turned anarchist in Colorado and fomented discord until they made the mining districts social infernos unworthy a place in any community calling itself civilised. We are now told that America is making place for the mounted Cos- sack, so-called, to be used for the suppression of strikes. Regarding this we quote the following from a Western paper : " It has come at last ! "Russian military methods introduced into the United States to keep the workingman in subjection and suppress any demonstration of a desire for freedom ! " In anticipation of a coal miners' strike in Pennsylvania, the state authorities have provided mounted troops a special new military force, called ' Pennsylvania Cossacks,' armed with clubs and Colts revolvers and stationed them in both the bituminous and the anthra- cite territories. Photographs of these mounted police, reproduced in the daily press, show their uniform to closely resemble that of the Russian Cossack, the cap being almost identical. " At present these troops number only 200, but then the force is as yet only on a * peace footing' and can in time of 'war' that is, in the event of a strike immediately be increased sufficiently to serve the purposes of the operators and at the same time prove a serious addition to the burden under which the Pennsylvania work- man already is staggering with bended back." . . . " Just why these American Cossacks should be equipped with clubs instead of the regulation knout is not clear, unless it is that the knout is not fatal in its effect, excepting it be persistently applied, whereas a striker may be instantly killed by a skillful blow from a heavy club." Considering the question of labour unions, "The Philistine" of January, 1906, says: "There are a million and a half men in America paying dues in Labour Unions. "There are eight thousand paid Walking Delegates or Business Agents, who look to the labourers for support. "A million dollars a year is paid to organisers, the money being paid by the labourers." . . . "HENRY GEORGE, one of the sanest men that America or any other country has ever produced, a workingman, and for many years 485 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION a member of a union, and the Labour Union candidate for Mayor of New York in 1886, says in his * Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII.' : * While within narrow lines trades unionism promotes the idea of the mutuality of interests, and often helps to raise courage and further political education, and while it has enabled limited bodies of work- ingmen to improve somewhat their condition, and gain, as it were, breathing space, yet it takes no note of the general causes that deter- mine the conditions of labour, and strives for the elevation of only a small part of the great body by means that cannot help the rest. Aiming at the restriction of competition the limitation of the right to labour its methods are like those of the army, which even in a righteous cause are subversive of liberty and liable to abuse, while its weapon, the strike, is destructive in its nature, both to combatants and non-combatants. To apply the principle of trade unions to all industry, as some dream of doing, would be to enthrall men in a caste system. Union methods are superficial in proposing forcibly to restrain overwork while utterly ignoring its cause, and the sting of poverty that forces human beings to it." Continuing, Mr. Hubbard says, regarding the various schemes which have been used against Labour Unions : " The question of how to dilute the danger of unionism to a point of safety has been taken up by various men in various ways. But the most practical plan, I be- lieve, that has so far been devised, has been worked out by J. K. Turner of Cleveland. At least Turner has come closer to the trick than any one else so far." . . . " Now Turner, I imagine, is no more unselfish than the rest of us. He simply saw his chance an idea came to him ! It was this : all labourers should be capitalists, and would if they could. " Turner turned capitalist. Farley wins by force and defiance. " Col. Job, of Chicago, imported a cargo of big negroes and marched them thru the streets in a phalanx, armed with clubs. "Pinkerton supplies men with Winchester rifles, flat-nosed bul- lets, and smokeless powder. " Turner wins by a peaceful, subtle influence. He has a thousand or more strike breakers ; none are armed ; none know each other ; all are union men ; all can talk on their feet. " They do two things ; use their influence to ward off strikes, and report to headquarters every night as to what is going on in the shop. " Their report is sent to Turner at Cleveland, not given to the man in whose shop they work with him they are strangers. : " Usually when the question of a strike is up in a union, two or three hot-headed men who can talk, sway and stampede the rest. " The many are forced into a strike thru fear of the charge of cowardice. If there is a Turner man in the union he represents the employer's interests. In the old way the employer's side was never presented, neither did he know what was going on in the union which was made up of his own workmen. Now he knows every day what occurred the day before. " The old-time detective was a sleuth on the outside. The Turner man is a workman on the inside and always a good one. This man draws two salaries, one from the shop where he works and one 486 COMMERCIAL CENTRIPETALISM from Turner. In point of intelligence, the Turner man is superior to the average union man, and often he dominates the union councils, no one present ever imagining who he is. His card is straight, his record good. " Very naturally the question comes up, ' How is any one to know whether a Turner man is loyal to Turner or the Union 1 ? ' " And the answer is, that there are always more than one Turner man in a place, and they spy on each other. Then the interests of the Turner man demands that he shall be true to Turner other- wise he loses his salary from Turner. " How does Turner secure his men ? The answer is easy. His own men are always giving reports on the men who sway unions. These men can usually be hired. That is, the strong workman, whenever he sees he can make more by working for the 'boss/ will work for the ' boss ' and let the union slide. " He gets his regular wages, holds his job, and" receives his bonus from Turner each month." We trust the Eeader will not miss the fact that this so-called best scheme yet planned for meeting labour troubles is founded on decep- tion, nourished in hypocrisy, and bears its fruit in treason. In this connexion we cannot refrain from hazarding the suggestion that, if modern commercialism finds it necessary to its own life to use such disreputable makeshifts, it argues that there is something wrong with it; that it has outlived its morality and probably its usefulness and that the sooner it dies the death the better for all concerned, not excepting its putrid self. As we understand the Farley system, it consists in maintaining an organisation of skilled workers in each industry. These workers are normally distributed throughout the various shops of the country that is, those shops whose proprietors are numbered among Farley's subscribers. The men are at all times subject to Farley's orders. He can take any man from any shop and send him where he pleases, and the employer cannot say him nay. Suppose, now, a strike breaks out in the Chicago furniture industry. Farley immediately draws one hundred, two hundred, or whatever number may be necessary of his skilled men from the various furniture factories from Maine to Cali- fornia, and puts them into Chicago to fill the strikers' places. They are skilled workmen and know their business thoroughly. As soon as they have succeeded in breaking the strike they are again redis- tributed. Whenever Farley sends a workman to one of his subscrib- ing employers, with instructions that he be hired, he must be given work whether he be needed or not, and this assurance of employment at good wage on the part of the labourer is sufficient to make him anxious to become a part of the Farley system. Another way of handling labour troubles is the Pinkerton method. We have given so many illustrations of this particular kind of lawlessness and thug- gism that we need make scarcely more than passing mention of it here. In brief, the favourite method is this : A strike occurs. The strikers ask for arbitration of their differences. The employers " have nothing to arbitrate" this is their chronic condition. They send for the Pinkertons, and, in the meantime, they call loudly for sol- 487 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION' diers. Their preference is for Federal troops, and if they can make Washington believe the mails are being hindered it is a red-letter stroke for them. In passing, one cannot refrain from calling attention to the somewhat recent arrangement of transporting mails in trolley cars running upon street-railway systems. The intelligent Keader will not have to be told why this was done. But, to return, if Federal troops are not to be had they will take any other kind of troops they can get. If conditions are so peaceable that the employers dare not raise the cry of violence, they are obliged to await the arrival of the Pinkertons, confident that trouble will immediately follow their ad- vent. This is invariably the case for two reasons; first, the quarter- ing of such thugs upon a community is such an insult to the American principle that there are usually some few who permit their protests to assume a tangible form, and, second, for the reason that these thugs, if they do not find riotous conditions, at once set about to make them. If soldiers are used instead of Pinkertons the story is the same. The soldier in such a case is a loafer and a bully. He be- comes intoxicated with his own importance and the sense of his su- periority which follows as the result of the brief authority with which he is clothed. Those who sympathise with the strikers are not apt to take him seriously, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, to com- port themselves in a manner which tends to increase his self-respect. As a result trouble is bound to follow. We do not mean to say that the strikers are never in fault, for such would be wide of the truth, but we do mean to say as plainly as we know how, that nine times out of ten when they are at fault it is the result of an individual, unpremeditated, emotional outburst, in short, an ordinary, everyday misdemeanor or crime. When, on the other hand, the employers themselves are at fault, it is more often than not a case of cold- blooded conspiracy, a premeditated and carefully carried-out subver- sion of justice attained through deliberate incitement to riot, bribery of the courts and gross misrepresentation of facts. Eeader, if you think this an overstatement we earnestly ask you carefully to study the Chicago strike, the various Pennsylvania strikes, the Cripple Creek outrages and last, but by no means least, the Haywood-Moyer con- spiracy, study them until you recognise the extreme leniency, the ultra-conservatism of the above indictment. With the above strike conditions the Public is, or should be, thor- oughly conversant, but there is one phase of the matter which has re- ceived but scant attention, capital organised to further its own in- terests, labour organised for a like result. Between these two oppos- ing factions have been many battles royal fought with great cost alike to the victor and the vanquished, and with an immensely greater sacri- fice on the part of the ever-suffering public. The struggle still con- tinues; in many cases the outcome is of necessity beyond the power of either side to determine; only one factor is invariably certain, namely, the public will lose. Whether employer or employed wins out, the patient public is severely punished. Under such conditions what would we naturally expect from a priori reasoning? We should expect that to occur which already has begun to occur, in this depart- ment of human activities, as it has occurred time and again through- 488 COMMERCIAL CENTRIPETALISM out history in other departments, namely, that the combatants should seek some means of avoiding the uncertain and expensive conflict, a means whereby they should join forces and hunt their prey in com- mon. That this has already occurred is a matter of history. Again and again have employer and employed, both well organised, joined their forces to exploit the unorganised consumer. The grave menace which inheres in this ever-growing recognition on the part of labour and employers' unions, that, by patching up their differences, joining their forces, and presenting to the public a solid and unwavering front, they can both get more for themselves out of the public than they can out of each other, can not be exaggerated in importance. In his "Fate of the Middle Classes," Mr. Walter G. Cooper, Secretary of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, says: "As we saw during the anthracite strike, the consumer is between the upper and the nether millstone. " The larger concern is not the fate of one class, but the welfare of all; nevertheless, injury to one element of the population afflicts the whole community, and the only way to make sure of the general good is to guard the interests of every class with jealous care. " This end is best attained when each class realises that self-protec- tion is the best protection, self-help the best help, and self-respect the surest guaranty of the respect of others. " In nature everything but dead matter is organised, and organisa- tion is the method which self-help and self-protection must adopt. " The separate organisation of the different members of society is as natural as the separate organisation of hand and brain. Producers have their alignment and now comes the consumer. " No class has a monopoly of virtue, but each has its critical period and that time has arrived for the middle classes." . . . " Labour and capital will get together, just as surely as co-operation succeeds conflict in every phase of human endeavour. " Labour and capital, shooting at each other, hit the consumer. The consumer is on the firing line without a gun." Beferring to concrete instances in which Labour and Capital joined forces to hunt the public in common, Mr. Cooper says : " Now comes a new kind of combination in which labour plays an important part. Organised labour has begun to league itself with organised capital. This adds a new factor to the problem and contributes a new element of strength to the institution which is revolutionising industry. The world has concerned itself a great deal about the abuse of power by organised labour and unified capital, but no one seems to have lost any sleep about the danger that is sure to arise from the well-nigh irresistible power which the union of these organised classes will confer upon the leader who is powerful enough and wise enough to command such an army of industry. " Following is an extract from a Chicago dispatch to the Associated Press, on June 15, 1905 : 'John C. Driscoll was made to-day the chief witness before the grand jury and recited what he called the history of the dealings be- tween employers and union labour. Driscoll told how the coal team- sters and coal team owners had made the first joint trade agreement, 489 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION which provided that the owners should employ only members of the coal teamsters' union, and that the members of the union should work for no employer not a member of the coal team owners' association. The effect of this arrangement, the witness declared, was to force every coal waggon owner into the coal team owners' association and every coal waggon driver into the teamsters' union. The owners are behind this provision that barred union men from working for men not members of the association, prevented union drivers from driving independent coal wagons, and raised the cartage rates of coal from 30 to 50 cents a ton for short hauls and to as high as $1 a ton for longer hauls/ " Similar alliances have been made between employers' combinations and the trades unions of New York, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Denver, Atlanta and other cities. " The United States Industrial Commission reports a case in which the United States Government was mulcted of a large sum in the con- struction of a public building at Chicago. Contractors who were members of the double combination of builders and trade unions put in bids for the construction of the building and the award went to the lowest bidder. Apparently everything was regular, but subse- quent events made dissension in the combination and one member turned State's evidence, 'so to speak, on the others. Evidence before the commission showed that the members of the contractors' combina- tion met in secret and submitted to each other the estimates they had made on the Government building. The man who made the lowest estimate was conceded to have won and he was accorded the right to put in the lowest bid and secure the contract, but was required to add twenty per cent, to his original estimate, and this extra sum re- ceived from the Government was divided among the other contractors in the combination. " An attempt to mulct the Methodist Book Concern in the same man- ner was discovered. The architect rejected the bids as too high and members of the combination became restless because they believed the restrictions that bound them were injuring their business. One mem- ber put in a straight bid. This led to quarrels, the result of which was the discovery of the methods by which the United States Govern- ment had been held up. "A curious story is told of a builders' combination, said to have existed in another city, which adopted the average price as the one entitled to secure the contract. Builders in the combination met secretly and submitted their bids to each other before bidding for the investor. All the estimates were added together and the average was taken. The bid nearest the average was the winner and the man who made it was allowed to put in the lowest bid to the investor. His lowest bid was the average, plus 20 per cent, to be divided among the other bidders. " Since the Industrial Commission completed its report New York City has suffered severely from a combination of this kind in the building trades. During the year 1904 the newspapers of the metrop- olis printed a great deal of evidence going to show that the cost of building was arbitrarily increased to a very great extent by the es.- 490 COMMERCIAL CENTRIPETALISM elusive combinations of building contractors and trades unions. In many cases, reported by the Industrial Commission, the double com- binations were soon broken up by internal dissensions, but new com- binations of the same kind keep springing up. There is something persistent in this new institution, just as there is in the simpler form 'of combination among capitalists, and it will not down at the bidding of the courts. In Chicago, where Mr. Driscoll reports such an ex- clusive alliance between the employers and unions of the teaming interests, there is a court decision little more than a year old, which holds such combinations to be conspiracies in restraint of trade and declares the guilty parties to be punishable also under the criminal law. " As yet combinations of capital and labour are not very numerous, but there is every indication that they will be. Nothing is more certain than that organised labour and unified capital will get to- gether. Peace follows war and cooperation succeeds conflict every- where. " There is a general tendency to joint agreements between organised labour and organised capital. It is a little slow, but progress is steady in this direction." It will be seen from the above that the story does not end with the employer and the employe. The public has something to say, and just as surely as the sun rises it will be forced in some way to enter the arena and to fight for its very existence. It needs not to be said that, whatever way be adopted, if it is to be successful, organisa- tion will be a part of it. How shall it be organised ? It must be or- ganised not upon a basis of defiant sufficiency, but upon one of absolute justice; a basis which gives to every labourer the full product of his labour expressed in any commodity within the entire circle of ex- change. There may be several ways of bringing about this great consummation. We cannot say. We can only say that we ourselves know of but one, and that one is known as Gillette's Social Eedemp- tion.* * For a brief description of the Gillette System see Appendix " A." 491 CHAPTER III DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES TO THE PURE ALL FOOD IS PURE. Wallace Irioin. Congressman Snide was the Gentleman Jo Of the National Pure Food Adulterant Co., A strenuous patriot, giving his powers To the health of this glorious country of ours, And many's the job he Conspired in the Lobby Old laws to make new and new laws to provide Wood alcohol brandy And aniline candy E'er found a warm friend in Congressman Snide. ( Said General Sneck, ' His great wisdom and tact Is shown in the famous Snide Substitute Act.') No business man with a Food to maintain E'er called on that scientist-statesman in.. vain;. With stocks and retainer-fees bulging his coat, The stronger the Poison the stronger his vote. For he said, ' What's the pleasure In killin' a measure Because it protects indigestible grub? Why try to defeat it? We don't have to eat it It's only the Public that's gittin' the nub.' (Said Senator Grabb, in a manner polite, ' Unless you are wrong you are certainly right.') If a chemist came out with a statement to show Gross fraud in the Pure Food Adulterant Co., Then Congressman Snide could his chemist procure To prove that his product was ' perfectly pure.' ' For I place great reliance In subsidised science,' Said Congressman Snide, ' when it comes to a pinch; When you hire a Professor To act as your guesser, To the Pure any poison is Pure that's a cinch! ' (Said Congressman Coin, with a jerk of his thumb, ' Them facts what you state is convincin' to some.') 494 When families died after eating canned jam, Or hospitals groaned with the victims of ham, Then Congressman Snide, being Graft-on-the-spot, Was there with the Coroner, likely as not, To prove tonsilitis, La grippe, meningitis, Had brought the poor victims to sudden demise, While soft applications Of friendly donations Bought silent consent from the willing and wise. (Said Senator Hush, as he counted the dead, ' There's nothin' so fatal as cold-in-the-head.') ' For food-education has long been my hobby,' Said Snide as the House was convened in the Lobby - ' I'll teach that there Public the things what they need If I murder 'em all to accomplish the deed! The heart, lungs and thorax Need brick-dust and borax A fact which perhaps them there organs don't know I'm killin' folks off at A nominal profit For me and the Pure Food Adulterant Co.' ( Said Congressman Leech, ' It's inspirin ' to feel That feller's onselfish and lofty Ideel! ') 495 CHAPTER III DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES E live in the beginning of the 20th century, and, although all progress moves in cycles and history has the habit of repeating itself, it is doubtful if there has ever been a time when the inhabitants of this planet have had a better command of wealth-produc- ing engines. If civilisation could be gaged by the multitudinous variety of wealth produced for the gratification of human needs, we might easily claim to be the most civilised genera- tion thus far produced. We cannot, of course, equal the sculpture of the Phidian epoch, nor are our orators worthy to rank beside those to whom the ancients listened. Our architecture, too, in many re- spects falls short of the masterpieces of the ancients. We have no poets to compare with Homer and Shakespeare. The Moors of Spain, who piped the perfume of flowers from the country to the city and to whom the banquet was a feast of reason and a flow of soul, at which wine was displaced by science, poetry and art, reached a height of refinement to which Christians have never attained, but it has re- mained for our age to put the capital upon the column of material progress. In his great lecture on. " The Lost Arts," Wendell Phillips voices more than a hint that the modern is rediscovering many things which the ancients knew and forgot, when history was young or even un- born. Be that as it may, we may certainly claim to have shown re- markable progress in the manner of administering to human needs. We talk hundreds of miles over a wire. We flash intelligence through cables under the sea thousands of miles with the rapidity of thought. Yes, more; we send our messages thousands of miles through the air without wires, and we are just discovering how to send them through the earth in the same way. We can record the voice of a great actor at the same time that we register the movements accompanying his words. The phonograph is old, the kinetoscope is trite, the telegra- phone is an accomplished fact. We can travel a mile by rail in 32 seconds. We can go from Queenstown to New York in less than 5% days. Aerial navigation now threatens almost daily to make all these records things of the snail-like past. Our Luther Burbanks, by a sort of practical Darwinism, now creates new plant-life, new roots, nuts, fruits, grains, grasses and flowers. We have the plum-cot, an absolutely new fruit, the spineless cactus, the thin-shelled walnut, stoneless plum, and a seedless, coreless and therefore wormless apple. In chemistry we are justifying the dream of the alchemist, for we have learned to transmute the elements. We have ascertained that 496 DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES Uranium is breaking down into Radium, and .Radium into Helium, thus undergoing'a degeneration of energy. We are discovering new ele- ments constantly and there is an ever-present feeling in the scientific subconsciousness that we are on the verge of some wonderful and far- reaching generalisation. We have learned to fertilise by bacteria, and have long known several other important uses for these minute organisims.* After many years of hazardous and death-dealing search to discover the North West Passage, a ship has recently sailed through it, and we are so cloyed with wonders that the scientific pulse scarcely adds a beat to its normal rhythm. The marvels of the X-Ray have ceased to stir us, and we expect at any moment to discover the precise form of that energy which we call thought. We manufacture count- less valuable articles out of what were formerly waste products. Our applied chemistry has made the coal man and the doctor first cousins, for many of our modern medicines are coal-tar products, as are also some of our finest dyes. We even reproduce activities so closely like those of primitive life-forms that it is still an open question whether or not these radiobes are less than living, being certainly more than crystalline. In the science of sociology we have made but little head- way and have small cause to boast. The ghost of superstition has been driven back into the darkest, bat-haunted corners of the human intellect. In all this there is no small gratification, but despite all this, we find ourselves to-day, on the threshold of the 20th century, the victims of infamous practices which would not be tolerated else- where to a like degree in any quarter of the civilised or uncivilised globe. As a nation we are being poisoned three times a day for 365 days each year with . an extra one for leap year. Of all classes of victims there is none which in point of size can compare for a mo- ment with the purchasing class. The buyer is charged for one thing and given another. The price is often exorbitant, the quantity dis- honest, the quality impure, often poisonous. In " Some Ethical Gains Through Legislation," by Florence Kelley, general secretary of the Consumers' League, the author says :^ " It would seem an obvious right of the purchaser that the food which he buys at the price asked should be pure and clean; that the garment purchased of an entirely reputable dealer should be free from poison- ous dyes, vermin, and the germs of disease; and that both food and garments should leave his conscience free from participation in the employment of young children or of sweaters' victims. "Yet these seemingly obvious rights were, perhaps, never farther from attainment than to-day, in the opening years of the twentieth century. Adulteration of foods has never, in the history of the human race, been carried on upon a scale so vast as at present. The sweat- ing system with its inevitable accompaniment of filth and disease conveyed in the product, persists and increases in spite of sixty years of effort of the philanthropists and the needle-workers to check it. " The oldest recognised legal right of the purchaser is to have his goods as they are represented. To sell goods under false pretences *As we go to press it is reported that Sir William Crookes has suc- ceeded in extracting nitric acid from the atmosphere by a process likely to " revolutionise the nitrate industry and the world's food problem." 32 497 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION has long been an offence punishable with more or less severity. But of late this right, if it was ever widely enforceable, has become largely illusory. In the vast complications of modern production and distri- bution, conditions have arisen such that the individual purchaser at the moment of buying, cannot possibly ascertain for himself whether the representation of the seller is accurate or not. The rule caveat empior fails when the purchaser is prevented by the nature of the case from exercising enlightened care. Thus in the case of adulter- ated foods, or of foods exposed to filth or disease in the course of preparation, and in the case of garments sewed in tenements, the pur- chaser is at the mercy of the producer and the distributer, and is de- barred from exercising care in these respects at the moment of pur- chasing. " Not only may a department store advertise with impunity in a dozen daily newspapers that ' all our goods are made in our own fac- tory/ when it neither owns nor controls a factory, but the sales-clerks may safely reiterate the assurance over the counter in regard to an in- dividual garment which, in truth, was finished in a tenement house by a bed-ridden consumptive. The machinery for identification is so im- perfect, the difficulties in the way of tracing a garment are so many and so subtle, that the law has no more terrors for a mendacious sales-clerk than for the reckless advertising agent, or for the business office of those daily papers which thrive upon the wholesale mendacity of retail commerce/' For a department store to sell sweat-shop goods as goods " made in our own factory " would seem to be a clear case of obtaining money under false pretences, yet there seems to be no way by which this abuse can be corrected by law, the fact of the matter being that the legal arm is growing more and more difficult to mobilise in the public defence and easier and easier to use by the privileged classes against the people. In another portion of the excellent work just quoted we find the following : " Because the germs of the deadliest diseases are not dis- cernible by the eye, because they have no conspicuous and offensive smell, a shopping public devoid of imagination remains easily unaware of their presence on the counters of reputable merchants. In the same way, ices and sirups coloured in tints and shades unknown to the fruits and flowers of nature, arouse no imaginative wonder. Peas of brilliant green in January, corn taken as yellow from the can in March as from the ear in July, these impossible objects are credulously accepted by the buying multitude. Why? Because it prefers not to know the truth. " Because the purchasing public, on the whole, prefers at present not to know the facts, we are all in danger of eating aniline dyes in to- matoes, jams, jellies, candies, ices, fruit sirups, flavouring and colour- ing extracts ; and salicylic acid in our canned peas and other vegetables which we insist upon having preserved of midsummer hue at mid- winter. We wear more or less arsenic in our print goods and the germs of tuberculosis and of countless other diseases in our outer garments. " A physician who visits among the poorest of the poor in New York 498 DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES City recently found a woman in the last stages of consumption, mak- ing, as she lay propped among her pillows, little boxes for wedding cake, licking the edges to moisten the gum to make it hold together. The teacher of a class of defective children in the same city, while visiting the home of a lad whose left arm and right hand had been amputated by reason of cancerous growths, found the father suffering from tuberculosis, but making a trivial addition to the family income by cracking walnuts (for which he was paid seven cents a pound if no kernels were broken and three cents a pound if his work was im- perfect). The father complained that he lost much time in fetching and carrying the nuts and kernels between the store and his home, and could crack but fifteen pounds in three days. " The individual purchaser would doubtless prefer to eat nuts cracked in a workroom not frequented by a father afflicted with tuber- culosis and little son mutilated by the ravages of cancer. The in- dividual has, however, at present no method of enforcing this reason- able preference/' . . . " The privilege of remaining thus unintelligent costs the shopping public uncounted thousands of lives and other uncounted thousands of invalids. But it is a privilege dear to modern crowds." . . . " Why all these queer mendacities ? Because the purchasing public will have it so ! Because the number is still sadly small of those who perceive the duty to know their sources of supply and assert their right to know them ; who are willing to sacrifice that deadly privilege of remaining ignorant, which the careless majority exercise at frightful cost of disease spread among innocent families, and of poverty, illness and death among the workers. The willingly ignorant purchaser carries a heavy share of the guilt of the exploiting manufacturer and the adulterating distributer." . . . " Among all the cherished forms of ignorance, none is more tena- cious than that of the prosperous purchaser able and willing to pay for the best that the market affords and convinced that, whatever the sor- rows of purchasers of ready-to-wear goods, he is safe, because he gets his garments only of the merchant tailor and pays a high price for the assurance that they are made up under conditions which guard him against disease, and enable the merchant tailor to pay the working tailor a fair price for his labour. But this customer is really no better off than the well-instructed club woman making her ineffectual search for righteously made ready-to-wear goods for her boys. For example, as factory inspector of Illinois, the writer was one day in search of a cigarmaker who was said to have smallpox in his family, during the terrible epidemic of 1894. Quite by accident a tailor was discovered newly moved into the suspected house, and not yet registered with the department or with the local board of health. In this tailor's shop, which was his dwelling, there was a case of smallpox. In the same shop there was, also, a very good overcoat, such as gentlemen were paying from sixty to seventy dollars for in that year. In the collar was a hang-up 'strap bearing the name of a merchant tailor m Helena Montana. Now, that merchant tailor had had, in his store window in Helena, excellent samples of cloth from which the customer had ordered his coat. The Helena tailor had taken the necessary 499 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION measurements and had telegraphed them, together with the sample- number of the cloth, to the wholesale house in Chicago, of which he was an agent. The wholesaler had had the coat cut and had sent it to the kitchen-tailor in whose sickroom in an infected house in Chicago it was fortunately discovered. But for the happy accident of the finding of the tailor during a search for an entirely different person, the purchaser in Helena, Montana, would surely have bought smallpox germs in his expensive coat." To such an extent is adulteration carried on in the United .States that it is almost impossible to purchase any commodities with the certainty that they are absolutely pure. Apropos of this subject, from the " New York Tribune " of April 24, 1904, we quote the following: " Fraud has been detected officially in more than 3,000 samples of food and articles for general physical use. French sardines, caught off the Isles of Shoals, Maine, and canned salmon with apologies to the sword fish, Eussian ' sturgeon caviare ' collected in Delaware Bay and pure imported Lucca oil from the cotton fields of Georgia, etc., etc. " Out of 68 butter samples recently examined 44 were impure. More than $17,000,000 is annually extracted from poor people's pock- ets by the oleomargarine swindle. " Out of 24 coffee berry samples 16 were impure. " Out of 92 candy samples examined by Board of Health 18 were coloured by deadly lead chromate. Out of 41 cayenne pepper 40 were bogus, of 68 samples of molasses, 33 cases contained tin, mustard 46 26 adulterated, out of a total of 1,468, 542 were impure. " In drugs too this prevails. The recent substitution on a very large scale of acetanilid, a dangerous drug, for phenacetin, which is prac- tically harmless was perpetrated despite the fact that an overdose of acetanilid means death. " More than 90 per cent, of the local meat markets were using freezem, preservaline or iceine as well as Bull Meat Flour. The amount of borax or boracic acid employed varied, but in Hamburg steak would range from twenty grains to forty-five per pound, while the medical dose is from nine to five grains/' " The World's Work " is authority for the statement that we con- sume annually $100,000,000 of fraudulently prepared food. How far this falls short of the facts the Eeader will be able to estimate for himself after perusing this chapter. We content ourselves, at present, with the statement that a single trust is probably accountable for a very large per cent, of that sum. In " Food Materials and their Adulterations," by Ellen H. Bich- ards, the author mentioned the following foods among those which are frequently adulterated. Baking 'Powder Cream of Tartar Tea Butter Honey Vinegar Cayenne Pepper Mustard Flour Cheese Pepper Milk Cocoa Spices Coffee Sugar 500 DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES The author calls attention to the frequency with which sulphuric and muriatic and in some cases nitric acid is used in vinegar. She points out in the case of sugar that marble dust, sand, glucose and ultramarine are often found, the last substance being left in from the process of manufacture. She states that English analysts pronounce much of our American honey entirely artificial, the comb being made of parafine and filled with glucose sirup. In the case of flour she states that chalk or gypsum, alum and copper sulphate are sometimes used as adulterants, though she believes the cheapness of wheat pre- vents their extensive use in this country. She quotes the following: r 'The dust drawn from the air,, with the sweeping from the boxes and shafts, is saved and used in the inferior grades of flour/' It will be remembered that Mr. Geo. T. Angell, President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, waged an active campaign against food adulteration. In his "Autobiographical Sketches and Personal Eecollections " he says : " During some time past, my attention had been called to the large increase of crimes against public health in poisonous and dangerously adulterated articles of food, drink, groceries, drugs, medicines, poisonous articles of orna- ment and of clothing, arsenical papers and wall-papers, all of which seemed to be sold in Massachusetts without hindrance." Eef erring to his work against adulteration, Mr. Angell says : " I had been gathering, as before appears, a vast amount of evidence of poisonous and dangerous adulterations. I had enough to fill a large volume; and I was determined to put the most important before the public, through the press, as widely as possible. I knew that I should attack large amounts of capital, and probably incur misrepresentation and abuse. Nevertheless, I thought it a duty. " THE WAR ON ADULTERATION." " So I prepared, with great care, a paper entitled ' Public Health Associations/ in which I condensed the most startling facts I had been able to gather. It was in the highest degree sensational. I in- tended it should be. I wanted to bring on a war of discussion, which should wake the nation. Yet I was careful to state only what I could prove, for I had little doubt I should be called upon to do it. " I stated that more than three hundred ignorant and uneducated persons were practising medicine in Boston; that probably half the vinegar sold in our cities was rank poison; that peppers and mustard were adulterated with lead; that a large portion of our pickles were more or less poisonous ; also many of our flavouring-oils, sirups, jellies, and preserved fruits; that cocoa and chocolate were adulterated with mineral substances, and coffee-berries had been moulded out of chiccory and other substances ; that several mills in New England were grinding white stone into fine powder of three grades, called soda, sugar, and Hour; that thousands of barrels of terra-alba were sold in our cities every year, to be mixed with confectionary and other sugar products, also with baking-powders, which in many cases contained also alum; that it was estimated by a medical commission of the Board of Health of Boston, that over a million and a half gallons of water, liable to 501 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION come from most impure and dangerous sources, were sold in our city every year, mixed with milk, for which nearly five hundred thousand dollars in money was annually paid; that infant mortality was about four times as great in Boston as in the country, and that I had reason to believe that thousands of gallons of so-called milk, sold in Boston, did not contain one drop of the genuine article. I stated the enor- mous amounts of oleomargarine butter and cheese liable to come from the filthiest fats of diseased animals, and never subjected to heat sufficient to kill living organisms they might contain. I showed the enormous adulterations of wines, liquors, drugs, and medicines, so that physicians could not, in many cases, know the strength of their prescriptions. I gave evidence of poisonous qualities of tin cans and other tin-ware ; also of vast amounts of arsenic and other poisons used in articles of clothing, ornament, and use, particularly in coloured papers and wall-papers, of which about thirty-three per cent, of a wide variety of colours had been found poisonous ; and I devoted con- siderable space to showing that sugars, sirups, and molasses were dan- gerously adulterated. " The remedy was public health associations, composed of influential citizens, supported by voluntary contributions, and employing chem- ists, microscopists, and officers that could not be bribed." Mr. Angell relates how he read his paper before The American Social Science Association at the School of Technology, how it was published in most of our daily papers and circulated widely all over the country. This done, he says he waited calmly for the storm which he knew would soon break. After nine days there came a reply from a Boston chemist, who was also milk-inspector of a Massachusetts city. Concerning this episode Mr. Angell continues : " He asserted that not over five per cent, and he thought not over three per cent, of the milk of Boston, was adulterated. (Within a few weeks after, it was proved that he himself was selling receipts to milkmen to aid them in adulterating, and he resigned his position as milk^inspector.) He thought there was less adulteration of food and medicines than ever before; that the existing laws were ample, no adulteration of teas in this country; coffee too cheap to adulterate, sugar too cheap to adulterate with terra-alba. If a buyer didn't know that he was eating oleomargarine, then it was good enough for him. Less adulterations of wines and liquors than ever before; adulterations decreasing every year. He didn't know of any such article as artificial milk (subse- quently he admitted that he knew it was used in Paris during the German siege, and that he had manufactured it in his own office), etc. " Another chemist opened his batteries by declaring that there were no adulterated sugars in this country, etc. And the State liquor-in- spector declared that the wines and liquors he had been called upon to analyse contained 'very little worse than water'; which statement resulted, curiously enough, in the introduction of a bill in the Legis- lature to abolish the office, inasmucl as it was not worth while for the State to pay twenty-five hundred dollars a year for analysing what was 'no worse than water' The bill did not pass; but the salary was reduced, if I remember rightly, to fifteen hundred dollars. 502 DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES " TEN DAYS IN ' BOSTON HERALD.' " " The battle was on for which I had been two years preparing. I called upon the leading editor of the ' Herald,' and told him that I was at his service; and for ten days, through the columns of the ' Herald/ with a daily circulation of considerably over a hundred thousand, I put in the evidence. " The first day, I $ took milk and diseased meats ; the second, sugars and candies; the third, tea and coffee; the fourth, oleomargarine and tinware; the fifth, vinegar, pickles, baking-powders, mustard, cocoa, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, soothing-sirups; the sixth and seventh, poi- sonous wall-papers, snowing, among other things, that the Michigan State Board of Health had prepared a book, entitled ' Shadows from the Watts of Death,' containing seventy-five representative samples of these poisonous papers of various colours, and had caused a copy to be placed in every important public library of the State as a warning to the people; eighth, glucose, liquors, drugs, cosmetics, poisonous toys, cards, and other poisonous papers; ninth, lead and arsenic in dress-goods, and a great variety of articles of dress, ornament, and common use; and, tenth, a large amount of general evidence, and a plea for public-health associations and organisations to remedy this great evil." In the " Monthly Bulletin of the State Board of Health of Massa- chusetts " for March, 1906, will be found the February and March monthly reports on inspection of food and drugs. From the February table we extract the following interesting facts: Of 250 samples of milk tested 173 were found adulterated or otherwise varying from the legal standard, 77 only were of good quality. Of 14 samples of Hamburg steak 4 violated the legal standard. Of 48 samples of sausages 12 violated the legal standard. Of 14 samples of beer and ale 6 violated the legal standard. Of 37 samples of drugs 12 violated the legal standard. In the March table out of 14 samples of cream 6 violated the stand- ard. Out of 281 samples of milk 164 violated the standard and only 117 were good. Of 8 samples of catsup and table sauces 7 were illegal and only 1 good. Of 15 samples of ale 6 were illegal. Of 8 samples of pickles 2 were illegal. During the month of February 31 convic- tions were secured for selling adulterated food and drugs. In March the number was 42. Of 10 samples of " Evaporated Cream " tested in February every one was found to vary from the legal standard, not being cream at all but simply ordinary milk. Yankee Brand Damson Preserves were reported under results of analysis as follows, " Large admixture of apple stock, coloured with coal-tar dye and preserved with benzoic acid." The same brand of Currant Jelly, " Largely apple stock coloured with coal-tar dye." Jackson's Standard Extract of Lemon, ".05 per cent, lemon oil." One two-thousandth part lemon oil! Several samples of ale preserved with salicylic acid. One sample of cream "preserved with formaldehyde. One sample olive oil " consisted entirely of cottonseed oil." The " Boston 'Press " of May 15, 1906, contains a reference to a crusade to be waged by the State Board of Health against the paraf- 503 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION fine used in candy, an article which the Health officials say they have always met with vigourous measures. Dr. Harrington is quoted as saying, " Paraffine is one of the things, above all other adulterations, that we aim to prohibit." It would seem from this that the Board of Health do not share the opinion of many laymen that paraffine is a harmless substance. Sausages are frequently adulterated with potato-flour. They are treated with chemicals to remove the taints of the meat and to keep them from staleness, and they are dipped in a chemical bath to give them the proper smoky flavour. Eeferring to this use of potato-flour, a recent writer says, " Why, quite a quarter of a century ago, in for- eign countries that are civilised, it was made a crime to use potato- flour in the adulteration of human food. And thousands of tons are imported to this country and used in the manufacture of all kinds of sausages a penal offence in every country save the United States of America! The sole value of the potato as food is the starch it contains, and this is removed in the countries of the old world. If there be any alcohol it is extracted, and the absolutely valueless waste or refuse is shipped to the United States. The foreigner who comes to this country knows the rigour of the law in his own land, and feels safe in the use of foods at home. ' Here he finds what purports to be animal food products resembling in external appearance the kinds he has always eaten, but they are manufactured of unclean meats, adulterated with potato-flour that is devoid of nourishment, while the smoky flavour is created by a chemical bath. There is nothing genu- ine about the sausages except the gut casings in which they are stuffed, and even these may be the intestines of an unclean animal/* Regarding the adulteration of whisky, we quote the following from the " London Lancet " of February 18, 1905 ; " The Adulteration of Whisky." " Dr. H. W. Wiley, chief of the United States Bureau of Chemistry, has recently stated that he believes at least 85 per cent, of the whisky sold over the bars in the United States is not ' straight ' whisky. He states that it is a compound, made of neutral spirit, or alcohol, artificially coloured, often flavoured with artificial essences and sometimes mixed with more or less 'straight' whisky to give flavour. The remarks of Dr. Wiley on the adulteration of food and whisky have given rise to much heart-searching and the liquor dealers have been endeavouring to minimise as far as possible the effect of his statements. There can be no doubt, however, that adulteration is conducted on a wholesale scale in the United States and it is not unlikely that the Federal and States Governments may take cognisance of the matter and endeavour to check the evil by means of legislation." We might multiply instances to an indefinite extent to show the deleterious materials which find their way, not only into food, but into numerous other articles which are sold to the innocent purchaser for good money, and this is not only true of domestic goods but also of foreign articles. For example, Mr. Robert H. Sherard states in his "The White Slaves of England," that large quantities of pig- manure are annually used by the Leeds tailoring-firms for sizing their cloth. Lack of space precludes our referring to but one or two of the 504 DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES more flagrant abuses along these lines. In no department of food do there lurk so many deadly dangers as are to be found in the products of our large packing-houses. A great deal has recently been written upon these subjects by the " London Lancet/' Upton Sinclair, Charles Edward Russell, Herman Hirschauer, William K. Jaques, M. D., Thomas H. McKee, Caroline Hedger, M.D., and others. The things brought to light by these writers are almost impossible of belief, but it must be admitted, however much the confession shame us, that the substantiation which quickly followed a denial of these statements was complete and unanswerable and, if possible, more damnatory than the original statements themselves. Mr. Hirschauer is " A practical butcher, with forty years experience in the cattle and meat business, and many years manager of a cold- storage beef house for one of the chief packers of the Trust." In his " The Dark Side of the Beef Trust " he says : " Before the days of the Beef Trust, or the days of the yellow car, or the days of the packing-house, or even the days of the centralisation of the slaughter- ing of cattle or animals to be used by the human family as food, the local butcher kille'd and prepared the meats sold on his premises, and his patrons were reasonably assured that the products placed on sale were at the very least cut from stock in good health when killed. Old, crippled, and distempered animals were killed and buried on the farm or ranch or in the timber, anywhere away from human beings, and there was never a thought of sending them to the market. The old Scriptural injunction, ' Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat/ was upon the community at large, and woe to that butcher or dealer who even handled unclean meats. The great English premier, when asked what to his mind was the most convincing argument that the Bible was really all that was claimed for it, replied, * The Jew/ As it was in the beginning, so through the long years of the ages down to the present, the Jew has observed the laws, at least concerning the kosher meat ; and to this day the Jew who believes that there is a God in Israel will not eat unclean meat, or meat that has not passed the inspection of a chosen man who closely watches all the processes of killing and preparing for sale. I have assisted in the killing of nine beeves before one was found that would pass the critical inspection of the Jewish rabbi chosen for the purpose of guarding against unclean meat. What became of the first eight? They were turned over to the Gentile butchers and dealers, and it is but fair to say that their carcasses were not an entire dead loss. It was to guard against dangers from unhealthy or distempered animals being used for food, through the lack of knowledge on the part of the masses of the people, that inspection was first made." . . . " And the pure-food laws, and laws prohibiting the adulteration of foods, do not seem to apply to the giant in control of our animal foods ; no more do the laws in regard to commerce, or interstate commerce, or the secret combinations to systematically rob the people by destroy- ing competition. It has become to be an admitted fact that there are laws for the poor and laws for the rich; that the laws for the poor must be enforced for the better protection of society; and that the laws for the rich are not meant to be enforced, but that the common 505 GILLETTE'S .SOCIAL REDEMPTION people may be the more easily blinded while the bandit of the trust is collecting the levy. " It is not the purpose of this book to treat of the Beef Trust as pertaining to its organisation, its control of the representatives in Congress or State Legislatures, its connexion with the railroads and other common carriers, its silencing competition, or any of the features that come along at the head of the procession in the grand parade ; or, when an investigation is ordered by Congress or State Legislature, to follow the band in the tour of inspection through the model offices, and perfect cold-storage rooms filled with great sides of choice beef bearing the tag of inspection by Government officials; but rather to warn the people as to the dangers lurking in the food which the Beef Trust says we must eat or starve. It is to give the people the courage and strength to accept the warning, and point the way to a solution of the problem that means the ruin of the people unless the people rise in their might and tear away the barriers being erected against their health and happiness. It is rather to ' take off the lid ' and let the people see what goes into the ready-to-eat foods in tins and sausages of every variety, as well as the character of some of the meats that are paraded as dressed beef and carcass meats, and the various products of all animals purchased and slaughtered by the Beef Trust in its great packing-houses. It is to educate the masses, the common people, the people who make up the strata of every community, and by brawn and muscle produce the wealth of the country by daily toil, as to the aims and purposes of the Beef Trust, and the means and measures resorted to by the Beef Trust to force the people to consume its products or none." Beferring to the results of trust economy, the author says : " And in the practise of economy by centralisation there has come into being what is called the ' Canner/ an animal which is now made over into one of the chief products of the great packing-houses of the Beef Trust. In the days when the cattle were killed in the communities where the meats were sold, the ' Canner ' was unknown. The old, crippled, and distempered cattle were killed and buried in out-of-the- way places. And the health of the community was never put in jeop- ardy by the sale of either unclean or unpalatable meats, and death, diseases and disorders directly traceable to putrefied meats were com- paratively unknown. These low-grade cattle are picked up in every community, and either shipped direct to packing-houses or sold through the stock-yards ; and the records of the stock-yards show that the packing-houses buy them in the yards, and those shipped direct to the packing-houses do not appear in the records of the stock-yards. The Beef Trust buys the ' Canners/ but the products of the ' Canners ' are not advertised under that head. The Beef Trust buys all sorts of domestic animals cattle, sheep, and hogs, and no questions are asked about the health or condition of any one animal. And the value of the meats and of the manufactured products of the packing- houses of Chicago alone for the year 1904 is given in the ' Year Book ' of the live stock business as: Hogs and mutton, ninety-nine million dollars; beef, eighty-six million dollars; butterine, two million dol- lars ; sausages, ten million dollars ; glue and fertilisers, eight million 506 DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars; soap, eleven million five hundred thousand dollars." Mr. Hirschauer calls attention to the fact that the animal kingdom is very like the human family as regards health and disease. As a matter of fact, of course, the human family is itself a part of the animal kingdom, and the brute and the human are closely allied in all matters pertaining to physical well-being. Speaking of the change in conditions as the result of social progress, he says : " As our civili- sation advanced, man cared for the domesticated animals, and when they were overcome by illness or disease, learned to give remedies and attention that often alleviated suffering and effected cures. Now, under the modern civilisation, the Beef Trust says: Send your old, unclean, crippled, or injured animals to us we will * cure ' them, and return to you in any of the choice products of the great packing- houses you may choose, either prime tenderloins, gilt-edged corned beef, dried beef, canned meats, butterine, mince-meat, extract of beef, fertiliser, or any of the hundred and one preparations we make, and only we can make, that we may elect to send you, at our price. " As there are strong, healthy men and women and children, so there are strong and healthy neat cattle and other domestic animals ; and as there are weaklings and diseased and disordered humans, so there are domestic animals that are born and reared subject to all afflictions of their kind. And statistics show that to the ills of the human family have been added many that are directly traceable to contact with do- mestic animals and the eating of animal food. During the late Span- ish-American war, quite as many American volunteers died from eat- ing putrefied meats put up by the great packing-houses as were killed by Spanish bullets, and the disorders and diseases occasioned by eating embalmed beef and unclean meats filled more beds in the hospitals than the fevers of the tropics." . . . " A farmer has a bull that has become unfit for breeding on ac- count of injury, age, or failure of service; or an ox that has been worked until his usefulness is over ; or a cow that from some distemper or disorder has cast her calf and does not readily regain her health ; or a cow that, owing to distemper or infirmity, can not produce her keep from milk or is unprofitable as a breeder ; or a cow that from some injury or disorder taints her milk so that it can not be mixed with the milk of the herd ; or any neat animal that owing to cancers, con- sumption, or internal disorders can not assimilate food and becomes poor and scrawny and feverish, or from age or infirmity can not chew the cud, or has a lumpy jaw, or sores on the back caused by fevers or disorders, or caked or running sores on the udder. It would be hard work, and it is very likely anybody but a practical expert would fail, to find any of this class upon the hook or block classed as prime. But they all find their way to the market. The local buyer will take any- thing that can walk, 'and if the animal is too feeble to walk, and the owner will haul it to the railroad and make delivery alive, the buyer will offer some price." Eeferring to what are called " Canners a word which designates cattle too diseased or of too low grade to be sold for use upon, the block he says : " This class of cattle, the ' Canners/ are not the cattle GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION that are paraded on the avenues; they are not the animals that are entered in the live stock exhibitions for the inspection of visitors from all parts of the country ; they are not the animals whose likenesses are produced by the camera and the pictures sent broadcast over all the entire world to bring to the attention of every people the meats made and put up by the great packing-houses of the United States. If perchance it becomes necessary to drive the ( Canners ' on the hoof, they are routed through the alleys or back streets or driven under the cover of darkness. The ' Canners ' are never on exhibition, living or dead, for they go in, are killed, and prepared into food on the other side of the partitions from the great show rooms of the packing- houses. There are no pictures taken of the ' Canners ' ; there is no extra advertising made of their arrival and killing; they simply arrive and are killed, and how and where their carcasses are disposed of is not even made a matter of record." . . . " If the animal be distempered or disordered, then the killing and placing the product on the market for food purposes is next door to a crime. Yet this is done by the wholesale every working-day in the year. And every plan is resorted to in order that as much of the animal or the carcass may be saved for some one of the packing-house products as possible. Nothing is wasted or thrown aside that the greed of gain will allow to pass into the food supply. " And then to know that the meats of animals, killed as are these, are sold the world over as food for humans ! To know that the heart, or tongue, or liver of such an animal may be placed on the market in the community in which we live for sale as food ! To know that the stomach of such an animal may be exposed for our inspection as a choice piece of tripe ! To know that the guts of such an animal may be used as casings for our breakfast sausage ! To know that the dried beef we bought for luncheon was made from such an animal ! To know that the choice tenderloin was pulled from the carcass of an animal such as these ! To know that the tinned beef we purchased at the grocery was made from such ghastly meat! To know that the extract of beef so many use and that has come into such favour is the boiling down of juices from such stock ! To know that the choice mince-meat of commerce is made from the trimmings of such car- casses, and are so small they can't be used for other purposes! To know that there are men engaged in the killing of such animals who close their eyes to the conditions and their consciences to the welfare of their fellowmen! And to know that the men who make up the Beef Trust are the instigators of all this, and, that they may possess themselves of gold, are willing to sacrifice human life even in this wholesale manufacture of unclean and unwholesome meats which they put upon the markets as food products ! " And mind you, this is not adulterated food ; far from it. It is un- clean and unwholesome food, nothing more or less. The tag on the quarter of beef on the hook or on the block in the local market shows that it passed the inspection of an official appointed by the Govern- ment of the United .States. What sort of an inspection was given the killing is a mere matter of conjecture; and the same may be said of the inspection of the carcass. But it is certain that the inspection 508 DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES goes no further than the carcass. And the manufacture of the food products or cut meats proceeds under the direction of men who are employed at sufficient salaries to quiet any unpleasantness. And the Congress of the United States adjourned without any attention being given to the countless petitions that the food laws should be amended, and that animal food should be put on the market under better in- spection and greater restrictions. Perhaps it might be nearer the fact to say that Congress did not adjourn without giving the question some attention, for only a few days before adjournment the Senate of the United States, by little less than a unanimous vote, solemnly resolved that they would not consider any pure-food law at that ses- sion. Why ? Does the Beef Trust ask for any pure-food laws or amend- ments to existing laws ? Does the Beef Trust give any law any atten- tion? Is not the Beef Trust a law unto itself? And if the Beef Trust can control the railroads, and the Congress, what use to waste time on laws ? Is it not better to educate the people as to the facts regarding the animal food supply and products, and then trust to the native good sense of the individual that he will refrain from the purchase or use of such food ?" Mr. Hirschauer states that the tinned and canned meats of the Trust are unhealthy and unwholesome, and asserts that the manu- factured products contain little or no nourishment, and he further adds that even the meat on the block may be unwholesome. He states that all the cold-storage beef houses in the country are alike and conducted in the same manner. In explanation of some of the methods employed he says : " The cold-storage beef house is only a cool room, or a large refrigerator. The local market has been slow, and the manager of the Jamestown Beef Co. has been unable to unload on the local dealers, all the meats that the Beef Trust and the packing- house have sent to him. There is a sudden change in the temperature, .and the meats are quickly affected thereby they should have been disposed of days before, but the demand would not warrant the local dealer increasing his supply. The quarters become slimy and stale. The chemists of the packing-houses have provided against such emeigencies, and with the chemicals prepared into washes and powders furnished him for use in such cases, the manager washes and dresses the meats on hand, not with the idea of restoring the dead meat to life, but rather to arrest the natural decay until he can unload the re- mains on the local dealer, and so avoid the expense of burial and re- tain his position and the salary that goes with his employment. The process of putrefaction is arrested for the time being, and the manager visits the local dealers and gets their assistance by prevailing on them to take just a little more meat than they actually want at that par- ticular time; they can make up some nice Hamburg steaks he will give some preservative powder that will kill the taint or smell ; or if it is only a little bad on the outside the meat cutter can trim it off and let the one who buys for consumption pay the regular price just the same as though the meat was not dead and quite ready for burial." In treating of the Beef Trust hog the author says: Think of the boneless ham, which is made up of all sorts of pieces of the lean pork 509 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION and stuffed in gut casings ! And the California hams, that are nothing but the shoulders of the low-grade hogs, with all the meat cut away save just enough to hide the knuckle joint, and are sold on the bar- gain counters of every grocery the country over at an average of eight cents the pound, and which would be dear at any price! And the minced ham, put up in gut or bladder casings, into which the trim- mings from shoulders and low-grade pieces are mixed with a little choice * Canner ' beef to give it the proper flavour ! And the hams with the bones removed, which are sold both cooked and pickled, and are the shoulders with a lean piece of meat inserted to fill up the place occupied by the bone! And the prize skinned hams, which are the hams of the old hogs, and whose skin is so heavy and coarse that nobody would buy such looking things, but as a new feature in pack- ing-house products the skinned ham finds a ready market! What becomes of the coarse skin or rind that is taken off the ham ? Why, it is cooked, chopped fine, and is quite a feature in the headcheese product. Don't think there is anything lost or thrown away at the packing-house ! It is a trite saying in the trade that the Beef Trust has even saved the appetite and the disposition of the hog, and all that is lost is the dying squeal." Apropos of sheep Mr. Hirschauer trenchantly remarks : " It is remarkable that the Beef Trust sends to market only the lambs, very rarely dealing in mutton. In the sheep-grazing states of the West, a buck sheep may be lost in the mountain wilds ten or fifteen years, and grow horns a yard across, but if he ever finds his way to the Beef Trust, and is a subject of the care of the packing-house, his last and farewell appearance before the public will be in the character of a lamb. In the local market, the dealer, who is very seldom a butcher, and rarely knows anything at all about meats, catches on to the situation very readily ; and if he Happens to be a tailor, he will cut either lamb or mutton from one and the same carcass to suit the re- quirements of his customer." In his chapter upon " The Indifference of Authorities " Mr. Hirsch- auer treats the legislatures of the several States and the United States Senate to a stinging indictment for their inefficiency, their cupidity and their treachery. In closing he says : " So it has come about that the Beef Trust, and the other great combinations or trusts, by manipulation and intrigue in National and State legislatures, and relying on the ignorance of the people regarding the mode and manner of such organisations, have gained a control of affairs that endangers the very structure of society. Eelying on the truth of the old adage that ' Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise,' the Beef Trust laid the foundation for its colossal fortune and the ultimate absorp- tion of the entire earnings of the people. Open wide the books of the Beef Trust, tear down the partitions of the packing-houses, so that the world may know what is being done with the hundreds of thousands of unclean cattle that the Beef Trust gathers from every community in the country, and the Lord of Creation would not save the Beef Trust from the wrath of an outraged and indignant people. If these United States, this America, be a government of the people, 510 DEBASEMENT OF COMMODITIES by the people, and for the people, then the Beef Trust will perish from the earth." Regarding the matter of inspection, Mr. Hirschauer points out the physical impossibility of the inspector rendering efficient service, even though he were desirous of so doing. Upon this subject he says: " Of the Federal bureau of inspection maintained at the Chicago stock- yards, about fifty of the staff are classed as inspectors. The Govern- ment official is supposed to work eight hours a day. For the week ending April 1, 1905, the receipts of animals at the Chicago stock- yards was 295,900. This would mean that each inspector must ex- amine a fraction more than two animals each minute of the working hours of the week." . . . " The people should know that the inspection is a farce except as to cattle and carcass meats for export, and that the people of the United States are compelled to eat not only what the foreign nations do not buy but what they, will not allow exported to their countries." 511 CHAPTER IV THE CRY OF THE STOMACH 33 513 By Heaven, square eaters, more meat I say! Beaumont and Fletcher. ATE POISONED SAUSAGE; 4 DEAD. FORT SMITH, Ark., June 19 J. B. Barmore, a farmer near this city, his two young daughters, and baby son are dead in Belle Point Hospital, poisoned by eating bologna sausage at supper Thursday night. Mrs. Barmore, who ate of all things on the table except the sausage, was not even ill. The sausage was the ordinary packing house kind sold by meat dealers. It was purchased by Barmore out of the original stamped package from a street vender of luncheons. The time that elapsed between the purchase of the sausage and the fatal termination of the illness made it im- possible for the authorities to locate the particular box in which the stuff was packed. News Note, Boston American, June 19, '06. POISONED BY DRIED BEEF. Iowa City, June 14. Mrs. J. C. Loehr, of Lone Tree, narrowly es- caped death yesterday by poisoning from eating dried canned beef. Prompt medical assistance alone saved her life. Why should not the packer of poisoned food be put in a penitentiary just as any other poisoner? If Armour's embalmed beef augmented the fatality of soldiers, if he has sold chemically poisoned and diseased meats which people have eaten, why is not he many thousands of times a cold- blooded murderer? Special to Times-Republican. SENATE SURRENDERS ON MEAT BILL. Washington, June 30. Despite bitter protests the Senate surrendered last night to the House on every essential point on the meat bill and adopted the conference report, by which the government pays the cost of inspection, and labels on canned goods are to be undated. Boston American, June 80, 1906. CHAPTER IV. THE CRY OF THE STOMACH HE facts presented in the foregoing chapter do not rest upon the evidence of any one man. Far from it. The indictment has been vouched for over and over again. The testimony of W. K. Jaques, M. D., who was form- erly at the head of the meat inspection at the Chicago stock-yards, is all to the same effect. In his article en- titled " A Picture of Meat Inspection/' in " The World's Work " for May, 1906, he says : " Government inspectors are employed in all the packing houses that export beef, and usually there is but one inspector on duty at the killing beds of each packing house. The accuracy and thoroughness of the work of these inspectors can be judged when it is estimated that from 1,600 to 2,200 cattle are often killed under the eye of a single inspector in a day from eight to ten hours. Walking back and forth through the killing beds, the inspector can give only the briefest glance at the animals that are being converted into food. In this glance he is supposed to detect evidences of disease which pathologists may require hours to find. " The government employs about one hundred and seventy people. Of these about fifty are skilled animal pathologists, capable of inspect- ing meats. There have been received at the stock-yards in a single day one hundred and fifty thousand animals. The slaughter of fifty thousand is not an unusual day's work. And yet the packers and government inspectors say that ' Every animal is government in- spected/ . . . " During the first month in which I was City Director, one meat inspector made only one condemnation for that month, and that of an immature calf. Another inspector made no report to me of any work done during my entire term of office, and I was powerless to compel him to do so because of his political backing. It is needless to say that he drew his salary regularly. " Still another meat inspector was engaged in a profitable side-line of buying quarantined beef for packers. When an animal was sus- pected of being diseased, it was quarantined by the state inspector. If it was found not to be diseased it was passed, sold at auction, and the money given to the owner. This was the story for the public and seemed satisfactory until I found that the bids were not open but made in writing and favoured bidders usually got the meat. The fact that meat had been suspected and quarantined was sufficient ex- cuse for the low price at which it was bid off. " Since a meat inspector, in his official capacity, could ride through the stock-yards, pick out the finest beef, order it quarantined, and 515 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION have it killed, bidding it in for about half price, of course, his services were valuable to the firm employing him. " This system of securing bids in writing, opened only by the ' ring ' is still in existence. The unfortunate owners of these quarantined ani- mals, which might be as fine beef as ever came into the yards, are usually located in some distant state, where they are utterly helpless to learn the truth of the situation. " Two of the four meat inspectors were engaged in the practice of veterinary medicine. The third attended a medical college, and graduated while acting as meat inspector. This comprised the mighty bulwark which was legally empowered to stand between the public and diseased meat." . . . " I found that the federal inspectors were condemning considerable meat and sending it to the rendering tanks, and when I confronted them with my interpretation of the law, they admitted that they could not legally send the meat to the tanks, but that it was done under the threat, that, if it were not permitted, government inspection would be withdrawn from the objecting packers. " The federal inspectors could inspect and pass meat for export, but instructions given them by the federal laws distinctly state that all condemned meat must be quarantined and set aside ' To be disposed of according to the laws and ordinances of the state and municipality in which it is found' Therefore the only legal power to destroy meat was, and is, in the hands of the city meat inspectors. Their authority supersedes that of both government and state inspectors. " Government inspection is only at the packer's request. State in- spection is clearly illegal in Chicago; for the power of condemnation and destruction was given to Chicago in its charter, and the state legislature cannot delegate this function to a live-stock commission. But the state legislature has been only too glad to assist the packer by creating a live-stock commission. This seises suspected and dis- eased animals, quarantines and slaughters them, and gives the packer the opportunity of buying the meat (diseased and wholesome) with the stamp of the inspector on it, at half price/' Dr. Jaques, in relating how he sprinkled condemned meats with kerosene in order to make sure they did not find their way into food products, states that this practice raised a bitter cry of complaint from the packing interest. In this connexion he relates the following in- teresting incident : " I sent one of my inspectors to a slaughter-house with orders to kerosene all meat he found unfit for use. He returned in a state of great indignation and excitement, saying that the men fought hard and long to keep him from using kerosene. ' Why/ said he, ' I drew out seven hogs that were diseased with cholera, and went to get ,my kerosene can. When I returned, there were only two left/ ' Where are the other five ? ' I asked, and the man replied, ' Oh, they are in sausage by this time/ " The same inspector, who was a doughty little German, was graph- ically described by another who was sent to help him as being found ' at one end of the hog, pulling with all his might toward his kerosene can, while at the other end was a little Jew, pulling just as hard 516 THE CRY OF THE STOMACH toward the sausage room.' To the inspector it was a matter of duty ; to the Jew a question of money. " One other incident would go to show that sausage advertised as 'government inspected' is a rather uncertain article. Immediately following the passing of the meat by the government inspector, the beef trimmers cut off all unsightly portions, bruised or injured places, enlarged glands or abscesses. I asked the inspector what was done with these trimmings. ' Sausage,' was his laconic reply. Can an in- spector guarantee all the component parts of sausage when he ex- amines the finished product ? " It is only necessary to refer to the boast of the packer that ' noth- ing is lost,' to imagine what the by-products of the packing industry may mean. What are called ' trade secrets ' means the selling of un- eatable things under palatable names." The following figures which the^ doctor offers show only too plainly to what an extent the purchasing public is victimised. " A change of administration resulted in the resumption of meat inspection August 7, 1905. With two regular, and some temporary, inspectors in less than five months, more than $300,000 worth of diseased and rotten meat, much of which had already been passed by government inspectors, was destroyed, a striking contrast to the small amount of the year before. This enormous amount was condemned in less than five months by a force of inspectors which could have seised but a fraction of what should have been taken. For twenty-two months previous, this inspection had been withdrawn ; if it had been maintained during that time, more than a million and a quarter dollars' worth of food might have been condemned, but was not, and must have gone some- where. Where did it go if not to the public ? " NO DEFINITE STANDARD OF CONDEMNATION/' " My experience revealed another difficulty, that of a standard for condemnation. Authorities differed on the subject. One declared that when any part of the animal was diseased, it should all go into the fertiliser tank. Another said that only the diseased part need be cut away. Still another would pass all meat if well cooked. The present health commissioner is having the same difficulty. His recent decision is that if the disease is localised, only the diseased part need be cut away. I will venture the assertion that, though the commis- sioner of health will allow the flesh from an animal that has localised lumpy-jaw to pass into the public food supply, he would not permit his family to eat an ounce of it if he knew it. The men who kill and handle this meat will not eat it. " I will also venture the assertion, that, if the finest restaurant in America should publish on its bill of fare, that its choice roast beef was cut from an animal which had a small localised tubercular area, no physician would dine there, or permit his patients to do so. Yet if this issue were brought to court, probably a hundred physicians would be willing to testify that such meat, if well cooked, would be harmless.. The trouble is that more beef is served rare than well done. // all meats are well cooked, it would lessen the danger from disease, especially from trichina-infected pork. 517 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION "It is also well-known to bacteriologists that the tubercular germ is one of the most resistent things in nature. Its hard, horny body resists extremes in temperature. The rules of .the government require that lard rendered from tubercular hogs shall be boiled for four hours at a temperature of 220 degrees. Can it be possible, then, that roast beef and two-inch steaks from tubercular cattle are safe food in a rare state ? " Dr. Jaques states that the only time when an animal can be properly inspected is at the time of killing, when the animal is opened and before it has been possible to remove diseased portions. He states that there are no bars against lumpy-jawed cattle. Speaking of this disease, Charles Edward Eussell says, in " Everybody's Magazine " for April, 1906, "Again, this Government does not allow gentlemen to make great fortunes by selling things unfit for food poisoned meat, for instance. No Beef Trust could, ever exist in Switzerland, nor any private interference with the food-supply, for the simple reason that the Government does all the slaughtering in its own slaughter-houses under its own sanitary supervision. No private person is allowed to slaughter animals for food. Those interested in the subject may care to know that no ( lumpy-jaw ' cattle are eaten in Switzerland, and few Swiss have, cancer. On the whole, the Swiss seem to have rather the best of us in this regard. I recall the grisly secrets of Chicago Pack- ingtown, the doors behind which no one is allowed to go, the horrible filth, the ' lumpy-jaw ' cattle, and the swine with tuberculosis that go somewhere and do not return the hideous revelations of the * Lon- don Lancet/ Are we quite sure we can teach everything to the .Swiss? At least they know, when they sit down to dinner, that they are not to eat cancer germs, nor infected pork, nor the flesh of animals that have died natural deaths. They also know that they are not paying artificial tribute to private fortunes. Suppose the State of Illinois owned and operated all the slaughter-houses within its borders. How long would the American Beef Trust last? Five minutes? Perhaps you think I have raised an unnecessary alarm about infected meat. I have here a statement from Dr. D. E. Salmon, Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States. He says: ( Since the federal inspection has been established for meat shipped in the interstate trade, the tendency is to send known diseased animals to the slaughter-houses that kill for the local trade, and have little, if any, inspection. And unquestionably many badly diseased animals get upon the market and are eaten.' >' In connexion with the distribution of meat infected with cancer germs as a food-product it is interesting to note that the total deaths from cancer in the census year 1890 were found to be 18,536, while ten years later, in 1900, they had risen to 29,415. Assuming that the population considered was the same in each case, though as a matter of fact it was of course greater in 1900, this would show, ac- cording to these figures, an increase of more than 58 per cent, during the ten years mentioned. Making all due allowances for increase of population, it will be seen that the growing prevalence of cancer is assuming alarming proportions. Can we doubt, after the overwhelming evidence which has been 518 THE CRY OF THE STOMACH published regarding the conditions and practices which obtain in Packingtown, that our meat supply and food-products are responsible for a very large part of this increased mortality? We are told that the mortality from cancer has multiplied some four or five times during the last fifty years, and are informed that, whereas it was formerly more prevalent among women than men, it is now more prevalent among men and is becoming increasingly so. Mr. Roger Williams and Sir William Banks hold that cancer areas coincide with districts where the people are best nourished. We believe it will be admitted that the rich eat more meat than the poor, and particularly, we should say, is this true of certain of the canned meats. Further, we think it will be admitted that men are more addicted to meat than women and very much more liable to relish it in a rare or underdone condition. In view of these considerations does not the present condi- tion of our animal food supply have a very important bearing upon the spread of this terrible disease? In " The World's Work " for May, 1906, Dr. Caroline Hedger, who visits and practises among the people in Packington, that is, the workers in the packing-houses and their families, gives some interest- ing facts under the heading, " The Unhealthfulness of Packingtown." She very properly states that, " On the health of the workers in the stock-yards and the packing-houses, and on the healthfulness of their surroundings depend, to some extent, the wholesomeness of the food." . . . " No one yet knows how many cases of tuberculosis there are among the workers in the yards, for, until now, no system of reporting cases of the plague has been used in Chicago. In 1902 the deaths in the Twenty-ninth Ward, which embraces this district, were 28 per 10,000, which is 55 per cent, more than the average number per 10,000 for the whole city in the same year." .She calls attention to the fact that every possible opportunity is given for the men of Packingtown to drink. She says : " Outside the stock-yards on Ashland Avenue are forty-five saloons in two blocks. Every one of them is a restaurant that sells good hot food cheaper than any restaurant alone can afford to sell it, and makes very little even on the beer served with the food. They depend for their profit on the whisky consumed when checks are cashed, for they cash checks, and the men are paid in checks. Another inducement to visit these restaurant saloons at the noon hour is that they offer those bringing their own lunch more attractive places to eat than the packing- houses, though I have seen men eating lunch in the rooms where sheep are slaughtered. A drinker of alcohol stands the chance of infection by tuberculosis, as compared to a teetotaler, of 3 to 1. " In any infectious disease, such as tuberculosis, the resistance of the individual means much. Disease germs are less apt to attack a body the tissues of which are well nourished, healthy, and rested, than a body in a low condition of vitality. Thus the matter of food and drink becomes vital. So does ventilation. A person cannot breathe the air exhaled by himself and others in a closed room and be healthy. Nor can he be worked systematically past a reasonable fatigue point without having his protective barriers beaten down. "What a man eats and drinks depends in a large measure on his 519 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION wages, and so does the amount of room he can afford for his family. Before the last strike in the stock-yards, the average wage per week for the whole yards was $7.40. It is somewhat less now, and a cattle butcher told me that he had to do one-half more work than before the strike." Dr. Hedger adverts to the baleful effects of the insufferable pace set the workers of Packingtown. In this connexion she says : " A strik- ing illustration of what this fast work may lead to, was shown a few days ago by a man who, while working at full speed, tried to work faster to finish a given amount of work in a given time. He was a skinner, using both hands. A shock like electricity went through his whole body, and his cutting hand fell powerless. Eepeated attempts proved that his ability to cut was at least temporarily gone. His nerves had worked to the point of exhaustion, and, though he can do other work, his highly skilled ability can no longer be depended on as an earning factor. This is one of the cases where the limitation of output must be considered from the human side. In a lesser de- gree, the high speed of the workers depletes nervous power, and the over-fatigue places the worker in a position to be easily infected with any kind of disease germs/* Under the heading, " Menaces to Health/' Dr. Hedger says, in part : " Then there is Bubbly Branch on the west edge of the district. It is a stagnant branch of the Chicago River. The filth from the stock- yards sewer pours into it. It is really a large open sewer itself. In summer, if you are detained on the bridge that spans it, your cloth- ing will smell for hours. The scum of filth gets brown and dusty- looking in hot weather. It will bear up cats and chickens. " The ' dump/ another menace to the workers' health, is a great ex- cavation made by a brick yard. Into this hole is dumped the city garbage from the residence wards. The poorer foreigners pick over this rotting mass, and carry off chunks of bread. One woman who has tuberculosis has a wall of garbage, nearly four feet high, marking off her tiny front yard. Large mud-holes exist, too. In addition, the people themselves contribute other garbage." " Sunlight kills the germs of tuberculosis. A vast number of the packing-house workers work by electric light. If a tubercular per- son chose to expectorate in those totally dark rooms, where scores of girls work, those germs could live almost indefinitely unless removed. Many stairs and dark rooms in the yards look very unused to water and soap. From the ceilings of the killing-rooms and corridors, to the rag that a girl wipes a can with before capping it, there is dirt. Some of it certainly could be avoided. " The air in some of the departments, especially the canning depart- ment, is bad sometimes so steamy that it is impossible to see through it, and providing moisture to keep tuberculosis germs alive. There are no devices visible to prevent the inhalation of dust. In the soap-mixing department of one firm, which I visited, the dust was choking. Only a few men worked here, but they wore no respirators. In the painting-rooms where girls paint the cans, the smell of tur- pentine is very strong; and the girls inhale so much paint that their sputum is blue. This department is popularly credited with more tu- 520 THE CRY OF THE STOMACH berculosis than any other department where women work. One woman, in the last stages of consumption, was found sewing bags at home. These were for a special kind of export sausage. She had them carefully piled up, and explained that she had to keep them very clean, as they could not or would not be washed. In two weeks she was' dead. The toilet facilities in the packing-houses are, I am told, scanty, and the dressing-rooms for women very crowded. " THE REMEDIES FOR DANGER TO OUR FOOD." " It is revolting to think of the chances for infection of food in a situation like this. Certain products, like tongues, potted meats, and soups, are sterilised after being canned, but others, like dried beef and quarters of beef, go direct to the consumer. For their own sakes, the American people should consider the health of the 32,000 packing- house workers, a centre of infection by tuberculosis." We beg the Eeader to realise that our purpose, in offering so much evidence upon these matters, is to show that, however hard it may be to believe it, these revolting conditions exist and cause the wide- spread contamination of an enormous part of the country's food sup- ply. The conditions unearthed are so terrible that they would net be believed upon the evidence of any one or two people. If any reform is to come, it is essential that conditions as they are should be thor- oughly understood. This is no place for the spurious optimist the destructive optimist who is the real pessimist, par excellence to cry out that there is also much neatness shown in some parts of Pack- ingtown, and it would not be even were this neatness real and not intended merely, as we have seen, as a sort of stage pageant to di- vert the attention and lull the suspicions of the victimised public. Until the optimist can prove that bad conditions do not exist, let him hold his peace; for so long as there is a single pound of poisonous food-product sold to the public the victims thereof, as well as all men who have developed the social sense, should cry out against the in- famy. What is it to the man, dying of ptomaine poison as the result of eating canned meat, to be told that, if only he had partaken of lard instead lard rendered from cholera-infected or tubercular hogs lard which had been boiled for four hours at a temperature of 220 de- grees, he might still be well and happy ? Or what is it to him to be told that his case is only that of one in a hundred, or, for that mat- ter, one in a thousand? Will he not very justly demand that the ratio of outrage shall be reduced below the average of one in in- finity? As a nation we have gone daft over this matter of optimism, until to-day we laud the most pernicious and destructive pessimism, if only it assume the guise and name of optimism. The wholesale corruption in this country has at length brought about a great wave of public protest. Investigations are being made on every hand with results which richly justify the effort expended. All this is well, but even now the fickle public, caught with a "muck-rake" sop to Cerberus, is beginning to cry out that investigation be stopped. This means that the subsidised press considers it now safe to attempt to start a reaction, confident that the fickle public can be caught, as it 521 GILLETTE'S .SOCIAL REDEMPTION were, on the rebound, and hypnotised again into their favourite " op- timistic " trance. The point which we would like to impress upon the Reader, with all the emphasis in our power, is that the so-called " muck-rakers " are the real optimists the men who are willing to ' put forth money and effort for the purpose of constructing better so- cial conditions, while the spurious, let-alone optimists, who for their own selfish ends seek to divert public indignation by their trust-in- spired Siren-songs, are the men who are willing that all higher stand- ards shall be guiltily and insidiously undermined, while they keep the people lulled in a fatuous torpor they are the men who are the real, destructive pessimists, the worst menace to this or any other country. He who hoes out the dog-grass and the Canadian thistle of evil, that he may plant in their stead the violet of innocence and the white rose of justice, will be reviled as a destructive pessimist, yet he is a constructive optimist of the highest order; while he who descants enthusiastically upon the grandeur of dog-grass and thistle, in the attempt to make his hearers believe them beautiful floral pro- ductions, will be lauded as a comfortable, happy optimist, whose " pure mind" finds only good in everyfhing, whereas, as a matter of fact, this " cheerful idiot " is the most dangerous of destructive pessimists, his whole life being a sequence of efforts subversive of good. In all history there is not a single instance of any great and lasting improve- ment which was not the direct result of an enlightened discontent. If you sit at ease, why should you change jour seat ? If all things are as they should be, why make any effort whatever to alter any- thing? Is it not plain, therefore, that the logical result of this halleujah " optimism " is inaction yea, death ? Such " optimism " is static, while the "pessimism" it reviles is dynamic; the one is dead and stagnant, the other alive and fluent, and, as only running water can maintain its purity, so society can only keep from rotting by that enlightened discontent which the foolish and the vicious have named " destructive pessimism," but which the wise and the good know to be the highest type of beneficent and constructive optimism. Having made this explanation, let us return again to the consid- eration of the infamies of Packingtown. In the article entitled " The Failure of Government Inspection," by Thomas H. McKee,* we are told that the first inspection of animals accomplishes but little, since it results in the rejection only of animals with apparent defects. He calls attention to the fact that, after these animals are inspected in this way, they are purchased by the packers, so that, when the post- mortem examination is made and shows certain cattle to be unfit for food, the packer must either suffer a loss or resort to trickery. He says regarding this phase of the matter: " He is then dealing with his own property, and deviltries may begin. After a steer has been killed and placed in the cooling room, the carcass and its parts are never again seen by an inspector. Many weeks later a case of sealed cans, each containing something, is presented to an inspector to receive the government label. The packer tells the inspector that the cans con- tain meat and the label is put on. During the interim that meat may have taken a dreary journey. It may have been cut up and * " The World's Work," for May, 1906. 522 THE CRY OF THE STOMACH stored in dark, rat-infested rooms, been soaked for weeks in liquid pickle, trundled through murky passages, pitchforked by labourers from vessel to vehicle and back again, and finally cooked in open vats, in rooms, low, hot, greasy, and, except for the flare of torches, dark as a mine. " In a conversation with the manager of one of the Chicago packing- houses, I spoke of the uncleanliness of his pickling and cooking de- partments. He did not defend them, but said : ' If you will visit the kitchens of some of the hotels in this town, you will be less affected by what you have seen here/ which simply means * I am excused, because there are others just as bad.' The government inspectors, officially, know nothing about the processes through which the meat has passed after leaving the cooling room. " Ceilings, walls, and pillars may bear the accumulated filth of years ; cooking vessels and utensils may be germ-laden and poisonous; the personal cleanliness of the workmen may be wholly forgotten : yet all these conditions, so vitally affecting the purity of the product, the government ignores. It recognises the existence of germs in the bodies of diseased animals, when these reach the stock-yards, but re- pudiates the theory of germ infection through contact with ancient filth. The inspector's stamp does not guarantee sanitation, cleanli- ness, or absence of adulteration, and, in vouching for the purity of products prepared as packing-house products are, the government makes itself a party to a most reprehensible deception." Mr. McKee corroborates what has been said again and again in the matter of lard. Under the heading, " Diseased Hogs Used for Lard," he says : " And now see how these rules work in the handling of pork: On the occasion of a visit I made to one packing-house, the hogs from the killing floor, in a slowly gliding line, were moving to- ward the doors of the cooling rooms where we stood. The export hogs, the smooth, chunky little porkers, were shunted into their sepa- rate room; the big fellows hurried into the place whence they would later drop through the floor into the packing department; while the other hogs in the line entered still another cooling room. I noticed that occasionally a solitary hog was cut out of the line and pushed along an overhead track to the middle of the room, where several others hung. There happened to be six of these hanging together when my party arrived. Two of them were as red as if smeared with paint, and scabbed on the legs and snouts. ' These hogs had cholera/ the inspector said, ' and the next three are tubercular. See how skinny they are, and they have these queer spots inside of them.' " The remaining carcass had an ugly ulcer in its side. Around a block nearby, several men were chopping up these diseased hogs. The pieces were thrown into a box truck, which, when full, was trundled into another room alongside the huge iron cylinder, the base of which rested on the floor below, and in the top of which was a port-hole. The chunks of diseased meat were then thrown into the tank, in the inspector's presence. ' What will be the product of this tank ? ' I anxiously inquired. ' Fertiliser and lard/ the inspector replied. 523 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION " He noticed my qualms, for he immediately explained that the dis- eased meat would remain in that cylinder for four hours under twen- ty-five pounds steam pressure, a treatment which no germ could sur- vive. The other tanks in the room under steam were gurgling and muttering so suggestively that I beat a hasty retreat. Daylight reached again, and my equanimity somewhat restored, I questioned the inspector further: ' Do all of the tanks in that room produce fertiliser and lard ? ' ' No,' he said, ' part of them produce fertiliser and soap grease. Into these go spoiled meats, dirty scraps, and diseased carcasses when they are bad enough.' ' Those cholera hogs looked pretty bad to me/ I continued. ' They are not bad alongside of some we get, though.' ' Who decides whether or not a carcass is too bad for lard ? ' I pur- sued. 1 It is more or less in my discretion,' he explained, * The Depart- ment gives us rules, but in the end we have to use our own judgment. When I think that a hog is too bad to be used for lard I order it into the grease tank/ " It struck me that not many carcasses went into the grease tank, because, I reasoned, the pigs have to walk into the abattoir, and one much sicker than those whose bodies I saw could not climb the incline. The cooking of these carcasses probably did destroy disease germs, but it can be imagined that the spectacle described did not tend to whet my appetite for pie crust shortened with * United States Government Inspected' lard/' Eegarding the question of dishonest inspection, Mr. McKee says that the inspectors are given discretionary power, which he holds to be a prolific cause of the shocking conditions which obtain. Con- tinuing he says : " Extortion and bribery are the natural offspring of discretion lodged in petty hands. The use of general terms in defining the duties of an inspector is wrong in theory and pernicious in practice. If the inspector holds his position above, and independ- ent of, the packer, the latter is at his mercy. On the other hand, if the inspector's tenure of office is to any extent controlled by the packer, which I shall show to be the fact, the inspector is reduced to servitude. " The meat business is one peculiarly adapted to the destruction of evidence. The inspector can slight his duty, and there is but little chance of discovery. After a carcass is shorn of head and viscera, lit- tle remains to excite suspicion. Eemembering that condemnation by an inspector inflicts loss upon the packers, it is reasonable to believe that an inspector vested with discretion would be inclined to placate the power that could destroy him. " In a conversation with Dr. 0. E. Dyson, who for thirteen years has been connected with the Department of Agriculture in the study of diseases of food animals, and during the greater portion of that time has been chief of the bureau of inspection at Chicago, I asked him: 'What would be the result if a packer refused to permit carcasses to be destroyed, if the inspector demanded their destruction ? " 524 THE CRY OF THE STOMACH ' That has never happened/ he said, ' but if it did, the chief inspec- tor would report the fact to the Department, and the inspectors would be immediately withdrawn from that establishment/ " Where inspectors are employed, the inspector cannot remain a mo- ment longer than the packer desires. The latter, under the law, can expel every inspector on his premises, without notice. The question, then, whose servant the inspector is, answers itself." Mr. McKee shows that this inspection is a farce, so far as public protection is concerned, that it merely results in ante-mortem and post-mortem examinations which the packers would have to have made by pome one for their own sakes, and which they now get without cost to themselves, the government paying the bills. Continuing he says : " Government inspection, however, now permits the packer to sell under sanction of law questionable products as first class. The rules require meat to be classified into either first-class food or offal, and this function is vested in an inspector who is more or less under the thumb of the packer. -The latter, therefore, gets all the benefit of government inspection with few of the burdens. " The whole situation suggests that federal inspection is nothing more than a shrewd advertising scheme suggested to the packers sev- eral years ago, when several European countries forbade the exporta- tion to them of trichinae-infected pork. The flaunting of govern- ment inspection in our face is equivalent to ' See how Uncle Sam makes us be good. It is awfully hard on us, but you, the public, get the benefit/ I doubt if the arrival of the corps of United States in- spectors in Packingtown has, in any essential, ruffled the even tenor of the packers' ways/' , . . " Let the government and the packers tell the truth ; let us know what we are buying ; let us stop the deception." Of all that has been written upon our poisoned food supplies the most stinging indictment of all is Mr. Upton Sinclair's " The Jun- gle," a novel of Chicago. Of this book, Thomas Wentworth Higgin- son is quoted as saying, " It comes nearer than any book yet published among us to being the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the social tragedy of our great cities." Robert Hunter says of it, " It is one of the most powerful and ter- rible stories ever written. "As a portrayal of industrial conditions I have never read anything in literature that equals it;" while Char- lotte Perkins Oilman says : " That book of yours is unforgetable. should think the Beef Trust would buy it up at any price or you, d they could. If the American public wants to know how^its meat is provided and at what cost to them they can find out here." Jack London calls the work " The Uncle Tom's Cabin of Wage Slavery," while David Graham Phillips calls it " The Greatest Novel written in America in Fifty Years." So terrible is the indictment contained in The Jungle that the publishers of the book sent an able lawyer to Chicago to investigate Packingtown conditions, in order that they might be sure they could in fairness publish the novel. They state that his report amply veri- fied the truth of the story. Wishing for the author's personal assurance, we wrote Mr. Upton 525 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Sinclair and received in reply a letter which the following is an extract : " As to the question as to the truth of the book, if you read my letter in ' Collier's Weekly ' for March 24, and Articles in the ' World's Work ' and ' Everybody's Magazine ' for the month of May, you will get some information on that point. As to the questions of conditions in the stock-yards, I would say that the book is scien- tifically accurate. I spent seven weeks in that district, living among the people, and I have talked with hundreds of workingmen. There is nothing in the book which is not literally and exactly true, and you may regard the book as reliable as a book of statistics. I have not ex- ercised the novelist's privilege at all in that portion of the work deal- ing with the stock-yards; the facts which relate to the conditions of life there are accurate in the minutest detail." Eev. Artemas Jean Haynes, formerly pastor of Mr. Armour's church, says, in part, in a letter to Mr. Sinclair regarding " The Jungle " : " There isn't a doubt about it, you have written a great book." . . . " Let me say at once, that it seems to me I have a certain con- crete right to speak. In some ways I have been closer to the sheer deviltry of the thing than even yourself. For three years (1897- 1900) I was pastor in Chicago of one of the richest and most influ- ential churches of our order in the Middle West. During this time I preached in Plymouth church Sunday mornings, and gave my even- ings to mission work in the district which you describe. Having lived most of my life as a workingman five years of that time, on and off, as a common sailor I had the workman's point of view and found myself in full sympathy with him. I saw the hideously cruel side of Chicago life; and looked at it steadily, with eyes wide open. Men will say that you have overdrawn the thing; it is not so. Words utterly fail and break down in the attempt to tell the story of the exploitation of the poor in Chicago. Terrible as is ' The Jungle/ it falls far short of the awful reality. Do you know Eobert Hunter? He was in Chicago at the time, and we used to wrestle over these bitter problems. But what was the use? What can a man do who has no other weapon than his voice? Speak, of course. Yes, but he will find too often that he is only a voice in the wilderness. I did what I could, had trouble with my church, and finally broke down in health. All this is of no interest to you, except to show you that I am in a position to bear testimony to the essential truthfulness of your portrayal. You had the novelist's rights, of course, but you have not misused them. Your book is true true as life true as death. Men who do not know should keep still. Men who do know, and deny it, are liars. Men who know, and say nothing, are cowards. I hope the men who will hate this book will speak out. What we want is the naked truth; my soul is singing for joy over the thing you have done." . . . " In ' The Jungle/ one feels how unutterably tragic is the life of the oppressed poor how much of beauty and joy they miss. The man who can read it without being moved to the depths of his being, may know that judgment has been passed upon him. Already he is a dead soul." 526 It is not our purpose, at this juncture, to call attention to the in- finite pathos of this book, nor to put before the Reader the crying injustices or the despairing struggles which make up the tragedy of its pages. To do justice to these factors we should have to quote the whole book. All those who wish to keep abreast of epoch-making literature should read Mr. Sinclair's book from cover to cover. For the time being we must content ourselves with calling attention to such portions as bear directly upon the present question of the debasement of our food supply. Apropos of this subject we quote the following: " Looking down this room, one saw, creeping slowly, a line of dangling hogs a hundred yards in length ; and for every yard there was a man, working as if a demon were after him. At the end of this hog's progress every inch of the carcass had been gone over several times; and then it was rolled into the chilling-room, where it stayed for twenty-four hours, and where a stranger might lose himself in a for- est of freezing hogs. " Before the carcass was admitted here, however, it had to pass a government inspector, who sat in the doorway and felt of the glands in the neck for tuberculosis. This government inspector did not have the manner of a man who was worked to death ; he was apparently not haunted by a fear that the hog might get by him before he had fin- ished his testing. If you were a sociable person, he was quite willing to enter into conversation with you, and to explain to you the deadly nature of the ptomaines which are found in tubercular pork; and while he was talking with you you could hardly be so ungrateful as to notice that a dozen carcasses were passing him untouched. This inspector wore a blue uniform, with brass buttons, and he gave an at- mosphere of authority to the scene, and, as it were, put the stamp of official approval upon the things which were done in Durham's." Referring to the killing of cattle the author says : " The manner in which they did this was something to be seen and never forgotten. They worked with furious intensity, literally upon the run at a pace with which there is nothing to be compared except a football game. It was all highly specialised labour, each man having his task to do; generally this would consist of only two or three specific cuts, and he would pass down the line of fifteen or twenty carcasses, mak- ing these cuts upon each. First there came the ' butcher,' to bleed them ; this meant one swift stroke, so swift that you could not see it only the flash of the knife ; and before you could realise it, the man had darted on to the next line, and a stream of bright red was pour- ing out upon the floor. This floor was half an inch deep with blood, in spite of the best efforts of men who kept shovelling it through holes ; it must have made the floor slippery, but no one could have guessed this by watching the men at work." Some idea of the extent of the industries of Packingtown may be gathered from the following: "And then the visitors were taken to the other parts of the building, to see what became of each particle of the waste material that had vanished through the floor; and to the pickling-rooms, and the salting-rooms, the canning-rooms, and the packing-rooms, where choice meat was prepared for shipping in refrigerator-cars, destined to be eaten in all the four corners of civil- 527 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION isation. Afterwards they went outside, wandering about among the mazes of buildings in which was done the work auxiliary to this great industry. There was scarcely a thing needed in the business that Durham* and Company did not make for themselves. There was a great steam-power plant and an electricity plant. There was a barrel factory, and a boiler-repair shop. There was a building to which the grease was piped, and made into soap and lard ; and then there was a factory for making lard cans, and another for making soap boxes. There was a building in which the bristles were cleaned and dried, for the making of hair cushions and such things; there was a building where the skins were dried and tanned, there was an- other where heads and feet were made into glue, and another where bones were made. into fertiliser. No tiniest particle of organic matter was wasted in Durham's. Out of the horns of the cattle they made combs, buttons, hair-pins, and imitation ivory; out of the shin bones and other big bones they cut knife and tooth-brush handles, and mouthpieces for pipes; out of the hoofs they cut hair-pins and but- tons, before they made the rest into glue. From such things as feet, knuckles, hide clippings, and sinews came such strange and unlikely products as gelatin, isinglass, and phosphorous, bone-black, shoe-black- ing, and bone-oil. They had curled-hair works for the cattle tails, and a ' wool-pullery ' for the sheep skins ; they made pepsin from the stomachs of the pigs, and albumen from the blood, and violin strings from the ill-smelling entrails. When there was nothing else to be done with a thing, they first put it into a tank and got out of it all the tallow and grease, and then they made it into fertiliser. All these industries were gathered into buildings near by, connected by gal- leries and railroads with the main establishment ; and it was estimated that they had handled nearly a quarter of a billion of animals since the founding of the plant by the elder Durham a generation and more ago. If you counted with it the other big plants and they were now really all one it was, so Jokubas informed them, the greatest ag- gregation of labour and capital ever gathered in one place. It em- ployed thirty thousand men ; it supported directly two hundred and fifty thousand people in its neighbourhood, and indirectly it sup- ported half a million. It sent its products to every country in the civilised world, and it furnished the food for no less than thirty million people ! " The inhuman brutality of the whole system; the method by which men are squeezed like oranges of all there is in them and then thrown idly aside is well illustrated by the following : " This was the first time in his life that he had ever really worked, it seemed to Jurgis; it was the first time that he had ever had anything to do which took all he had in him. . . . The pace they set here, it was one that called for every faculty of a man from the instant the first steer fell till the sounding of the noon whistle, and again from half- past twelve till heaven only knew what hour in the late afternoon or evening, there was never one instant's rest for a man, for his hand or his eye or his brain. Jurgis saw how they managed it; there were portions of the work which determined the pace of the rest, and for these they had picked men whom they paid high wages, and whom 528 THE CRY OF THE STOMACH they changed frequently. You might easily pick out these pace-mak- ers, for they worked under the eye of the bosses, and they worked like men possessed. This was called ' speeding up the gang/ and if any man could not keep up with the pace, there were hundreds outside begging to try." In a description of a pickle-room we find the following : " It seemed that he was working in the room where the men prepared the beef for canning, and the beef had lain in .vats full of chemicals, and men with great forks speared it out and dumped it into trucks, to be taken to the cooking-room. When they had speared out all they could reach, they emptied the vat on the floor, and then with shovels scraped up the balance and dumped it into the truck. This floor was filthy, yet they set Antanas with his mop slopping the ' pickle ' into a hole that connected with a sink, where it was caught and used over again forever; and if that were not enough, there was a trap in the pipe, where all the scraps of meat and odds and ends of refuse were caught, and every few days it was the old man's task to clean these out, and shovel their contents into one of the trucks with the rest of the meat ! " A little later we find the following : " One curious thing he had noticed, the very first day, in his profession of shoveller of guts; which was the sharp trick of the floor-bosses whenever there chanced to coir.e a ( slunk ' calf. Any man who knows anything about butcher- ing knows that the flesh of a cow that is about to calve, or has just calved, is not fit for food. A good many of these came every day to the packing-houses and, of course, if they had chosen, it would have been an easy matter for the packers to keep them till they were fit for food. But for the saving of time and fodder, it was the law that cows of that sort came along with the others, and whoever no- ticed 'it would tell the boss, and the boss would start up a conversa- tion with the government inspector, and the two would stroll away. So in a trice the carcass of the cow would be cleaned out, and the entrails would have vanished; it was Jurgis's task to slide them into the trap, calves and all, and on the floor below they took out these ' slunk ' calves, and butchered them for meat, and used even the skins of them. " One day a man slipped and hurt his leg ; and that afternoon, when the last of the cattle had been disposed of, and the men were leaving, Jurgis was ordered to remain and do some special work which this in- jured man had usually done. It was late, almost dark, and the gov- ernment inspectors had all gone, and there were only a dozen or two of men on the floor. That day they had killed about four thousand cattle, and these cattle had come in freight trains from far states, and some of them had got hurt. There were some with broken legs, and some with gored sides; there were some that had died, from what cause no one could say; and they were all to be disposed of, here iri darkness and silence. ' Downers,' the men called them ; and the pack- ing-house had a special elevator upon which they were raised to the killing-beds, where the gang proceeded to handle them, with an air of businesslike nonchalence which said plainer than any words that it was a matter of everyday routine. It took a couple of hours to get 34 529 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION them out of the way, and in the end Jurgis saw them go into the chill- ing-rooms with the rest of the meat, being carefully scattered here and there so that they could not be identified. When he came home that night he was in a very sombre mood, having begun to see at last how those might be right who had laughed at him for his faith in America." We have already given Dr. Hedger's view of Bubbly Branch. Here is what Mr. Sinclair says of Bubbly Creek and of some samples of po- litical corruption about as noisome : " ' Bubbly Creek ' is an arm of the Chicago River, and forms the southern boundary of the yards ; all the drainage of the square mile of packing-houses empties into it, so that it is really a great open sewer a hundred or two feet wide. One long arm of it is blind, and the filth stays there forever and a day. The grease and chemicals that are poured into it undergo all sorts of strange transformations, which are the cause of its name; it is con- stantly in motion, as if huge fish were feeding in it, or great leviathans disporting themselves in its depths. Bubbles of carbonic acid gas will rise to the surface and burst, and make rings two or three feet wide. Here and there the grease and filth have caked solid, and the creek looks like a bed of lava ; chickens walk about on it, feeding, and many times an unwary stranger has started to stroll across, and vanished temporarily. The packers used to leave the creek that way, till every now and then the surface would catch on fire and burn furiously, and the fire department would have to come and put it out. Once, however, an ingenious stranger came and started to gather' this filth in scows, to make lard out of ; then the packers took the cue, and got oiit an injunction to stop him, and afterwards gathered it themselves. The banks of 'Bubbly Creek' are plastered thick with hairs, and this also the packers gather and clean. "And there were things even stranger than this, according to the gossip of the men. The packers had secret mains, through which they stole billions of gallons of the city's water. The newspapers had been full of this scandal once there had even been an investigation, and an actual uncovering of the pipes; but nobody had been punished, and the thing went right on. And then there was the condemned meat industry, with its endless horrors. The people of Chicago saw the government inspectors in Packingtown, and they all took that to mean that they were protected from diseased meat; they did not un- derstand that these hundred and sixty-three inspectors had been ap- pointed at the request of the packers, and that they were paid by the United States government to certify that all the diseased meat was kept in the state. They had no authority beyond that; for the inspection of meat to be sold in the city and state the whole force in Packingtown consisted of three henchmen of the local political machine ! And shortly afterward one of these, a physician, made the discovery that the carcasses of steers which had been condemned as tubercular by the government inspectors, and which therefore con- tained ptomaines, which are deadly poisons, were left upon an open platform and carted away to be sold in the city ; and so he insisted that these carcasses be treated with an injection of kerosene and was ordered to resign the same week! So indignant were the pack- 530 THE CRY OF THE STOMACH ers that they went farther, and compelled the mayor to abolish the whole bureau of inspection ; so that since then there has not been even a pretence of any interference with the graft. There was said to be two thousand dollars a week hush-money from the tubercular steers alone ; and as much again from the hogs which had died of cholera on the trains, and which you might see any day being loaded into box- cars and hauled away to a place called Globe, in Indiana, where they made a fancy grade of lard." . . . "It seemed that they must have agencies all over the country, to hunt out old and crippled and diseased cattle to be canned. There were cattle which had been fed on * whiskey-malt/ the refuse of the breweries, and had become what the men called ' steerly ' which means covered with boils. It was a nasty job killing these, for when you plunged your knife into them they would burst and splash foul- smelling stuff into your face ; and when a man's sleeves were smeared with blood, and his hands steeped in it, how was he ever to wipe his face, or to clear his eyes so that he could see? It was stuff such as this that made the * embalmed beef ' that had killed several times as many United States soldiers as all the bullets of the Spaniards; only the army beef, besides, was not fresh canned, it was old stuff that had been lying for years in the cellars/' . . . " They were regular alchemists at Durham's ; they advertised a mushroom-catsup, and the men who made it did not know what a mushroom looked like. They advertised 'potted chicken,' and it was like the boarding-house soup of the comic papers, through which a chicken had walked with rubbers on. Perhaps they had a secret process for making chickens chemically who knows? said Jurgis's friend ; the things that went into the mixture were tripe, and the fat of pork, and beef suet, and hearts of beef, and finally the waste ends of veal, when they had any. They put these up in several grades, and sold them at several prices; but the contents of the cans all came out of the same hopper. And then there was * potted game ' and ' potted grouse,' ' potted ham/ and ' deviled ham ' de-vyled, as the men called it. ' De-vyled ' ham was made out of the waste ends of smoked beef that were too small to be sliced by the machines ; and also tripe, dyed with chemicals so that it would not show white; and trimmings of hams and corned beef ; and potatoes, skins and all ; and finally the hard cartilaginous gullets of beef, after the tongues had been cut out. All this ingenious mixture was ground up and flavoured with spices to make it taste like something. Anybody who could invent a new imitation had been sure of a fortune from old Durham, said Jurgis's informant; but it was hard to think of any- thing new in a place where so many sharp wits had been at work for so long ; where men welcomed tuberculosis in the cattle they were feed- ing, because it made them fatten more quickly ; and where they bought up all the old rancid butter left over in the grocery-stores of a con- tinent, and ' oxidised * it by a forced-air process, to take away the odour, rechurned it with skim-milk, and sold it in bricks in the cities ! Up to a year or two ago it had been the custom to kill horses in the yards ostensibly for fertiliser; but after long agitation the news- papers had been able to make the public realise that the horses were 531 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION being canned. Now it was against the law to kill horses in Packing- town, and the law was really complied with for the present, at any rate. Any day, however, one. might see sharp-horned and shaggy- haired creatures running with the sheep and yet what a job you would have to get the public to believe that a good part of what it buys for lamb and mutton is really goat's flesh ! " 532 CHAPTEE V SWINE AND SWINE 533 Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Axiom. I might say that I regard my hogs as my most profitable live stock, but for all that I do not find it necessary to keep my pig in my par- lour. It is natural for my shoats to root up the sod in my pasture, but it isn't necessary, and so I put rings in their noses. I find that my pork- ers make very satisfactory bacon from corn-meal and clover, and so I don't find it necessary to give them the freedom of the strawberry patch. Of course, Comegys, if my prize Poland-China boar, Plutus, number 117, could state his economic views, he would probably tell me that in all these things I am violating the sacred principle of laissez faire. He would insist in the strongest terms that the barbed-wire fence between his pen and the garden is a serious obstruction to porcine enterprise. And he would be right, too, from a purely porcine point of view. But his reasoning would be wrong because the porcine view-point is not the correct one. As a matter of fact I am not keeping my farm for the benefit of my pigs. I am keeping my pigs for the benefit of my farm. John M. Palmer The Morals of Mammon, McClure's, July, 1906, 534 CHAPTER V. SWINE AND SWINE N" reference to the conditions obtaining in the lesser or tributary industries in Packingtown, we are told that each one is a separate little inferno, as horrible in its way as the killing-beds, the source and fountain of them all, the workers in each having their own peculiar diseases. " There were the men in the pickle-rooms, for instance, where old Antanas had gotten his death ; * scarce a one of these that had not some spot of horror on his per- son. Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle-rooms, and he might have a sore that would put him out of the world; all the joints in his fingers might be eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchers and floorsmen, the beef -boners and trim- mers, and all those who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who had the use of his thumb ; time and time again the base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh against which the man pressed the knife to hold it. The hands of these men would be criss-crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them or to trace them. They would have no nails, they had worn them off pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan. There were men who worked in the cooking-rooms, in the midst of steam and sickening odours, by arti- ficial light; in these rooms the germs of tuberculosis might live for two years, but the supply was renewed every hour. There were the beef -luggers, who carried two-hundred-pound quarters into the refrig- erator-cars ; a fearful kind of work, that began at lour o'clock in the morning, and that wore out the most powerful men in a few years. There were those who worked in the chilling-rooms, and whose spe- cial disease was rheumatism ; the time-limit that a man could work in the chilling-rooms was said to be five years. There were the wool- pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle-men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off. There were those who made the tins for the canned-meat; and their hands, too, were a maze of cuts, and each cut represented a chance for blood-poisoning. Some worked at the stamping-machines, and it was very seldom that one could work long there at the pace that was set, and not give out and forget himself, and have a part of his hand chopped off. There were the 'hoisters/ as they were called, whose task it was to press the lever which lifted the dead cattle off the *"The Jungle," (p. 116) by Upton Sinclair. 535 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION floor. They ran along upon a rafter, peering down through the damp and the steam; and as old Durham's architects had not built the killing-room for the convenience of the holsters, at every few feet they would have to stoop under a beam, say four feet above the one they ran on; which got them into the habit of stooping, so that in a few years they would be walking like chimpanzees. Worst of any, however, were the fertiliser-men, and those who served in the cooking-rooms. These people could not be shown to the visitor, for the odour of a fertiliser-man would scare any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards, and as for the other men, who worked in tank-rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats ; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting, sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard ! " The following picture of conditions in Packingtown during mid- summer is worthy of a Zola or a Dante : " All day long the rivers of hot blood poured forth, until, with the sun beating down, and the air motionless, the stench was enough to knock a man over; all the old smells of a generation would be drawn out by this heat for there was never any washing of the walls and rafters and pillars, and they were caked with the filth of a lifetime. The men who worked on the killing-beds would come to reek with foulness, so that you could smell one of them fifty feet away; there was simply no such thing as keeping decent, the most careful man gave it up in the end, and wallowed in uncleanness. There was not even a place where a man could wash his hands, and the men ate as much raw blood as food at dinner-time. When they were at work they could not even wipe off their faces they were as helpless as newly born babes in that respect; and it may seem like a small matter, but when the sweat began to run down their necks and tickle them, or a fly to bother them, it was a torture like being burned alive. Whether it was the slaughter-houses or the dumps that were responsible, one could not say, but with the hot weather there descended upon Packingtown a veritable Egyptian plague of flies; there could be no describing this the houses would be black with them. There was no escaping ; you might provide all your doors and windows with screens, but their buz- zing outside would be like the swarming of bees, and whenever you opened the door they would rush in as if a storm of wind were driv- ing them." Concerning the demoniacal haste forced upon the workers we have the following : " On the contrary, the speeding-up seemed to be grow- ing more savage all the time; they were continually inventing new devices to crowd the work on it was for all the world like the thumb-screw of the mediaeval torture-chamber. They would get new pace-makers and pay them more; they would drive the men on with new machinery it was said that in the hog-killing rooms the speed at which the hogs moved was determined by clock-work, and that it was increased a little every day. In piece-work they would reduce the time, requiring the same work in a shorter time, and paying the 536 SWINE AND SWINE same wages; and then, after the workers had accustomed themselves to this new speed, they would reduce the rate of payment to corre- spond with the reduction in time! They had done this so often in the canning establishments that the girls were fairly desperate ; their wages had gone down by a full third in the past two years, and a storm of discontent was brewing that was likely to break any day." We have already alluded in a previous chapter to potato-flour as a food adulterant in this country. The following quotation from " The Jungle " is of interest in this connexion : " But they had come to a new country, where everything was different, including the food. They had always been accustomed to eat a great deal of smoked sau- sage, and how could they know that what they bought in America was not the same that its colour was made by chemicals, and its smoky flavor by more chemicals, and that it was full of ' potato- flour ' besides? Potato-flour is the waste of potato after the starch and alcohol have been extracted; it has no more food value than so much wood, and as its use as a food adulterant is a penal offence in Europe, thousands of tons of it are shipped to America every year. It was amazing what quantities of food such as this were needed every day, by eleven hungry persons. A dollar sixty-five a day was simply not enough to feed them, and there was no use trying; and so each week they made an inroad upon the pitiful little bank-account that Ona had begun. Because the account was in her name, it was possible for her to keep this a secret from her husband, and to keep the heart- sickness of it for her own." In explanation of the way disappearances were sometimes accounted for in Packingtown, we have the following : " Brother Jonas dis- appeared. One Saturday night he did not come home, and thereafter all their efforts to get trace of him were futile. It was said by the boss at Durham's that he had gotten his week's money and left there, That might not be true, of course, for sometimes they would say that when a man had been killed; it was the easiest way out of it for all concerned. When, for instance, a man had fallen into one of the rendering tanks and had been made into pure leaf lard and peerless fertiliser, there was no use letting the fact out and making his family unhappy." The fertiliser plant is described as the nethermost hell of the whole system. We are told that the men talked about it in awe-stricken whispers : " The fertiliser-works of Durham's lay away from the rest of the plant. Few visitors ever saw them, and the few who did would come out looking like Dante, of whom the peasants declared that he had been into hell. To this part of the yards came all the 'tankage,' and the waste products of all sorts; here they dried out the bones, and in suffocating cellars where the daylight never came you might see men and women and children bending over whirling machines and sawing bits of bone into all sorts of shapes, breathing their lungs full of the fine dust, and doomed to die, every one of them, within a certain definite time. Here they made the blood into albumen, and made other foul-smelling things into things still more foul-smelling. In the corridors and caverns where it was done you might lose yourself as in the great caves of Kentucky. In the dust 537 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION and the steam the electric lights would shine like far-off twinkling stars red and blue, green and purple stars, according to the colour of the mist and the brew from which it came. For the odours in these ghastly charnel-houses there may be words in Lithuanian, but there are none in English. The person entering would have to sum- mon his courage as for a cold-water plunge. He would go on like a man swimming under water ; he would put his handkerchief over his face, and begin to cough and choke; and then, if he were still obsti- nate, he would find his head beginning to ring, and the veins in his forehead to throb, until finally he would be assailed by an overpower- ing blast of ammonia fumes, and would turn and run for his life, and come out half -dazed. " On top of this were the rooms where they dried the e tankage/ the mass of brown stringy stuff that was left after the waste por- tions of the carcasses had had the lard and tallow tried out of them. This dried material they would then grind to a fine powder, and after they had mixed it up well with a mysterious but inoffensive brown rock which they brought in and ground up by the hundreds of carloads for that purpose, the substance was ready to be put into bags and seut out of the world as any one of the hundred different brands of stand- ard bone-phosphate/' We are let still further into the secrets of Packingtown in the fol- lowing : " With one member trimming beef in a cannery, and an- other working in a sausage factory, the family had a first-hand knowl- edge of the great majority of Packingtown swindles. For it was the custom, as they found, whenever meat was so spoiled that it could not be used for anything else, either to can it or else to chop ft up into sausage. With what had been told them by Jonas, who had worked in the pickle-rooms, they could now study the whole of the spoiled- meat industry on the inside, and read a new and grim meaning into that old Packingtown jest, that they use everything of the pig ex- cept the squeal. " Jonas had told them how the meat that was taken out of pickje would often be found sour, and how they would rub it up with soda to take away the smell, and sell it to be eaten on free-lunch coun- ters ; also of all the miracles of chemistry which they performed, giv- ing to any sort of meat, fresh or salted, whole or chopped, any colour and any flavour and any odour they chose. In the pickling of hams they had an ingenious apparatus, by which they saved time and in- creased the capacity of the plant a machine consisting of a hollow needle attached to a pump; by plunging this needle into the meat and working with his foot, a man could fill a ham with pickle in a few seconds. And yet, in spite of this, there would be hams found spoiled, some of them with an odour so bad that a man could hardly bear to be in the room with them. To pump into these the pack- ers had a second and much stronger pickle which destroyed the odour a process known to the workers as ' giving them thirty per cent/ Also, after the hams had been smoked, there would be found some that had gone to the bad. Formerly these had been sold as ' Number Three Grade,' but later on some ingenious person had hit upon a new de- vice, and now they would extract the bone, about which the bad 538 SWINE AND SWINE part generally lay, and insert in the hole a white-hot iron. After this invention there was no longer Number One, Two, and Three Grade there was only Number One Grade. The packers were always originating such schemes they had what they called ' boneless hams,' which were all the odds and ends of pork stuffed into casings; and ' California hams/ which were the shoulders, with big knuckle-joints, and nearly all the meat cut out ; and fancy ' skinned hams,' which were made of the oldest hogs, whose skins were so heavy and coarse that no one would buy them that is, until they had been cooked and chopped fine and labelled ' head cheese ' ! " It was only when the whole ham was spoiled that it came into the department of Elzbieta. Cut up by the two-thousand-revolutions-a- minute flyers, and mixed with half a ton of other meat, no odour that ever was in a ham could make any difference. There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been re- jected, and that was mouldy and white it would be dosed with borax and glycerine, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off hand- fuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. This is no fairy story and no joke ; the meat would be shovelled into carts, and the man who did the shovelling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage. There were the butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the plants, that would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the system of rigid economy which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid to do once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the waste-barrels. Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale water and cart load after cart load of it would be taken up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to the public's breakfast. Some of it they woull make into ' smoked' sausage but as the smoking took time, and was therefore expensive, they would call upon their chemistry de- partment, and preserve it with borax and colour it with gelatine to make it brown. All of their sausage came out of the same bowl, but when they came to wrap it they would stamp some of it ' special,' and for this they would charge two cents more a pound." The stinging indictments contained in " The Jungle " were not suf- 539 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION fered to pass unchallenged by the owners of Packingtown. Mr. J. Ogden Armour came to the defence of the Beef Trust in a recent ar- ticle published in " The Saturday Evening Post," in which he makes what " Everybody's Magazine " describes as a " flat-footed assertion that the Government inspection of the Beef Trust slaughter-houses is an impregnable wall protecting the public from impure meat, and that not an atom of diseased meat finds its way into the products of the Armours." The exact words used by Mr. Armour as quoted are as follows : " In Armour & Co.'s business not one atom of any con- demned animal or carcass finds its way, directly or indirectly, from any source, into any food product or food ingredient." Replying to this assertion in the May, 1906, number of " Every- body's Magazine," the author of " The Jungle " states that a year or so ago he would have considered such a statement made by Mr. Armour to be the result of ignorance, but that now he is aware that Mr. Ar- mour knows every detail of his business. To use Mr. Sinclair's words : " I know that he has his finger upon every detail of the packing-house business; and therefore using italics, in accordance with Mr. Ar- mour's own example I know that in the statements quoted above, Mr. Armour wilfully and deliberately states what he absolutely and positively knows to be falsehoods. _ " I have had to face Mr. Armour, and his power, and his prestige, and his respectability, so often that I am now grown used to it. I had to face it, for instance, when I went out to find a publisher for my book ; I know that several declined to print it, because they be- lieved Mr. Armour, and did not believe me. The firm which .at present publishes it sent out to the editor of an ultra-respectable news- paper in Chicago, asking for an impartial opinion about the book, and the editor in reply transmitted a twenty-eight-page typewritten report, upon the letter-heads of the newspaper, purporting to be the result of an impartial investigation, and branding " The Jungle " as a tissue of falsehoods ; and later on I was able to prove that this entire report was drawn up in the office of the legal department of Armour & Co. ! " The article then goes on to state the testimony of Mr. Thomas H. McKee, who was sent to investigate Packingtown conditions. Mr. McKee states what he saw with his own eyes, and his report is a most eloquent refutation of Mr. Armour's statement, to wit : " Not one atom of any condemned animal or carcass finds its way directly or indirectly, from any source, into any food product or food ingredient." Continuing his article, Mr. Sinclair relates some of his experiences in Packingtown. He says: "I lived among the stock-yards people for many weeks, making the most minute and painstaking examina- tion into every detail of their lives, as well as of the packing-house methods. I shall never forget my emotions on my very first evening in the yards, when I sat in the kitchen of one of Mr. Armour's cattle- butchers, an old Lithuanian working man, who had spent twenty- five years of his life in Packingtown. He had been one of Tom Carey's ' Indians ' in his early days ; he had been naturalised when only two months in America, and had voted seven times at a recent election. He was intimately familiar with every detail of Mr. Ar- 540 SWINE AND SWINE mour's business as familiar, I dare say, as Mr. Armour himself and when he was fairly started at telling me what he had seen and done, my hair began to rise on end. He told me that meat which had been condemned as unfit for food, and had been dropped into tanks to be rendered into fertiliser, was taken out at the bottom of the tanks, and canned or cut up for sausage. He told me that he had done this with his own hands ; he told me that his brother-in-law, who worked in another of the big packing-houses, had done it quite recently ; and still I could not believe him it could not be true ! " He states that the reports made to him were such that at first he could not believe them true. He took this story to the head of the University Settlement in the stock-yards and asked her for her opin- ion on the matter. We give the result in his own words. "She said: 'Mr. Sinclair, I have lived thirteen years in this neighbour- hood, and during that time scarcely a' week passes that some one does not tell me some such story; but I can't believe them they can't be true! Will your man, or his brother-in-law, or other men who know of it, make an affidavit to it ? ' I took the question to the grizzled old cattle-butcher, and he laughed. ' Sure,' he said, ' I'll make an affidavit to it on one condition.' ' What is that ? ' I asked. ' Simply that the lady will go under bond to give me a job for the balance of my life.' " Continuing his own investigations he says : " I got into many places in the big packing-houses and I saw sights of filth and horror such as I hope never to see again; but even disguised as a working man, and in company with men who were intimately known in the estab- lishments, I was unable to get past the ' spotters ' and watchmen who guard those particular doors that I wished to pass. I tried it until I was known at all the places, and then I had to give it up ; and so I came away and in mentioning this matter in my book, because I had not seen it myself, I told of it as a thing which my hero did not .see, but which he heard as a rumour from other people. And then only the other day I came upon positive evidence of this crime and in Mr. Armour's own establishment! " At the time of the embalmed-beef scandal, at the conclusion of the Spanish War, when the whole country was convulsed with fury over the revelations made by soldiers and officers (including General Miles and President Roosevelt) concerning the quality of meat which Ar- mour & Co. had furnished to the troops, and concerning the death- rate which it had caused, the enormity of the ' condemned-meat in- dustry ' became suddenly clear to one man who had formerly super- vised it. Mr Thomas F. Dolan, then residing in Boston, had, up to a .short time previous, been a superintendent at Armour & Co.'s, and one of Mr. Philip D. Armour's most capable and trusted men. He had letters, written in a familiar tone, showing that Mr. Armour was of the opinion that he, Mr. Dolan, could kill more cattle for him in a given time than any other man he ever had ; he had a jewelled pin presented to him by Mr. Armour, and a gold watch with Mr. Armour's name in it. When he read of the death-rate in the army, he made an affidavit concerning the things which were done in the 541 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION establishment of Armour & Co., and this affidavit he took to the ' New York Journal,' which published it on March 1, 1899." The extracts from Mr. Dolan's affidavit are of the utmost im- portance for many reasons, some of which are pointed out by Mr. Sinclair, to wit : The affidavit constituted " a definite and explicit charge concerning certain things which Mr. Armour has ' branded,' over his own signature, as ( absolutely false/ " The affidavit was published in a newspaper whose proprietor is very wealthy and who might easily have been made the defendant in a million-dollar libel suit with a practical certainty of damages in a large sum, if the Dolan allegations could not be substantiated. Commenting upon these facts Mr. Sinclair continues: " What did Mr. Armour do about it? " Did he have Mr. Thomas F. Dolan arrested for criminal libel ; did he bring a suit for a million dollars libel against Mr. William R. Hearst ; did he defy his accusers to produce their evidence and prove the atrocious crimes with which they had charged him? No, lie did not do any of these things! What he did, I happen to know from a man who was present in Mr. Armour's office when he did it, and who advised and urged Mr. Armour strongly not to do it ; what he did, upon his own decision, was to send an agent to Boston with five new, crisp one-thousand-dollar bills, to offer to Mr. Dolan, provided that he would make another affidavit declaring that his former state- ments were false, and that he had been paid a large sum of money by the ' New York Journal ' to make them ! " The man whom Mr. Armour sent is now in an insane asylum at Peoria, 111. ; his name is Gilligan. He went to Mr. Dolan and offered him, not merely the five new, crisp one-thousand-dollar bills, but also a trip to Europe, with expenses for himself and family paid for three years, provided that he would make oath to a falsehood, and then take the next steamer. Mr. Dolan referred the matter to the newspaper people, who agreed with him that he could make quite as good use of the $5,000 as could Mr. Armour, and so Mr. Dolan took the five new, crisp one-thousand-dollar bills and deposited them in bank, to be held in trust for the education of his children; and that afternoon Mr. Gilligan, on his way back to report his, triumph to his employer, was confronted with a copy of the " New York Evening Journal," of March 16, 1899, containing the whole affidavit and the whole story, under the caption (in letters which it would take a good part of this magazine page to reproduce) : " ARMOUK PAYS $5,000 FOR A GOLD BRICK IN BOSTON ! " " This is a pretty story. It falls in so beautifully with the letter recently made public by President Roosevelt, describing how Mr. Armour's attorneys had been bribing newspaper reporters to misrep- resent the evidence at the Government prosecutions in Chicago. It also falls in beautifully with Mr! Armour's statement concerning the endless blackmail to which a packer would be liable who undertook to profit by the ' condemned-meat industry.' As a matter of fact, any one who knows anything at all about Mr. .Armour's affairs knows 542 SWINE AND SWINE that his life is made miserable by blackmailers. Scarcely an em- ploye of any responsibility leaves Armour & Co., who fails to take with him incriminating documents, and then come back and sell them to Mr. Armour at fancy prices. I wish I were at liberty to tell some of the stories which I know about such things. Only last week an intimate friend of mine was conversing with a man who had gotten an immense sum from Mr. Armour; that I do not name the man and the exact figure is simply because Mr. Armour might buy him again, and thus close an important source of information." As we regard the Dolan affidavit of vital interest to this subject, and as Mr. Sinclair has excerpted from it precisely those portions which we should wish to extract, we reproduce it in extenso from his article in the May, 1906, " Everybody's." It is as follows : " For ten years I was employed by Philip D. Armour, the great Chicago beef packer and canner. I rose from a common beef skinner to the station of su- perintendent of the beef-killing gang, with 500 men directly under me. . . . " There were many ways of getting around the inspectors so many, in fact, that not more than two or three cattle out of one thou- sand were condemned. I know exactly what I am writing of in this connexion, as my particular instructions from Mr. W. E. Pierce, su- perintendent of the beef houses for Armour & Co., were very explicit and definite. " Whenever a beef got past the yard inspectors with a case of lumpy jaw and came into the slaughter-house or the 'killing-bed/ I was authorised by ^r. Pierce to take his head off, thus removing the evi- dences of lumpy jaw, and after casting the smitten portion into the tank where refuse goes, to send the rest of the carcass on its way to market. " In cases where tuberculosis became evident to the men who were skinning the cattle it was their duty, on instructions from Mr. Pierce, communicated to them through me, at once to remove the tubercles and cast them into a trap-door provided for that purpose. " I have seen as much as forty pounds of flesh afflicted with gan- grene cut from the carcass of a beef, in order that the rest of the ani- mal might be utilised in trade. " One of the most important regulations of the Bureau of Animal Industry is that no cows in calf are to be placed on the market. Out of a slaughter of 2,000 cows, or a day's killing, perhaps one-half are with calves. My instructions from Mr. Pierce were to dispose of the calves by hiding' them until night, or until the inspectors left off duty. The little carcasses were then brought from all over the packing-house and skinned by boys, who received two cents for removing each pelt. The pelts were sold for fifty cents each to the kid-glove manufacturers. This occurs every night at Mr. Armour's concern at Chicago, or after each killing of cows. " I now propose to state here exactly what I myself have witnessed in Philip D. Armour's packing-house with cattle that have been con- demned by the Government inspectors. " A workman, one Nicholas Newson during my time, informs inspector that the tanks are prepared for the reception of the con- 543 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION demned cattle and that his presence is required to see the beef cast into the steam-tank. Mr. Inspector proceeds at once to the place indi- cated, and the condemned cattle, having been brought up to the tank- room on trucks, are forthwith cast into the hissing steam-boilers and disappear. That is to say, they disappear so far as the inspector is concerned. He cranes his neck slightly, nods his head approvingly, and walks away. " But the condemned steer does not stay in the tank any longer than the time required for his remains to drop through the boiler down to the floor below, where he is caught on a truck and hauled back again to the cutting-room. The bottom of the tank was open, and the steer passed through the aperture. " I have witnessed the farce many times. I have seen the beef dropped into the vat in which a steam-pipe was exhausting with a great noise so that the thud of the beef striking the truck below could not be heard, and in a short time I have witnessed Nicholas bringing it back to be prepared for the market. " I have even marked beef with my knife so as to distinguish it, and watched it return to the point where it started/' . . . " Of all the evils of the stock-yards, the canning department is per- haps the worst. It is there that the cattle from all parts of the United States are prepared for canning. No matter how scrawny or debilitated canners are, they must go the route of their brothers and arrive ultimately at the great boiling vats, where they are steamed until they are reasonably tender. Bundles of gristle and bone melt into pulpy masses and are stirred up for the canning department. " I have seen cattle come into Armour's stock-yard so weak and ex- hausted that they expired in the corrals, where they lay for an hour or two, dead, until they were afterward hauled in, skinned, and put on the market for beef or into the canning department for cans. "It was the custom to make a pretence of killing in such cases. The coagulated blood in their veijis was too sluggish to flow, and in- stead of getting five gallons of blood, which is the amount commonly taken from a healthy steer, a mere dark-red clot would form at the wound. " In other words, the Armour establishment was selling carrion. " There are hundreds of other men in the employ of Mr. Armour who could verify every line I have written. They have known of these things ever since packing has been an industry. But I do not ask them to come to the front in this matter. I stand on my oath, word for word, sentence for sentence, and statement for statement. " I write this story of my own free will and volition, and no one is responsible for it but myself. It is the product of ten years of ex- perience. It is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. THOMAS F. DOLAN. Sworn to and subscribed before me this first day of March, 1899. Orville P. Derby, Notary Public, Kings County, N. Y. Certificate filed in New York County." Mr. .Sinclair quotes the following statement from Mr. Armour. " This Government inspection thus becomes aoi important adjunct of 544 SWINE AND SWINE the packer's business from two view-points. It puts the stamp of legitimacy and honesty upon the packer's product, and so is to him a necessity ; to the public it is an insurance against the selling of dis- eased meats." Commenting upon this Mr. Sinclair says : " This is a statement which the packers make continuously ; it is hard for a man who knows the truth to read them and preserve his temper. What is the truth about this Federal inspection? To put it into one sentence again following Mr. Armour's example by using italics it is this : That the Federal inspection of meat was, historically, established at the packers' request; that it is maintained and paid for by the people of the United States for the benefit of the packers; that men wearing the blue uniforms and brass buttons of the United States service are employed for the purpose of certifying to the nations of the civilised world that all the diseased and tainted meat which happens to come into existence in the United States of America is carefully sifted out and consumed by the American people. " This is a strong statement ; and yet I might go even farther. I might say this also: that the laws regulating the inspection of meat were written by the packers, and written by the packers for the ex- press purpose of making this whole condemned-meat industry impossi- ble of prevention. The Federal inspectors have power to condemn meat, but they have no power to destroy it. This power is delegated, under the law, ^p the representatives of 'the State or municipality in which it is found/ " Mr. Sinclair quotes a letter written to him last January by Dr. Jaques, from which the following is an interesting excerpt : " For- eign countries refused our meat and the packers appealed to our Gov- ernment. It was finally arranged that Germany would accept Ameri- can meat if our Government would guarantee its quality; to this end Federal inspection was instituted at the packing-houses. The Federal inspector comes to the packer to inspect his meat for export, and at his bidding. He is under the packer's influence continually, and if not satisfactory to the packer will lose his place. His instructions make it easy for him by saying that the diseased meat is ' to be dis- posed of according to the laws and ordinances of the State and mu- nicipality in which it is found/ The city inspectors are the usual grade of employes, on duty during City Hall hours, from 9 until 5. The Civic Federation employed a detective to watch three of these, and found that most of their time was spent in saloons. There were only four of them at the yards. They were under a head of depart- ment at the City Hall, who got his position for strenuous activity m the last campaign. The packers' contribution made this same duty pleasant. " Just to show how the packers have their hands on the situation 1 have only to say that the first of this month Dr. Biehn, my successor was withdrawn from this work and the stock-yards inspection placed under ' Fish Murray,' a protege of the stock-yards alderman, Cary. Murray was fish inspector under me and laughed at my efforts to make him do something to earn his salary. To my knowledge, he never condemned a pound of fish nor did a day's work in the four- 35 545 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION teen months that I was his chief. The Health Department now issues a statement that the condition is remedied, and that Chicago is no longer a dumping-ground for bad meat. The truth is that the mayor is already fixing up his fences for reelection." In drawing his article to a close, Mr. Sinclair, says, in part, " I have charged, and I charge here again, that the so-called ' potted ham ' and ' deviled ham ' sold by Armour & Co. consist of the old dry waste ends of smoked beef, ground up with potato skins, with the hard cartilaginous gullets of beef, and with the udders of cows, dyed to prevent their showing white. And the Federal inspection has no power to prevent that ! " He refers Mr. Armour to a long list of official condemnations of his various products, and cites the case of a St. Bernard dog which had been fed, by way of experiment, upon artificially coloured foods. After a 15 days' diet the dog showed a loss of 32 pounds in weight and was scarcely able to walk across the stage. Mr. Sinclair says in conclusion: "Writing in a magazine of large circulation and influ- ence, and having the floor all to himself, Mr. Armour spoke serenely and boastfully of the quality of his meat products, and challenged the world to impeach his integrity, but when he was brought into court charged with crime by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, he spoke in a different tone, and to a different purport ; he said ' guilty.' He pleaded this to a criminal indictment for selling ' preserved* minced ham in Greenburg, and paid the fine of $50 and costs. He pleaded guilty again in Shenandoah, Pa., on June 16, 1905, to the criminal charge of selling adulterated ' blockweirst ' ; and again he paid the fine of $50 and costs. Why should Mr. Armour be let off with fines which are of less consequence to him than the price of a postage stamp to you or me, instead of going to jail like other con- victed criminals who do not happen to be millionaires ? " We have referred to a series of articles published in The London "Lancet" in the early part of 1905. The "Lancet" is a high-grade scientific journal. We submit the following quotations as being of interest with regard to this subject. From the issue of January 7, 1905, we extract the following; "It will scarcely be believed, but it is nevertheless a fact, that at Chicago not only is there no municipal abattoir but there are no private abattoirs in the technical sense of the term. It is true that millions of animals are slaughtered annu- ally but they are not slaughtered in slaughter-houses. For many hours I wandered about the stock-yards and I saw many animals killed but nowhere could I discover the smallest trace of a slaughter-house. The animals were killed not in abattoirs but in mills or factories huge, hideous box-shaped buildings five and six stories high. The pigs notably were killed on the second or third floor of these build- ings. As for all the principles of sanitation laid down to govern the construction of abattoirs, these were ignored from the first to the last. Consequently the insecurity is so great that several nations of the more civilised parts of the world have .thought it necessary to enact special laws against Chicago. The exportation of pork products from Chicago to Germany, Austria, France and Denmark is prohibited unless, accompanied by a certificate issued, not by any local authority, 546 SWINE AND SWINE but by the Government of the United States itself. The entire Ameri- can nation thus pledges its honour that no product that has nbt been carefully examined under the microscope shall be exported from Chi- cago to those countries. As for American citizens or for British citi- zens it does not matter. They may swallow trichina? wholesale; no one seems to think it is worth while to attempt to protect them." Jan. 14, 1905. " But there is a singular lack of the sense of dig- nity in the United States. This came specially under my notice at St. Louis where the grandeur of the World's Fair was largely spoiled by the undignified rowdyism and vulgarity that men allowed to pre- vail within its precincts. At the Chicago stock-yards I could not but feel scandalised and humiliated when I saw the foul and abomi- nable premises in which the representatives of science, the representa- tives of the United States of America, the representatives of the majesty of the law, condescended to work daily in the accomplishment of their mission. This mission would be better accomplished if the veterinary surgeons, as members of a liberal profession and as repre- sentatives of a great country, refused to work in these noisome places. Such a course would at once stop the present abominations by com- pelling the hog-merchants to reconstruct their premises. It is a very good thing that inspectors are appointed by the authorities at Wash- ington, but it wouldjse better still if they were first sent to Berlin to learn not only how a slaughter-house ought to be managed and con- structed, but also to observe how those who have the honour of being intrusted with a public duty are more respected than business men, however rich." . . . " An official of the Canners' Union assured me that more than two- thirds of the members of his union worked by artificial light. He had not himself seen daylight for many months, and so far as the enjoyment of sunshine was concerned they might as well be miners working in a coal-pit. Yet if ever there was an occupation requiring plenty of daylight and fresh air it is that of cleaning, cutting up, preparing, and canning animal food. But the buildings are so large and square in shape that, as. already explained, the light from the windows cannot penetrate to the centre ; while machinery, passing car- casses, furniture, fixtures, and partitions shut out the light from many of the places that it might otherwise reach. Yet it is obvious that work of this description the manipulation of animal substance in- tended for food should be done only in the broadest daylight and in the purest atmosphere. In these dark places the meat falls on the floor and comes in contact with the dirt from the boots of the workers and the bacilli from the sputum of a population among whom pul- monary tuberculosis is more prevalent than among any other section of the inhabitants of Chicago. Close at hand there are closets, and they are in some places only a few feet from the food. These closets are at times out of order, deficient, defective, or even entirely devoid of flushing. They are all the more offensive as they are not suffi- ciently numerous for the large staff of workers who use them. This is especially the case in one of the rooms where . soup is. made for preserving in tins. In one department there were two closets, neither 547 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION of which could be flushed, provided for 80 women. Little or no thought has been taken as to the welfare of the workers." We have dealt thus at great length with this subject of wholesale food adulteration and debasement for the reason, on the one hand, that it shows better than almost anything else we could submit, to what shameful moral pass this great American dollar-love has brought us, and, on the other hand, because our food-supply is a matter of universal importance and interest. Here is a case where the pluto- cratic rich can no more side-step the results of corruption than can the impoverished toiler. On the contrary, these evils are perhaps a graver menace to the rich than to the poor. The national vigour ap- parently is on the wane. Cancer and other grave ailments are in- creasing to an alarming degree. Is it any wonder that a strictly healthy man or woman is such a rarity as to excite almost universal comment ? There are many who, we think, are types of physical vig- our until we question them, when we at once find that the thoroughly healthy American adult is all but a thing of the past. Is it any wonder when we reflect that practically everything we eat and drink is either robbed of the good it is supposed to contain, or supplied with deleterious evils which it should not contain, or suffered to be- come diseased, putrescent, or otherwise unfit for human stomachs ? What a comment it is upon our modern civilisation when papers find it necessary to utter warnings like the following, extracted from the " Cincinnati Post " : " It is too much to expect that the Chicago packers will clean up until they are compelled to, so, for people who still wish to eat meat from cans a word of advice may be convenient. " This is, cook it thoroughly. " Cooking will, at least, kill all the germs. Dead germs may not be particularly nutritious, but they are at least harmless. Acid pre- servatives will not be removed by cooking, but the adult stomach can stand a certain amount of acid poison. But under no circumstances feed children on canned meats. Give them fresh meat only, and see that it is fresh." Still better than this advice is that of the Eev. Herbert S. Bigelow, as given in an article entitled " Flesh Eating," published in " The Public " of June 16, 1906. He says in part : " In his famous letter to the London ' Times/ on the land question in Eussia, Tolstoy spoke of several ideas as ripe for discussion and action. He spoke of pri- vate property in land as the ' nearest and most obvious evil/ He held that besides facing this evil our civilisation must also face the prob- lems of capital punishment, prostitution, and militarism. And to this category of ripe problems he added the practice of flesh-eating. " The packing-house exposure is the most effective argument ever made for a vegetarian diet. It will be hard for imaginative people to forget those dead rats and amputated fingers. They will reflect that there is already an army of government meat inspectors. If, with all these inspectors, it took a socialist novel to acquaint the public with conditions, how secure will these imaginative people feel when the government has a few more inspectors ? " We used to go to the priests for salvation. Now we go to the state, We fly to the arms of the government inspector. Just as if he 548 SWINE AND SWINE had not already been tried and found wanting. ' Oh,' said a lady the government is going to put a label on the meat. It will be all 'right now. Great is government! With 'a government label on the sau- sage, and a rabbit's foot around the neck, may luck be with us ! At any rate, we may try eating as Governor Pingree used to vote, hold- ing the nose." . . . "But the church as well as the state is under indictment. Has not the church been telling us that the individual problem is every- thing; that if the individual soul is saved, society will save itself? Are not the packers church members ? Is not their gold lifted to God every Sabbath day ? Do not their pastors encourage them in the idea that their souls are already saved ? Has the church lost its effective- ness, or is its philosophy wrong? But while we are waiting for the church to convert the packers, or for socialism to convert the packing business, why not turn vegetarians ? '' There are weary arguments for and against this course. But 'don't argue try it.' This is the time to make the experiment. Perhaps meat eating is not at all a necessity, as is thought, but only a habit. " We are not responsible for the tooth-and-claw struggle of the uni- verse. That is the saddest of mysteries. But we remember the words of the prophet : ' They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy moun- tain.' Those words were born in man's soul. Is it not his destiny to give them reality ? " Concerning the above it may be well to state, for the benefit of those who crave meat and think they cannot live without it, that, if they will learn to use a reasonable amount of Olive Oil on lettuce, salads, and the like they will be surprised at the quickness with which their desire for meat will vanish. Of course almost everything is now adulterated, most " Olive Oil " being largely cotton-seed oil, but, if care is taken, a preparation can be secured which contains' at least a fair per cent, of olive oil, and, even if the worst happens, cotton-seed oil is not poi- sonous. We have seen how hard it is even to pass a pure-food law against the interests of the privileged and protected poisoners of the American people, and we have seen, further, as for example, in the " embalmed " beef Spanisli war episode, what a farce is the pretence of enforcing legal penalties against millionaire offenders. Is it possible that any one can be so simple or so ignorant as not fully to realise that our country of boasted freedom is held a very bauble and plaything in the hollow of Mammon's hand? We were formerly a government of the people, by the people and for the people. We are now a government of privileged plutocrats, by privileged plutocrats and for privileged pluto- crats. Is it not high time that some means were found by which we could, even though slowly, attain to our former high estate? Under the Gillette plan this could be done, and quickly, too. Think for a moment, Eeader, what a revolution this plan would effect in just the evils which form the subject matter of this chapter. There would be no more adulterated foods, no more poisoned products, no more ptomaine-contaminated or disease-polluted foods. There would be no incentive whatever for producing an inferior article, and there would 549 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION be every incentive for making the very best which could be produced by conscientious skill directing the highest and most scientific facilities. Under this new dispensation the race would take a new lease of life, instead of beginning as now to be poisoned and infected at the cradle. We can scarcely realise what a change would be brought about if the present great knowledge of chemistry were applied, not as now to debasing our food-products, but to rendering them of the highest edible purity and efficiency. Under our present regime the reward of riches awaits the man who can dress up saw-dust in such an enticing garb that it shall become a popular breakfast-food. If at the same time he can contrive to work into it some drug having a cumulative effect which causes his patrons to become hopelessly addicted to his saw-dust, still greater would be his financial return. Under the new regime all this will be changed. Every food would be absolutely pure, clean and wholesome, and its ingredients, together with their edible values, would be legibly printed upon every package. In short, this millennial revo- lution would be brought about, not by making human beings angels, but simply by so arranging social conditions that honesty and all the other virtues would not only be the best policy upon distant and abso- lutely moral grounds but upon immediate considerations of expedi- ency and self-interest, and this would be so conspicuously apparent even to childish intelligences that a criminal act under the new sys- tem would at once indicate the need of an alienist rather than of a disciplinarian. That these statements are true, and that they are well within the bounds of possibility, will, we believe, be abundantly proved as we proceed.* * For a brief description of the Gillette System see Appendix " A." 550 BOOK X CHAPTER I. INEQUALITY CHAPTER II. MAMMON AS GOD CHAPTER III. THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR 551 Association in equality is the law of progress. Henry George. O blood of the people! changeless tide, through century, creed and race! Still one as the sweet salt sea is one, though tempered by sun and place; The same in the ocean currents, and the same in the sheltered seas; Forever the fountain of common hopes and kindly sympathies; Indian and Negro, Saxon and Celt, Teuton and Latin and Gaul Mere surface shadow and sunshine; while the sounding unifies all! One love, one hope, one duty theirs! No matter the time or ken, There never was separate heart-beat in all the races of men! But alien is one of class, not race he has drawn the line for him- self; His roots drink life from inhuman soil, from garbage of pomp and pelf; His heart beats not with the common beat, he has changed his life- stream's hue; He deems his flesh to be finer flesh, he boasts that his blood is blue: Patrician, aristocrat, tory whatever his age or name, To the people's rights and liberties, a traitor ever the same. The natural crowd is a mob to him, their prayer a vulgar rhyme; The freeman's speech is sedition, and the patriot's deed a crime. Wherever the race, the law, the land, whatever the time or throne, The tory is always a traitor to every class but his own. Thank God for a land where pride is clipped, where arrogance stalks apart; Where law and song and loathing of wrong are words of the common heart; Where the masses honour straightforward strength, and know, when veins are bled, That tne bluest blood is putrid blood that the people's blood is red. Crispus AttucJcs, by John Boyle O'Reilly. It is easy to persuade the masses that the good things of this world are unjustly divided especially when it happens to be the exact truth. Froude Ccesar. Such hath it been shall be beneath the sun The many still must labour for the one. Byron The Corsair. For those who see Truth and would follow her; for those who rec- ognise Justice and would stand for her, success is not the only thing Success! Why, Falsehood has often that to give; and Injustice often has that to give. Must not Truth and Justice have something to give that is their own by proper right theirs in essence, and not by acci- dent? That they have, and not here and now, every one who has felt their exaltation knows. Henry George. Trade it may help, society extend, But lures the Pirate, and corrupts the friend: It raises armies in a nation's aid, But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd. Pope Moral Essays. The growth of wealth and of luxury, wicked, wasteful and wanton, as before God I declare that luxury to be, has been matched step by step by a deepening and deadening poverty, which has left whole neighbour- hoods of people practically without hope and without aspiration. Bishop Henry C. Potter. 553 CHAPTBE I INEQUALITY EOM all the civilisation which thus far the world has produced one fact stands out cruel and jagged above all others, and this fact is the glaring inequality which seems to be the inevitable fruitage of every growing civilisation. When society is young, when its people are all close to the earth, as it were, this is not so noticeable, but just as soon as progress begins to lighten labour and to push the wolf of absolute want farther from the doors of at least the favoured few, then we find the line of demarcation between the house of Have and the house of Want ever growing sharper, until the civilisation, or rather material progress, approaches its zenith, when the social family establishes two clearly denned planes of cleavage, the one being identified by conspicuous waste and conspicuous idleness, the other by conspicuous work and conspicuous want. We find, as civili- sation advances, more and more is said about the " earning " power of money, till the time has now come when scarcely one man in a thou- sand realises the absurdity of referring to money or wealth as " earn- ing " anything. Money or other evidence of wealth may accrue to the owner of money or wealth by reason of its use, but it is neither good diction nor good reason to refer to money or to wealth as " earning " anything; and we make this statement notwithstanding the fact that this use of language has become so common that we rarely see it chal- lenged. According to the Standard dictionary to earn is "to gain as a just return or recompense by service, labour or exertion, or to merit by reason of service or exertion." There is always in the term " earn " a sense of the personal equation and its relation to some service rendered, with the more or less plainly implied recompence which ought to follow it. When we speak of money " earning " interest we merely mean that those who hold this evidence of wealth will not tender it for use unless they are paid for so doing, and this pay which accrues is called interest. The point we wish to make is simply this, that money does not earn anything in the same way that labour earns, and if we are to use the term as applied to money or wealth we should find a different one to use in connexion with labour. The earning of labour is an active, dynamic thing. The so-called " earning " of capital is in no sense active, but, rather, dead and static. Capital never adds to itself a single cent of wealth save through the interposition of labour. It is merely stored labour which can upon occasion be used to facilitate the efforts of the actual pro- ducer. If Smith borrow from Brown a hundred dollars at 6 per cent. in order that he may buy tools to till his soil and pay for the same, 554 INEQUALITY let us say, from the products of the ground he works, the wealth which Brown receives as interest is wealth which Smith has earned or con- jured from the earth by his labour. Certainly the wealth which fol- lows the application of Smith's labour to Smith's land can only be re- garded as Smith's earnings, yet this is precisely the wealth which a little later we shall find Brown referring to as the earnings of the money he loaned Smith. This custom of referring to the " earnings " of any form or part of wealth as if they were the legitimate earnings of labouring individuals has been productive of an immense deal of harm and injustice. Had the equivalent of twenty-five dollars of our money or approxi- mately 5 sterling been placed on interest in England at 5 per cent., say, in the year 1690, during the reign of William and Mary, it would forthwith have begun to " earn " wealth for its possessor. Four years later, when the Bank of England was founded, it might have secured 8 per cent., but suppose a straight rate of 5 per cent, per annum compounded had been adhered to. In the year 1903, this original " labour value " of $25 would have grown by its " earnings " to the tidy sum of $819,200. According to the last census the average earnings of wage-earners was in the vicinity of $438.00. For the sake of round figures let us call it $440. At 5 per cent., $819,200 yields annually, or according to present phrase, "earns" annually $40,960, which is a sum sufficient to cover the wages of 93 per- sons at $440.00 per year. We see, therefore, that the frugal in- dividual who, say in 1690, put by the results of two weeks' work, started then and there what our economists call an " earning " mechan- ism which in the year 1903 is able to control the lives of 93 persons, and if this same mechanism were kept perfectly intact for a matter of 500 years or so longer it would control the lives of every man, woman and child upon the face of the globe, assuming the population to remain sensibly constant. It is something akin to this, though in a less degree, which is making its presence felt to-day upon every hand. It is a pleasant fiction of the rich to speak of their money as " earn- ing," while they themselves perchance do nothing but waste. The fact of the matter is that wealth does not " earn " anything, but that it simply confers upon its possessor the power to levy upon the real earnings of labour. The age-long mistake which has been made in this regard is one of the fruitful sources of our present inequality. Closely connected with this and usually tributary to it, is the idea that the millionaire has "earned" his possessions. It is impossible for any man in a life-time to earn even a quarter of a million of dol- lars, in any proper sense of that term. Well does Mr. Howells say, in his " -Hazards of New Fortunes " : " It is the landlords and the mer- chant princes, the railroad kings and the coal barons . . . that make the millions, but no man earns them." This popular misconception of the term " earn " makes possible an inequality and inequity which, were the subject properly understood, would not be tolerated by the world's toilers for a single week. Let us take as an illustration a significant event which occurred not very long ago. Upon a recent visit made by the Prince of Wales to India, he was 555 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION entertained with a lavishness which all but beggars description. At Jaipur the Maharaja subscribed $330,000 just to ornament the city, and the native merchants quickly followed this example of generosity. At Rawalpindi 40,000 troops were assembled from all parts of India constituting "the greatest military pageant witnessed in modern Asia/' At Delhi, Agra, Gwalior, Lucknow and Calcutta the same wild profusion and indifference to expense obtained. The famous lakes at Eangoon were made to look like vast rubies by the submersion of skillfully designed coloured electric lights. When the Prince made his three-days' journey down the Irawady River, three steamers were placed at the disposal of his party. The vessel occupied by the Prince had been rebuilt for his use, and it was estimated that the steamship company spent $200,000 just to carry him from Mandalay to Prome, a distance of less than 250 statute miles, as the crow flies. When the Prince travelled overland it was in a train every car of which had been specially constructed for the use of the royal party, making it " an imperial palace on wheels." In Delhi a million dol- lars were expended to make the Prince's reception a gorgeous success. Commenting upon this triumphal procession a recent writer says: " Wealth and fashion, plenty and prosperity, success and happiness were shown to him wherever he went. These are not India. These from India are as far apart as the poles." At the very time when the Prince was making his triumphal proces- sion through the richer portions of India, cholera and the plague were raging in the abodes of want and misery. At this time, we are told, was beginning what promised to be " the worst of all famines of black famine history." W T hat this means the Reader will realise when he reflects that during the last 150 years the Indian famine has killed 28,000,000 souls. 28,000,000 souls ! Consider for a moment what a monument this is to man's greed, and thirst for power. Never believe for a moment that these horrible pestilences are inherently necessary. They are merely the work of ambitious, vicious or misguided men. One of the greatest causes of Indian misery and death is the system of caste which is in vogue, and this system is deliberately upheld and encouraged by the Anglican Church for the mere purpose of maintain- ing its own supremacy. In Mr. Charles Edward Russell's "Soldiers of the Common Good," in " Everybody's Magazine " for June, 1906, we extract the following apropos of the conditions obtaining in India : " Here, in this frightful country, are 296,000,000 people, of whom 130,000,000 live in a way unfit for beasts, in a way that would be unwholesome and intolerable for swine, burrowing in wretched mud huts, clad in strips of rag, fed upon mea.gre fragments barely enough to keep them alive, swarming in filth unutterable ; except only for the dwellers in London's Whitechapel the saddest, the most forlorn, the most hopeless of human creatures." . . . " In this country of India about 200,000,000 people live fast bound in the misery and iron of a system of caste that has no more place in civilisation than voodooism or witchcraft would have. Wherever this system exists are no progress, no enterprise, no improvement, no incen- tive, no ambition, no healthful life. It is the most deplorable affliction that ever befell any people; under it India has been for a thousand 556 INEQUALITY years a stagnant pool. It is the paralysis of energy, the death of aspiration, the end of hope." . . . " From the poorer elements among these people is wrung every year the heaviest proportionate taxation known on this earth. A system of land tenure and land taxation conceived by savages and formulated by homicidal maniacs, a system that throws the heaviest burden upon those least able to bear it, has been largely responsible for India's unparalleled famine record of 28,000,000 deaths in one hundred and fifty years." Some idea of the pitiless devastation which is taking place al- most constantly in India may be gathered from the following figures, which are taken from Mr. Bomesh C. Dutt's work entitled " Open Letters to Lord Curzon," a work which treats the Indian question with great intelligence and thoroughness. In 1866 about one million per- sons perished in Orissa, or, on an average, about one person in three of the population. The northern Indian famine of 1869 claimed 1,200,000. The Madras famine of 1877 rising 5,000,000. The north- ern Indian famine of 1878, 1,250,000. The great famine of 1897 was so extensive that at one time 3,000,000 persons were receiving the government relief which alone kept them alive. Regarding the famine of 1900 in the Punjab, Rajputana, Central Provinces and Bombay, Mr. Dutt says : " Of the famine from which India is suffering in the present year it is not possible to give any final figures, either to show the numbers relieved, or to indicate the mortality. In the present month (June, 1900) nearly six millions of people are on relief works, and, in spite of every effort on the part of relief officers, mortality is high in Gujrat and elsewhere. It is a sad but significant fact that the last famine of this century is also the most widespread and the severest famine that has ever visited India." After referring to the famines of the past, Mr. Russell, in the article already referred to, gives later information regarding the famine of 1900. He says : " But all these horrors are surpassed by the startling devastation of the black famine that began in the Punjab, Rajputana, the Central Provinces, and Bombay in 1900 and was hardly extin- guished for two years. In June, 1900, 6,200,000 people were on Gov- ernment relief, and for many months the number so relieved continued to b'e in excess of all previous records. The resources of the Govern- ment broke down under the emergency ; money and supplies came from many lands. The people of England subscribed $2,500,000. America sent 320,000 bushels of grain, a free gift, and subscriptions from every considerable city. Yet so great was the calamity that the world's gen- erosity could not stem it. The country was a huge charnel-house, the people died faster than the bodies could be removed, the towns and villages were often filled with the dead, the very air was poisoned. " Of the mortality of that dreadful time there exist only estimates, and these are not officially encouraged. For reasons easy to under- stand, the subject is not attractive to official speculation. But what the famine really meant for India may be surmised from its astound- ing effects on the census figures. The census was taken in 1901, one year after the famine began. I give the decrease of population in the 557 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION famine area as shown by comparing the census of 1901 with the cen- sus of 1891 : FAMINE AREA. BRITISH STATES LOSS PERCENTAGE OP LOSS Aymer-Merwan 66,028 12.17 Berar 144,622 4.96 Bombay 627,025 3.93 Central Provinces 938,976 8.71 NATIVE STATES Hyderabad '. 362,143 3.14 Baroda 464,469 19.23 Eajputana 2,175,070 18.10 Central India 1,816,929 17.50 Bombay States 1,167,607 14.49 Central Provinces 177,015 8.09 Totals 7,939,884 11.032 " As there was little emigration from India, this astounding de- crease in ten years was the work of the famine; the missing people had been starved to death. " In some of the small native states, as, for instance, in the Bombay Presidency, the losses revealed seem almost incredible. In the little State called Pango the deaths were forty-three per cent, of the total population. " Comparisons have been suppressed by the Indian Government wherever it has jurisdiction, and by influence or request elsewhere. I believe this is the first time they have been put into type. " In 1891 the population of the states embraced in the Famine Area was 76,688,340. In 1901 this population showed a decrease of 7,939,- 880. The natural increase of population for all India from 1881 to 1891 was 10.2 per cent. From 1891 to 1901, in the region not affected by the famine the natural increase was 5.1 per cent. For all India, including the Famine Area, the figures show an increase from 1891 to 1901 of 1.49. On the basis of 1.49 per cent, the natural increase in the Famine Area should have been 1,150,335. On the basis of 5.1 per cent, the increase in the Famine Area should have been 3,911,105. On the basis of 10.2 per cent the increase in the Famine Area should have been 8,589,000. " The decrease was 7,939,880. " On the smallest possible basis of calculation, therefore, that of all India from 1891 to 1901, the actual loss of population was certainly more than 8,000,000, and on the other bases I have given, the actual loss becomes something almost unthinkable. " That in the heart of civilisation, in the twentieth century, under a humane, enlightened and Christian Government, 8,000,000 people should perish in a year for lack of food is the strangest and most humiliating fact whereof we have record. 558 O .ll INEQUALITY "More people died for want of food in India in one year than have perished on all the battle-fields of the world in several centuries. " For one hundred years we have been pleased to cry out against the excesses of the French Revolution and the Eeign of Terror. It would take 3,500 Reigns of Terror to kill as many people as died in India in one year for lack of food. " When a dam bursts at Johnstown, when Mt. Pelee breaks forth, when an earthquake causes devastation in Italy, the world responds with its ready sympathy ; its relief pours in upon the survivors. And yet all the numbers that have perished in all these disasters how trifling they look compared with the colossal total of 8,000,000 that in one year perished in India for lack of food ! " And I beg your attention, good, sympathetic souls, all of your at- tention and your thought, for two tremendous facts : " 1. Famines grow worse and come oftener in India. " 2. They are absolutely unnecessary. " The famine of 1897 was worse than the famine of 1892 or the famine of 1889 or the famine of 1878. The famine of 1900 was worse than the famine of 1897. "If, then, these famines are to increase in severity and frequency, the question before the world is whether India shall become a chronic charge upon the rest of mankind or whether the rest of mankind shall sit by and with stony heart watch this incalculable suffering in the midst of plenty." The cut reproduced herewith is from the article from which we have quoted and tells more graphically than words can the appalling price of man's inhumanity to man. We do not have to go to India in order to find shocking evidences of injustice and inequality. In the United States of America little babes four years old work in sweat-shops, while children but a little older work in mills and elsewhere. Over against this destitution, squalor, disease and unremitting toil, on the one hand, may be set the prodigal and almost unbelievable extravagances of the rich, on the other hand. The colossal residences of our princes of privilege are not necessi-- tated by the size of the families which occupy them, for as Mr. Elbert Hubbard has pointed out in his "Respectability its Rise and Cure," the size of houses is upon the average in inverse ratio to the size of the families occupying them, the large house generally indicating the small family and the small house the large family. Mr. William C. Whitney, for example, lived in a palace which sold after his death for $2,000,000, .which was thought to be a very low price. His walls were hung with masterpieces, a single one of which, a Van Dyke portrait, was said to have cost $120,000. A little north of this palatial abode is a still larger pile on Fifth Ave., owned by Sena- tor Clark. The corner stone of this structure weighs 16 tons, and Mr. Henry George, Jr., tells us, in his " The Menace of Privilege," that the car which brought this stone from the quarry was specially built for the work. The palace is designed to contain a theatre capable of seating 500 persons. In his chapter entitled "How our Princes Live," Mr. Henry George, Jr., gives many interesting details, from wiieh we extract a few of the more important. He says: " We might 559 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION describe palace after palace of our Princes of Privilege that for a couple of miles stud Fifth Avenue as thickly as the sumptuous resi- dences of the nobles graced the undulations of the Palatine Hill in Eome before the imperial regime made it the sole abode of the Emper- ors. Yet magnificent residences are not confined to Fifth Avenue, by any means. We find, for instance, the splendid habitation of Mr. Charles M. Schwab, the steel and shipyard prince, rising in the centre of a square block at Seventy-third Street and Riverside Drive. The exterior of this building is of the French chateau mixed Gothic and -Renaissance style preceding 1550. It is modelled after the celebrated chateau of Chenonceaux, Blois and Azay-le-Ridau. When completely finished, this residence of an American citizen, who twenty-five years ago started with nothing, may cost not far from $7,000,000." . . . " A home of similar princely order, but of far different architectural style, is that of Mr. and Mrs. Howard Gould on the north shore ol Sands Point. It is called ' Castle-gould.' It suggests the twelfth century Kilkenny Castle in Ireland, but will be, when finished, much larger and furnished beyond all comparison. The two hundred serv- ants of this great establishment have the anomalous American dis- tinction of wearing livery. " From Long Island we might pass to Yonkers, a few miles north of New York, and get a glimpse of Mr. William Rockefeller's house and estate; to North Carolina, to see Mr. George W. Vanderbilt's mountain palace, * Biltmore ; ' to Newport with its splendid man- sions ; to Lenox and Tuxedo with their million-dollar ' cottages.' But perhaps more interesting than any of these is Mr. George J. Gould's ' Georgian Court,' at Lakewood, N. J. ' Georgian Court ' is like a French chateau of the ancient regime set down in the pine woods. Before the building is a high, ornate iron fence and a beautiful lawn, which together set off the imposing fagade to perfection. Beyond the chateau is a huge casino for indoor sports. Grouped picturesquely about are other dependent buildings and open tennis and polo grounds. " This { out-of-town house ' contains a private theatre, replete with the fittings of the finest public theatres, and an inclosed swimming- pool. It also contains more than one hundred and ten sleeping suites. One of the noblest art treasures of the mansion is the MacMonnies fountain, with its great white marble basin and bronze and marble group, the whole let into a beautiful, velvet-like lawn. The interior of the house is the acme of luxury. Bronzes, brasses, marbles, tapes- tries, mosaics, rugs, glorious natural woods, paint that rivals ivory, ceiling canvases by Italian masters and miniatures studded with pre- cious stones these and a thousand other things greet the eye in a profusion of richness. They stun the mind when it realises that this is not the palace of an Oriental monarch or of a sultan of the Arab- ian Night's Tales, but the abode of an American citizen. " Perhaps the most dazzling feature of ( Georgian Court ' is the Golden Corridor. As much as double or treble the yearly wages of the average anthracite coal miner in Pennsylvania appears to be laid in gold leaf on a single door." . . . " Yet a different example of princely habitation is the hunting lodge 560 INEQUALITY of Mr. William Rockefeller, in the Adirondack Mountains, in the northern part of New York State. Mr. Rockefeller has a hunting estate of 53,000 acres in this region. He has, with the aid of a num- ber of gamekeepers and after several protracted suits in the courts, twice going to the Appellate division of the Supreme Court, excluded the old-time dwellers in those mountains from the exercise of what they considered their prescriptive rights of hunting and fishing on lands and in streams now constituting parts of his great preserves. There are various other large private game parks in the Adirondacks, the most extensive of which is the 70,000-acre Whitney estate for moose, elk and buffalo, as well as for pheasants, grouse and partridges. This private game preserve, exceeding a hundred square miles in area, is about five times the extent of Manhattan Island. " Or if the desire is to travel, witness the luxury by land and sea ! Most of the very rich have their private cars. Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt spent $50,000 on his. Of the large American yachting fleet there are several boats which have cost, individually, from one half to three quarters of a million to build, and probably cost more than $5,000 a month to run. A yachting expert estimates that there has been an expenditure of $44,000,000 in yachts in this country, while approximately $8,000,000 is spent annually in running them. " And as with the splendid habitations of the princes living, so with those of princes dead. Note the simple and impressive Vanderbilt tomb at New Dorp, Staten Island ; the Rockefeller tomb at Cleveland, Ohio, overlooking Lake Erie; the Mackay tomb on Ocean Hill, in Greenwood, Brooklyn. A man ever watches the latter, lest graveyard vampires steal away the poor dead bodies to demand ransom from the living relatives, as was done with the body of the dead merchant prince, Mr. A. T. Stewart, from the graveyard of St. Mark's church, New York City. Massed granite and riveted steel, polished porphyry, glistening onyx, chiselled marble, moulded bronze, embossed brass, and glass stained with a myriad hues combine in durability and art in these habitations of our Princes of Power. Parsimony stays not the hand of expense. One window from the tomb of the railroad prince Lament a marvel of richness and beauty would go far toward meeting the arrears of house rent, for non-payment of which 20,000 evictions occur on the average each year in the Borough of Manhattan, New York City ! " . . . " There may be ambition among the ultra-rich to shine with partic- ular lustre in other ways, as, for instance, through social functions. At one of these the Leiter ball at Washington the jewels worn were roundly valued at $15,000,000. What could be closer to regal pomp than the marriage ceremony of Miss Elsie French to Mr. Alfred G. Vanderbilt, or the more recent Goelet-Whelen nuptials ? A pecul- iar feature at one of the later great weddings, indicating what shall we say, craving for display? was the exhibition, among the gifts, of the bride's exquisite lingerie ! "If 'apparel makes the man/ then are our rich very kings and queens and princelings. A young New Yorker, now taking up his permanent residence in Great Britain, spent, by common report, $40 000 on a wedding outfit. Mr. Cleveland Moffett estimates that 30 561 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION there are 6,000 women in New York who spend yearly something more than $6,000 each on their bodily garments, making an aggre- gate of close to $36,000,000 per annum ! " As far back as 1889 Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, in a speech on " The Menace of Plutocracy," called public attention to the fact that " more than four-fifths of the working people of this country had incomes of less than $300 a year." As recently as 1902 Prof. Robert E. Ely, of New York, made the startling announcement, as the result of analysis of the census returns, that 15,000,000 wage-earners in this country, men, women, boys and girls of 10 or more years of age engaged in manufacturing and mechanical industries, obtain on an average but $400 a year, and, since each of these workers is presumed to have an average of two dependents, the actual average income of 45,000,000 of our population is but $133.33 per year for each person. In 1900 the total wealth of the United States was estimated at $94,300,000,000. According to Mr. John Moody's estimates in " The Truth about the Trusts," something more than " 440 industrial franchise transporta- tion and miscellaneous" trust combinations have an aggregate capi- talisation of $20,000,000,000, or of two-ninths of the entire sum given as the country's aggregate wealth. It has been shown that these 400 odd corporations are con- trolled by a relatively small number of people, which increases immensely the menace of their large holdings. In the " World's Work " for Dec., 1903, it was pointed out that at that time the 24 men on the Board of Directors of the United States Steel Corpora- tion represented directly or indirectlv one-twelfth of the total wealth of the country. " The twenty-four men alluded to were : J. P. Mor- gan, John D. Rockefeller, Henry H. Rogers, Charles M. Schwab, Elbert H. Gary, George C. Perkins, Edmund C. Converse, James Gayley, Marshall Field, Daniel G. Reid, J. D. Rockefeller, Jr., Alfred Clifford, Robert Bacon, Nathaniel Thayer, Abram S. Hewitt (deceased), Clement A. Griscom, Francis H. Peabody, Charles Steele, William H. Moore, Norman B. Ream, Peter A. B. Widener, James H. Reed, Henry C. Frick, and William Edenborn." As early as 1889 Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, a man preeminent- ly well calculated to judge of such matters, declared that the United States of America was at that time practically owned by less than 250,000 persons, and he made the prediction that, were the concentrat- ing movement to continue,, this number would within thirty years be narrowed down to less than 50,000 persons. The graphic illustration of conditions in the United States given at pages 261, 262 will be found instructive. We offer the following diagrams as still further illustrative of the distribution of wealth in the United States. Were this wealth equi- tably distributed the family average would be in round numbers $5,000. It will be seen by reference to the diagrams that 1 % of the population own 54.8% of the wealth, while 50% of the population representing the very poor added to 38.1% representing the poor, making a total of 88.1% of the population classed as "poor," own but 13% of the wealth. The middle class, aggregating but 10.9% of 562 i t- 3 CO 13 s - I s y cr S Cn m CO # o co co *- 2 vSJ ^ to 00 ^ oL GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION the population, own but 32.2% of the wealth. Figures 5 and 6 are but another statement of the same facts, and are borrowed from " The Social Unrest/' by John Graham Brooks. The data upon which all these diagrams are prepared is taken from what is known as " Spahr's Table of the Distribution of Wealth in the United States" for the year 1890. The census year 1900 shows a very much greater aggregate wealth than that of 1890. It does not seem necessary to offer any extended evidence upon this subject of social inequality and injustice. The evidence of it is visible upon every hand, and the man who does not become spontaneously aware of it maintains his ignorance because he wishes to, and by extreme effort of his will. The ablest writers and thinkers of the present and of the recent past offer their protest against our world-wide iniquitous system with astonishing frequency. Even Prof. Cairnes, noted among economists for his ability and caution, states in his "Leading Principles," American Edition, page 285: " Unequal as is the distribution of wealth already in this country, the tendency of industrial progress on the supposition that the present separation between industrial classes is maintained is toward ine- quality greater still. The rich will be growing richer ; and the poor, at least relatively poorer. It seems to me, apart altogether from the question of the labourer's interest, that these are not conditions which furnish a solid basis for a progressive social state ; but, having regard to that interest, I think the considerations adduced show that the first and indispensable step toward any serious amendment of the labourer's lot is that he should be, in one way or other, lifted out of the groove in which he at present works, and placed in a position compati- ble with his becoming a sharer in equal proportion with others in the general advantages arising from industrial progress." Of similar purport is the following from Prof. Smart, the Glasgow economist: "But when machinery is replacing man and doing the heavy work of industry, it is time to get rid of that ancient prejudice that man must work ten hours a day to keep the world up to the level of the comfort it has attained. Possibly, if we clear our minds of cant, we may see that the reason why we still wish the labourer to work ten hours a day is that we, the comfortable classes, may go on receiving the lion's share of the wealth these machines, iron and human, are turning out." Our own Emerson said: "As long as our civilisation is one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick, there will be bitterness in our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open and which serves all men." And again the same sage says : " Of course, whilst another man has no land, my title to mine, your title to yours, is at once vitiated. Inextricable seem to be the twinings and tendrils of this evil, and we all involve ourselves in it the deeper by forming connexions, by wives and children, by benefits and debts." Matthew Arnold says : " Our present social inequality materialises the upper class, vulgarises the middle class, and brutalises the lower class." The indictment of John Euskin is equally stinging : " To call the 564 INEQUALITY confused wreck of social order and life brought about by malicious col- lision and competition an arrangement of Providence, is quite one of the most insolent and wicked ways in which it is possible to take the name of God in vain." Indeed it almost seems as if Pope must have had this age in mind when he wrote: " Injustice, swift, erect and unconfin'd, Sweeps the wide earth, and tramples o'er mankind." Even John Fiske has said : " Inherited predatory tendencies of men to seise upon other people's labour are still very strong, and while we have nothing more to fear from kings, we may yet have trouble enough from commercial monopolists and favoured industries march- ing to the polls their hosts of bribed retainers." That this able and marvellously endowed American was not alone in his fears is abundantly evident upon every hand. The present social and commercial system is even now in the dock upon trial for its life. Damnatory evidence against it sufficient to relegate it for- ever to the limbo of a forgotten savagery has already been again and again adduced. The storm is gathering, and from all appearances its area will soon be central over this country. Even the church, with all its static tendency and its firm adherence in most cases to the standards of kingly prerogatives and kingly conservatism, is begin- ing to presage the coming event. We quote the following from Canon Barnett of Toynbee Hall: " The policies which occupy the leaders' minds, the interests of busi- ness, tiie theologies, the fashions, are but webs woven in the trees while the storm is rising in the distance. Sounds of the storm are already in the air, a murmuring among those who have not enough, puffs of boasting from those who have too much, and a muttering from those who are angry because, while some are drunken, others are starving. The social question is rising for solution, and, though for a moment it is forgotten, it will sweep to the front and put aside as cobwebs the ' deep ' concerns of leaders and teachers." In his famous encyclical of 1891 Pope Leo XIII. says: 'The momentous seriousness of the present state of things just now fills every mind with painful apprehensions; wise men discuss it, prac- tical men propose schemes ; popular meetings, legislatures, and sover- eign princes all are occupied with it, and there is nothing which has a deeper hold on public attention. ... The concentration of so many branches of trade in the hands of a few individuals, so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses a yoke little better than slavery." The lack of consistency which is displayed on every hand m the discussion of social questions is capitally illustrated by the following story told by the " Bulletin " of Sidney, N. S. W. " A man with an axe flew by Socrates, chasing another man. ' Stop him ! Stop him ! ' cried he of the weapon. ' He's a mur- derer ! ' "But old Socrates wasn't taking any chances, and jogged on i perturbably. 565 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION ' You fool ! ' quoth he of the axe. ' Why didn't you stop him ? He's a murderer, I tell you ! ' ' A murderer ! What's a murderer ? ' ' Fool ! One that kills, of course.' ' Ah ! a butcher/ ' No, idiot ! That's different. One that kills a man/ ' Oh, ah, a soldier/ ' No ! No ! ^That's different altogether. One that kills a man in time of peace ! ' ' A hangman ! ' ' No ! No ! No ! That's different. One that kills a man in his house ! ' 'A doctor, then?' ' No ! No ! No ! No ! No I That's different ! ' "Running along after him (2,000 years after) comes another man with flaming eyes : ' Stop him ! Stop him ! ! ' he cries, pointing to something he sees, or thinks he sees, ahead of him. * Stop him ! He's a Socialist ! ' ' What's a Socialist?' ( Why, a believer in state industries, of course/ ' Oh, I see ! The railways, postoffices, customs, drains and all that' ' No, that's different ! I mean competing against private enter- prise/ ' Oh ! schools, universities and the like/ ' No ! No ! That's different. I mean state trading. The fel- lows that expect everything done for 'em by the state ! A loafer that wants to share the earnings of the industrious workers ! ' ' Ah ! Ah ! A nobleman who has inherited land/ ' No ! No ! That's different. I mean / ' ; The question now is no longer will the old regime survive, but rather what will succeed it, and will the displacement be the result of orderly and constructive evolution or chaotic and destructive revolu- tion. Come it must in one way or another, and for ourselves we do not hesitate to say that, if the present system could be displaced only by a revolution, we should consider the end to be attained a noble justification of the means employed. The agonised sufferings of our submerged brothers tear our hearts with pity, fill our eyes with tears and nerve our sinews with a strength of determination which shall not be in vain. Too long already has the world been dominated by a fanatical thirst for power and a demoniacal lust for pelf. We stand upon the threshold of a new and better dispensation, and we ourselves expect that the human race will enter into it in orderly peace. The Gillette plan for social redemption is evolutionary, not revolutionary. It does not flay the present carcass of society leav- ing its naked and agonised nerves bare to the wind but by a rapid, quiet and orderly process it forms a new skin under the old which will then be quickly sloughed off without violence and without hard- ship to any. The ease and the rapidity with which this consumma- tion can be brought about cannot fail to surprise the Eeader, when he learns the method employed, and make him wonder again and 566 INEQUALITY again why it was not all brought about many, many years ago. The Gillette plan is yet another illustration of that truth with which we are all so familiar, viz., that all evolution in art, in invention, and in character is toward simplicity. The great bit of acting which transports a spell-bound audience is instinct with the simplicity of childhood. The masterpieces which blossom only upon a few can- vases in a century are so simple and direct in their appeal to our aesthetic natures that no line or brush-sweep of color can be taken from them without injury. The great inventions which have made the whole world a neighbourhood seem, when compared to the com- plex first suggestions out of which they grew, to be quite inadequate to the functions they so successfully perform. So it is with this new social regime. Its simplicity, its directness and its natural- ness impress one as being so primordial that, for the nonce, the mind is at a loss to comprehend how any other system ever secured a foot- hold. 567 CHAPTER TI MAMMON AS GOD 569 It is certain that democracy annoys one part of the community, and that aristocracy oppresses another part. De Tocqueville. Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell From heaven; for ev'n in heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd In vision beatific. Milton. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. New Testament. If you make money your god, 'twill plague like a devil. Fielding. Most people imagine that the rich are in heaven, but as a rule, it is only a gilded hell. There is not a man in the city of New York with genius enough, with brains enough, to own five millions of dollars. Why? The money will own him. He becomes the key to a safe. That money will get him up at daylight; that money will separate him from his friends; that money will fill his heart with fear; that money will rob his days of sunshine and his nights of pleasant dreams. He cannot own it. He becomes the property of that money. And he goes right on making more. What for? He does not know. It becomes a kind of insanity. R. G-. Ingersoll. 570 CHAPTER II MAMMON AS GOD AN cannot raise himself by pulling upon his own boot-straps, but he compensates for this sad ineffi- ciency by the fatal ease with which he is " hoist with ms own petar." Endowed by nature with certain in- sistent appetites, he seeks to gratify these with the least possible exertion. In a primitive state of so- ciety his wants are relatively few, and his means for gratifying them are likewise few. As he advances in civilisation, however, both these wants and these means become more numerous, and he begins at length to hunt, as it were, not merely for the immediate gratification of his craving, but rather to exhibit his skill and prowess as a hunter. Having started originally as a mere " pot-hunter " he has now evolved to what he is pleased to consider the stature of a " sport," from which great elevation he looks down with contempt upon those who hunt merely to supply their physical needs. He no longer eats his prey, but hunts it merely for the love of killing, or, as he would say, for the " pleasure of the chase/' So the typical successful business man, hungry to get together as many dollars as possible, is but a com- mercial Nimrod who hunts in many cases for the mere pleasure of the chase. After he has acquired wealth enough to supply his every legitimate want, instead of ceasing his quest he pursues - the chase more madly than ever, for, as Tacitus said many centuries ago, the love of money increases as money increases. The appetite for it is like "the green-eyed monster" which grows by what it feeds upon. Thus it comes to pass that your rich man is caught in his own net, the very blood in his veins becomes as it were a congeries of little financial discs, and his life the piling and unpiling of them. Under such conditions the man degenerates into a mere accounting-ma- chine which vegetates upon this "bank and shoal of time" as un- profitable to himself as to every one else. Such men are like pockets in the earth which catch and hold and stagnate in their subterranean recesses the fluent waters of labour, or who spurt it high in ostenta- tious geysers to awe the spirit of the admiring rabble. Such men are as much to be pitied as a blind and motherless kitten which, hav- ing learned how to drink milk to satisfy its craving, lacks the wit to stop when its stomach is full, but keeps steadily imbibing until that devoted organ bursts with a resounding explosion. These poor rich remind one of the botanist of whom Emerson says that, while he has got all flowers in his herbarium, Nature has done for him also and put the man in a bottle. These bottled captains of industry, these dried and pressed weeds of Mammon are most pitiable exhibits upon the shelves of this 20th century. They aie "hoist with their 571 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION own petar." They ate originally to satisfy a normal craving, and then became social monstrosities, victims of pocket elephantiasis, through their inability to quit feeding when their normal appetite ceased. Another most singular thing in this connexion is that there should be so many who consider these monstrosities beautiful and fawn upon them in a way that quite passes rational comprehension. We account ourselves civilised, but it would seem as if our ideas of beauty were like those of the Arabian poet who apostrophises " the maid of Okaib, who has haunches like sand-hills, whence her body rises like a palm-tree/' or like the Yoruba negroes who, according to Lander, regard bulk, plumpness and rotundity as the essentials of feminine beauty. Treading close upon the heels of this perversion of a normal process we find, as a national evolution thereof, a defacement of those original virtues which form the basis of all true nobility. The pres- ent corruption in all branches of business has come to be accepted as such a matter of course that it is now considered quite the regulation thing to reply to any comments upon the dishonesty of industrial captains after this fashion : " Oh, well, we'd all do the same if we got the chance. They're just a bit smarter, that's all." Again and again do we hear so-called respectable people say, when discussing some politician who has gotten suddenly and suspiciously rich during his term of office: "Well, all I can say is, if he didn't feather his nest he was a fool, that's all." Even men of intellectual attain- ment have not always been proof against the contamination. We find them saying, with the Philadelphia educator, that they think "it's perhaps about the thing for city officials to steal a generous commission from all the monies that pass through their hands, pro- vided they give the people good value for the balance." In mer- cantile pursuits the same dishonesty obtains. We have ourselves, personally, seen a Boston firm in good standing make an agreement to-day with all its competitors to materially advance the price of logwood to-morrow, pledging their words th.t they would not sell it at to-day's price after closing hour to-night. We have seen this firm on the morrow, after the price was supposed to advance, dictate letters to their customers, dating the letters back one day and in- forming them that the price would go forward on the morrow, that they had booked their order for so many tons and would cancel it if not wanted. Here was a case of bare-faced deception and dishon- esty. We personally know a Boston firm which regularly bribed the buyers for other concerns to declare in favour of its goods, and justi- fied their course by the statement that they could not sell the goods in any other way. That the buyers for railroads and other large concerns are very frequently amenable to and do receive bribes, rake- offs, perquisites, presents, and the like, is a matter of common knowledge. Even as we write there is in progress a full-fledged scandal at the Boston State House. Allegations have been made that extensive bribing was done in connexion with what is known as the " Bucket-Shop Bill." District Attorney John B. Moran moved in the matter and certain witnesses were examined. Before Mr. Moran, however, had completed his work the legislature inaugurated 572 MAMMON AS GOD a "star chamber" hearing for the purpose of " investigating " the charges of corruption. From this hearing the press was excluded. By far the larger part of the people naturally believed that this course was adopted for "whitewashing" purposes. The public expressed its distrust and even indignation in unmistakable terms. To cap the climax and to make matters worse, a Boston paper suddenly an- nounced that Section 17 of Chapter 3 of the Revised Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts reads as follows : " A person shall not be excused from attending and testifying before either branch of the general court or before a committee thereof upon a subject referred to such committee on the ground that his testimony or evidence, documentary or otherwise, may tend to criminate him or subject him to a penalty or forfeiture, but he shall not be prose- cuted or subjected to a penalty or forfeiture for or on account of any action, natter or thing concerning which he may so testify or pro- duce evidence, except for perjury committed in such testimony; and this exception shall not apply to an official paper or record so pro- duced by him." From this law it would appear that if even a question of murder were undergoing legislative investigation and the murderer were to appear before the committee having the matter in charge and were to acknowledge his guilt he would be allowed to go scot-free, and no law in the land could touch him. To see how this might work out let us suppose something akin to what is thought by many to be occurring in another state were happening here. Suppose a Gov- ernor of Massachusetts had been assassinated. Suppose that those representing certain monied interests, having tremendous political in- fluence, wished to fasten this crime upon certain of their enemies. Suppose they succeeded and their victims were executed, and suppose later that it was conclusively proved that they were murdered by this conspiracy. All that would be necessary for these privileged pluto- crats to do would be to pass the word along to their henchmen, secure a legislative investigation and confess that they deliberately murdered the victims of their conspiracy by false testimony and manufactured evidence. Their mere confession, so far as we can see, would, under this statute, forever free them from any fear of punish- ment for their nefarious crimes. Indeed, by this beautiful legal tid- bit, a corrupt legislature might sack the treasury of a state in broad day-light, and snap their fingers in the face of any court which sought to bring them to book. That such a law could be passed is a glowing tribute to the corruptness, the ignorance or the indifference of our legislators. And these men are mostly lawyers! If a back-woodsman would let such a statute as that get by him unnoticed he would be worthy the contempt of his own cattle. If he noticed it and did not drive a coach-and-six through it, he would deserve a conspicuous niche in the American Hall of Infamy now rapidly nearing com- pletion. By way of comment upon this condition, Mr. Thomas W. Lawson published the following letter : " TO THE BRIBE-GIVERS AND BRIBE-TAKERS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE. 573 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION " Henceforth it will be your privilege to work at your vocation in the open. "In the light of present conditions it will only be necessary for you to secure a majority of the members of the Senate or House. " With this majority you can appoint an investigating committee and the trick is pulled off and the consequences slammed shut. " That the possibilities of this condition outpipe any of your former dreams will be evident to your ebonised ooze imagination. "To illustrate: " The .State House can at once and with perfect safety be con- fiscated for a State bucket-shop, with the State treasury as the kitty, the bribe-givers as dealers, and the bribe-takers as customers, while the different State institutions can be turned into distilleries and breweries. THOMAS W. LAWSON." Under date of May 26, 1906, District Attorney John B. Moran wrote a letter to the members of the Massachusetts legislature, in which he comments upon the star-chamber " investigation " and which he closes as follows : " The results which I sought and had already within my grasp have been snatched from me by a committee proceeding, farcical in its conduct, vicious in its results, and iniquitous in its conception. " Had every member of the House been corrupt and scheming for exemption from punishment, no more successful device could have been conceived to accomplish this purpose by minds trained in crime and developed in the art of evading its penalties than the one adopted. " With several lawyers on the committee and with the Attorney- General present to add his learning to its wisdom and his dignity to its hearings and his skill to its examinations, it is inconceivable that the scheme was not well thought out, that its purpose was not well defined, that its results were not foreseen. " If ignorance of the law be pleaded by them in extenuation of pub- lic condemnation due their conduct, I trust they will find some few who will criticise them not too harshly, but will in apology declare that they knew no better. " To the public I commend them for their skill or want of it, for their honesty or want of it, for their knowledge or want of it. " To the Attorney-General I suggest a perusal of a treatise on legal ethics or on laws. JOHN B. MORAN." The universality of this corruption and the unblushing effrontery with which it is practised are simply astonishing. We quote the following illustration from " Harper's Weekly " for April 7, 1906 : " The House Committee on Post-offices and 'Post-roads recently con- ducted an extended investigation into charges that the franking privi- lege had been abused by Congressmen, to the extent of sending furniture and other household goods through the mails free. The committee issued a clean bill of health to the suspected members, and then solemnly proceeded to incorporate a clause in the Post-office Appropriation bill prohibiting further indulgence in the abuse. The 574 MAMMON AS GOD bill was accompanied by a report from the Postmaster-General show- ing that the Post-office Department was spending something like $100,000 a year for carrying matter under Congressmen's franks that would not be allowed in the mails under the regulations, even if postage were paid. The 'not guilty, but don't-do-it-again ' verdict is not a monopoly of the rural jury." We have already seen in several specific instances that the modem business man does not have the slightest hesitancy in claiming any- thing he may think to his own advantage in connexion with adver- tising his goods. He may make his catsup of wood-pulp, adulterated spices and analine dye, yet he will advertise it as containing nothing but pure fruit and legitimate flavourings and as being of the natural colour. When we come to consider those larger aggregations of capi- tal known as trusts, we find matters, if possible, yet worse. Those who have read Henry Demorest Lloyd's " Wealth against Common- wealth " and Ida Tarbell's " History of the Standard Oil " will not need to be told what kind of a record this corporation has in this re- gard. Mr. Lloyd's book is practically a record of court proceedings. Its attitude is calm and judicial, but the evidence presented is damna- tory to the last extreme. Of late the country has been passing through new trust experi- ences. Never until recent years has it been safe for corporations to take the law into their own hands and to remove American citizens, whom they were pleased to consider hurtful to their interests, from their property and their homes, not only without legal warrant but in riotous defiance of every law of the land, of humanity, or of God. Nor have they stopped here. Even while we write every effort is being made to deprive certain labour-leaders of their lives upon the charge of complicity in a murder committed. We do not pretend to prejudge the merits of this case, for we have no means of knowing what evidence will be produced at the trial other than that which has been freely discussed by the press, but we cannot refrain from stating plainly that, judging by appearances, the votaries of the system are fairly subject to the suspicion of having engaged in one of the most infamous conspiracies of this or any other age. The evidence against these labour-leaders, as it has appeared in the press, is such a tissue of absurdities that it leads the thoughtful almost to hope that the " System " is nearing that point where it will become yet another illustration of the truth of the saying, "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." The recent insurance exposures have merely brought to light con- ditions which long have existed and which might have continued underground for an indefinite period longer had not friction occurred within the circle. This well illustrates a fortunate dispensation of nature. When thieves give rein to their greed for a certain time they tend to develop a desire each to absorb the whole thing himself. Then is it that, like tarantulas in a bottle, they fight to see which one shall swallow all the others. The noise of this conflict reaches the public ear and then we have a " scandal." Had further evidence of the extent to which privilege controls the press been needed, this in- surance episode would h.ave helped to furnish it. Happily for its $75 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION own -good the general public is fast awaking to a wholesome realisa- tion of the fact that the overwhelming majority of our newspapers, not to say a goodly number of our weeklies and monthlies, are the paid organs of privilege. In many cases the publication is owned outright. In others it is controlled through advertising, and in still others through the influence of the " System's " banks. Nor does this baneful influence stop with the press. It pushes its way into the university and even corrupts the pulpit. We quote the following from an article by the Hon. J. Warren Mills, published in "The Arena" for March, 1906: "The trusts are now reaching out for our schools. Rockefeller's Chicago Uni- versity is familiar to us all. We have seen academic freedom denied in the Leland Stanford University at Palo Alto. Eecently Mr. Rockefeller gave $66,000 to the University of Nebraska, and Chan- cellor Andrews' acceptance of the same has made an important issue in the politics of that state. Not long ago Mr. Carnegie tried to give $25,000 to the University of Mississippi, but the rebuff he re- ceived from Governor Vardaman strikes such an important note that it ought to be sounded from the house-tops all over the land. The governor says: 'We have in Mississippi the purest and best stock of men and women under God's heaven, and we do not want them warped from the broad spirit of fairness and integrity and purity which has made us the proud people we are to-day, by being taught to bow down in a thankful humbleness to such men as Andrew Carnegie and Rocke- feller, and become subservient to the spirit of greed and commercial- ism which has bred the trust and fostered the slavery of the American workingman. I would rather see the walls of our state university and our colleges crumble into dust and the buildings be battered and grimy than that they should be built up and handsomely painted and furnished by this money which has been coined from the blood and tears of the toiling masses, ' demanding the usury of self-respect/ which we cannot afford to pay. ' We -may not have in Mississippi the scientific equipment for im- parting knowledge and all the modern accessories that make up the great institutions of learning, but we have the means of making strong and stalwart men and women, who scorn the slavery of wealth and stand unequalled in their proud independence of thought.' " Simon Guggenheim recently gave to the State School of Mines at Golden $75,000, and on October 2d, last, occurred the elaborate cere- monies of the laying of the corner-stone of the ' Guggenheim Hall.' The railroads made special rates and all the politicians, including our governor and congressmen, were there and thousands of people be- sides, and all assembled on the momentous occasion to render homage to Simon Guggenheim, the donor, the great head of the .Smelter Trust. There, facing the tall but silent chimneys of its latest victim, with the cry of misery and destitution audibly rising from a thousand throats, congratulations were extended, and the great Simon, son of Mayer, and king of the Smelter Trust, was volubly commended to the favour and affection of the impressed, and impressive assemblage of citizens and students. At last the ceremonies were ended, the 576 MAMMON AS GOD people dispersed and the sun sank into a black cloud that enveloped the smokeless smelter in a sombre silence, and the sorrows and la- mentations of the ' out-of-works ' were soon drowned in the whistling winds. " Another day was gone, but a day that marked with a multitude of witnesses the adding of a new department to the American Smelt- ing and Befming Company. " How long will Colorado look kindly upon ' Guggenheim Hall ' ? How long before political platforms will contain a demand that the money be returned and the name chipped off? How long before our people will too keenly appreciate the high privilege of co-operatively founding and rearing a great educational institution, by themselves and for themselves and their children, to tolerate such an imposing contribution of ' tainted money ' with all that it implies ? How long before our parents and students will realise the wanton injury to high ideals in compromising at the very start the estimates and judgments of the great ' captains of industry ? ' ' It is not very long since the press of the country was full of ac- clamations regarding the acceptance by a church of a considerable sum of money proffered by an oil magnate. The money was accepted. Eegarding this subject the Eev. Washington Gladden says, in his " The New Idolatry " : " The question of tainted money is a ques- tion that this generation must face. There are vast heaps of it on every side of us accumulations that have been made by methods as heartless, as cynically iniquitous as any that were employed by Eoman plunderers or robber barons of the Dark Ages. In the cool brutality with which properties are wrecked, securities destroyed, and people by the hundreds robbed of their little all to build up the fortunes of the multi-millionaires, we have an appalling revelation of the kind of monster that a human being may become. Much of this wealth has been gained by the most daring violations of the laws of the land ; by tampering with courts of justice; by the bribery of city councils or legislatures, and even of Congress itself; by practices which have introduced into the body politic a virulent and deadly poison that threatens the very life of the Nation. That many of the largest fortunes in this country have some such origin all intelligent men know. Is this clean money? Can any man, can any institution, knowing its origin, touch it without being defiled ? " . . . "To accept the reward of iniquity is to place upon our lips the seal of silence respecting its perpetrators. Those who recognise no responsibility for the maintenance of public virtue may wear such a muzzle without discomfort ; but it would seem that public teachers, of all sorts, should be unwilling to put it on. " Money that has been gained by nefarious methods is often brought to the door of the church, and those who bring it seldom fail of a warm welcome. The liberal contribution can hardly ^ be refused; will not such charity cover a multitude of sins? If this malefactor has done evil in the past, ought we not to be glad that he now seems to be of a better mind? And this money will go just as far in 'sup- porting the Gospel ' as any other man's money. Why should we hesitate about taking it? Think of the good that may be done by n 577 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION turning this wealth which men say has been gotten by iniquity into channels of mercy! If the liberal donor happen to conceive a special fondness for the parson, and there are handsome gifts now and then, and suggestions of European tours, all this reasoning gains in cogency. " Of course, under such circumstances, the pulpit of this church is not likely to discuss the kind of iniquity by which this money was gained, nor anything near akin to it. It would be extremely un- grateful it would, indeed, be dishonourable for this pulpit to touch upon such matters. Having sought and welcomed these lib- eral donations, it is simply the dictate of ordinary decency to refrain from criticising the financial methods of the donor. People might charge that this plutocrat had stipulated that nothing should be said in the church about his practices, but that is a crude conception; of course he has said nothing about it ; nothing has been said by any- body; nothing needs to be said. This minister has never promised .that he will be silent on themes of this character ; it is not necessary for him to make any promise; the situation speaks for itself; if he has the instincts of a gentleman, he will not assail the man who has put him under such obligations. " This pulpit, then, will have no message respecting wrongs of this particular kind. And, inasmuch as it would seem rather inconsistent to attack other closely related social wrongs and avoid these, this pulpit will probably abstain from all reference to public evils. It will confine itself to what is known as ' the simple G-ospel ' to a purely abstract religionism which has little or nothing to do with, life in this world, but which, confines itself to the preparation of men for the world to come. The kind of preaching which Isaiah and Jeremiah and Amos and Paul and James practised will not be heard from this pulpit. Its moral power will be paralysed. Its influence upon the social life of the community will be practically nil. Or, if it stands for anything at all, its silent testimony will support the iniquities by which the foundations of the social order are undermined. "Such is the effect of tainted money upon the life of a church. When it is coveted and sought, when those who bring it to the altars of the church are courted and made welcome, consequences like these are simply inevitable. " Similar results must needs appear in the life of a college built on such foundations or largely dependent on resources of this character. Not a little of this tainted money has been turned into the channels of the higher education. It seems to have been assumed by many of those who have this work in charge that all money is pure and holy, and that just as much good can be done with the money of a robber as with the money of an honest merchant or manufacturer. It seems even to have been regarded as a meritorious achievement to pave the highways of learning with the price of blood. "It is passing strange that the implications and consequences of such an alliance should be ignored or disregarded. Is it not plain that an institution which accepts subsidies from notoriously iniquitous sources, by this act virtually resigns the privilege of bearing testi- mony against such iniquities? When we enter into partnership 678 MAMMON AS GOD with corruptionists and extortionists in the business of education, we must, in common decency, refrain from turning round and abusing our partners. Whatever public teaching may be needed, respecting the evil conditions out of which this fortune has sprung, this col- lege, at least, can offer none. It is foolish to say that the donor has imposed no restrictions upon the teaching ; certainly not ; there is not the least need of it. Some things can be taken for granted, among gentlemen. It would be utterly dishonourable for an institution thus founded, or largely befriended, to enter into a thorough investigation of the methods by which its endowments were accumulated. The teaching might deal, in an abstract way, with social subjects; but it could not examine historically and scientifically certain burning questions of its own neighbourhood and generation. Its instructors will be constrained to say to themselves perhaps to one another ' All this is valuable and necessary work, but this is not the institu- tion where such work can be done/ Think of a college above all, a ' Christian ' college putting itself in such an attitude as this be- fore the world ! " But this is not all. An institution thus allied must needs pay honour to those whose benefactions it is sharing. There will be a place, and a high place, at its feasts for the men to whom it owes so much. Glowing words of eulogy will not be wanting. The young men of the institution who look and listen will thus be aided in form- ing their theories of life. The whole world will see who it is that these Christian scholars and leaders of the people delight to honour. So it is that public opinion is formed, and that men who are the pirates of industry and the spoilers of the state are advanced to the front rank in modern society ." . . . "What shall it profit a church or a college if it shall gain the whole world and lose its own life ? " In an article entitled " Academic Freedom in Theory and Prac- tice," published in the " Atlantic Monthly," 1903, President Hadley, of Yale, says : ( Modern university teaching costs more money per capita than it ever did before, because the public wishes a university to maintain places of scientific research, and scientific research is ex- tremely expensive. A university is more likely to obtain this money if it gives the property owners reason to believe that vested rights will not be interfered with. If we recognise vested rights in order to secure the means of progress in physical science, is there not danger that we shall stifle the spirit of independence, which is equally im- portant as a means of progress in moral science ? " Writing upon this subject Mr. Henry George, Jr., says, in his " The Menace of Privilege": "The truth of the situation is presented in an incident that Mr. Louis F. Post of Chicago relates as a fact. 'Why don't you endow a chair in economics in our university?' a distinguished educator asked a millionaire. 'Well,' was the reply, ' I suppose it might be because I haven't much respect for the kind of economics the universities are teaching.' 'Oh,' came the re- joinder, < that could be easily arranged to suit you.' "The 'touch,' as Mr. Post calls it, was refused, for while the millionaire, unlike his class, was one who held extremely liberal views 579 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION on economic questions, he had no more respect for this kind of col- lege administration than he had for the regular brand of college ' economics/ r ' Upon the same subject Prof. John Bascom, holding the chair of Political Economy at Williams, says in a signed letter in the " Chi- cago Chronicle " Jan. 8, 1903, " The question of trusts is an eco- nomic, social and civic question, and it is the duty of every college to meet it in all these relations. A college that is thriving on the money of the Standard Oil Trust is precluded by courtesy, by honour and by interest from any adequate criticism of its methods. It has fore- closed discussion on one of the most important questions which can come before it for consideration/* Can it be doubted for a moment that a large part of the success of the Salvation Army and of Christian Science is due to the in- efficiency of the church of our fathers? Strong and daily stronger grows the feeling in the breast of the poor man that, while the church may be his heavenly friend, it is not to be depended upon to ameliorate his earthly condition. He may not philosophise upon the fact that that which " binds back " is naturally static, conservative and wor- shipful of the powers that be, but his subconsciousness does not miss the results which would follow such reasoning. There needs no ghost come from the grave to tell him that money as well as charity covers, in the eyes of the modern church, a multitude of sins. It is money, money, money everywhere. As a nation we are money-mad. Says the Rev. Washington Gladden, in " The New Idolatry," " It is hardly necessary to name the god of this present world. 'Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell from heaven' Mil- ton calls him. To him the homage of the multitude is given with no reserve. The worship of Mammon is the one stupendous social fact of this generation. We must not say that it is universal; that would be a grievous error. As in the days when idolatry cursed Israel there were thousands, unknown to the desponding prophet, who had not bowed the knee to Baal, so in these days there are hun- dreds of thousands who have not been debauched by the worship of Mammon, but it is the religion of the multitude. Men do believe in him; their faith is sincere and unwavering; they are ready to prove it, every day, by their works. They have no doubt of his power, of his supremacy; all things are possible, they think, to those who secure his favour. That he holds in his hands the real good of life for man, and that there is no real happiness for any unless they propitiate him, is the first article in the creed of the great majority. It is not the rich or the prosperous alone who hold this creed ; the poor and the degraded are equally ensnared by it; their expectations of good are concentrated upon the same potentate. " Never, since time began, has this worship been so widespread, so nearly universal as it is to-day. It is only within the last one or two centuries that the way to the altars of Mammon has been cleared for the multitude. In slavery and in feudalism the opportunities of gain were confined to a very few ; now that freedom is the heritage of all, this craving has become the common experience of mankind. 80 MAMMON AS GOD Like every other natural passion it is a good servant but a tyrannical master. We are suffering now from its domination. :< To a very large extent the worship of Mammon has supplanted the worship of God. It is not a mere lip service, it is a living allegiance. It is by their works that the devotees prove their faith. We know that they believe in Mammon more than in God, for their lives give clear and abundant testimony. The evidences of this devotion are visible on every side. To what other cause can we attribute the evils that infest the government of our cities and that fill many of our state capitals with the stench of rotten politics; that turn many of our railway systems into gigantic instruments of extortion, and build up a mighty enginery of finance with power to exploit the savings of a nation for the enrichment of a few ? " What is it that teaches men to be hard and cruel in the pursuit of their advantages, and ruthlessly to crush all who stand in the way of the building of their fortunes? What is it that dulls the sense of honour and the impulse of probity and makes men faithless to their trusts? How shall we explain such a ghastly exhibit as that which is now in sight in the great New York insurance companies; such continental extortions as those which the government is now trying to unearth, and such eruptions of graft and boodle as every news- paper chronicles? Are not all these convincing proofs of a prevail- ing faith in the supremacy of Mammon ? Many of the men who are engaged in such operations as these^say with their lips that they be- lieve in God, but it cannot be. Their actions prove that the real object of their faith and allegiance is Mammon. In their hearts they believe that Mammon is stronger and greater than God ; that he is a better protector and friend than God; that he can do more for them than God can do. When the claims of Mammon and of God conflict, their conduct makes it perfectly clear in whom they put their trust. " But these instances which I have mentioned are not exceptional. They are striking illustrations of tendencies which we see at work on every side. They are symptoms of a constitutional malady. Love of money, faith in money, devotion to material things, has become the prevailing distemper of the time. It was doubtless true when the apostle said it, but it is probably ten times truer now than it was then, that the love of money is the root of every kind of evil." . . . " It seems to be a time, just now, for some pretty serious thinking on the part of Christian people, respecting this form of idolatry. None more debasing has yet appeared before men; its devastations threaten the life of the nation. " It is producing social and political disintegration. It is sowing dishonesty, suspicion, enmity. It is hurrying us on in the paths that lead to anarchy. For it must not be forgotten that Mammon cannot rule. Rule implies orderly governance, and what Mammon inevitably brings is disorder and strife and social chaos. A society in which the love of money is the ruling principle can have no end but de- struction. Even now it may be seen that the throne of the usurper is unstable; it is tottering to'its fall. We may worship this false god, 581 but the worship can bring only degradation to ourselves and over- throw to the nation." Most timely are these earnest words of warning, and it is to be regretted that the Christian Church has not more men like the Kev. Washington Gladden who value character and true nobility above every accident of life. Never has there been a time in the history of this country when we have stood in such dire need of earnest, in- corruptible and able men with good red blood in their veins. The apostle of the white corpuscle is abroad on every hand. He is a temporising optimist with so little real sense of proportion that in deceiving others he deceives himself. His measures are all half measures. To him anything radical or fundamental is as a threat of hell-fire. He believes that the social machine, decrepit, ramshackle, rusted in corruption and falling to pieces bit by bit, is to be per- fectly rehabilitated and made as new, with a splendid strength, by a little sweet-oil on this bearing, a little felting of that shrieking joint, and a bit of thread bound round this broken lever. Let one but sug- gest a fundamental repair of any part and this albino-natured opti- mist brands him as a pessimist, alarmist and calamity howler. God give us men! The democratic principle of government is on trial. The officers who man the American Ship of State have mutinied against the captaincy of our forefathers and are to-day ruthlessly steering the vessel into the narrows of imperialism and on to the rocks of plutocracy. Had we an American Pitt he would to-day be saying : " There is not an hour to be lost, every moment is big with danger." When a country begins to show a moral degeneracy so wide-spread as that which the United States exhibits to-day it is high time that all those who have its grander interests at heart should call a halt and do everything in their power to stem the tide of corruption. The imperialism which has been rampant for so long has left a stigma and a scar which will never be fully effaced. If we return to the path of virtue it can. only be as a repentant sinner. Our transgressions may be forgiven, they can never be forgotten. Nourished in the lap of liberty, fed from the breasts of freedom, we have foresworn our early precepts for a mess of thin pottage. With hypocrisy on our lips, trickery in our minds and greed in our hearts, we have gone into the business of forging human chains. That this attempt to enslave another people should have reacted upon and corrupted our own na- tion was but the poetic justice of the inevitable. No nation can be one jot freer than the most enslaved individual living under its laws. By an ethical gravitation which will not be gainsaid the status of the most degraded and most enslaved by the law is the status of the high- est and freest as well. When we became an Empire with subjects whose passports in effect described them as persons " owing allegiance to the United States but not citizens thereof," we inverted the torch of our own liberty and wrote many a question in our charter of free- dom. What we- are now reaping is but what we have sown, and the only question now to be considered is whether we shall plough in our thistle and dog-grass before they go to seed, or forever give over all 582 MAMMON AS GOD idea of raising the particular crop for which our forefathers so care- fully prepared this soil. For years the American people have been deliberately cajoled and cozened by paid makers of public opinion, but at last they are moving uneasily in their long sleep, as if they were about to wake up. Whether they will merely yawn and turn over, lulled by the Siren-song of the anti-muck-rakers which the grafter element, in the belief that the opportune time has come to catch the fickle public on the re- bound, are now turning loose upon the press, is a question which only time can determine. The hope of the country is now, as it ever has been, in the masses, and these masses are beginning to show signs of demanding their just recognition. Class-consciousness, originally practically unknown in this country, now exists on every hand as caste exists in India. The higher education, instead of breaking down this artificial barrier, accentuates it. Our modern education for the most part makes against, rather than for, the dignity of labour. We think to fit a young man for active duties in life by en- tirely lifting him out of social utility for four or five of the most formative and best years of his life, just as we hope to teach young boys and girls how properly to comport themselves in each other's society by educating them in unmixed schools where scholars of dif- ferent sexes never come in contact. Our college students by the time they have finished their course have, in far too many cases, acquired an introspective habit which leads them much to prefer working in their minds to labouring with their hands. As the result of this there grows up a feeling that the college man is " above " the more menial avocations, on the one hand, and, on the other, that he be- longs to a class by himself. This condition would not be so unfortu- nate were it not for a sad mistake which the general public, as well as the college man, is all too prone to make. This error is the re- sult of psychological ignorance upon a matter of the utmost im- portance. To explain by an illustration: The Castilian horse is slow and heavy, the Andalusian light and swift. Training will ma- terially increase the speed of both these breeds, but after you have done the best you can for the Castilian, the untrained Andalusian will easily outrun him. So we often find intellects untrained in col- lege lore and even unequipped with the book-man's tools which can easily out-think the Castilian breed of intellect, even after the higher education has done its utmost for it. We know college-bred lawyers and the like who will be less likely to arrive at a sound judgment upon any vital matter than certain untutored stone-masons and day- labourers we could mention. The fact of the matter is that most of our education is mere ac- quirement. As such it amounts to little or nothing, or worse. Only when knowledge becomes culture, when it is absorbed, as it were, into the very fibre of the man, does it become of any value. Unas- similated facts merely produce intellectual dyspepsia. The appetite becomes disordered and fictitious, and the more facts that are swal- lowed the less are assimilated. Until a fact is properly correlated with every other fact upon the mental horizon, it does not assist cul- ture, and is of little use. The worst indictment which can be brought 583 against our present educational system inheres in the fact that, for the most part, students are taught to accept and to memorise the thoughts of text-book authorities rather than to think their own thoughts for themselves. Sound reasoning should be based upon perceptions, upon experience, and not upon a transmitted record of some other man's experiences. The utter futility of attempting to transmit our experiences to our children should have taught us this lesson long ago, but, despite the fact that the ablest of our educators have in- sistently called the matter to our attention, our school-committees, school-boards and college-faculties have yet the lesson to learn. Of all classes of labour in the United States perhaps none is more poorly paid than teachers, notwithstanding the fact that the proper exercise of this profession demands a high order of ability. When we realise the starvation wage of instructors it is not to be wondered at that so many teachers are mere text-book parrots, entirely ignorant of the basic principles underlying many of the subjects they are called upon to teach. One of the greatest advantages of the Greek peripatetic system of instruction was that it was practically free from this slavery to the text-book. When an instructor explains a subject in his own words and from his own knowledge, he will naturally group his divi- sions thereof in the order of their importance, and he will, perforce, omit an immense mass of unessential detail with which text-books ar5 cumbered. The result is that the student, taught by the peripatetic or equivalent method learns principles, acquires a grasp of the broad generalities of life and a true sense of the proportion which facts sustain to each other. The text-book victim, on the contrary, ac- quires a hodge-podge of facts unrelated to each other or to anything else, so far as he knows, and is for the most part quite innocent of the fact that all truths even are not of the same size, but that there are increasing orders of generality which must be understood before life and its multifarious factors can be viewed at its proper angle and seen in its just proportion. The immense advantage of generalising from one's own experience rather than from the recorded experiences of others is succinctly stated in this sage paragraph from the pen of Elbert Hubbard : " The facts we get out of our work have glue on them ; but the facts we get out of books are greased." In this connexion we cannot refrain from mentioning another grave defect of present educational methods. An examination of the system in vogue leads one to mistrust that our educators are quite ig- norant of the fact that there is such a thing as intellectual inertia. There is not power enough in the world to mobilise a pin without consuming a certain length of time in the act. It is also common knowledge that, if we are to change the course of any moving body, we must consume power in so doing. Many a rapidly rotating ma- chine would quickly beat itself to pieces were it altered so as to per- form its functions by reciprocating motions. All these physical facts so well-known have their perfect analogues in the intellectual domain. It takes a certain length of time to mobilise the most active mind upon the simplest subjects. Mr. Herbert Spencer has pointed out that the chief dictum of good literary style is economy of attention. 584 MAMMON AS GOD He objects to the use of English words of Latin derivation, where shorter ones of Saxon origin can be used, upon the ground that there is a wastage of intellectual force and a slight diversion of attention incident to determining the meaning of these longer Latin-English words, much of which can be avoided by the shorter Saxon words. Not only does it take time to mobilise the most active brain, but it also creates intellectual friction and causes a wastage of brain-energy to change the course of a moving intellect, just as it consumes energy to change the direction of a moving molar mass. The laws which govern molar bodies are but the replica of those which obtain in the molecular and atomic realms. The present method, practised in so many of our schools, of changing the work of the pupil every few minutes is as ill-advised, as unscientific, and as sorry in its results as would be the attempt to convert a high-speed electric generator into a reciprocating machine, when the entire mass of its armature would have to be stopped and started some thousands of times a minute. All brain-workers who are gifted with any power of concentration know full well what this mobilising of the intellect means, though they may refer to it as "getting into the spirit" of their subject. This playing battledore and shuttlecock with the school-child's brain is one of the severest indictments to be brought against our school- boards. Better far would it be if a child were given but one study a day, or even one a week, instead of following the present system of ricochetting like an eager bullet from one thing to another. The instructor notices that when the period for drawing comes on, some time is lost in getting together materials for the work, and the mystery is that he does not see that, in an exactly similar way, it takes time to get the mind ready for each new subject. Nor is this all. The rapid shifting from one thing to another undermines the child's concentration until he is impatient of anything which confines his attention for more than a few moments. The habit of going from subject to subject, like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, has fastened itself upon him perhaps for life, precisely as the habit of newspaper-reading renders a large part of our population unfit for any consecutive intellectual effort and impatient of any knowledge which cannot be expressed with headline brevity and the spiciness of slang, italics and exclamations. It is a question if most of our school- committees and school-boards do not need educating quite as much as the pupils who suffer under the ingeniously bad systems they have devised. In the history of the race the ornamental precedes the useful in many instances. The skirt is an evolution of the girdle of orna- mental teeth or the like, and this " useful " evolved product is about as close to a sane utilitarianism as are some of the tendencies, methods and practices of our modern educational systems. The desire for the ornamental leads us to study forejgn tongues before we have measur- ably mastered our own, and, for the most part then, to give to Latin a pronunciation which robs it of the major part of its utility as a help to English. In our desire to seem erudite we grasp the tree of learn- ing by its branches rather than by its trunk. Logic, which should be begun in the Kindergarten as the basis of all healthful knowledge, 585 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION is left until late in school-life when the pupil has for the most part ceased to realise that facts are of different sizes and degrees of gener- ality. The criticisms which have been brought against our educa- tional systems, by the ablest educators the world has produced, have in many oases passed for little or nought. We recall one instance within our own observation when the educational views of Spencer, Bain, Tyndall and like eminent authorities were brought before our school-committee and were roundly assaulted as the hobby and per- sonal crotchet of the person referring to them. They did not even know that they rested upon unimpeachable authority, but thought them the over-night invention of their fellow townsmen. Such edu- cators are very busy inoculating children with a spurious patriotism and raising the death-rate on the plea of raising the school standard, their one idea being that the boy who is best fitted for college is best fitted for life. The emancipated brain of the country exploded this bubble more than a quarter of a century ago, but the report of the explosion has made no impression upon these thick pedagogic ears. 586 CHAPTER III THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR 587 The plague of gold strikes far and near, And deep and strong it enters: This purple chimar which we wear, Makes madder than the centaur's: Our thoughts grow blank, our words grow strange, We cheer the pale gold-diggers, Each soul is worth so much on 'Change, And marked, like sheep, with figures. Be pitiful, O God! Mrs. Browning. Accursed thirst for wealth to what do you not drive the minds of men! Virgil. Once poor, my friend, still poor you must remain, The rich alone have all the means of gain. Martial. Riches endless is as poor as winter, To him that ever fears he shall be poor. Shakespeare. President Harper, of the Chicago University, the establishment to which John D. Rockefeller has given something like $8,000,000, stood up in the Auditorium at the quarterly convocation and said that three students had died of starvation. Of the five deaths which have occurred in five years at the university three are directly traceable to starvation. New York World. Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice, almighty gold. Ben Jonson Epistle to Elizabeth. " It would make a man scratch where he doth not itch to see a man live poor and die rich." I would rather be a hog than an ignorant rich man. Bishop Hall. They are neither man nor woman; They are neither beast nor human; They are ghouls. Who? The wealthy interests, the big rich. They are typified best in their attitude in San Francisco, where they are fattening upon the unfortunates of the burned city, battening upon the misery of its people. . . . It has been published that the total relief fund raised for the city in the United States was more than $21,000,000. That is a big sum. But San Francisco has only seen thus far six million dollars. Where have the other sixteen millions gone? The relief subscriptions were " padded " in various cities, or there has been a lot of money wasted or stolen. These funds were handled in all the subscribing communities by representatives of the most respectable citizens. . . . We have seen what the Western Union Telegraph Company did. It took the money of hundreds of thousands of people during the first days of the fire to send telegrams which it knew it could not deliver. A despatch from San Francisco to anywhere costs a good piece of money. The company pock- eted the money and then sent the telegrams by mail, at a cost of two cents, when the average price collected for each telegram must have been, at the very lowest calculation, fifty cents. This was a clean steal of a whole cart-load of money. And the telegraph company didn't contribute 588 one cent to the city's relief. The telegraph company is composed of none but the most wealthy and respectable people. But they must get their full share of everything in sight, even in the midst of misery. . . . We read in the earlier reports of the cataclysm of soldiers and police taking looters and men who exacted exorbitant prices for food and standing them up and shooting them down. These poor looters were drink-crazed wretches from the slums on the water-front. They deserved their fate. Pity, then, the San Franciscans cannot take and shoot the eminently respectable representatives of the interests that are now grafting upon the destruction, the desolation, the courage, the pride, the faith, the hope of the stricken community. The looting by the interests is worse than that of the robbers of bodies of the dead. The men who are taking every business advantage of San Francisco are no more worthy of con- sideration than would be so many mad dogs. The criminal big rich are " the mad dogs of society." They are the real anarchists, the " fiends in human shape." But they are so respecta- ble; oh, yes, so very respectable. William Marion Reedy, in St. Louis Mirror. I feel no pride, but pity, For the burdens the rich endure; There is nothing sweet in the city But the patient lives of the poor. John Boyle O'Reilly. 589 CHAPTER III THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR UR lesser educators seem to comport themselves upon the assumption that no engines have ever yet been devised or ever can be devised which will cause a boy to do more school-work than is good for him. As if, in acting in obedience to this as an unwritten law, they are using every means in their power to push the developing child to, and far too often beyond, the intellectual breaking-point, until, in a great many cases, he is so surfeited and cloyed that school-work becomes to him a sort of mental castor-oil, the mere thought of which causes his intellectual stomach to turn in- side out. Apropos of this subject, in an excellent article entitled " THE OVERWORKED SCHOOLBOY," and published in the "Boston Evening Transcript" of June 16, 1906, Mr. Nixon Waterman says in part: " And now it transpires that the boy who for years and years has been telling us that his school lessons are too hard and his school hours too long, has been speaking the truth all the while. Leading physicians and educators of this country and of Europe who are most competent to examine the subject honestly and intelligently, have been looking into this very important matter, and their composite conclusion is that the boy has been asserting sound, sorry facts. They declare 1 that among the school children of to-day there is an astonish- ing amount of ill-health which is caused chiefly and primarily by too much study and confinement. " The boy has known, all the while, just what he was talking about. He could feel it in his bones. He has based his diagnosis of the trouble on inside, first-hand facts and from private and direct sources of information. Now the correctness of his deductions is being ap- plauded on both sides of the sea, until there is a strong likelihood that a radical revision will be made of the formula now so popularly employed in MAKING A MAN. " Hurry the baby as fast as you can, Hurry him, worry him, make him a man. Off with his baby-clothes, get him in pants, Feed him on brain-foods, and make him advance. Hustle him, soon as he's able to walk, Into a grammar school; cram him with talk. Fill his poor head full of figures and facts, Keep on a-jamming them in till it cracks. Once boys grew up at a rational rate, Now we develop a man while you wait. 590 THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR Rush him through college, compel him to grab Of every known subject a dip and a dab. Get him in business and after the cash All by the time he can grow a moustache. Let him forget he was ever a boy, Make gold his god and its jingle his joy. Keep him a-hustling and clear out of breath, Until he wins Nervous Prostration and Death!" . . . " Let us examine blunt statistics for a moment. There are about twenty millions of school-children in the United States. It is be- lieved that ' school diseases ' are as prevalent in this country as they are in Europe where much fuller statistics along this line of investi- gation have been made. If this be true, twenty-nine of every hundred of our boys and forty-two of every hundred of our girls are afflicted with some ' school disease/ brought on by study and confinement. The list of afflictions, as prepared by the eminent men who have made investigations along this line of reform, is a long and formidable one, but as one of their number puts it, ' Of all the so-called ' school dis- eases,' however, those affecting the nervous system are of the greatest interest to Americans, and in no other field is the connexion between the morbid state, as a result, and school life as a cause, so clear and intimate, and nowhere else is progressive deterioration so closely re- lated to the demands made upon the scholar.' One writer asserts that in five cities of the United States 16,000 pupils between eight and fourteen years of age were taken out of the public schools within one term, because of ill health. " In the current number of the ' North American Keview,' Dr. George Woodruff Johnston concludes a carefully written article on this topic of over-study and 'school diseases' with this very significant paragraph : * The remedy for conditions which we know to exist in Europe and which we have every reason to believe are met with in the same or even greater degree in this country, lies not in the almost professional athleticism which is now the vogue; for in this it is evident we are merely substituting for one form of fatigue another no less injurious, but rather in a complete comprehension of the school child as a young animal at work and at play, and a rational adaptation of work and play to its capacities and needs. In this way only can he be made fit for the real struggle awaiting him, and become in the community in which his lot is cast a valuable economic unit/ " Notwithstanding the present unsatisfactory condition of affairs, it looks as if there are brighter days ahead for the over-worked school child. It is the undisputed truth that in many cities where limited schoolhouse capacity has made half-day sessions necessary, teachers have been astonished to find that twice as much work was accom- plished as under the old plan of all-day study. " Cheer up, boys and girls ! Maybe the lessons will be fewer and the hours shorter by-and-by. Our present educational system has many good features, but it tries to accomplish too much. It's ' smat- ter' is what's the matter with it." The most essential thing which education has to do is to build up the character of the student. As Elbert Hubbard very wisely says, 591 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION in " The Philistine " for June, 1906 : " It is qualities that fit a man to live, not the mental possession of facts. The school that best helps form character, not the one that imparts the most information, is the college the future will demand. " I do not know of a single college or university in the world that focuses on qualities. The Kindergarten does and so do the grade schools, just in proportion to the extent that they introduce Froebel methods." . . . " At all our great colleges, gymnasium and iiseful work are optional. Instead of physical, culture there are athletics, and those who need gymnasium the most are ashamed to be seen there. " How would the scientific cultivation of these do ? BODILY QUALITIES: Health of digestion, circulation, breath- ing, manual skill, vocal speech, and ease in handling all muscles. MENTAL QUALITIES: Painstaking, patience, decision, perse- verance, courage, following directions, tact, logic, concentration, in- sight, observation, mental activity, accuracy and memory. MORAL QUALITIES: Putting oneself in another's place or thoughtfulness for -others, which includes kindness, courtesy, good cheer and honesty, fidelity to a promise self-control, self-reliance and self-respect. " If you knew of a college that made a specialty of Qualities, where the teachers were persons of Quality, would you not send your boy there? And if you would send your boy to such a school, would not others do so, too? These things being true, will we not as a people soon decide to pay teachers enough to secure Quality which is not presuming to say we have none now and will not such a school thus evolve thru the law of Supply and Demand, a college that approxi- mates the ideal ? " Passing now to the matter of art, we find the general infection has been busy here, too. We have seen instances enough and to spare, where a Puritanical eroticism, masquerading in the guise of sentiment and morality, has corrupted the public taste. The recent hysterical out- cry against Maxim Gorky well illustrates the class of mind from which proceed these maniacal shriekings. One is moved to wonder if these people are sex-mad if they really think that all the virtue, .nobility and grandeur of human character count for nothing. If there be any occasion where one would expect fair and honourable treatment, certainly a competitive art-exhibition would seem to assure it. We are wont to look upon art as something above sordid com- mercialism, yet that such is not always the case, that " the trail of the serpent" is over this, too, was well instanced not very long since in Boston, when the judges of an Art Association, giving an alleged competitive exhibit, awarded the prizes, without regard to merit, to certain New York artists, with the understanding that a New York Association, of which these artists were members, should reciprocate in like kind at a forthcoming New York exhibition. So unworthy were most of the pictures which were awarded prizes that an old lady asked an attendant in charge if he thought it would be possible to get the judges together and exhibit them. We need only refer to the " gentlemanly blackmail " which is levied 592 THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR in the musical trade. The testimonials secured by manufacturers as well as by artists are by no means to be taken without large allow- ances of salt. The same and more may be said of musical criticism. It is of much more avail, in many cases, to have a good press-agent than a fine technique. The farce of dramatic and literary criticism is too patent to need more than a mention. Dramatic "critics" very frequently criticise plays which they have not seen. They frequently " criticise " actors who were ill and did not play, and have been known upon occasion to give able and painstaking critiques of performances which did not occur. Of course the book-critic is unable to read the works he criti- cises, and, if he were, his opinion would be worthless if he read them for the express purpose of criticising, for the simple reason that art is only art when viewed in the ensemble, while the critic will inevi- tably regard it in the particular, if he reads it for purposes of review. In treating the sorry effects of Mammon worship, at least a passing mention should be made of its effect in professional circles. The ease with which doctors' diplomas may be secured and the illicit prac- tices of a goodly number of doctors in every city have had recent emphasis by current events. The Boston public would have been shocked beyond expression, a few years ago, to learn that a suburban church member, influential in, and liberal to, her church was amassing a considerable fortune by an elaborate system for the transaction of a malpractice business. Now this special knowledge is swallowed by the larger generalisation that a similar thing is true of every large city. The extortionate charges of some doctors is a matter of common knowledge, but the frequency with which these trench upon rank dis- honesty may not be so well known. As an example in point, we refer to the case of a Boston physician, formerly doing business in the West End, but now a resident at the Back Bay. He was called in to attend a lady, and kept on calling after she was well. These calls were made when she was away from home, so that she did not realise the necessity of formally discharging him. He charged for all the visits and collected his bill by legal action, the law being obligingly suited to such cases. There are many noble and self-sacrificing men in the medical pro- fession, men who are tender and merciful to the poor and the afflicted. The more honour to them, because they have withstood the corrupting tendency of a money-mad age which has hardened, perverted and de- praved so many of their fellow-craftsmen. The conditions which obtain in the legal profession can be studied to such advantage in the United States Senate, the Boston State House and in legislatures and courts generally, that any attempt to treat them would seem like an attempt to prove a self-evident propo- sition. In considering the effect upon the church we must content ourselves with referring the Eeader to the tainted-money controversy and its outcome, and to the very moderate efficiency of our religious organi- sations as evidenced by actual results attained and as indicated by the general sentiment of the masses. 38 593 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION We will permit ourselves, however, the following quotation from the great Eussian painter, Verestchagin. In his " Realism " he says : " You are not the Christians you assume yourselves to be. You are not representatives of Christian societies, of Christian countries. " Those that kill their kind by the hundred thousand are no Chris- tians. " Those that are always moved, in private as well as in public life, by the principle of 'eye for eye, and tooth for tooth/ are no Chris- tians. " Those that spend many hours of their lives in churches, yet who give nothing, or nest to nothing, to the poor, are no Christians. " What have you done with the decree of the Saviour concerning Christian humility and to help such as are in real need ? "What is the stand taken now, let us ask, by those two great branches of the administration of Christ's Church, that call them- selves the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches, which have once separated, thanks to their inability to agree as to whether the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son or from the Father alone ? Is it possible that they have not come yet to an under- standing, and, blinded by mutual hatred, are neglecting the loftiness of their mission on earth? " What is the stand taken by those new churches originated of late, comparatively speaking, on the plea of a more realistic understand- ing of the connexion of life with its Originator? Is it possible that, having concluded the fight with their great adversary, those churches have also drifted into a sweet nap over the existing order of things, and have also renounced taking a hand in any further reforms? " Well if it be so, let men of talent shake the strong and the powerful out of the somnolence into which they have fallen ; a difficult task it will be, but a noble one. And if we are refused a hearing, or attempts are made to muzzle us, why, the worse it will be for society. Rouse itself it shall ; but it will be too late the ' Vandals will have burned Rome ' once again. We may be assured that no churches, no bankers' offices will then be spared. 'If any man have ears to hear, let' him hear." ; The corruptive interplay between the church and the state demands at least passing mention. On February 23, 1904, a Boston paper printed a report of a conversation between President McKinley and Mr. Hanna, in which the latter said : " The day is coming when . . . Socialism will become rampant, and in that hour, Mr. Presi- dent, (and I am not afraid to say it here and elsewhere), the flag must rely on its stanch friends ; and among them, in my opinion, our greatest protectors will be the Supreme Court of the United States and the Roman Catholic Church." On another occasion the same representative of the monopolistic class is reported to have said to Mr. 'P. J. O'Keefe of the " New World" (Catholic): "I believe the best friend and protector the people and the flag of our country will have in its hour of trial will be the Roman Catholic Church, always conservative, and fair and loyal. That is the power I look to to save the nation." If now we but remember that by " the flag " and " the nation " 594 THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR Mr. Hanna really meant the capitalistic class of which he was the open and sincere expression, we shall have little difficulty in under- standing the real drift of his remarks. In this light we may appre- ciate why J. Pierpont Morgan who, we believe, holds the highest lay- office in the Episcopal Church, which disputing as it does the apos- tolic succession with the Catholic Church is inherently antagonistic to it, has donated $10,000 to the Catholic University at Washington. In like manner we may see why Nelson W. Aldrich, Senator from Rhode Island, and Stephen B. Elkins, Senator from West Virginia, have each donated $2,500. In return for these and other favours, to which they are as nothing, the Catholic Church is expected to stand as a solid wall against every phase of that Socialism which is the nightmare of the monopolistic class. It is really a case of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. The party in power has been perpetrating a fraud to the end that hundreds of thousands of dollars should be improperly paid into the coffers of the Catholic Church. In this connexion it should be borne in mind that there is a radical distinction between Catholicism and clericalism. Commenting upon this distinction, Mr. Franklin H. Wentworth, Staff Correspondent, Washington, D. C., says, in an article entitled " Influence of the Catholic Clergy in American Politics," published in " The Appeal to Reason " for March 25, 1906 : " Catholicism is an organised reli- gious society; clericalism is a cabal of men who use the cloak and organisation of the church to further political design. The great body of Catholics are not, and have never been, in favor of clerical- ism; and when clericalism has gained possession of the powers of the church, there has never failed to come a movement like that of St. Francis, to rescue the faith from men who were degrading it to pri- vate uses. " Ignorant Protestants are commonly assuming that the disruption of the Concordat and the consequent divorce of church and state in France is the result of a warfare waged by Socialists against the Catholic church. Nothing could be further from the truth. " It is a warfare against clericalism, in which the majority of Cath- olics in France are in hearty sympathy. The Catholics themselves are among the strongest supporters of the policy of disruption. They feel the church should be purged of politicians, that it may follow its proper vocation as a teacher of faith and morals. " It is this thing which the people of Catholic nations are striving to be rid of, that the American republic bids fair to take on, unless the rank and file of the Catholics unite in preventing it, as their fellows in the faith are doing in France." Referring to the present party's shady sectarian transactions, Mr. Wentworth says: "The diversion of Indian Trust funds, by dis- honest and tricky methods, to the support of Catholic missions, to which the President of the United States was so easily led, marks the open entry of clericalism into national politics ; and if not promptly arrested it will bring ki its train a multitude of evils which history shows lies in store for a nation which once gets into the toils of priestly influence. " Briefly, the circumstances were these : 595 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION " A dozen years ago the government announced that payments to sectarian missionary societies for carrying on boarding-schools among the Indians would be reduced a certain percentage each year till the system disappeared. All denominations doing missionary work were getting this money not Catholics alone. The Episcopalians had a number of extensive plants, and when the government purse-strings were pulled, howled as loud as anybody. But the policy prevailed and the funds diminished. The Episcopalians threw up the sponge. But the clericals in the Catholic church made up their minds to do a little lobbying at Washington." This Catholic influence at Washington was, we are told, denomi- nated "an eccelsiastical lobby" by Dr. Lyman Abbott. Mr. Went- worth continues : " Senator Bard of California, a Republican, de- clares Prof. Scharf promised that if Congress would continue sec- tarian appropriations of $200,000 for two years, the Catholics would support the Eepublicans in twenty doubtful Congressional districts. Prof. Scharf also threatened Congressman John H. Stephens of Texas with defeat by Catholic votes if he did not cease his opposition. The professor also flooded the third Congressional district of Wisconsin with circulars to Catholics urging the reelection of Congressman Bab- cock, and succeeded in making good the latter's return to Washing- ton, where he had been of great service, as the circular states, in getting local appropriations for the Catholic hospital in the District of Columbia. " But Congress did not undo the settled policy of discontinuing ap- propriations and the bill was rejected. " So the * ecclesiastical lobby ' found a way to beat the game by using the President himself for their purpose. They aimed to get the Indian trust fund by a little Jesuitical guile; and if the President caught on to their method, he never told anybody. " They sent out to the reservations and got the Indians to sign peti- tions asking that their trust money be given over to the Catholic mis- sion schools. They were given loaves of bread and other small things for signing the paper which few of them understood. Most of them signed with a cross, and the petitions in any event represented but a handful of each tribe. As an illustration, money belonging to a tribe of 5,000 Indians, held in trust for them at Washington, was paid over to the clericals on a petition bearing only 150 signatures. The Indians were plainly buncoed by the clericals, as the subsequent pro- tests clearly show. But through the courtly instrumentality of Mr. Charles J. Bonaparte the petitions were properly shoved up to the President, who did the needful, and the clericals got the money." We are then told that, when these transactions were criticised, " Mr. Eoosevelt met them with his usual diplomacy. He ignored the fact that he had morally no right to permit the diversion of the funds in any quantity, particularly as Congress had taken a decided stand to end the whole business. He did not undertake to explain why he should assume responsibility for the sequestration of the common property of a tribe in thus honouring so suspicious and discreditable a draft. He merely remarked that care must be taken to see that the petitions were genuine, and that money appropriated for any given 596 THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR school should represent only the pro rata proportion to which the In- dians making the petition were entitled. How impressively ' careful ' the transactions proved, may be noted in the report of the Indian Rights Association. "Under this 'pro rata' plan the Holy Rosary Roman Catholic school at Tine Ridge would be entitled to $700. It gets this year $21,600, out of the funds of the whole tribe. "The Catholic schools at Pine Ridge, Rosebul and Crow Creek, would be entitled to but $1,803. They receive $55,620. This is a clear steal, morally, of $53,817 from the poor Indians who are now protesting. " In brief, the President of the United States, in order to favour his Catholic constituents, stands by and sees the perpetration of one more crime against the wretched ' children of the White Father/ " Mr. Wentworth informs us that in 1902 Congress made a free gift of $50,000 to the Providence Hospital, a Catholic institution. In 1903, he tells us, another quiet appropriation of $50,000 slipped through Congress, while in 1904 the gift to this institution was $100,- 000. "And the District bill now" (March 11, 1905), "before Con- gress," Mr. Wentworth continues, " contemplates a further gift to the Catholic hospital of $130,000. If this is allowed, and it may be, now that the Sisters' prayers have prevailed and Mr. Babcock has come back, this Catholic institution will have received in three years $330,- 000 of public money for its private use. To look at the plant, one wonders how as much as $150,000 could have been spent upon it; but as the appropriations are for ' land and buildings ' it may be that the government is helping the Catholic church to extend its landlord- ism, merely." The article goes on to show in a most painstaking way the exact manner in which the Catholic organisation was used to further the election of the Republican party. Mr. Wentworth gives signed cor- respondence in which it is stated that this campaign was conducted with the knowledge and approval of President Roosevelt and Mr. Cortelyou, to whom the matter circulated was submitted. It is interesting to note that about the time the lay lobby is disap- pearing from Washington because it has been found more advan- tageous for corporations to own Senators outright than to attempt to control them by lobbying, the "ecclesiastical lobby" is assuming menacing proportions. W T hen asked what stood between Russia and liberty, the late Verestchagin replied, " The monarch, priest and the soldier. Our sage monopolists determine to resist every effort which may be made to unseat them from the back of labour." Paraphrase this as follows : The Supreme Court our real autocrat the Cath- olic church and the army. It remains to be seen whether or not the American people will long tolerate this ever-accentuating Russian condition of affairs. By no means the least corruptive of modern influences is to be men- tioned, the American press. Apart from Captain-of-Industry articles and the like which must be charged to our magazines, most of the harm done by the press has been effected by the newspapers. The habit of newspaper reading is in itself perversive of literary taste and 597 artistic excellence. The individual addicted to newspapers soon be- comes unfit for any consecutive intellectual effort. In connexion with this subject, we quote the following from " The Philistine " of April, 1906 : " I began life as a printer's devil and still have a few of that worthy's virtues. I have reported things that never happened ; written solemn, pellucid, pescud editorials by the yard about nothing; sat in the managing editor's uneasy chair, and I have checked the receipts from advertisements and chuckled over the bal- ance in the bank. " I know the taste of glue rollers, the mysteries of the waiting galleys, the slap-dash, biliy-be-damned quality of the editorial room. ".Some of the best men on earth are newspaper men journalists are different. The newspaper man works for the paper that hires him; hates the people the owner hates; caps the paper's game and partakes of its prejudices; and wears out his life in loyal service for a management that does not give a tinker's tool for him or anybody. " The owner of the paper has no opinions on anything no ideals he has only a thirst, and a lust to own. What he wishes is to make money have a big circulation, wield an influence, and ride in a red-devil automobile. He has certain bulldog qualities which the writing men have not, otherwise they would own the paper and he would be working in J)old's packing-house a member of the Meat Cutter's Union or running a saloon. But as for honour and intel- lect, he is a bankrupt. " There may be exceptions, nothing is impossible with God. " The daily newspaper is the supreme corrupter of the life and mor- als of the people. It familiarises the young with vice and crime, and emphasises everything that should be forgotten. Not long ago the owner of the Indianapolis ' Star ' was in Washington making a plea before the Senate Committee in behalf of certain newspaper privi- leges. He argued that the daily newspaper was the educator and en- lightener of the people. A member of the committee produced a copy of the ' Star ' and showed that one-third of the entire space was given up to advertising pelvic diseases and men-only abominations, and that four-fifths of the news items related to elopements, defalcations, se- ductions and unnamable crimes. " The daily newspaper the educator of the people ? That Senate Committee should have adjourned to laugh aye, or to weep. " The daily newspaper the educator of the people ! No newspaper man ever had the effrontery to say so only a fat and crinkle-necked proprietor, lachrymose with red rum, dare put forth such an asser- tion. " Take the papers, say in Buffalo, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Toledo and Omaha, do any of them stand for higher endeavour, art, educa- tion and human betterment? Do any of them make it their policy to encourage that which is excellent and true? On the contrary, do they not all feature the base, the wrong, the trifling and the transient? Are not the men who own them without exception, chuckle-headed ignorami, fawners and trucklers for place and power, boosting this grafting bigwig and that, and smothering the worthy with silence ? " Eealising the vileness of their so-called news some of them print 598 THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR mushy sermons by persons of literary notoriety, so as to make us believe the press is the agent of morality. A half page of the trite, the true and the ' unco gude ' can never season the barrell of swill it is a daily newspaper just the same." . . . " Newspapers are business ventures run to make money, and the money is made thru the sale of advertising space. In order to sell this space the paper must have a circulation, and to boom this circu- lation the paper resorts to sensation, and panders to the weak, the depraved, the vicious, the immoral and the prurient. It panders to the worst people, and it panders to the worst in the so-called good people. " We are all in degree corrupted thru the daily newspaper. " We are obsessed with the hallucination that we must read the daily paper in order to keep informed on the news of the day. We allow our brains to be used as a sieve for sewage, in the hope of finding a grain of corn. '"' The Newspaper Habit is upon us, and we crave the salacious morsel as a tumble bug turns to his dessert. :t The insignificant price one cent makes it deadly easy to suc- cumb, as the waiter at supper or the boys in the street thrust at us the latest issue, printed at three o'clock, and marked 'Six o'clock Edition/ " The newspapers employ an army of children in the streets who cry their wares. Very many of them are beggars and we buy to get rid of them to salve our conscience with the thought that we are doing charity; and the Proprietor fosters the charity idea with Thanks- giving dinners and donations to Newsboys' Homes, proclaiming his own goodness in flaring headlines. " We speak sometimes of the ' Yellow Journals ' they are all yel- low only some are deeper tinted than others. " When you, read a newspaper and are not reading scandal you may be reading paid-for telegrams about the McCurdys. A straight ' Special Telegram ' in most of the newspapers last week reads this way : * The largest bottle order ever given, etc/ It was from Mil- waukee and cost the malt man two dollars a line in each of a hun- dred ' high-class newspapers/ " A week before Miss Eoosevelt's marriage an Associated Press dis- patch from Washington flashed the news around the world, ' Alice Eoosevelt's Monkey is Dead/ At first glance we all thought the wed- ding was off, but on reading the precious news we were informed that a pet monkey presented to Miss Eoosevelt in the Philippines had succumbed to pneumonia after a painful illness, where the best of medical counsel failed and everything but Osteopathy and Christian Science were tried ! Alas ! " The daily newspaper the educator of the people ! God help us, it may be so! It educates into inattention, vacuity, foolishness, folly and sin. It saps concentration, dissipates aspiration, scrambles gray matter and irons out convolutions." In " The Cost of Competition," Mr. Sidney A. Eeeve says : " The degeneration of the newspaper arises from a single corrupting force: 599 profit-seeking. This operates detrimentally both from within and from without, but especially from without." . . . " Turn, for instance, to the man who wrote too well to be a jour- nalist : Kipling. In his ' Light that Failed ' he has Dick preach a sermon to Maisie, to the effect that good work can only be done while one is unconscious of self and of success. But the competitive system forces every striver in artistic lines to have one eye cocked always for success, since only by success can he live. He is not awarded an in- come by the art-loving public according to the quality of his work; he must abandon quality in order to produce quantity. He must appeal to the greatest numbers ; for his managers, operating commer- cially, choose their programmes solely according to the audience which they will gather, to the profits which they will return. No attention is paid to an auditor's taste; it may be good or atrocious; if he has a dollar ready to pay, that settles the question; he shall be served with what he prefers. So the artist must play to the galleries, be- cause the galleries, thumbs up or thumbs down, declare literally whether he shall feed or starve, live or die/' . . . " When the prostitution of literature to the manufacture of books comes in, the inspiration being measured in terms of the amount of copy it will produce, the man's fate is sealed. Out of the ashes of the murdered muse, if the writer learns and repents, may arise the incarnation of a new one; otherwise his art and his fame are dead forever. " This is what is the matter with journalism. The muse is not, in- deed, impaled upon the copy-hook. Space is usually in demand more than copy. But she is outraged by the scareheads and the sensational and sporting news which is relied upon to catch the taste of the public majority; for no regard is paid to the quality of the clientele. The two cents of the newsboy is as good as that of the Academician. And as the lowest tastes and tendencies are the ones which open the pockets most promptly upon excitation, those are the ones to which constant appeal is made. The more sensational the matter the greater the profits. Only the extremity of public opinion and the law bars out sheer obscenity." . . . " No news must be printed, no editorial attitude taken, which may offend large advertisers or large bodies of subscribers. The news and its manner of presentation, in scareheads and sensational con- tents, must be debased to the task of securing circulation; the edi- torials to that of currying favour. ,0ur journals have exactly the same problem of intellectual independence invaded by need of pe- cuniary endowment which threatens the proper usefulness of our uni- versities, our theatres, and our churches. " In such negative fashion does the competitive system inspire man's highest literary efforts ! Is this the honoured Muse, .triumph- ant, in a waggon hitched to a star? Is not rather the rider before the cart, the Muse harnessed as a draft-animal, with blinders, that she may not see how unhappy is her own plight ; and in the waggon behind the blinders a very mundane burden : a golden calf, heavy and unin- spiring ? " Taking up the numbered list seriatim, effort in the first discretion 600 THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR is purely commercial in its nature: unalloyed barter, the acquisition of influence over men. " Effort in the second direction is the same ; but it masquerades very successfully as reportorial work. It consists in publishing spicy re- ports of sensational local incidents, in embellishing them with the most startling of scareheads. No man of literary taste would ever think of presenting facts in such a manner except for hire. Yet it gets to be an unconscious habit. For instance, a local sheet furnishes these headlines : 'AGED LADY DEAD/ 'Was One of M bury's well known Residents/ ' STENCH SOMETHING AWFUL/ " To be sure, in this case the sensational becomes prominent from an unfortunate juxtaposition, of the news of the death of an estimable citizen and that of a break in the town-sewer; but its unconsciousness illustrates the carefully cultivated tendency to shout out something terse, coarse and incisive, as the newsmonger's first duty, better than would a more deliberate offence. It typifies the explanation of why it is that, in a million cases, our better taste is jostled and jarred by the coarse and incongruous. It makes plain why it is that even in the journals furthest removed from the 'yellow/ there is no effort, made or pretended even, to give news prominence in proportion to its real importance. It is displayed with sole regard to its probable influence over the purchasers of the paper. In this it addresses the millions." The following poem by Bertrand Shadwell, published in the " New Age " of London, is a fair characterisation of newspaper methods : "YELLOW NEWS." " A CHICAGO SONG." " They're mostly ' Dagos ' in the trade; But ' some o' the guys is Jews; ' And this is the way the money's made; And this is the sort of news: They know the stuff the public likes; It's blood the penny brings; So this is the note the newsboy strikes, And this is the song he sings. Chorus (Shouted): " 'Ere y'ur! Paper-ur! Extree one o'clock murder! Bloody riots! Dreadful axdents! Many lives lost! "They're piping hot from the pictured Press, In blathering blue and red, A simpering, smirking murderess, Her dupe and victim dead, 601 Some 'bandit-boys' and a Beast or two; (A sickener sure to sell:) All Vice and Villainy's Vile Review, With the yellowest yell to yell. Chorus (Yelled): "'Ere y'aw! Paper-aw! Extree three o'clock murdaw! Dreadful 'oldups! Bloody suicides! Many lives lost! "The scarlet sunset steeps the sky, And smears the smoke with blood; Now, swift the yellow newsboys fly Through the suggestive mud: They flip the fleeting cable-car; They dive among the throng; While, shrieked above the roar and Jar, Soars their seductive song. Chorus (Shrieked): " 'Ere y'arr! Paper-arr! Extree five o'clock big double family^* murder and suicide! Dreadful pictures!! Bloody supplement!!! Many lives lost! ! ! ! " We quote the following from the " Springfield Republican " and the " Mexican Herald " as fairly characteristic of much of our present " journalism." "'YELLOW JOURNALISM : Sensationalism, big scare headlines, crude display, faked illustrations, comic supplement vulgarities and botched presswork are the hall marks of a rudimentary form of jour- nalism which is an anachronism in this modern era of enlightenment. They belong to the stone age of intelligence. Yellow journalism will undoubtedly continue to hold a place until, in some remote futurity, an educated people shall demand of the whole public press intelligence, decency, and good taste/* Springfield Republican. "THE YELLOW JOURNAL EVIL: It would be well if the great Sunday papers in the United States would, in their supplements, try to cultivate the artistic taste of the young instead of serving up coloured horrors and sketches of impossibly brutal men and youths. In their great art supplements, the Buenos Ayres papers are true edu- cators of the masses. If Italy still remains a country where the com- mon people love art and have the artistic faculty, it is because the youth of the land are familiar from childhood with beautiful objects. The brutality of the coloured supplements is evident. Children whose sole notions are derived from the adventures of Happy Hooligan and Bad Boys will surely grow up lacking in fine feeling and good man- ners. Mexican Herald. 602 THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR Writing of the newspaper-reader, Mr. Sidney A. Reeve says, in the work already referred to : " Those who run as they read do not pre- tend to digest or reflect They do not even care to absorb. * In one ear and out the other ' is the motto of the newspaper-reader. " Ninety-five per cent, of the reading done of daily journals is of the same hideous sort of debauchery of the mind that the degenerate Romans used to exercise with the stomach : gluttony relieved by artifi- cial, unnatural rejection, and carried on from the lowest of motives : the overtitilation of sensory nerves finally become too tired to respond to ordinary wholesome excitation. Only let the matter be graphic and sensational enough to arrest and divert the weary attention for a mo- ment from the grim demands of the daily struggle ! Only let it not be a thing to stay by one, demanding serious consideration, effort at understanding, digestion, reflection, offering its addition to life's ac- cumulation of wisdom ! For there is no time nor strength for such things in the competitive campaign. He who preserves them must give up all economic hope and drop resignedly into the ranks of the unpaid : the labourers, the scholars and the artists. " It is to such an audience as this that journalism necessarily caters to-day and by the verdict of which it lives or dies. The survival of the sensational is inevitable. To contemn the ' yellow ' journals from a platform of superior morality is at once specious, futile and hypo- critical. They are not only doing just what every other business man in the country is doing: seeking trade, without too fine a question as to the nature of the means or of the incidental results, but they are doing it because he is doing it. They cannot possibly stop ; they must inevitably get worse and worse, until he stops. So let him who has not sinned to the extent of seeking trade and profit, in ways not lend- ing to the glory and improvement of his native land, cast at fallen journalism the first stone. When he has purified himself he will find, mirabile dictu, that her garments are already clean. " Let barter be but abolished and journalism will rise from its pres- ent bed of mud as a whitened angel. Of advertising there will be no more. Bulletins there will be, in plenty, but not often of prices; only of real novelties on the market." A little later Mr. Reeve illumines his thought upon this subject with the following italicised passage, "All that is beautiful in our community-life can be traced directly to cooperation, all that is hide- ous to barter" Another of the crying ills which results from the present day worship of Mammon has been aptly called "the social price." In the mad scurry for business every endeavour is made on the part of Smith to undersell Jones. This results in a cheapening of quality, in adulterations and a general lowering of the standard, on the one hand, and in a tendency to cut wages below the point of bare sub- sistence, on the other. The sweat-shop is far too great a factor in all our large department enterprises. My lady who haunts the bargain-counters in the hope to get some- thing for less than it cost to produce it, little thinks that she is taking the bread from some baby's mouth, or driving some starving young woman to a life of wantonness and crime. 603 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION According to the figures of Kate Kichards O'Hare, a Rescue Mission worker of many years' experience, there are in the United States ap- proximately 600,000 public prostitutes and possibly as many more who eke out their insufficient earnings by the sacrifice of their chastity. This Rescue Mission worker says in an article published in " The Worker " for Saturday, May 26, 1906 : " From one end of the earth to the other glows the ruddy glare of the ' Red Light District/ Our social world is built upon the thin tottering crust between the under- world and us. Here and there great chasms yawn, and tho' the whole of society is scorched by the flames beneath, tho' our ears are assailed with the cry of the damned, we hypocritically close our eyes and ears and if we recognise the volcano on which we stand we modestly call it the ' social evil ' and relegate it to the things of which* it is not respectable to converse." . . . " When poverty forces the girl out of the home to struggle for her livelihood, she finds that the law of business competition has fixed all wages at the bare cost of existence. The purchasers of women's labour have taken into consideration the fact that she can eke out her earn- ings by the sale of her sex, and therefore have placed her wage below the cost of existence, and necessity compels that they sell their virtue for the bread their wages will not supply. " Ninety-nine per cent, of the fallen women are those who have toiled long and earnestly in the endeavour to sustain life by labour and in the end have been forced to sell their sex as well as their la- bour-power to the men who control the machinery of production." Our social system is so organised that everything which tends to increase productiveness inures to the advantage of the landlord. As the output of labour becomes yearly greater the returns to labour become yearly less; nor is this condition to be accounted for upon the assumption that capital gets the difference. Frantic efforts have indeed been made to show that wages have risen, and statistics have been submitted to prove that the labourer gets more dollars to-day for his week's work than he formerly received. This may deceive the unthinking, but those who look below the surface know that wages are not a matter of dollars but of purchasing power. Men do not live by eating dollars but by eating bread, and if their larger number of dollars buys fewer pounds of bread they know that wages have fallen, despite what politicians, anxious for votes, may say to the contrary. As competition grows keener and keener the labourer and the con- sumer, which is also to say the labourer as the consumer, as well as the labourer as the worker, will be ground finer and finer between the upper and nether millstone. The constant tendency of this competitive pressure will be to force the purchasing power of wages lower and lower. We have seen in the last few years how, when it becomes infeasible because of labour organ- isations or for political reasons to further reduce wages in terms of dollars, the price of commodities is advanced so that the labourer sustains a cut in real wages, often without knowing it, and without affecting his allegiance to the political party which was directly or indirectly largely responsible for it. Nor is this all. At the same time that the price of commodities is forced up their quality is de- 604 THE SHADOW OF THE DOLLAR teriorated, so that no only does the labourer's dollars purchase much less food than formerly but what it does purchase is growing yearly poorer and poorer in quality. If you wished to buy a pound of sausage, Hamburger steak, a can of meat, a bottle of catsup, a pint of olive oil or a bottle of flavouring extract and be sure that the article was pure, wholesome and unadulterated, in short just what it was advertised to be, you are more fortunate than the average if you would know where to make your purchase. What, then, must be the fate of the ignorant poor who earn in sweat-shops and like blots upon 20th century civilisa- tion scarcely enough to keep body and soul together? Go through the poor districts of any of our large cities and look at the so-called food exposed for sale in dark, dingy, dirty cellar groceries. Let no one think that these injustices stop here. The woman who fights her way through the crowds around the bargain counter in order that she may get something at a price which starves its maker, is creating a debt which society cannot escape paying. This social price will be exacted to the last drachma in houses of ill- fame, prisons, alms-houses, hospitals, and in general racial deteriora- tion. It is high time that the well-to-do awoke to the realisation that the iniquity or inequity which he practises to-day upon some less for- tunate fellow-being will, with the slow certainty of the cancer, ulti- mately reach him and his. There is but one psychic atmosphere, and rich and poor must breathe it. Subtle as the hypothetical ether, it permeates all would-be barriers, and, like an impalpable contagion, it tends to subdue us all to its own tint. How important, then, is it that we should purify to the utmost our psychic environment; that we should realise that, just as a foul small-pox district is a menace to our physical health, so every injustice practised upon our fellow- beings threatens our national life and degrades our psychic well-being. The moral regeneration which will follow the adoption of the Gil- lette System 'can scarcely be imagined, so fundamental and far- reaching are its salutary influences. It will seem like the dawn of an ethical day beside which all other days are as nights. 605 BOOK XI CHAPTER I. COMPETITION THE WAR OF PEACE. PART I CHAPTER II. COMPETITION THE WAR OF PEACE. PART II CHAPTER III. THE PRESSURE OF SOCIETY UPON THE INDIVIDUAL CHAPTER IV. SOME CAUSES AND KESULTS OF SOCIAL PRESSURE 607 The consumer is between the upper and nether millstone. Walter O. Cooper Fate of the Middle Classes. Our wonderful productive methods waste enough to build homes for a million families a year. IMd. In order to learn what trusts are for, we must study the conditions which give rise to them. Corn was burned as fuel on the plains when people went hungry in cities. Coal miners were on a strike for living wages at a time when people in a neighbouring city were shivering for lack of something to. burn. One morning in the winter of 1884, when the temperature was near zero, I saw in the railroad yards of Cincinnati, a delicate girl in a cal- ico dress and cotton stockings, with only a thin shawl thrown over her shoulders, trying with blue and benumbed fingers to pull from the frozen mud a few scattered lumps of coal which had fallen from the cars. At the same time the miners of the Hocking Valley were out because the price of coal was so low that the operators could not pay them enough to keep families comfortable. Bread and coal were drugs in the market while people went hungry and cold. 608 CHAPTER I COMPETITION THE WAR OF PEACE PART I " Statisticians of repute tell that of all business enterprises undertaken over 95 per cent, ultimately fail." Oliver R. Trowbridge in Bisocialism Economics. TTNDREDS of thousands of years ago, long anterior to the Neolithic age, two primitive beings suddenly came face to face in the thick jungle. This was the first time, perhaps, that either of these hairy savages suspected there was another strange man upon his earth. The information doubtless came to him in the nature of a shock. It is probable that his first thought was that he had discovered a new animal which he should kill and eat. The per- ception, however, that this animal was very like himself must have followed the first shock to his sluggish faculties. Treading close upon the heels of this observation would naturally have come the thought that the presence of this other being might interfere with his own absolute freedom of action, on the one hand, at the same time that it divided his means of sustenance, on the other. It was no easy matter in those days to kill game with the crude implements at his disposal, and it would be still harder were some other savage to hunt the same territory. The thoughts which passed through the mind of one savage would naturally at the same time pass through that of the other. Each would come to reason that the presence of the other was a menace to his well-being. So far as either could see, there was but a certain amount of good things to be had. If they were to be shared by two, instead of wholly possessed by one, there would only be half as many. Right here was the idea of com- petition first born, for it must be remembered that the essential principle of competition inheres only in a condition where there is an insufficiency of some commodity to supply all desires, or, what amounts to the same thing, where such is feared to be the case. If there be an over-plus of a certain article resulting in a competitive struggle to exchange it, the result is the same. There is still an insufficiency, actual or feared, of the available commodity sought by exchange. Money is merely the common denominator of all desires, the facile tool which can be at once converted into any article within the circle of exchange. The very essence of the competitive idea, therefore, is the sense of a struggle to secure some desired thing under conditions which make it inevitable that some are to fail in the struggle. To make our thought clear, let us take for an illustration some- 39 609 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION thing with which all are familiar. When a popular dramatic star plays an engagement, there is a keen desire on the part of a goodly number of play-goers to witness the performance. The theatres fre- quently advance the rates, so that many of the poorer class are obliged to forego the pleasure of reserved seats and to take their chances with what are known as "rush seats." Observe, now, what happens. An hour or so before the performance there is a dense crowd before the door of the second gallery where the " rush seats " are located. The main entrance to the theatre is still comparatively deserted. The members of this crowd push and jostle each other for preferred posi- tions near the door. Whenever any sound leads them to believe the door is about to be opened the crush increases, and, when finally the door is opened, there is a wild stampede up the stairs, in which women and children are frequently severely injured. The main entrance to the theatre is still deserted, and half or three quarters of an hour later people begin to stroll leisurely in. There is no jostling, no excite- ment, no mad rush for the entrance. Everything is quiet and orderly. What is the cause of this wide difference in behaviour? It is this. In the case of the " rush seats " there is competition. In the case of the reserved seats there is none. There are not enough desirable "rush seats" to go around. There are sure to be enough reserved seats. This is what makes the difference. That there should be those who aver that there is such zest in rushing up the stairs in a game where some are bound to lose that they infinitely prefer it to having a reserved seat where there are bound to be seats enough for all, is a sad comment both upon the intelligence and morality of the 20th century. Bearing in mind, then, that the essence of competition is strife resulting from insufficiency of desirables, let us glance for a mo- ment at its present good repute. We have been told again and again that competition is the life of trade, and to-day a large portion of our people believe that all our social ills results from the fact that competition is not free. We do not, of course, forget that there is a large and constantly growing faction, who believe in the abolition of competition altogether, but for the moment we are interested in see- ing how so many have come to make a veritable fetish of this economic factor. The reason is not far to seek. With very few and insig- nificant exceptions, the whole civilised world has for many decades had to choose between competition and monopoly, and it is not so very long ago when a great many even lacked the power of choice, monopoly being forced upon them. Now, as between competition and monopoly there can, of course, be but the one choice for the people and the other choice for the monopolists. If it can be shown that this is the only alternative that if we do not have competition, we must have monopoly, then it would seem clear to us that we should struggle to our utmost to bring our present competitive system to its most savage state of virility, until the last vestige of monopoly is driven from the land and we all of us are fighting the economic fight with equal weapons and a fair apportionment of ammunition. If a man's inherent greed can be checked only by that counteracting inherent greed of his fellow, which we call competition, by all mean.8 610 THE WAR OF PEACE let it be cheeked in that way, since in monopoly it is not checked at all, but runs riot. It is not our purpose in this chapter to consider at any length, or with any degree of thoroughness, what can be said either for or against competition in its last analysis, but rather to invite the Read- er's attention to certain patent factors bearing upon the case. We believe that a little argument will convince any searcher for truth, that any ordinary commercial competition becomes a factor in trade only when there is a lack of balance, real or apparent, between supply and demand, which is to say that competition becomes active just in the ratio that commercial conditions become undesirable. Space does not permit us to elaborate the corollaries of these propo- sitions at this juncture, as the matter is to be treated at some length upon another occasion, but we believe the close reasoner will deduce for himself the fact that competition, when it is competition par excellence, reaches equity only when it is equally balanced on both sides of a transaction, and, therefore, mutually annihilatory. A word will explain. A seller asks all he can get. A purchaser buys as cheap as he can procure. The seller would demand exorbitant prices if not checked by competition of other sellers. The buyer would offer ruinous prices if not checked by the competition of other buyers. If the competition on both sides of the transaction is just balanced, an equitable price will result. If there are more sellers than buyers, down goes the price below an equitable figure. If buying competition outweighs selling competition, up goes the price toward extortion. The point we make is simply this, that, under a competitive system, justice results only when competition is balanced equal and opposite on both sides of the transaction and, therefore, mutually annihilatory. If such be the case it must, of course, be wasteful. In algebra, when we have the same quantity on both sides of the equation, the first thing we do is to eliminate it by cancellation. Having submitted the proposition that competition is wasteful, we will now proceed to consider to what degree this waste is costly. In his " Fate of the Middle Classes/' Walter G. Cooper, Secretary of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, says : " Sociologists tell us that there comes a time in the history of governments, when the militant type, having done its work, gives place to the cooperative type." . . . " The same evolution has brought industrial institutions to the point where the militant type, characterised by competition, has reached the danger point. By the survival of the fittest we have industries so great and so powerful that they would destroy each other and pull down the whole framework of business if competition between them went on without restriction. For example: the big railway systems have to put buffer combinations called traffic associations be- tween themselves to prevent mutual destruction by cut-throat compe- tition. When the courts dissolve the buffers, the next thing is a consolidation on a larger scale, or, if that is defeated, a community of interest and a kind of unwritten working arrangement which serves as a modus Vivendi. " Competition unrestrained becomes destructive under modern con- 611 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION ditions, and the strong crush or capture the weak. Thus competition tends to destroy itself, and to establish monopoly in its place. The ranks of industry are thinned by this warfare, but the survivors are great in proportion to the number of their victims." Says Mr. Herbert Spencer: "From war has been gained all that it had to give. The peopling of the earth by the more powerful and intelligent races is a benefit in great measure achieved, and what re- mains to be done, calls for no other agency than the quiet pressure of a spreading industrial civilisation on a barbarism which slowly dwindles." In the work already referred to, Mr. Cooper says, in a chapter en- titled " The Misfit of Industry " : " The ill-adjusted production by which so much of the world's energy has been wasted is the inevitable result of the division of labour. " The difference between the blind energy of numerous and widely separated competitors and the same units organised and combined for concerted action is the difference between a mob and an army. " The effectiveness and economy of energy in the army is no greater than it is in the army of industry, which combines in a few compact organisations all the establishments of that line. For example, we have the army of iron and steel producers, composed of several great combinations which correspond to army corps. " The early history of consolidated industries is not altogether peaceful. Their path is not strewn with roses. Until some kind of federation takes place, destructive warfare is always a possibility for them. " In proportion as the conflict of armies is more deadly and destruc- tive than the incoherent outbreak of mobs, so the conflict of industrial combinations is more destructive than ordinary competition. When the conflicts become international, they will be embittered by national antipathies and sustained by governmental policy. " The contemplation of industrial warfare under these conditions will tend to make less frequent such destructive conflicts. But when they do come the waste of wealth will be frightful, and will by its con- sequent suffering provoke such a protest from the toilers of the earth that eventually a truce will be declared. " It, is to that ultimate stage of industrial development that we must look for the best results of consolidation, for when industrial warfare in nations has been succeeded by worse conflicts between them, and these in turn have given place to international cooperation, with a free and fair exchange of the best fruits of earth and the best products of toil, we shall have reached an era in which the murder of men by wholesale will be no longer tolerated, and the unspeakable horrors of war will give place to generous emulation in the helpful works of industry." In the case of Kellogg vs. Larkin, (3 Pinney 150,) the Court said, in relation to the subject we are discussing: "I apprehend that it is not true that competition is the life of trade. On the contrary, that maxim is one of the least reliable of the host we may pick up in every marketplace. It is in fact the shibboleth of mere gambling speculation, and is hardly entitled to take rank as an axiom in the 612 THE WAR OF PEACE jurisprudence of this country. I believe universal observation will attest that in the last quarter of a century competition in trade has caused more individual distress than the want of competition. Indeed, by reducing prices below or raising them above value (as the nature of the trade permitted) competition has done more to monopolise trade,or to secure exclusive advantages in it, than has been done by contract. Eivalry in trade will destroy itself, and rival tradesmen seek to remove each other, rarely resorting to contract unless they find it the cheapest mode of putting an end to the strife." Of a similar character was the pronouncement of Justice Grey of the New York Court of Appeals in the case of Leslie vs. Lorrilard (110 N". Y. 519), to wit: "I do not think that competition is in- variably a public benefit ; for it may be carried on to such a degree as to become a general evil." In " The Social Unrest," Mr. John Graham Brooks says, in refer- ring to the inevitableness of the social question : " The labourer is not, however, left alone with his doubts. The world is full of very wise people, who tell him with great frankness that labour does not in any sense get its fair share. They tell him that, through the manipulating of a thousand chartered privileges, labour is defrauded of a formidable portion of its product. There are no abler economists than dozens who make this declaration. " As for the competitive wage system with its ' free contract/ a troop of eminent men denounce it in unmeasured terms. They de- nounce it economically, because of its wastfulness through unnecessary duplication of rival plants, with the orgy of advertising which this rivalry occasions. They denounce it morally with even more confident disapproval. They see in it the teeming source of the self-seeking which delights to take every advantage of another's weakness or igno- rance, to ' best ' him in the bargain. They see in it the chief stimula- tor of the universal hunger for quick riches which spreads among us the methods and the spirit of the gambler. They charge it with set- ting such a premium upon mere sharpness and cunning that this type of success becomes the attractive idol for general worship." In his work entitled " The Trusts," the Hon. William Miller Col- lier says: " The most noticeable fact in the industrial history of the times is the complete lack of anything like efficient organisation of industry at large. Our advance in general business organisation has not, until within recent years, kept pace with our wonderful inventions and discoveries. Our productive agencies have been mightily improved, but the marshalling of our industrial forces has not received the study that it deserves. Trusts are in some instances, at least, attempts at better organisation. The evils of the system, which such trusts combat, are the evils of unregulated competition. Professor John Graham Brooks in his address at the Chicago Trust Conference declared that one of the most successful business men in the East had said to him : ' If people generally knew how stupidly and wastefully much of the large business is carried on we should become objects of ridicule ; ' and yet the trusts, which are designed to correct these faults and to save these wastes, are the objects, to-day, of popular suspicion, reproach, and hatred. The Chairman of the 613 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Interstate Commerce Commission is quoted as saying, in substance, that if the worst enemies of the railroads had charge of the great means of transportation, they would never dare to do the reckless and indecent things which the managers of the railroads themselves have done in their attempts at competition. Professor Brooks is also the authority for the statement that in the business of insurance, which has been considered a marvel of organisation, there is such waste by reason of unregulated competition that one of the foremost men in the insurance business said to him : ' It would not be safe to have it known how extravagantly things are managed, or to what sorry shifts we are driven;' and that when Professor Brooks asked another prominent insurance man if this criticism were just, he replied : ' Oh, competition has got us now where the only dress we ought to wear is the cap and bells/ Trusts, when organised, as they often are, merely as unions of producers to secure the advantages of such a union in producing, are attempts to regulate business with some degree of wisdom and judgment; but trust organisers are almost invariably denounced as foes to industry and to society. " The wastefulness of unrestrained competition is the great obstacle in the way of cheap production. It is ruinous to the competitors ; it is disastrous even to the community. It not only absolutely prevents cheap production ; it necessitates high prices. What are the incidents to-day of competition ? They are known to every one ; personal obser- vation and experience make us all cognisant of them : duplication and multiplication of effort to obtain a single result, several salesmen striving to secure a single order, selling agencies uselessly multiplied and selling expenses necessarily increased, sales without a profit in order to prevent rivals from selling, sales upon terms of credit that are in themselves a mere dissipation of capital, cut prices and bankrupt sales, these are the methods of modern business life. Competition is said to be the life of trade ; but competition, as it is practised, is, in fact, frequently * war to the knife and knife to the hilt/ It is busi- ness committing suicide. Can men be blamed, are they, in fact, to be condemned or criticised, for endeavouring to stop this senseless, useless, and debasing warfare, this fatuous self-destruction ? " Mr. Collier contends that one of the greatest ills from which we are suffering is the over-production which comes from the use of machin- ery. He evidently belongs to the old school of political economists or should we say that he adheres to the college brand of political econ- omy? Mr. Walter G. Cooper, the author of "Fate of the Middle Classes/' from which we have quoted, holds a similar view. It is most regrettable that writers upon such subjects will adopt, apparently with- out thought, the ancient nomenclature of their forefathers. That Mr. Cooper all but sees the fallacy of his own terms is abundantly evident, but Mr. Collier does not seem to be equally fortunate in this regard. Here is what he says upon the matter, in his attempt to show the advantages of trusts : " But the greatest benefit is not the saving of the insurance, the storage, the interest, or the shop-wear, but that which comes from the lessening of the evil of over-production, an evil, the crushing pressure of which is daily being felt more and more by ail the industrial nations of the world. There is not an industry in 614 THE WAR OF PEACE which machinery has been perfected which is not being endangered by over-production. The machines which the skill and the cunning of men have invented, are becoming Frankensteins that now threaten to crush us. The eighty millions of Americans now have a productive capacity that is equal to the consumptive power of one hundred and sixty millions of Americans ; and it should be borne in mind that the Americans are the greatest consumers of the world. It has been esti- mated that the machines in this country will enable its inhabitants to produce as much as four hundred millions of people could produce without labour-saving machines. There is not a single industry in which the evil of over-production does not exist to-day. Those in which it was first most acutely felt were the first to form trusts." Mr. Cooper points out how the over-production of cotton glutted the market until the growers received less in total payment for a big crop than they had formerly received for a smaller one, and he tells how much better it would have been had they restricted the production by devoting a portion of their land to some other crop. He points out that then they would have had a commodity which, not being a drug on the market, would have had a ready exchange value, and, like Mr. Collier, he calls this evil over-production. At the risk of a slight di- gression we cannot refrain from showing how absurd is such a con- tention. Farmer Smith has put all his land into cotton. He has a thousand bales. It is a drug. He cannot sell it, therefore, it might as well be soap-bubbles. If he had raised but 500 bales and other growers had followed the same proportion and had put the rest of his land, say, into sweet potatoes, we are told that his cotton would have had an exchange value, besides which he would have had a saleable crop of sweet potatoes; not having been wise enough, however, to do this, we are told that he is now a victim of " over-production," and that he is greatly hardshipped thereby. Just how a man can be poor by having too much of a given desirable thing, other things equal, is a trifle hard to understand. Do either of these gentlemen contend that if Farmer Smith had his thousand bales of cotton and his crop of sweet potatoes besides, he would be worse off than if he had five hundred bales and the same crop of sweet potatoes? He need offer for sale but five hundred bales, and then the market, so far as he is concerned, would be just the same as in the other case. If his trouble is over-production per se he ought to be the more hardshipped the more he has of the article which is a drug, without regard to how much or how little he has of any other commodity. Manifestly this is not the case, and we are brought to see that the evil accredited to " over-pro- duction " is not chargeable to a surplus per se of a given commodity but rather to the dearth of other commodities which is the inevitable corollary of the aforesaid surplus. We see, therefore, that men are not made poor by having too much of any commodity, but that they are made poor and hardshipped by having too little of some other commodity, and that where the one channel runs over, the other channel tends naturally to run dry. At first blush this may seem to the casual Eeader like a distinction without a difference, but we beg to assure him that such is not the case. It makes a great difference whether or not we explain an unfortunate commercial condition by 615 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION charging it against an entirely innocent factor, simply because the guilty factor is an inevitable concomitant thereof. To charge poverty to over-production conveys no intelligible image to the mind's eye. To charge it to misapplied or wrong production is quite another thing. We are not poor because we have too much of what we can't exchange, but because we have too little of what we can exchange. The distinc- tion is a vital one, and if it were adhered to we should not find writers expecting to usher in the millennium simply by decreasing production. We are not advocating a disturbance of exchange values by glutting the market, nor are we denying that hardship follows that dearth of a readily exchangeable commodity which usually follows a plethora of some commodity which is a drug. We are only contending ' that poverty is lack of possession rather than plentitude of possession. " Both parties to an exchange," says John M. Gregory, " will be benefited if the utility which each gains is larger to him than the utility which he parts with ; " and Mr. William Smart is the authority for the assertion that " The constant striving of economic progress is toward taking commodities out of the categories of values, and making them utilities like the rain and sunshine." If, however, a man have rain to sell he will find it a serious drug during a freshet, and his sunshine will not be marketable during a drought. The utility which he would like to acquire by an exchange of his drug commodity may be so much superior to the infinitesimal utility with which he would part in said exchange as to render the exchange impossible. Something like this condition of affairs always obtains when the cry of over-production is raised. Speaking further of competition, Mr. Collier says : " Potential competition is also an imperfect remedy, because, when called into activity, it so frequently is the struggle of the weak .against the strong. The competitors are not on a level footing, and the contest, besides being unequal, is unscrupulously conducted. " There is competition and competition ; first, that competition which seeks to attract purchasers by better goods and lower prices, but at prices that mean fair profits and a continuance in business; and, second, that competition which lowers prices below the fair profit mark, and the purpose of which is not to secure custom for the one so lowering the price, but to drive it away from a competitor. The one form of competition is healthful rivalry; the other is a war of ex- termination. One is the life of business; the other its death-blow. Competition favours the strongest competitors. The big usually sur- vive. It is the survival of the biggest rather than the fittest that fre- quently results from competition as it is practised. * Cut-throat ' competition is, in no sense, a practice peculiar to trusts. But when employed by trusts it is a menace to the public, for the great trusts have the power to withstand the effects of competition longer than their small rivals. In so far as this is the result of their ability to produce or market more cheaply, which is frequently, if not generally, the case, we cannot find fault with the competition, for the community wants cheapened production, provided it is not secured by a degrada- tion of the working classes; and the community wants lower prices, provided they are not inconsistent with fair profits. But competitors 616 THE WAR OF PEACE do not confine themselves within these limits. They are merciless in their methods. Prize-fighters do not hit below the belt, but the methods of business competitors are usually more brutal than prize-fighting. With business competitors, it is war to the death. Trusts are prob- ably no worse than individual competitors in this respect; but their powers are greater, and the result of acts done by them is more injurious than when done by feeble individuals. " In an earlier chapter we showed that competition was the mother of trusts. Trusts are born of competition, conceived for the purpose of killing competition; and yet they use competition as a method of exterminating competitors. This paradox calls to mind the story of the minister who ( once preached two sermons as a candidate for a certain church which was without a pastor. His morning discourse was from the passage : ' Ye are of your father, the devil.' His even- ing text was : * Children, obey your parents/ When it comes to the struggle of getting business or killing off a rival in trade, the methods of the trust reflect credit upon its mother, cut-throat competition. A good deal depends upon whether the new competitor is another giant trust or a struggling individual enterprise. If it is a case of rival trust, there may be keen and intense competition ; but if it is a case of the trust against the weak and struggling individual producer, there will be the rankest of unfair methods. When Trust meets Trust, ' then comes the tug of war ; ' but when the Trust meets an individual competitor, then the Trust conducts itself like a thug of the slums. " Small competitive concerns will spring up more quickly than will great ones. Oftentimes the results of careful individual attention to a small business will offset the advantages of greater capital managed by agents and subordinates. Such new small concerns can succeed against extortionate prices, and sometimes even where prices are at the fair profit mark. But what do they meet with from trusts? Cut- throat competition. What is the action of trusts in such cases with regard to prices? It is a lowering of them in the particular locality where the small hand of competition has arisen, lowering them below the fair profit mark, lowering them sometimes below actual cost of production, lowering them at any rate to a point where the small competitors will eventually be driven from business. Why ? Because they have dared to compete. For what purpose ? In order to kill the competition and restore the old prices, or even to exact eventually, higher prices that will compensate for the enforced decrease that was made to kill competition. The community is interested in, yes, is benefited by low prices; but it is injured by sacrifice sales, by v slaughters/ by cut-throat competition. Sales at a loss soon absorb the limited capital of the weak competitor, but the loss of the trust on this fractional portion of its business is more than made up by its extortionate prices in other localities. Sometimes the trust reduces its price below cost in all localities. It is the party with the largest purse that can stand this cut-throat competition the longest, and that party is always the trust. "The kind of competition just outlined is in its nature, at least, conspiracy. It is the use of one's property not directly for one's own benefit but for the injury of another. It violates the spirit, if not 617 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION the letter, of the law against conspiracy. There should be no doubt as to whether or not it does. If doubt exists, statutes should be enacted so as to express in no ambiguous terms their prohibition of such competition. It should be declared criminal, so that the strong arm of the state could punish the wrong/' This last point made by Mr. Collier is of vital import, and should be carefully considered by those who hold that the only danger which can result from large aggregations of capital comes from the special privileges which they acquire, and that if competition were free, pri- vate individuals with far less capital could successfully hold their own. For example, we find even so clear a thinker as Bolton Hall saying, in his " Free America " : " The alleged ability of trusts to charge higher prices merely through their control of huge capital has little founda- tion in fact. The great department stores, with investments of mil- lions of dollars each, not being protected by class legislation, sell goods cheaper and at less rates of profit than small firms doing one-tenth as much business. Without the protection against competition af- forded by various special privileges, the trusts would have no other advantage than that of greater economy and efficiency through lessened expense of management and increased business. This advantage would enable them to drive out smaller competitors only when 'they' could supply goods cheaper; which would increase the demand for labour, increase wealth and greatly benefit the masses who consume things. If there were no monopoly (and under free conditions there could be none), as soon as a trust put up prices new competitors would start up, and prices would fall to near the cost of production. " Trusts are able to extort high prices, when the individuals or the corporations composing them are given a partial or complete monopoly of some particular industry. This is always through some law- granted privilege, such as a public franchise, patent right, protection against foreign competition, or, most important of all, the right to hold out of use lands from which rivals might produce competing commodities. " There is the secret of the trusts' power. Not their huge aggrega- tions of capital, but the exclusive privileges given to some trusts make them dangerous and oppressive." That the major part of what Mr. Hall says in this quotation is true is not to be denied, but the point raised by Mr. Collier is vital and has to be reckoned with. Again and again have small concerns been nailed like dried beetles to the wall by trusts dropping their prices below a living margin of profit, and in some cases even below cost of production. Nor is this all. The knowledge that it can and will be done acts as a powerful deterrent to that capital which otherwise might compete. During the great coal-strike the duty was tempo- rarily removed from a certain grade of coal, and it was thought by many that this would bring the trust to its knees, inasmuch as they believed that American capital would immediately secure ships and start the importation of foreign coal. Nothing of the sort, however, occurred to any considerable degree. To have prepared for this im- portation would have necessitated a very considerable outlay of capital, and this capital had not the slightest guarantee that the duty 618 THE WAR OF PEACE would not be almost immediately reimposed. The result was as the politicians doubtless foresaw at the time, that the coal-barons would not be in the least affected by it in their nefarious exploitation of the suffering public. A duty which thus raises the cost of a commodity to the importer and so handicaps him in competing with home-pro- duced goods, has the same economic effect upon the importer that would be experienced by a domestic producer who found his competi- tors able to make goods much cheaper than he. Thus we see that the ability of a trust to enter the market, establish a cut-throat competi- tion and sell below the cost of production for the purpose of ruining competitors must inevitably act as a deterrent to capitalists who might otherwise compete with them. It is all one to the would-be competitor whether a duty is liable to tax him out of the field, whether his business rivals can actually produce the goods cheaper than he, or whether they have sufficient financial resources to sell below the cost of production. 619 CHAPTER II THE WAR OF PEACE PART II 621 ' Of course, our Jay Goulds and Commodore Vanderbilts are exceed- ingly valuable members of society. But even their genius is not so uni- versal but that we may find occasional employment for a Washington or a Lincoln. And, let me assure you that these types are not absolutely interchangeable. If you are seeking a great soul to guide you through a national crisis, or to uplift you in noble self-sacrifice, it is barely pos- sible that you may be disappointed in Jay or the Commodore. While, on the other hand, if you are seeking all that the traffic will bear, it is possible that you might overlook some very comfortable dividends by relying too much upon George or Abraham. ' But it has been shown by one of our most popular orators,' said Judge Docket, ' that Shakspere frittered away his genius on Hamlets and King Lears because he had the misfortune to live before the days of promoting and stock-jobbing, and that if born a few centuries earlier even such great men as Mr. Gates and Mr. Schwab might have been re- stricted to writing epics or preaching crusades.' ' There is something in that view,' said Colonel Lumpkin, ' but we must not push it too far. I have always contended that ' Paradise Lost ' and the balance sheet of a Trust are both works of imagination; but I have never proposed to interpret them by exactly the same standards of criticism.' John M. Palmer The Morals of Mammon, McClure's, July, 1906. 'Should we resign?' cries old Tom Platt He was dining with old Depew. ' No I will cling like an old Torn cat If you will stick like glue.' And a song they sang, these senators gray, It was short and sad and sere: ' We're here, because we're here, because ' We're here, because we're here.' , Creswell McLaughlin " Song of the Centurions." Life. 622 CHAPTEE II COMPETITION THE WAR OF PEACE PAET II N "Our Benevolent Feudalism," Mr. W. H. Ghent says in his chapter, " Utopias and Other Forecasts ; " " We have also the Single-Taxers, the followers of the late Henry George, who are quite as fertile in prophecy as in polemics. They dream of a millen- nium through the imposition of a tax on the economic value of land, and the abolition of all other taxes and duties of what- ever kind. Free competition is their shibboleth; and it is no less the shibboleth of the Neo-Jeffersonians, the followers of Mr. Bryan. Except for the fact that these two schools are somewhat Jacobinical, their general notions of the coming society do not differ greatly from the notions of the orthodox economists. All of these desire, or think they desire, free competition. Arising out of an era of competition, Professor Clark sees a coming order wherein the rich ' will continually grow richer, and the multi-millionaires will approach the billion-dollar standard ; but the poor will be far from growing poorer ... It may be that the wages of a day will take him (the worker) to the mountains, and those of a hundred days will carry him through a European tour/ " The dreadful spectre of monopoly, however, arises to threaten these visions. Most of the orthodox economists acknowledge a possi- ble danger from it, but the Single-Taxers and Jeffersonians are sure it is a real and growing menace. Says Professor Clark, ' Between us and the regime of monopoly there ranges itself a whole series of pos- sible measures stopping short of Socialism, and yet efficient enough to preserve our free economic system.' It is a ' free economic system ' which all these are bent on having, the economists determined on preserving it, the others on establishing it; for the Single-Taxers, with their bete noire of private ownership of land, and the Jeffer- sonians, with their betes noires of railroads and trusts, deny that our economic system is at present ' free/ Doubtless they are both right ; but if there be one fact in the realm of political economy fairly es- tablished, it is that the era of competition, whether free or unfree, is dead, and the means of its resurrection are unknown to political science. " With old men the dream of its revival is warrantable, for it springe from that retrospective mood of age which gilds past times, and that attendant mood which recreates and projects them into some imagined future but with the younger generation visions of free competition are 623 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION but as children's dreams of wild forests and shaggy animals the atavistic reminders of experiences unknown to the individual, though knit into the fibre of the race. The subject is one far better suited to the domain of a psychologist like Dr. Stanley Hall than to the scope of this book. " Finally, we have the Socialists, with their prophecy of the early establishment of a cooperative commonwealth. It is a noble picture, in its best expression based upon the extreme of faith in the coming generations of mankind, however its draughtsmen may criticise the wisdom and justice of the present. There is no doubt that now a ground-swell of Socialist conviction moves like a tide ' of waters un- withstood/ everywhere one notices its influences. Even so conserva- tive a scholar as Professor Henry Davies, lecturer on the history of philosophy in Yale University, can write, ' There is no doubt that the next form of political activity to claim attention is the socialistic, as it is the most popular and serious of any now before the educated minds of this country.' Its propaganda is carried on untiringly, and that its results are feared is evident from the equal aggressiveness of a counter-propaganda maintained by the ingenious defenders of the present regime against the whole form and spirit of Socialism." From the above quotation one would naturally infer that the posi- tions of the Single-Taxer and of the Socialist in this matter of compe- tition were widely at variance with each other, and, indeed, such is generally believed to be the case. As a matter of fact, however, the advanced Socialists and the ablest Single-Taxers have very little quarrel in this respect. The Socialist says abolish competition; be- cause it is cruel, wasteful and unphilosophical. The Single-Taxer says free competition, because the thing now called competition is cruel, wasteful and unphilosophical and is not as a matter of fact real com- petition at all. In Bellamy's " Looking Backward " it was suggested that the supply and demand of labourers in the various kinds of productive work should be regulated by increasing the hours of work in those pursuits which were over-supplied with applicants, or decreasing the hours in those avocations which were not otherwise sufficiently attractive to labourers, until such time as the supply and demand should be equal. This is a use of the competitive principle in labour for the purpose of determining the just exchange value of products. When an avoca- tion was so desirable that too many labourers competed for an oppor- tunity to engage in it, this socialistic writer advocated making it progressively less desirable until the balance was restored. Thus we see that a certain use of the competitive principle is not repugnant to all Socialists. The Single-Taxer, on the other hand, denies that we now have real competition in any sense which he is willing to accept, and when he has carefully stated what the*" free competition " is which he desires, it is found that its chief function is as a measure of values, and that it is shorn of all those attributes which the Socialist most reprobates. Henry George said : " There is no measure of value among men save competition or the higgling of the market." Speaking of this same competition, Mr. Louis F. Post, one of the 624 THE WAR OF PEACE leading American Single-Taxers, says, in his booklet entitled " Mo- nopoly and Competition " : " It is only by this means that workers can measure their work economically so as to exchange it among themselves fairly and justly. Each understands and can appraise the irksomeness of the labour he himself does, better than he can understand or appraise that of the person with whom he contemplates an exchange. It is natural, therefore, that he should endeavour to adjust his trades from the view point of the irksomeness of his own labour, rather than from that of the irksomeness of another's labour. Yet each is checked from appraising his own labour exorbitantly, by others who would compete if he demanded a larger return than that for which they were willing to endure the same degree of irk- someness. And if all are free, with equal access to natural and social opportunities, this competition can produce but one effect an equilibrium of exchange at a point at which neither party to the trade gets more nor gives less than is just. While it is true that parties to trades may be actuated by selfish motives in their compe- tition, it is equally true that they may be actuated by unselfish mo- tives. And be their motives good or bad, the net result of their com- petition, if they compete in freedom, is a just equilibrium or value. It is justice, not greed, to which competition really ministers. " But under existing arrangements competition is not free. This is a second reason why some thoughtful men have been misled into sup- posing that competition is neither useful nor right. Monopoly having intervened, all competition is affected by it; so that what we are accustomed to regard as competition is not true competition at all, but at the best only jug-handled competition." . . . " It is monopoly, not its antithesis, competition, that distorts, dis- arranges and demoralises our industrial system." . . . " Money obscures the fact that all legitimate trading economically legitimate we mean consists essentially of exchanges of labour for labour; the establishment of monopolies enables some men to get money without labouring. Between the two, the real character of competition in trading is completely hidden from common observa- tion, and also from a good deal of observation that is not common. Trade comes to be in appearance an exchange of something for money, and competition to be a struggle between those who haven't money to get money from those who have it The whole social mechanism is turned upside down and inside out. But it is the abolition of monopoly, not of its opposite, competition, that would correct this. If monopoly were abolished, we should soon distinctly see, in spite of the obscurity which. the use of money introduces, that trade consists essentially in exchanges of labour for labour, and that competition is the natural and only just regulator of values in these exchanges. For if monopoly were abolished, none would get products of labour except by labouring, and each would get these products in proportion to the usefulness of his labour. " The true work before us, the work that will count both in the doing and in the fruition, is to abolish monopoly and restore free- dom to competition. Where monopoly is inevitable, as in water pup- plies for cities and the like, the service that is subject to it must be 40 625 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION assumed by the public, to the end that in other vocations competition may be freed; private monopoly in anything tends to destroy compe- tition in all things. Freedom of competition must be the aim in every movement. The other direction leads to monopoly. To these two the choice is confined. There is no middle ground. Instead of trying to guard men in their economic relations with a legal net- work, let us set men free free to labour as they will, free to trade where they will, and free to dispose of what they earn as suits them best so that each can guard himself in his economic relations. " If that is desirable, and to us it seems the only thing worth fight- ing for, then we must achieve it by making competition free. Free competition, and that alone, can secure economic freedom. Without it we must have monopoly. And an economic state organised upon monopoly principles would be intolerable, whether governed by a trust magnate, a political boss, a trade -union leader, a majority of the peo- ple, or even the most amiable altruist who ever loved his fellow- men." Without at present entering into the merits of these views we wish to point out the fact that competition, as re-defined by the Single- Taxer, is not at all the thing which we commonly mean by that term, since we are informed that real competition is free competition, on the one hand, and are told, on the other, that we have never as yet enjoyed it. This is saying that we have never had competition, whereas the average layman has long been persuaded that our system contains enough and to spare of that article. The Socialist, on the other hand, is in arms against the present competitive regime and cannot, of course, be in arms against some- thing which does not exist, which is to say by implication that he cannot be levelling at that competition which the Single-Taxer ad- vocates. In short, the competition which the Socialist objects to, the Single-Taxer also repudiates by denying that it is the real thing, while the chief use of the free competition which the Single-Taxer advocates has already, as we have -pointed out, been recognised by Socialists as a serviceable expedient for arriving at a just estimate of exchange values. We see, therefore, that the supposed great difference between the Single-Taxer and Socialist in regard to competition is not much of a difference after all; in point of fact, the whole controversy arising from the Single-Taxer re-defining the term to mean something quite different from its colloquial signification, while the Socialist adheres to that in common use. In his work entitled " The Cost of Competition," Sidney A. Reeve gives a somewhat lengthy definition of the term competition. We are at a loss to see why this economic factor should require an in- volved and intricate definition. The " Standard Dictionary " is not a text-book, but its definition of this word succinctly states the real essence of the thing, to wit, "Competition, the act or proceeding of striving for something that is sought by another at the same time ; a contention of two or more for the same object." In his "The Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith, the greatest of political economists, gives the following clear exposition of the effect 626 THE WAR OF PEACE of competition. " The actual price at which any commodity is com- monly sold is called its market price. It may either be above, or below, or exactly the same with its natural price. " The market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the proportion between the quantity which is actually brought to market, and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the commodity, or the whole value of the rent, labour, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither. Such people may be called the effectual demanders, and their demand the effec- tual demand; since it may be sufficient to effectuate the bringing of the commodity to market. It is different from the absolute demand. A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might. like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it. " When the quantity of any commodity which is brought to market falls short of the effectual demand, all those who are willing to pay the whole value of the rent, wages, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither, cannot be supplied with the quantity which they want. Bather than want it altogether, some of them will be willing to give more. A competition will immediately begin among them, and the market price will rise more or less above the natural price, according as either the greatness of the deficiency, or the wealth and wanton luxury of the competitors, happens to animate more or less the eagerness of the competition. Among competitors of equal wealth and luxury the same deficiency will generally occasion a more or less eager competition, according as the acquisition of the commodity happens to be of more or less importance to them. Hence the exorbitant price of the necessaries of life during the blockade of a town or in a famine. "When the quantity brought to market exceeds the effectual de- mand, it cannot be all sold to those who are willing to pay the whole value of the rent, wages, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither. Some part must be sold to those who are willing to pay less, and the low price which they give for it must reduce the price of the whole. The market price will sink more or less below the natural price, according as the greatness of the excess increases more or less the competition of the sellers, or according as it happens to be more or less important to them to get immediately rid of the commodity. The same excess in the importation of perishable, will occasion a much greater competition than in that of durable com- modities; in the importation of oranges, for example, than in that of old iron. " When the quantity brought to market is just sufficient to supply the effectual demand and no more, the market price naturally comes to be either exactly, or as nearly as can be judged of, the same with the natural price. The whole quantity upon hand can be disposed of for this price, and cannot be disposed of for more. The competition of the different dealers obliges them all to accept of this price, but does not oblige them to accept of less." We see therefore, that Adam Smith realised what we have already 627 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION pointed out, that, when competition secured justice by establishing just exchange values for commodities, it did so by such a balancing of itself upon the buying and selling sides of the equation as to render these two parts of competition mutually annihilatory. In Mr. Eeeve's " The Cost of Competition/' already referred to, he thus epitomises the cost to the community : " In short, competi- tion does harm in three distinct ways : (1) It robs and starves, and in that way degenerates, the individual producer. (2) It perverts and corrupts the individual bartered opportunity for ethical development. (3) It establishes standards and customs within the community which react to the detriment of every citizen, without regard to whether he belongs to the bargaining or the producing classes." Mr. Reeve devotes a separate chapter each to " The Cost to the Losers " and " The Cost to the Winners." In the former he says, " At the first glance any attempt at a proper measure of the ethical cost of the competitive struggle to the classes which lose in the visible, economic sense, the classes of the starvation-wage and the submerged tenth, seems a hopeless one. It is not alone that we have no yard- stick for ethical losses or gains. It is that the quantities are stupen- dous, unimaginable, to be appreciated by experience alone. Let one wander but briefly where these classes are to be found, not alone in the slums, where he who runs may read, but in the institutional whirl- pools into which the flotsam of social turmoil is gathered a while before it disappears. Let one but glance into the almshouse, the prison, the hospital, the lunatic asylum and the morgue. What visi- ble trace is there of aught ethical except loss, of simple lack of ethical impulse or of understanding of what it may be, of mere bodily shell from which all moral life has long since been eaten out, but which still carries the imprint of God's likeness until the final collapse. That is sad work, discouraging to most observers. But it is not the saddest; for there the struggle is almost over. For a while life con- tinues, turbulent or passive, as the chance organism may dictate ; but the turbulence is not that of striving, the passivity is not that of peace. Mere bodily instinct, of hunger, of resentment, of affection, remains, aping in phantom grotesqueness the remembrance of days when de- sire and contest and love and honour were real. That is all. It is almost always repulsive, sometimes hideous; but it is seldom very painful. " But look further and more closely, not where poverty openly flaunts its begging needs or cloaks its shame in congested numbers, but where it hides its stern reality under a brave exterior. Look at the unnumbered, unknown millions fighting for life and pretending not; counting each ounce of strength and each penny of cash for its weight against, not always sheer hunger and cold, but against dis- ease and domestic burden, against that deterioration which comes from monotony of existence, against childhood's lack of opportunity or age's lack of comfort, against that loss of self-respect which comes from loss of good appearance and that proper pride in social posi- tion which the self-satisfied alternately appeal to for further stimulus 628 THE WAR OF PEACE for striving and condemn as extravagantly wasteful! There is the pain! There allot 'your sympathy! It is not against the stunning violence of sudden death that we need to pray, Lord, nor against the comatose convulsions of virulent disease! It is for the long- drawn torture of life without growth, the hopeless leaden pain of sensibility not yet killed nor yet permitted wholesome outlet, of numberless days dragging into numberless weeks and months and years, each absolutely alike, each denied the ear-mark of little tri- umphs or even of signal failure, devoid alike of the happiness of love fed and of the pleasure of hate gratified. That is the life which is worse than the rack, which beggars Tantalus; and he (or she, for so many of them are women, whom the strong of the land ought to be proud of protecting) who walks its way without impatience of spirit, or sin, or crime, walks indeed with beautiful feet. They are the brave poor things who deserve the Victorian cross. For it is they who earn the true starvation-wage." The latter chapter he appropriately heads with the following quo- tations : " For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and shall lose his own soul ? " Mark 8 : 36. "For I say, this is death and the sole death, when a man's loss comes to him from his gain." Browning. .Subsequently he says : " To succeed in business is to make all you can out of your neighbour. * What the traffic will bear ' is the only- limiting rule as to high prices in the commercial world. There is none other voiced by either church or state, though the true faith speaks up about it in no uncertain tone. But then, that is religion, and it and business have never been known to mix well. The law mumbles something about * six per cent.' ; about as effectively as might be expected from an institution which has abandoned all pre- tense to foundation upon moral principle and has planted its banner upon precedent and a percentage. Let one only be so skillful as to cause his twelve per cent., or his thirty per cent., to look merely like five, upon most superficial inspection, and he receives the plaudits of the teachers, the primates, the bench and the well-to-do. ' The court awards it and the law allows it/ Only the dim multi- tudes grow a little more restive, murmur confusedly, and feel about their countable ribs; knowing not how the pound of flesh has left them, but only that it is gone. Also, that more than one drop of life-blood has gone with it. " But the shameful part of it all is that, in spite of this wide belief in the virtue of commercial competition, each actor in competitive effort is conscious, cannot help being conscious, to some quite appre- ciable degree, of what he is doing. He knows that his effort is to get command of the largest market at the highest price compatible therewith, and that any increment in either comes from his neigh- bour's pocket and is to the latter a loss. He knows that this is the antithesis of unselfishness, of Christianity. He either feels the sink- ing of his self-respect as he does it or else he has grown callous. He retreats, very naturally, behind the defence that failure of selfish effort would only reverse the situation, not remedy it; that then the 629 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION other man would just as gleefully and just as wickedly pocket the defendant's loss. "The defence stands good as an indictment of the institution of barter, but not as freeing the barterer from blame. He has heard, perhaps the day before, the sermons of Him who taught the return of good for evil, who taught a better rule than the golden one: Do to your neighbour better than you would be done by. It is not sufficient to sing amens to these doctrines on Sunday and to sub- scribe to the Charity Ball on Monday. All through the week let him remember his Sunday's attitude, which he felt to be so elevating and proper, in his daily transactions with all men. He will, of course, find it impossible of incorporation into his business acts. But it will come well home to him, if he but try it conscientiously, that it is impossible, that profit-seeking variation of prices and the prac- tice of Christianity are hopelessly incompatible. If he makes but the slightest pretence to consistency he will see plainly the alternative before him: To retire from competitive business or to retire from avowed Christianity." . . . " All this aside, however, does competition pay, without regard to conscience, even when one wins? Does it bring peace of mind, or health, or leisure, or insurance against any of the physical or mental ills of life? Does it create a community-environment, visible or invisible, of the sort ideal in modern civilisation, a thing of peace, beauty and harmony? " The business-man is always worried. He is always overworked. His family scarcely knows him. He lacks leisure and the aesthetic appreciation which goes with it almost as thoroughly as does the labourer. One of the editors of one of our best monthlies once re- marked : ' I never knew a man truly lovable, to the core, but that he was a man of leisure/ The business-man's leisure never comes, except with competence and retirement. To many men these never come. When they do they find him broken in health, chained to com- mercialism of thought and taste and lost forever to true amusement." Space does not permit more than a passing allusion to the chief costs* inflicted upon society by our present competitive system. Whether or not these costs have counterbalancing amenities may be subject for argument, but that the system inflicts upon society untold hardships cannot be denied by any truthful person with eyes to see, ears to hear and heart to feel. The following press note speaks for itself : " Fort Gaines, Ga., Dec. 28, 1904. The farmers and merchants of Clay county met to- day, decided to burn their share of the 2,000,000 bales of surplus cotton and help restore prices. A starter was made to-day when a bonfire was made of cotton on the streets of Port Gaines. The object is to show that the farmers are ready to sacrifice a few bales for the benefit of the masses. Excitement is increasing." Commenting on this under the caption " Wanton Waste," " The Vanguard " says : " Such a criminal, such a shameful thing as the above could only happen under the sanctified capitalist system ! The people need clothes, but what of that! The market must be kept strong! Under capitalism cotton is not grown because the people 630 THE WAR OF PEACE need cotton, but simply because it can be sold in the market. You ought to be proud of such a crazy, criminal system ! " Our readers will remember a similar bit of history which occurred in Boston Harbour, when, despite the fact that thousands of poor were hungry and other thousands who were sick and invalided were unable to purchase fruit, cargoes of oranges were dumped into Boston Harbour in order to hold up the market-price. Is it any wonder in view of such facts that men like Edmund Kelly, M. A., of Columbia University, say: "Commercialism makes Christianity impossible; the attempt to reconcile them can lead to but one single result hypocrisy. Social-Democracy, on the contrary, makes Christianity possible ; moreover, it is the only political system that does." Leaving out of the question all those greater evils pertaining to the ethical plane, and coming down to the sheer material wastefulness of the existing competitive regime, we need but a moment's reflec- tion to perceive how egregiously and hopelessly foolish is the whole scheme. John Smith pays out good money to make the public believe his goods better than Tom Jones's. Tom Jones buys expensive adver- tising for the purpose of creating precisely the reverse impression, and all this is charged up to the consumer who pays for it as a part of the cost of production. Salesmen run up and down the land like frightened ants in the wild hope to best their competitors. Whole- sale lying is indulged in. Every effort is made to cheapen the labour cost, and when that has been depressed to a point which often yields the worker less than a living wage, the avaricious manufacturer at- tacks the problem at the other end and begins to cut the quality. It does not matter in the least how impure are his goods, he will wave his arms and vociferously shout through the agency of the press, bill-boards and car " ads," that his goods are absolutely pure, of the highest grade and " made on honour." It is a well-known fact that the success of a patent medicine is all but entirely in the advertising. A Massachusetts man has made a considerable fortune by the sale, as a specific for La Grippe, of what is said on good authority to be but sugar and water, and many other like instances could easily be pointed out. In his " What's What," Harry Quilter says, regarding advertising in America and England : " The amount expended on advertise- ments in England and America is infinitely greater than that of con- tinental nations, and Americans, as might be expected, are far bolder and more extravagant in their advertisements than their English brethren ; in fact they have in many ways taught us how to advertise ; taught us also some lessons in advertising which we have refused to learn. For instance, we have at present declined to paint the surface of our cliffs with. Blacking advertisements; to name towns 'Rasp- berry Jam ' or similar titles, to enhance the sale of a certain maker's preserves, or to cut huge diagrams out of the turf of our Downs, representing a favourite bicycle or an unparalleled soap. We have not refused to spoil the fields near London with huge boards recom- mending pills, blacking and blue-bag, but that is a comparatively innocuous proceeding. Advertisements in newspapers are much 631 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION dearer in America than in England, a comparatively small portion of the paper being devoted thereto, and for other reasons. In adver- tising, the smaller the space devoted to advertisements by any paper the greater the cost, is a general rule. There is a peculiar blatancy about American advertisements, which is rarely to be met with in England, and which, like the indecent Paris poster, is at present repugnant to the feelings of our people. The great mass of English advertisers are content to repeat a simple announcement of their commodities a certain number of times, or even the name of the advertising firm, as who should say ' Hudson's Soap ' without inter- mission for half an hour; and the strange part of it is that this idiotic repetition does frequently effect its purpose, and after we have been told a thousand times, that * Taylor's ' remove furniture, we are apt to think that they remove it better than other people. Or at all events that we may as well go there as anywhere else." Since P. T. Barnum originated the use of posters in 1840, this branch of advertising has been steadily growing to its present pro- portions. In " Modern Advertising Methods," by Hrolf Wisby, published in " The Independent " for February 4, 1904, we find the following : " Few people have any idea of the power wielded by advertising at the present day, and fewer still are acquainted with the modern tend- encies that guide the expenditure of this power. A conservative and well-qualified estimate places the total annual outlay for ad- vertising in the United States alone at $500,000,000, and of this enormous sum no less than 75 per cent, is in payment for space in newspapers, magazines and trade journals. In other words, we spend as much on advertising as Eussia, Germany, France, Austria.-Hun- gary and .Spain spend on their armies every year. Huge as the ex- penditure is, it is not in undue proportion to the value of business done, being little less than 5 per cent, of the total annual sales of the United States. Assuming that two billion dollars are spent an- nually for advertising in all countries, it will be seen that our share as the leading nation in publicity methods is one-fourth of the total amount spent. " The newspapers occupy the most prominent position in the adver- tising arena. Their phenomenal growth from 2,526 modest speci- mens in 1850 to a round 25,000 at the present time does not, however, give any idea of the growth of the advertising they contain. The number of copies annually printed is about 4 billions, and counting an average of 100 ' ads ' to each copy, we face the gigantic number of 400,000 billion impressions of ' ads ' made yearly by the printing press. The energy here put forth in print is so exceptionally large that we need not consider the few hundred billion impressions taken by the magazines and trade organs. Of this energy how much is wasted in unsuccessful effort and how much by competition? Fig- ures will never be able to tell the story. It is. purely a matter of judgment as to what constitutes waste and what harmful competi- tive publicity, but the modern tendency is to have no fixed rules; to make each case a case for itself. In the majority of cases, however, competitive advertising is more likely to result in waste rather than 632 THE WAR OF PEACE in benefit, as it only increases the cost of putting the goods into the hands of customers without improving the quality of the goods." In another portion of the same article the author says: "While 2y 2 per cent, of the sales amount is looked upon as being the ideal rate, 5 per cent, is more frequently spent nowadays, and there are instances when it has paid well to invest two-thirds of the capital in advertising. The data of department stores are very reliable in this respect. The twenty large department stores in New York City spend a total of $2,000,000 annually for advertising, or 4 per cent of their combined sales of $50,000,000. A Chicago house improves upon this rate with a half per cent., giving $500,000 to publicity to sell $15,000,000 worth of goods. ''The evolution of the advertising art has progressed so remarkably during recent years as to make the commercial traveller largely or wholly superfluous in many lines of trade that were formerly de- pendent upon his efforts. This tendency first evinced itself promi- nently in 1898, during which year twenty-eight large concerns in New York City, twenty-one in Chicago, seventeen in Boston and probably a score additional in other cities, discarded their travelling staff altogether, substituting printed matter. Tho' advertising is making serious inroads on the domain of the salesman, he, neverthe- less, continues to be one of the main assets in the general publicity scheme. There are some 350,000 commercial travellers in this coun- try, costing on an average $2,000 per man, which amounts to a total expenditure of $700,000,000 annually. As eadh man is supposed to advertise his house as well as to solicit orders for goods, we may safely place at least one-third of his total expense a round $230,- 000,000 to the credit of advertising." Mr. Wisby asserts that the number of general advertisers has al- most doubled itself six times between 1898 and 1904. He calls at- tention to the fact that Orlando Bourne, the first advertising agent, hung out his shingle in New York in 1828, and that even as late as 1871 one-half the agents in the country, doing nine-tenths of the annual publicity business of the United States, were domiciled in the Times building, New York. He states that magazine advertis- ing, which began with an " ad " in the " Atlantic Monthly," in Feb- ruary, 1860, now averages five pages of advertising to seven of read- ing in the 160 leading monthlies in this country, having a combined circulation of 25,000,000 copies; nor is all the outlay confined to papers and magazines. We are told that some insurance companies spend annually as much as $20,000 for calendar publicity. Medical houses use almanacs, some houses circulating more than 2,000,000 per annum, while we are informed that one house claims an annual edition of 25,000,000 copies. Catalogues represent another extensive department, some of them containing no less than 100,000 items listed for sale. The same article states that the capital invested in window display amounts to 750,000 store-fronts in the United States, the plate glass in which, at an average cost of $100 per front, represents an investment of $75,000,000, not counting either the value of the goods displayed or the wages of the men who do the trimming. Regarding a branch of the advertising business of which the lay- 633 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION man knows hut little, Mr. Wisby says: "The letter broker plies his underhanded trade of selling, buying and renting letters, received in answer to ' ads,' chiefly with unscrupulous mail order houses. Few letters are sold outright, the custom being to rent them at the rate of $4 for each hundred thousand, with a rising scale in price governed by the recency of the date and the number of originals in the lot. In the medical, financial and publishing line there are a surprising number of prominent houses who are in the dishonest habit of publishing as testimonials of their own goods letters received in answer to the advertising of others. Letters from speculators in response to discretionary pool * ads ' are thought to command the highest rental, and sharpers looking 1 for victims have been known to pay as high as $1,500 for 50,000 such copies. Letters from debili- tated persons in response to the efficacy of some remedy or cure hold the record for tenacity of usefulness, and are used over and over again by dozens of different concerns selling dozens of different reme- dies. The public is to blame itself for this shameful imposition on its credulity, since the letter brokerage business would never have been possible were it not for the silly testimonial habit of consumers." The following figures give some idea of the amount of effort which is absorbed by competitive methods. More than $50,000,000, we are told, is annually expended in bill-board posting in the United States. The amount annually paid for new signs in New York city alone is $3,000,000. Car " ads " represent $2,000,000. New York city sup- ports a regiment of ' 1,200 "sandwich" men who display "ads." Then there is what is called the " follow up " system which is re- placing travelling salesmen. By this system the prospective custo- mer is bombarded through the mail at stated intervals with all man- ner of attractive advertising matter. The immense cost of all these multifarious advertising schemes can better be imagined than accurately figured, and it all comes out of the consumer in the end. It is as wasteful as a leaking spigot or a sanded bearing, and it is no wonder that many efforts have been and are still being made to eliminate from our social system this insati- able Minotaur. In the new system which we shall lay before the Reader in due course all this waste will be done away with once and for all. 634 CHAPTER III THE PRESSURE OF SOCIETY UPON THE INDIVIDUAL 635 There are but two families in the world, Have-much and Have-little. Cervantes. All is lost when the people fear death less than poverty. Chinese Proverb. " Winds that have sainted her, tell ye the story Of the young life by the needle that bled, Making a bridge over death's soundless waters Out of a swaying, and soul-cutting thread Over it going, all the world knowing That thousands have trod it, foot-bleeding, before: God protect all of us! God pity all of us, Should she look back from the opposite shore! " " I heah de chillun readin' 'Bout de worl' a turnin' roun', Till my head gits sorter dizzy As I stan' upon the groun', But let her keep a turnin' If 'twill bring a better day, When a man can mek a libbin' While his chillun learn an' play." Want makes men misdo; and hunger drives the wolf out of the forest. Francois Villon. 636 CHAPTER III THE PRESSURE OF SOCIETY UPON THE INDIVIDUAL F late years a great deal has been said upon the sub- ject of "race suicide." We are told that there is grave danger of the annihilation of the native Ameri- can stock. In certain parts of the United States, during the last seventy years, the birth-rate has de- clined from one of the highest in the world to one of the lowest. Nowhere in the civilised world has there been such a decline in the birth-rate during the last century as is exhibited by the state of Massachusetts. The native population of this state is not increasing and this is true of one or two other New England states. In reference to this subject we quote the following from " Poverty," by Robert Hunter: "A writer in 'The Quarterly Journal of Eco- nomics ' concludes an instructive paper on the subject by saying that the native stock actually ' seems to be diminishing.' In the north- . eastern division the native birth-rate has fallen so enormously that the annual increase of children of foreign white parents is ten times .as great as the increase of the children of native parentage. In the several states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont the annual death-rate in 1900 of the whites of native parentage exceeded the birth-rate by 1.5 per thou- sand, while among those of foreign white parents the birth-rate ex- ceeded the death-rate by 44-5 per thousand. In passing, it is well to note that this birth-rate among the foreign whites is considerably greater than that of Hungary, which has the highest birth-rate in Europe, and this would go to prove that the birth-rate among immi- grants is increased as a result of their migration, although it might be explained on the ground of the age distribution among the foreign element. The main conclusion, however, which is to be drawn from these facts, is that, if this decrease in the birth-rate of the native stock continues, the annihilation of the native element is only a matter of time." The cause of this race suicide has been the subject of much dis- cussion; The late Francis A. Walker held that immigration was the cause of this decreased birth-rate among native Americans. Prof. John R. Commons says : " It is a hasty assumption which holds that immigration during the nineteenth century has increased the total population of the United States." The professor appears to hold that, by at. least as much as immigration has added to our foreign population, it has acted to decrease the native American 637 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION birth-rate. The paradoxical statement is made that the emigration from Europe of 20,000,000 persons to this country has resulted in 20,000,000 European births which would not otherwise have oc- curred. The tendency of nature thus to supply a social deficit is one of the marvels of her economy. It is also stated, as we have pointed out, that the influx of these 20,000,000 foreigners has quite possibly operated to prevent the birth of 20,000,000 Americans which might otherwise have occurred. It is a well-known fact that in new countries marriages occur early and are very fruitful. Dr. Franklin, in his " Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind and the Peopling of Countries," reckoned eight births to a marriage in America as against four in Europe, and it is also a well- known fact that dense populations where poverty rules are also favourable to a large birth-rate. From these facts it would appear that Nature tends to increase the human stock where its insufficient num- bers or adverse surroundings threaten its annihilation. Adam Smith says in his " Wealth of Nations " : " Poverty, though it no doubt discourages, does not always prevent marriage. It seems even to be favourable to generation. A half -starved Highland woman frequently bears more than twenty children, while a pampered fine lady is often incapable of bearing any, and is generally exhausted by two or three. Barrenness, so frequent among women of fashion, is very rare among those of inferior station. Luxury in the fair sex, while it inflames perhaps the passion for enjoyment, seems always to weaken, and frequently to destroy altogether, the powers of gener- ation. "But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is ex- tremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced, but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies. It is not uncommon, I have been frequently told, in the Highlands of Scotland for a mother who has borne twenty children not to have two alive." . . . " In some places one-half the children born die before they are four years of age; in many places before they are seven; .and in al- most all places before they are nine or ten. This great mortality, however, will everywhere be found chiefly among the children of the common people, who cannot afford to tend them with the same care as those of better station. Though their marriages are generally more fruitful than those of people of fashion, a smaller proportion of their children arrive at maturity. In foundling hospitals, and among the children brought up by parish charities, the mortality is still greater than among those of the common people. " Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply beyond it. But in civilised society it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in no other way than by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful marriages produce." Commenting on these views of the great economist, Mr. Henry George, Jr., says, in " The Menace of Privilege," that they may well 638 THE PRESSURE OF SOCIETY be used to describe present conditions in the United States In the rural regions .and in the poor quarters reproduction is rapid- among the classes of ease and wealth much slower. And of those children born to the latter a very much larger proportion are pro- tected from early death than those born among the poor. One of the most pathetic sights of a great American city is the number of little rough wooden coffins to be seen in the public morgues awaiting interment in the public burying grounds. The last place where the poor will stint is at a funeral, yet such is the depth and extent of poverty in Greater New York that more than eight and one-half per cent, of all the people who die in the five boroughs are buried in Potter's Field at public expense. In the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx the Potter's Field interments approximate ten per cent. "Of this ten per cent, a dreadful proportion consists of babies, whose flickering little lives are snuffed out in the fetid atmosphere of poor quarters. Infancy and early childhood have a heavy battle for life in New York, even under good circumstances. There can be no doubt that a very large proportion of these early deaths are directly or indirectly due to poverty. "It is a fact too well attested for dispute that tuberculosis and other virulent diseases of the slum quarters of our cities have yielded materially to the treatment, not of removing patients to other places and climates, but simply by improving the physical environments to which poverty had sentenced them. A very large part of the post graduate hospital work in New York City is along this line, with a remarkably high percentage of cures. " There are some who call themselves optimists who shut their eyes to all this and say that if the rich are richer, the poor are richer, too. They point to the large funds in the savings-banks more than $3,000,000,000 and 7,000,000 depositors for 1903, averaging more than $400 to the depositor. But just as the investigation made by the Massachusetts Labour Bureau in 1873 revealed the fact that persons not wage-earners were depositors to at least one-half the total amount in the savings-banks of that State at that time, so similar examination now would reveal all over the country a similar ownership of these savings. As the Massachusetts investigation showed, wealthy people use savings-banks to escape taxation and the care of their investments. They deposit for themselves to the full limit and open accounts for members of their families and also as trustees/' In a foot-note Mr. George calls attention to the fact that the figures he gives as representing the people of New York who are buried at the public expense do not cover the whole case, since they do not include the Jewish dead who, though taken to the morgue, are rescued by Jew- ish societies and are not interred in Potter's Field. He says further : " Nor do they include the large number of public paupers who would go to Potter's Field but for the burial insurance placed on them by certain undertakers who find a profit between the small amount of such policies and the still smaller expense to which they are put in getting the dead bodies a private interment. Singularly enough, those almshouse inmates who have such burial insurance on them, mis- 639 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION erably small though the sum be, regard themselves as superior to those who do not have it. They draw attention to the fact. It amounts to a badge of aristocracy among the public paupers. " Of the total of 78,060 deaths in the whole city during 1904, the babies under one year of age numbered 16,125, and under five years, 25,543." There is a vast amount of data which shows conclusively that the birth-rate in all countries is affected by economic changes. In his " Vital Statistics " Fair states : " War, abundance, dearth, high wages, periods of speculation," etc., have a direct effect upon genera- tion. Others, among them Von Mayr, have shown that the number of births varies with the price of wheat or rye. This suggests the fact cited by Victor Hugo many years ago, that crime varies as the price of bread. Prof. Richmond Mayo-Smith says, in his " Statistics and Soci- ology," that where the number of births "decreases suddenly, it shows the effect of war or of commercial distress or of economic dis- aster. Where it increases, it is generally a sign of economic pros- perity." Mr. Robert Hunter, in treating of this subject with especial rela- tion to immigration, says, in " Poverty " : " Hadley, Marshall, News- holme, and others (not to go back 'as far as Malthus) have all re- viewed more or less the influence of economic conditions upon the birth-rate. It is not a matter of theory, it is an observed fact that economic disaster and similar influences operate to decrease the birth- rate, and that prosperity or any improvement in economic conditions operates to increase the birth-rate." Benjamin Kidd says that the "unwillingness of men ... to marry and bring up families in a state of life lower than that into which they themselves were born" is one of the principal influences which are known to decrease the birth-rate. Apropos of the theory that immigration per se is the cause of a decreased birth-rate, it is interesting to note that the birth-rate fre- quently decreases where immigration is not a vital factor, as, for example, in New South Wales. A recent number of " The Inde- pendent " contains the following : " A thorough statistical study of birth-rates in New .South Wales is one of the most significant contri- butions to our knowledge of this subject yet made. In 1880 the Australasian birth-rate was 38 per thousand inhabitants and the average number of children for each family was 5.4. In 1901 the birth-rate in New South Wales had fallen to 27.6, an average to family of 3.6." We might cite the views of different authorities upon this subject almost indefinitely, but enough has been said to show that all the au- thorities, as well as the statistics cited, do not make toward the fa- vourite theory that race suicide on the part of native born Americans is the result of immigration. Those who hold this view for the most part contend that it is the social pressure caused by immigration which must explain our decreased birth-rate. For our own part, we prefer to consider the chief cause of race suicide to be due to in- creased social pressure, to the augmenting difficulty experienced in 640 THE PRESSURE OF SOCIETY making a successful life-struggle under a constantly degenerating social system, whether this condition be the result of immigration or the result of any other causes whatsoever. It must not, however, be supposed that any one factor can explain the observed condition. We have seen that new and sparsely settled countries and old and densely populated and impoverished districts alike conduce to large birth- rates. Contrariwise, we know that affluence and a rise in the scale of living tends in the reverse direction. This is further compli- cated by the great mortality of the very poor and the better chances of the children of affluence. The breaking down of morality has doubtless contributed to the removal of many of those scruples which were formerly held against the prevention of conception. The increasing tendency to take the dictates of the church less and less seriously might easily account for a considerable change in this regard, in Catholic communities if not elsewhere. The many in- stances of malpractice and the fewer cases of infanticide make a total unpleasant to contemplate. Some time since it was stated that the bodies of 10,000 newly- born infants were annually taken from the River Seine, and we have been informed that the bodies of six infants have been taken from the pipes of a single Massachusetts sewer-station in one day. The causes which operate to restrict the birth-rate among the poor are by no means those which produce the like result among the rich. Abortion is frightfully prevalent in the Congo for reasons which are not far to seek. The following quotation from " The Philistine " of February, 1906, illustrates a phase of this subject with regard to the red man : " In 1871, there were two hundred and thirty-seven thousand Indians in America. In 1890, there were one hundred and seventy-six thousand. In 1905, there are not over one hundred and fifty thousand. W are fast educating the Indian off the face of the earth. " Heart-broken women do not bear children. With many Indians a baby is looked upon as a tragedy, inasmuch as any day it may be stolen away and only a great sorrow be left in its stead. 'My boy has been gone for three years, but every night I am awakened by hearing him calling and crying for me/ said an Indian woman to me, and the curious part was that this woman herself was a ' Carlisle Indian/ " If the African and the Indian mother refuse to give birth to chil- dren under conditions which spell tragedy to them, we may easily imagine that the American economic slave may be dominated by simi- lar motives. In the case of the rich, however, we must look for other causes, and we believe the chief one of these which reduces the present birth-rate even below that level to which affluence and advanced civilisation naturally tend, to be summed up in the terms- selfishness and frivolity. The human being naturally craves a cer- tain amount of diversion. If properly circumstanced he will take pleasure in children and cheerfully make sacrifices for them. Write presto all over the social score, however; let the search for Mam- mon carry acquisitiveness through greed into gross selfishness; let the power of money react upon its possessor in vanity and frivolity 41 641 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION until he view everything with a financial squint and mistake the sun for his own radiant photosphere; let him be caught in the gauzy mesh of society and his time filched from him by the pink fin- gers of inanity, and he will soon find himself giving his children into the hands of hirelings. His club will replace his home, and amusements less noble than those of the fireside will become his diversion, unless he be one of those monstrosities who become intel- lectual dust in the dry-rot of commercialism. With the society woman the story is similar, but worse. The chil- dren she has tumble her hair and disarrange her silks and laces whenever they come near her, and she pronounces them " such a care" that she relegates them to servants and registers a vow to spare herself such trials in the future. Teachers in Kindergartens for the rich testify that one of their greatest difficulties is in getting children acquainted with their mothers. To this condition of affairs we must add the further fact that inbreeding, which is common among the rich, lowers the racial standard, while a toy-life tends to unfit a woman for the duties of maternity. If we wish to check race suicide we have only to establish social conditions which will produce American men and women worthy to perpetuate themselves, and a boceficent Nature will do the rest. The present tendency toward natural annihilation is merely Nature's way of advising us that we are unfit to exist, and that unless we mend our ways she will see to it that natural selection stops us out.. The survival of the fittest is by no means of necessity the survival of the best, but it can easily be shown that throughout those aeons which are the minutes of eternity runs ever the constant tendency to make those who survive more and more nearly approach the best, and the whole effort of society is, or at all events ought to be, to so alter conditions that the survival of the fittest shall be the survival of the best. When this is done, when only the best can survive, when the moral gravitation of society is upward rather than downward, the millen- nium will be here. The pressure of society makes itself felt upon the individual in divers ways. We have seen the frightful increase in heart-disease which has resulted from the feverish pace at which our people live. In 1890 the number of deaths from this disease in the United States, including pericarditis, was 40,959, while we find that in 1900 it had risen to 69,315. Similarly we find an alarming increase of insanity. The following table gives the number of insane people, not including idiots, in the United States, together with the total population of the country for the same years. NUMBER YEAR. INSANE. POPULATION. 1850 15,610 23,191,876 1860 24,040 31,443,321 1870 37,430 38,558,371 1880 91,990 . 50,155,783 1890 106,485 62,622,250 1896 (estimated) 145,000 642 THE PRESSURE OF SOCIETY Regarding the figure given for 1896, it should be said that this is taken from an estimate founded upon the reports of 30 states to the Committee on States of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, which showed for the 30 states 102,000 insane per- sons in the year 1896. At this rate the whole United States would have 145,000 insane. In order more clearly to show the extent of this alarming in- crease we reduce the above table to a table showing the number of insane per each 100,000 inhabitants. NUMBER INSANE YEAR. (PER 100,000). 1850 6,731 I860 7,645 1870 9,707 1880 18,340 1890 17,004 That this increase in insanity is not confined to this country nor to the last few years will be seen from the following taken from MulhalPs Dictionary of Statistics: In nearly all countries the in- crease is appalling. For instance, in Russia in 1860 there were 41 asylums, containing 3,100 inmates; in 1882 the number of asylums had increased to 74 and the inmates to about 80,000. In Belgium in 1858 there were 6,475 insane people; in 1868 the number had increased to 8,240; in 1878, to 10,020, and in 1888, to 10,280. In December of 1887 the seven colonies counted 10,130 insane people, being 286 per 100,000 inhabitants. As regards the causes of insanity, not including idiots, the aver- age returns for England, France, Denmark and the United States combined give this result: PER CENT. PER CENT. Hereditary 24 Loss of friends 11 Drink 24 Sickness 10 Business 12 Various 19 In connexion with this subject we quote the following from " The Menace of Privilege," "Dr. V. H. Podstata of the Dunning Insane Asylum for Chicago is reported to have stated that in his judgment one in every 150 of that city's inhabitants is insane. Dr. H. N. Moyer, the eminent alienist of that city, is more moderate. He thinks' that the insane of Chicago number one to 400 of the population ; in New York, one to 340 ; in Boston and New England, one to 320. ' There is no doubt about the cause of the increase of insanity,' he observes. ' Poor food, poor homes, with no sun and bad air, improper clothing, worrying about the rent, drive people crazy.' " Whatever will produce these results on the more sensitive will brutalise the more stolid. Behold the development of the brute nature in a long catalogue of manifestations, ending with woman-beaters and 643 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION the ruthless trampling upon the weaker sex by men in car and steam- boat accidents." It will be seen from these authorities that our official statistics are in all probability far below the facts in their estimates of the number of insane. It often takes a skilled alienist to detect insanity in its advanced stages, so that its more incipient and less pronounced manifestations would easily escape detection in the large per cent, of cases. That this steadily increasing and widely diffused insanity is the result of the pernicious social system obtaining in all civilised countries who can doubt? The overwhelming majority of all worries are in some way con- nected with the problem of maintenance, and worry is the mother of insanity and the sister of all other diseases. A similar story is to be told in the matter of suicides. In an article in " The Independ- ent" for April 7, 1904, entitled "The Facts About Suicide," Mr. George Putnam Upton, of Chicago, says, among other things : " Be- tween the ages of ten and twenty-five, suicides of women are more numerous than those of men. It is one of the saddest features of the case that suicides of women are increasing faster than those of men. Half a century ago five times as many men committed .suicide as women. A quarter of a century ago the proportion was three men to one woman. During the last three years the ratio has been about 2 l /2 to one. Another sad feature of the suicide situation is the increasing number of children who kill themselves. These sui- cides are almost without sufficient cause, and sometimes without any." Prof. Frederick L. Hoffmann's investigations, made for the in- formation of one of the large insurance companies, show that sui- cide is far too common, and is on the increase. The suicide-rate for the eleven years 1893 to 1903, inclusive, in 50 of the principal cities of the United States was 16.30 to every 100,000 inhabitants. In 1903 it was 18.39. The total number of suicides during said period was 23,490. The ten cities included in the numeration having the highest rate per 100,000 population from 1893 to 1902 are exhibited in the following table: No. OF RATE PER NAMES OF CITIES. SUICIDES, 100,000 1893 TO 1902. POPULATION. Hoboken, N. J 153 27.14 St. Louis, Mo .' 1,404 25.87 Chicago, Ills 3,620 23.64 Oakland, Cal 145 23.35 New York City, N. Y. (Boroughs Man- hattan and Bronx) 4,154 21.60 Milwaukee, Wis 543 20.37 Cincinnati, Ohio 597 18.75 Newark, N. J 421 18.25 Brooklyn, N, Y. .1,832 17.13 Haverhill^ Mass. ... 55 . 16.25 In European cities the rate is in some cases materially higher and in others materially lower than with us, as indicated by the -fol- lowing table showing the rate per 100,000 inhabitants; 644 THE PRESSURE OF SOCIETY Paris 42 Geneva..., 11 Lyons 29 Dresden 51 St. Petersburg 7 Genoa ' 31 Moscow 11 Brussels 15 Berlin 36 Amsterdam 14 Vienna 28 Lisbon 2 London 23 Christiania 25 Borne 8 Stockholm 27 Mil an 6 Constantinople . . 12 Madrid 3 The following table exhibits the average annual suicide-rate per 100,000 in various countries of the world, as given by Barker : Saxony 31.1 Denmark 25.8 Schleswig-Holstein 24.0 France 23.6 Austria 21.2 Switzerland 20.2 German Empire 14.3 Hanover 14.0 Queensland 13.5 England and Wales 6.9 Hungary 5.2 Italy 3.7 United States 3.5 Ireland . 1.7 Prussia 13.3 Victoria 11.5 New South Wales 9.3 Bavaria 9.1 New Zealand 9.0 South Australia 8.9 Sweden 8.1 Norway 7.5 Belgium 6.9 Tasmania 5.3 Scotland 4.0 Netherlands 3.6 Eussia 2.9 Spain 1.4 Of European cities for which statistics are given Madrid and Lisbon show the lowest and Dresden the highest figures. The lowest rate given in the United States is that for Newton, Mass., 1.96. For the six years 1882 to 1887 the number of suicides throughout the United States was 8,296. The American Year Book for 1904 bears similar testimony to the increase of suicide, as per the following figures embracing the records of 50 American cities. YEAB. POPULATION. 1890 10,202,017 1902 14,456,183 No. or SUICIDES. RATE PEB 100,000. 1,223 12.0 2,452 17.0 That crime is on the increase none who peruse the daily press will for a moment doubt. The arrests in the city of Philadelphia for the year 1903 aggregated the enormous number of 75,699 cases, or an average of one person out of every seventeen of the popula- tion; and we are told that it is seriously and 'creditably charged that " a great number of most serious cases of vice and crime were overlooked by the police for blood-money." That many another large city could rival Philadelphia in her unsavory criminal statistics is highly probable. o4o GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION In " McClure's Magazine " for December, 1904, Mr. S. .S. McClure published a shocking summary of statistics on homicides and mur- ders throughout the country. These were collected by the " Chicago Tribune," and covered a period of twelve years ending 1902. These figures appear to indicate that in 1904 there were, for each million of our population, four and a half times as many murders and homi- cides as there were in 1881. Those whose race-prejudice has led them to look upon immigration as the cause of pretty much every- thing bad that has ever happened to this country, will be prone to seek to explain this condition by the single word " foreigner." That this is not an explanation of the condition is clearly shown by the article in question, where it is pointed out that, with the 1900 census as a basis, only one country on the globe, Russia, having a higher murder and homicide rate than the United States, sent us emigrants, and the Eussian rate but slightly exceeded our own. Add to this that of all the emigrants arriving that year but 1/23 part of them were Russians. And then consider this conclusive statement. The remaining 22/23 of our immigrants came from countries no one of which has half as many homicides and murders per million of popu- lation as we have. The following table is compiled from statistics given in Mr. Frank Parson's compendious work entitled " The Story of New Zealand." It indicates the number of criminals per one thousand of the population in the countries named. United States 1.32 Australia 1.50 New Zealand 6 Switzerland . . 1.07 United Kingdom (Great Britain and Ireland) 46 France ... 1.00 Denmark 8 Holland 84 Belgium 7 Norway and Sweden 4 Austria , 5 Hungary 4 Italy 2.37 Russia in Europe 1.55 Regarding crime over pretty much all the world, Mr. Parsons says : " The ratio of crime is increasing ; that is, convictions are in- creasing faster than the population in nearly all countries; France, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Russia, Italy, Australasia and the United States." What is the cause of this increase in crime, suicide and insanity? What factor is there sufficiently universal in its application to ac- count for this world-wide degeneracy? Is the answer not to be found in 'certain social and commercial conditions which everywhere obtain? It is the pressure of want, or the fear of want, which in the last analysis is responsible for the overwhelming mass of crime. Here is where we are our brothers' keepers. The question which 646 THE PRESSURE OF SOCIETY Sir Thomas Moore asked several centuries ago, "I pray you what other thing do you than make thieves and then punish them ? "'might very pertinently be asked of us now. Men are not naturally evil Under proper conditions they will be good and tend ever to grow better. We are told that the average length of life is increasing throughout the world, the death-rate having fallen in almost every country dur- ing the last ten years. The following table compiled from data given by 'Prof. Frank Parsons, at page 726 of " The Story of New Zea- land, bears upon this subject. DEATHS PER YEAR PER 1,000 INHABITANTS. COUNTRY. 1890. 1899 _ TT * j a* * 190 - 1( > YEARS. United States 19.6 17.8 18.0 Australia 15.3 12.7 New Zealand 10.0 9.4 9 8 Massachusetts . . . ., 17.7 Switzerland 20.8 17^ 19.0 United Kingdom 19.5 18.3 18.5 France 22.6 21.1 21.6 Germany 24.4 21.5 22.5 Denmark 19.0 17.5 17.7 Holland 20.5 17.1 18.6 Belgium 20.6 18.8 19.2 Sweden 17.1 17.6 16.4 Norway 17.9 16.8 16.5 Austria 29.4 25.4 27.1 Hungary ^ 32.4 27.0 30.3 Italy ... 26.4 22.1 24.6 The average duration of life is approximately 33 years. One quar- ter of all the people on the earth die before the age of six, one-half before the age of sixteen, while about one in each one hundred born lives to the age of sixty-five. Of the cities of the United States having a population above 100,000 the death-rate per 1,000 for 1900 varied between 9.1, as the lowest, and 45.5, as the highest, the former rate being that of St. Joseph, Missouri, and the latter that of Shreveport, Louisiana. A comparative table for the year 1890 and 1900 of some 36 cities, having a population each in excess of 100,000, shows a decrease in the death-rate in 30 of these cities for the year 1900. In the United States in 1900 the registration area comprehended nearly 29,000,000 of the population. In this registration area the 1900 census showed a decrease of 1.8 per 1,000 of population, which amounts to a decrease of nearly 10 per cent, in the death-rate. In the year 1890 the average age of death in the United States was 31.1 years. In 1900 it was 35.2 years. The rate per 1,000 in the regis- tration area in the United States for 1900 was 17.8. As we ex- amine the table of causes of death for the years 1900 and 1890 we 647 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION find that the rate for most of the contagious and infectious diseases, as well as those ailments which result from injudicious conduct, care- lessness in the matter of diet and the like, have undergone a notice- able decrease in their death-rate, while heart-disease, apoplexy, dis- eases of the stomach and some nervous diseases have undergone an increase in some cases of an alarming nature. Consumption shows a remarkable decrease, while cancer and pneumonia exhibit an ap- palling increase. What is the significance of all this? Does it not point clearly to a fact which we are far, too prone to neglect, to wit, that there are two opposing forces operating upon the modern death- rate? On the one hand, increased medical knowledge, surgical skill, improved sanitation and anti-toxic cures tending materially to curb the ravages of all diseases and particularly of those which are in- fectious and contagious; on the other hand, an economic environ- ment, a social state which forces upon people a feverish existence which is rapidly sapping the springs of racial vitality. We are be- coming a nation of invalids. Our great-grandmothers were strong in muscle, in character and in brain. Our sisters, though they may be mentally flashy and volatile, for the most part have not an equal sturdiness of character, and certainly not a comparable physique. A similar indictment is to be brought against our brothers. We look in vain for more than an occasional sample of that grand manhood which was the rule during the early years of our country. We are simply repeating the history of all the civilisations which thus far the earth has known. In all, the story is the same. First, the pioneer life close to the earth, with its battle against elemental forces which solidified the character of the individual and forced men for mutual protection into a more compact brotherhood. Then, material prosperity, the acquisition of wealth, the seisure of the earth by the few, and their exploitation of the many, the development of mass and class distinctions, the corruption of the classes, the ever-increasing struggle of the masses, with its resulting deadening influence, the accentuation of the house of Have and the house of Want, and, finally, the development, on the part of the classes, of an idleness, a luxuriousness and an effeminacy which result in their own physical, mental, and moral degeneracy, on the one hand, while, on the other hand, they debase the lives of the masses through the sordid toil, poverty and disease which are their inevitable correlatives. We have only to look at the history of Greece and Rome in their days of de- generacy to see ourselves as in a glass. The likeness is so close as all but to amount to identity. The same class consciousness, the same political corruption, the same betrayal by legislators, the same luxurious waste, on one hand, with squalid poverty, on the other, the same brazen and bare-faced dishonesty and the same general breaking- down of the moral tone. We are given to understand by Tacitus that in Rome corrupting and being corrupted was flippantly called "the way of the world," and we have heard the same pitiful excuse used in our own day time and time again. 648 CHAPTER IV SOME CAUSES AND RESULTS OF SOCIAL PRESSURE 649 I have listened to many ingenious persons who say we are better off now than we ever were before. I do not know how well off we were be- fore; but I know positively that many very deserving persons of my ac- quaintance have great difficulty in living under these improved circum- stances; also, that my desk is full of begging letters, eloquently written either by distressed or dishonest people; and that we cannot be called as a nation, well off, while so many of us are living either in honest or in villainous beggary. For my own part, I will put up with this state of things, passively, not an hour longer. I am not an unselfish person, nor an evangelical one; I have no particular pleasure in doing good; neither do I dislike doing it so much as to expect to be rewarded for it in another world. But I simply cannot paint, nor read, nor look at minerals, nor do anything else I like, and the very light of the morning sky has be- come hateful to me, because of the misery that I know of, and see signs of where I know it not, which no imagination can interpret too bitterly. John Ruskin. There is something far more injurious to our race than poverty; it is misplaced charity. Of every thousand dollars spent upon so-called objects of charity, it is not an over-estimate to say that nine hundred of it had better be thrown into the sea. It is so given as to encourage the growth of those evils from which spring most of the misery of human life. The relations of human society are so complex, so interwoven, that the creation of a new agency intended to benefit one class almost inevita- bly operates to the injury of the other. The latter being the growth of natural causes is by far the most important to preserve. Andrew Carnegie The Gospel of Wealth. The " Mills Hotels " have actually reduced wages in their immediate vicinity. The very competition of Charities among themselves reduces the stand- ard of living Gradually men have to learn to live cheap, by using these charity de- vices, because they cannot get wages enough to live better. Charity deliberately reduces wages. The Annals of the Dorchester (Mass.) Conference says: " We strive to make every applicant for aid feel that work of any kind is better than idleness, and that to accept the smallest compensation and to perform the least service well, not only helps to supply present needs, but it is the surest way to something better." Even the charity and " benevolent " trade schools help in breaking down the Trades Unions by supplying a generation of skilled " scabs." Bolton Hall Free America. 650 CHAPTER IV SOME CAUSES AND RESULTS OF SOCIAL PRESSURE AN'S struggle for existence, from the standpoint of health, may be said to be dual in its nature. The one part pertains to the normal forces operating within himself as the result of his own natural functioning. This we may call the domestic side of the question. The second part pertains to resisting the invasion of external enemies, or to annihilating them once they have gained the citadel. The gains which have been made in increased longevity are referable entirely, it seems to us, to this latter part of the human struggle for health. We are much better able to repel the invasion of foreign enemies. On the other side of the question, however, we have retrograded badly, and we make bold to say that, in this department of vital statistics, we have been, and are to-day steadily losing ground. Pause a moment and consider what this means. It means that the human race is physically degenerating, and that we are, in point of fact, far less physically fit than our forefathers. What we mean to say is that, leaving contagious and infectious diseases which are being met each year by more enlightened methods entirely out of the question, we feel assured that we should show a steady decline in length of life. Death by a contagious disease partakes largely of the nature of an accident. So far as we know, any one might die of it. To attempt, therefore, to ascertain the vigour of the race from statistics which are made up in part of plagues, scourges, famines and epidemics, is mani- festly futile. It is common knowledge that our great-grandfathers were hardier than our fathers, and that in the early days of our coun- try extreme longevity was much more common than now, when only one person in a hundred can hope to reach the age of sixty-five; nor is this peculiar to our own country. Suppose, now, that between the years 1838 and 1840, when cere- bral meningitis took 28 per cent, of the population of Versailles and 42 per cent, of that of Strasburg, some one had prepared tables of vital statistics, and suppose that, after this epidemic had spent its force, other tables were prepared and that these were compared with the former tables in order to demonstrate that the people of these localities were growing hardier and longer lived. We can readily see the fallacy of such a course in this instance, but we are apt to forget that our own supposed physical betterment, which we deduce from our tables of vital statistics, rests on no better foundation. Put 10 000 giants in the Swiss Mountains and 10,000 starved and 651 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION squalid pigmies on the parched and cholera stricken sands of India, Prepare vital statistics of these two colonies, and there will be no question as to which is the more physically fit. Now suddenly trans- fer the hardy Swiss Colony to the plague-stricken area of India and remove the pigmy Indians to the high altitudes of Switzerland. Now, after the plague has ravaged the Swiss Colony, prepare another set of vital statistics, and if the death-rate, when it includes deaths from epidemics, scourges and the like, is a fair measure of vitality, you will see that the pigmy East Indians are a hardier race than the Swiss giants. The tremendous effect which epidemics have had upon mortality is well illustrated by the history of the Plague or Black Death. This dates back to before the time of Trajan. Africa was consid- ered its original home, where it is supposed to have destroyed a million persons. Not until the 6th century did the bubonic plague break out in Europe as a part of a " great cycle of pestilence, ac- companied by extraordinary natural phenomena which lasted fifty years." In the 14th century came another great cycle of epidemics, and, among them, the Black Death. Nearly the whole of Europe was overrun by the pestilence, and so severe was it in 1352 that Oxford lost two-thirds of her academical population. The mortal- ity of the Black Death was enormous, taking in some cases three- fourths of the population, and in some parts of England its ravages were even more severe. Hecker estimates that 25,000,000 persons, or one-fourth of the then population of Europe, died in all the epi- demics. So many died that, in spite of all legislation enacted to pre- vent it, wages suddenly rose, and it is believed that the epidemic brought about the final emancipation of the labouring class. In the 15th century the plague frequently recurred. In 1427, 80,000 per- sons died in and about Dantzic. In 1466, 40,000 persons died of the Plague in Paris. The 16th century was also devastated by this awful pestilence which swept not only many parts of Europe, but depopu- lated China, as well. In 1563-4, 1,000 persons died weekly in Lon- don. In 1570, 200,000 persons died in Moscow. The 17th century was marked by one of the worst of all the epidemics. In Naples alone it is estimated to have killed 300,000 persons in five months. The Great Plague of London came in 1664-5. In August, 1665, the mortality was 31,159, and the total mortality for that year is placed at 68,596 out of a population estimated at 460,000, of whom two- thirds are supposed to have fled to escape contagion. Other plagues followed these at intervals, ravaging now this country and now that, down to the present time. Small-pox epidemics, yellow fever scourges, and the like, also claimed their thousands. From year to year, the increase in medical skill, and better sanita- tion in the United States and many other civilised countries, have progressively decreased the horrors of epidemics, until to-day the grand work of Pasteur and other scientists has all but completely drawn the sting from several of the world's worst scourges. Were social conditions what they should be, it would be a matter of only a few years, perhaps only a few months, before the great White Plague, with its appalling record of one-seventh of the human race, were f or- 652 SOME CAUSES AND RESULTS ever relegated to the limbo of historical and ever-fading horrors. Can we for a moment doubt that this lower modern death-rate is due to our scientific advancement in the prevention and treatment of these diseases, and exists, in spite of a constantly augmenting racial degeneracy in the matter of physical vigour ? We have seen how plague after plague has cut its swath of death upon the surface of the earth, and we have only to consider what would become of our present mortality-rate were such plagues to afflict us, fully to realise how much our present low death-rate is in- debted to their absence. The pressure of society upon the individual is constantly increas- ing, and the age dead-line is being lowered, from year to year, to such an extent that it is ever becoming increasingly harder for anv but young men to secure work. Men past middle life cannot stand the pace, and are not wanted. When the causes of this sorry condi- tion of affairs are sought for we are more often than not told that there are too many people in the country, that immigration is to blame for all the trouble. In the one breath we are informed that our country is being impoverished by foreign labour, and in the next breath that this results from the ability of foreigners to create wealth cheaper than we ourselves can do it, which is to say that they demand for themselves a smaller portion of the wealth they create than we do. By implication, then, we see that they leave the larger part of their creation available for the Americans who employ them. Just how a country can become poor by the creation of wealth too cheaply we are not told. The fact of the matter is that men who advance these arguments, if they may be dignified by such a term, have simply made an observation and then have assumed that there is but one explanation for what they have perceived. The American labourer perceives that if a foreigner takes his job he loses it, and that, as a rule without exception, the more men there are anxious for employment the harder it is for all of them to secure it. Add to this, that this difficulty is materially accentuated when his competitors are used to a lower scale of living than himself and are, therefore, willing to work for less than he can live upon, and it is scarcely to be wondered at that he demands that immigration be restricted. He believes that there are too many men already for the work to be done, whereas it would be much nearer the fact to say that there is too little work for the number of available labourers. To the average man these two statements will seem identical, but such is far from being the case, if we look below the surface. It is better to state a difficulty in terms of a factor which sustains a cause- and-effect relation to it than to state it in terms of one which sus- tains at best only a relation of concomitance. The cause of the diffi- culty is that production is restricted, and the remedy, therefore, should not be the restriction of labour, but the freeing of production. What would we think of a farmer who, finding one of his span of draft-horses so tangled in his harness that he could not keep up with his mate, promptly descended from his seat and similarly tangled the other horse? We ought to think of him just what we ought to think of people who spend their energies in trying to restrict the 653 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION labour-market below the level of an artificially restricted production in order to enhance wages, and who do this ignorant of the fact that they are attacking the problem from the wrong end. We do not blame the labourer, who sees that there are but ten jobs and who is powerless to make them eleven, for striving, in self-preservation, to prevent eleven labourers seeking them. He may do this at the same time that he recognises that his method is but a pitiable makeshift, but we do blame senators and politicians generally who throw dust in the eyes of the public by this talk of restricting immigration, as if that were a universal panacea for all our social ills. They know perfectly well that immigration is not the cause of the labourer's hard lot, and that the restriction of immigration as a rem- edy is not worth a thought. They know, furthermore, that all this hue and cry against immigration is raised by themselves, as well as by others, for the express purpose of diverting public attention from the real difficulties and thus preventing their cure. Just as Russia, when threatened with a revolution, sends out her agents to foment race and religious discord among the many peoples constituting her subjects, in order that they may fall to massacring each other in a way to prevent any effective combination against her, so do our plutocratic princes of privilege bid these senatorial hench- men wave this red rag of immigration to catch the eye and divert the attention of the voter from the one thing which, if perceived, would give them and their like a short shrift. In some cases these paid be- trayers of the people have had the unblushing effrontery to tell the labouring man that the country was overpopulated and could not sup- port so many. We haye shown in an early chapter how the whole human race could be accommodated by the single state of Texas, from which it will be seen that rural America, at least, is not badly overcrowded, on the average. We now offer the subjoined diagram showing the average density of population per acre of some of our cities, in order that the Reader may see that even the cities, which we are wont to look upon as so crowded that their occupants are packed like sardines in a box, are really quite roomy, upon the average. The trouble here, as in respect to other wealth, is all in the matter x>f distribution. A perusal of the diagram will show that Boston is the most densely populated city in the Union, and yet 56 per cent, of its land is va- cant. The most densely populated city in the United States, with only 22.06 persons per acre! And New Orleans enjoys the distinc- tion of having less than three persons to the acre. You will find in New Orleans some cases where a single room is the home of many persons, and this in a city where each family of five could have approximately two acres for an estate, were the land equally di- vided. We have said that the trouble in respect to wealth generally is in the matter of distribution. This has been growing worse every year. Not only as regards this country, but in others as well. Victor Hugo said: "We produce wonderfully; we distribute abominably." As far back as 1891, the late Senator Ingalls said, in the United States Senate, in reference to an article which Thomas G. Shearman 654 56% Vacant 44% Occupied 8 h 5 1901 London' 19.3% New Orleans 3-% St. Louis 15% Chicago 17% Philadelphia New York 19% Boston 22.06% IIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIII GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION published in " The Forum " for September, 1889, regarding the dis- tribution of wealth in the United States : " Mr. President, it is the most appalling statement that ever fell from the lips of man. It is, so far as the results of Democracy as a political experiment are con- cerned, the most terrible commentary that was ever recorded in the books of time. Our population is sixty-two and a half millions, and by some means, some device, some machination, honest or otherwise, some process that cannot be denned, less than a two-thousandth part of our population have obtained possession of more than one-half of the accumulated wealth of the country, and have kept out of the peni- tentiary in spite of the means they have adopted to acquire it ! " Some years ago, Mr. Eltweed Pomeroy, a familiar figure in the Direct Legislation movement, published the results of his work on wealth distribution in "The Arena Magazine." He showed that 1.6 per cent, of the people of England owned 54.2 per cent, of the wealth. He then turned his attention to Massachusetts, and, through probate records, labour and registration reports, etc., obtained an estimate of the State's distribution of wealth. This, with further in- vestigations and comparisons, he used as applicable to the whole coun- try, and from it he worked out the following diagram representing wealth distribution in the United States for the year 1900. In his " The Social Unrest " Mr. John Graham Brooks gives dia- grams showing the distribution of wealth according to Spahr's ta- bles. These we reproduce at figures 5 and 6 of Chart B. For the more graphic presentment of the same statistics we have prepared figures 1, 2, 3, 4 of Chart B. Chart C deals also with some special features of this subject of production. The various figures are dia- grammatic presentations of the facts contained in the following table. Population in the United States in 1900. . . 76,303,387 Males 39,059,242 Females 37,244,145 Population over 18 years of age, both sexes. 45,594,735=59.75% Population under 18 years of age, both sexes 30,708,652 =40.24 % Population engaged in gainful occupation. . 29,285,922=38.38% Population not engaged in gainful occupa- tion 47,017,465=61.62% Total wealth of the United States in 1900. .$94,300,000,000 Amount of real wealth properly so-called subject to qualification mentioned below. $3 7,720,000,000 About 60 % of this total wealth is real estate values, and even this figure does not in- clude mines, quarries, railroad rights of way and franchises in streets which, though always estimated as wealth, are not, properly speaking, wealth, but are classed as part of the 40% " real wealth " in order that our showing may be the more conservative. It amounts to $56,580,000,000 Per cent, of real total wealth created each year 50.4 % 656 Population Wealth Well to do 11-5- Well io 3.0 J2.0.2J" Eltweed Poraeroy's Diagram of Population and Wealth for 1900 from "The Vanguard," Feb., 1905. GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Annual production $19,020,000,000 Amount produced by each individual 649.46 Population engaged in gainful occupation . . 29,285,922 Population over 18 years, both sexes, who should be engaged in productive work . . . 45,594,735 Population who do not work is 1.55 times greater than the part who do work. If 45,594,735 people who should work did work the annual production would be 19,020,000,000 times 1.55 $29,481,000,000 Per cent, of present total real wealth pro- ducible by 45,594,735 people in one year. 78.1% If 45,594,735 people worked with proper fa- cilities and eliminated waste they would annually produce $59,223,913,186 For fear lest these may not be self-explanatory we have penned the following description of the figures. CHART C Fig. 1 indicates the total estimated wealth of the United States in 1900. The black portion, or 60% of the area, indicates the $56,- 580,000,000 worth of real estate not properly classed as wealth, and this figure is exclusive of mines, street franchises, railroad rights of way, etc. The light portion, or 40%, indicates the $37,- 720,000,000 of so-called " real wealth " and both areas the wealth in 1900, $94,300,000,000. Fig. 2 indicates in its entirety the $37,720,000,000 of real wealth in 1900. The black portion indicates the $19,020,000,000 of wealth, annually produced, or 50.4% of the whole wealth, exclusive of real estate, franchises, etc., as aforesaid. Fig. 8 indicates the total population in 1900, to wit, 76,303,387. Fig. 4 indicates the 38.38% of population, or 29,285,922 persons, en- gaged in gainful occupation. Fig. 5 indicates the 61.62%, or 47,017,465, not engaged in gainful occupation. Fig. 6 indicates the 59.75% of the population representing the 45,- 594,735 persons of both sexes over 18 years of age who ought to work and who would do so under a proper system. The aged and infirm who might have to be deducted from this number are fewer than those who could justly be added below the age of 18. Fig. 7 indicates graphically the number engaged in gainful occupa- tions in contrast with the number not so engaged. Fig. 8 shows the total real wealth as aforesaid. Fig. 9 shows the amount of wealth which would be produced in 2 years by the number of workers who were employed in gainful oc- cupations in 1900, to wit, 38.38% of the then population. Fig. 10 shows total real wealth same as Figure 8. Fig. 11 shows the amount of this real wealth, 50.4%, or $19,020,000,- 000, produced in 1900 by 38.38% of the population. Fig. 12 shows that 78.1% of this $37,720,000,000 real wealth would be produced annually if the 59.75% of the population worked who should work. 658 o S5 H>g O M s _~J ft O ? te ^^ Oi J g 5'~ f -3 O, w-i a> o o a (^t # I -8 3 * iO -( QLI I I * s SOME CAUSES AND RESULTS could be produced in one year by something less than the 60% of the population over 18 years of age working under the present waste- ful system. Fig. 13 shows an estimate, which we have aimed to make far too conservative, of the amount of wealth which could easily be produced annually, under a proper system having increased facilities and eliminating waste, by 59.75 % of the population. The per capita wealth created is estimated at twice that tabulated, or $1,298.92, and the total annual production of wealth would be $59,223,913,186. We see, therefore, that as a nation we live a somewhat hand-to- mouth existence, consuming our wealth almost as fast as we produce it, or, to put it another way, producing our volume of real wealth every two years. Take as an example our 200,000 miles of railways which represent a capitalised value of $12,000,000,000, a sum equal to three-fourths of the value of all the farms in the country. The real cost of these railroads is less than $5,000,000,000, three-fifths of their capitalisation, or $7,000,000,000, representing watered-stock and bonds upon which the victimised public pay interest in the shape of extortionate passenger and freight rates. The sentiment which these large corporations entertain toward their simple-minded patrons was expressed by William H. Vanderbilt in the following classic: The people be damned ; we are in business to make money." This spirit is not confined to our steam-roads. Our street and ele- vated railways furnishing execrable transportation facilities, while boasting among themselves that they make their dividends " off the straps/' are but another illustration of the psychological facts that power is universally corruptive and that they who are permitted to victimise a supine people will come to despise them during the process. The hysterical attempts to reform railroad abuses by legislation would be farcical were their effects not tragic and far reaching. Interstate Commerce Commissions may do their utmost which they by no means have done in the past and the evils will still flourish and grow apace. The mere fact that the railroad magnates themselves, when they are brought to realise that public sentiment demands some sort of grandstand play, always advocate governmental regulation should be sufficient to convince the voter that that is precisely the thing which he does not want. Just as the voter, who has the cause of temperance at heart, should realise that, if the saloon-keeper advo- cate license, that is precisely what he himself does not want. The railroad magnates have made life studies of their own interests, and can be depended upon to know just what they want ih further- ance thereof. Their advocacy of governmental regulation springs from a two-fold cause, first, they want to be controlled by the govern- ment, because they themselves are the government, in effect ; the rail- road interest dominates that absurd and monarchical institution, the American "House of Lords," commonly called the Senate. A few years since special privilege maintained so active and thorough a lobby in Washington that these paid henchmen, hired to corrupt senators, were denominated "the third house." Now things are changed, and this lobby is no more. The reason is that each vested privilege owns its own senators outright, taking good care that only those " safe and sane" legislators who can be depended upon to obey its mandates 663 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION without question are given seats in this " richest club " in America, originally devised and now carefully maintained for the sole and ex- press purpose of subverting the will of the people. The second cause for the advocacy on the part of the railway mag- nates of governmental supervision is to prevent the people from gen- erally perceiving that private ownership of a steel highway is, if possible, even more fundamentally undemocratic and ridiculous than similar ownership of ordinary carriage roads. The toll-road with its stultifying effects still exists in some districts endowed with a 1492 intelligence, but the most of our population would rise in revolution were an attempt openly made to establish general toll-roads. The railroad monopolists always stigmatise as "the awful menace x>f Socialism" anything which looks toward the people owning their own railroads. In this regard the United States is a hopeless back number. In Europe, government-owned and government-controlled roads are all but the universal rule. What happens to the body politic when its life-channels are pri- vately owned is just what would happen to the body corporeal were the great aorta given, say, to some ambitious cancer as its private property. All public utilities are in their nature, and must continue to be, monopolies, and all things which in their essence are monopolies should be monopolised by the State, the safest monopolist the people can choose. The utter futility of legal regulation of railroads has been shown again and again. We have been told how certain roads observed the letter of the law forbidding rebates and other discrimi- nation against Standard Oil competitors; how they secretly notified the Standard that they should reduce their freight-rates upon a cer- tain day and hour to a given figure, and informed that company that if they would have a large shipment ready to the minute they could avail themselves of the reduction, which they very obligingly did. When the other shippers of oil, who had not been let into the trick, were able to move their goods and sought to avail themselves of the reduced rate, as they did a few hours later, lo, the freight-charges had advanced. Is any one foolish enough to imagine that legal enact- ments do now, or ever can, stop this sort of thing? If there be any so uninformed we beg them to read " Wealth against Commonwealth," by Henry Demorest Lloyd, "The History of the Standard Oil," by Ida Tarbell, "Kailways and the Eepublic," by J. F. Hudson, and " The Eailroad Question," by ex-Governor Larrabee of Iowa. It is encouraging to note that former Congressman William J. Coombs, of Brooklyn, N. Y., is interested in a project for the build- ing by the government of a transcontinental railway upon which any one may run trains. This would, in fact, be a railed highway, and would enable short railways, by tapping this government road, to compete with the great trunk lines and thus get their fair share of the traffic. Should this or some similar plan be put into effect, the benefit to the country, the increase in its wealth, would be so rapid and enormous that it would soon be followed by other national and State-owned railed highways. To meet such a proposition with a statement that it contains a threat of Socialism is childish. What is our postal system but Socialism pure and simple? 664 SOME CAUSES AND RESULTS The capitalisation of our street-railways in 1902 was $2,900,000,- 000, and we are told upon good authority (see " Free America," page 84) that they, undoubtedly, could be reproduced for about 25 per cent, of this capitalisation, or some seven or eight hundred millions. It has been computed that these street-railway franchises which the people have given away, for the most part without return, cost the average city workers about thirty dollars per year per family more than they ought to cost. This thirty dollars, which goes to pay divi- dends upon water, ought to go for better food, clothes, and the like; from which it will be seen that, even in passenger transportation, the poor man is made to feel the heavy pressure of our unfortunate social system. It has been impossible more than to hint at a few of the factors which help to produce the terrible social pressure under which the majority of our people at present labour. Enough has been said, however, to draw attention to the fact, and to hint at the social price which coming generations must pay in moral, mental and physical debasement because of present injustice. That all this could be remedied fundamentally, not only to the advantage of the submerged masses, but to that of thdir oppressors as well, it is the object of the Gillette System to demonstrate. In order, however, to make the new system readily understandable it has been necessary to consider pres- ent conditions at great and, we fear, somewhat tiresome length. As no other way seemed feasible we have no apologies to offer. We be- lieve a full comprehension of the Gillette System will amply repay any sacrifice of time which the Header may have made. The first strength of a plant is gained below ground. The solidity of a struc- ture is in its foundation, and the success of all rational processes de- pends primarily upon the establishment of a sound point of departure as a major premise. 665 BOOK XII CHAPTER I. POVERTY AND TOIL CHAPTER II. THE WHITE PLAGUE AN ADDED BURDEN CHAPTER III. THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN CHAPTER IV. THE SLAUGHTER or THE INNOCENTS A man's labour for a day is a better standard of value than a measure of any produce, because no produce ever maintains a consistent rate of productibility. John Ruskin. The curse of gold upon the land The lack of bread enforces; The rail-cars snort from strand to strand, Like more of death's white horses; The rich preach " rights " and " future days," And hear no angel scoffing: The poor die mute, with starving gaze On corn-ships in the offing. Be pitiful, O God! Mrs. Browning. There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong, when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. R. O. Ingersoll. With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the " Song of the Shirt." Oh, Men, with Sisters dear! Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives! Stitch stitch stitch, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, Sewing at once, with a double thread, A Shroud as well as a Shirt Thomas Hood. The Irrevocable Hand That opes the year's fair gate, doth ope and shut The portals of our earthly destinies; We walk through blindfold, and the noiseless doors Close after us forever. D. M. Mulock April. 668 Probably nothing in the tables of the causes of poverty, as ascertained by case counting, will more surprise the average reader than the fact that intemperance is held to be the chief cause in only one-fifteenth to one-fifth of the cases, and that where an attempt is made to learn in how many cases it had contributary influence, its presence cannot be traced at all in more than twenty-eight and one-tenth in the hundred of all the cases. Prof. Amos G. Warner American Charities. Defend me, therefore, . . . . . . from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up. Cowper Task. Ah, why Should life all labour be? Tennyson The Lotus Eaters. 669 CHAPTER I POVERTY AND TOIL T is a sad commentary on modern civilisation that many of those who toil most unremittingly suffer the. most abject poverty. Consider for a moment how world-wide is. this condition of affairs, and you will see what a direful indictment it constitutes against the whole fabric of civilised society. The pressure of competition has driven us to the attainment of such a pace that it may truthfully be said that to-day we swallow life so fast we can- not taste it. The Chinese have a proverb which reads : " Those who make money make little exertion, those who make much exer- tion make no money/' That this is a generality of world-wide application goes without say- ing. We are told that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and this hire happens to be, in fact, the smallest possible sum for which his services can be procured, since natural opportunities to create wealth are monopolised by a handful of men who shut the earth away from labour. The worker cannot toil for himself, but is obliged to sell his effort to the monopolist who has fenced off the earth for his own private exploitation. Such being the case, monopoly has only so to restrict production that there shall not be enough created to keep the labourers busy, in order to have them hysterically competing with each other for the privilege to work at any living wage and, in many cases, for less than a living wage. Says Carlyle : " The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed seigneur delicately lounging in the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract from her the third nettle and call it rent." In similar vein is the following, translated by Sir William Jones from an Indian grant of land, found at Tanna. " To whomsoever the soil at any time belongs, to him belong the fruits of it. White parasols and elephants mad with pride are the flowers of a grant of land." John A. Hobson says : " The part played by rent in the problems of poverty can scarcely be overestimated." The monopoly of wealth, which is made possible by the monopoly of that necessary to the production of wealth, is the cause of untold misery. No wonder that the poet sings: "When wealth no more shall rest in moulded heaps, But smit with freer light shall slowly melt In many streams to fatten lower lands, And light shall spread, and man be liker man Thro all the seasons of the golden year." 670 POVERTY AND TOIL What wonder that existing conditions lead even ministers to doubt the social intent of those whose money supports the church. The Eev. L. A. Banks says : " Reforms will never come from the gold-box of Mammon. We must cry aloud and spare not until these devilish cruelties and unblushing crimes are impossible." . . . Again elsewhere he says : " There must be no doubt about the attitude of the church in a time like this. Against the gold god and all his op- pressions the Christian Church must stand with unflinching front. Our God is the same who spoke through the voice of Amos of old, saying, ' Hear this, oh ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? And the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? That we may buy the poor for silver, and the- needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of wheat?' Ah ! how much that sounds like the things that are going on at the present time ! " If the labourer begin at any time to question the eternal wisdom of such a system, monopoly has only publicly to deplore immigration as the cause of all his troubles and to tell him that there are so many more labourers than production can support that some must of neces- sity go hungry ! Not only this, but it is a favourite habit of the monopolist and of the unthinking public to lay our unpleasant record of crime and cor- ruption largely at the door of the immigrant, despite the fact that the honest observer knows perfectly well that our social conditions are responsible for such moral degradation as we exhibit. In " Les Miserables," Victo Hugo says : " Can the heart be deformed, and contract incurable ugliness and infirmity under the pressure of dis- proportionate misfortune, like the spine beneath too low a vault ? " No one who has read the works of the great Frenchman can for a moment doubt his answer to his own question. Says the Eev. L. A. Banks : " So intimate is the relation between the body and the soul, that every question which has to do with the feeding or clothing of a human body is, at the last analysis, a moral question." The advent of the Labour Union has in many cases prevented the labourer from having his wages cut to an unbearable extent, but there are many workers who are practically defenceless. Such is the case with most women and children. The last census gives the in- crease in the number of women working in manufacturing pursuits as 28.4 per cent., while, the increase in the number of children is placed at 54 4 per cent. The number of women in factory work in the United States is 1,031,747. New York has 230,199, Massachu- setts 143,109, Pennsylvania 126,093, Illinois 58,978, and Ohio 53,711. Eighteen out of nineteen factory States exhibit an increase in women workers, Maine being the one exception to the rule. The States out- side the factory list show great increases, for instance South Caro- lina is shown to have increased 158.3 per cent., North Carolina 151.2 per cent., West Virginia 130.2 per cent., Alabama 109.1 per cent, Georgia 82,2 per cent. So much for our prosperity! 671 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Many industries are coming more and more into the hands of women. There are 37,762 women making cigars, a gain of 56 per cent, against a gain of 4.6 per cent, for men. Malt liqueurs show an increase of 101.6 per cent, of women workers against an increase of 30.2 per cent, of men workers. There are 6^ times as many women as men making collars and cuffs, and more than twice as many em- ployed in the leather, glove and mitten industry. The wages paid to female operators of typewriting machines is now, we are informed, in excess of $200,000,000. The wretched conditions under which many of our sisters work and the miserable pittances they receive is one of the saddest features of modern commercial savagery. The story of the sweat-shop is a tragedy with scarcely a glint of sunshine from prologue to denouement. Some years ago the Eev. L. A. Banks published his " White Slaves," a work which dealt at length with the sweat-shop system of Boston. In this work he says : " An officer of the Operatives' Union put the number of sweat-shops in Boston at one hundred and fifty, but this does not include the tenement-shops that are beginning to develop here very rapidly." Mr. Banks made a careful and exhaustive study of the sweat-shop and kindred evils. We regret that space does not permit us to put before the Reader some of the more typical cases which he unearthed. We must content ourselves, after referring all those who are interested in these subjects to his work, with the following quotations there- from : tt George Macdonald says : ' The world will change only as the heart of man changes. Growing intellect, growing civilisation, will heal man's wounds only to cause the deeper ill to break out afresh in new forms, nor can they satisfy one longing of the human soul. Its desires are deeper than that soul itself, whence it groans with the groanings that cannot be uttered. As much in times of civilisation as in those of barbarity, the soul needs an external presence to make its life good to it/ The Christianity of to-day must set itself, as did Jesus, to make men brothers, by bringing them to a recognition of the fact that they are all alike the children of one God and Father over all. Such a Christianity will necessarily be at war with the gold god of our time. The clear-cut declaration of Jesus, ' Ye cannot serve God and Mammon/ is as true now as when He uttered it. I do not remember to have seen this issue put as clearly anywhere else as by Henry D. Lloyd in an article in the ' North American Review ' en- titled, ' The New Conscience/ He says : s Let us listen while a delegation from the Money-power remonstrates with the New Con- science for its unreasonable sentiments and ideas. Here they come, one by one, and range themselves about. First speaks ' THE MERCHANT PRINCE: I have a right to buy where I can buy cheapest. ' CONSCIENCE : See these little stunted, hollow-eyed girls coming out of that factory. ' LAWYER : Wages are settled by contract. ' CONSCIENCE : Where can I find white-haired workingmen ? ' CAPITALIST : Every man has a right to do what he will with his own. 672 POVERTY AND TOIL ' CONSCIENCE : What is the price of a senatorship to-day ? 'STATISTICIAN: Never were food, fuel, and clothing so"cheap. ' CONSCIENCE : Little Mary Mitchell works in Waterbury's rope- works five days a week from six in the evening till six in the morning. 'RAILROAD KING: Every man makes his own career. I was a workingrnan myself twenty years ago, and now I keep a carriage, a butler, and several judges and legislators, in four States, and ' CONSCIENCE : That tired-looking man is a railway conductor of a company owned by half a dozen men worth three hundred mil- lions of dollars, which is not enough for them, so they squeeze a few more dollars a month out of him by making him, on every alternate trip, do twenty-eight and a half hours' work without sleep. 'BANKER: Our wealth is increasing one billion dollars a year. We have boards of trades, the best railroads in the world, and pack- ing-houses that can kill ten thousand hogs. ' CONSCIENCE : The sickening stench, the blistered air, the foul sights of the tenements, and the motherhood and the childhood chok- ing there. ' CONSERVATIVE : This is the best government in the world. America is good enough for me. ' CONSCIENCE : Listen to that ' tramp, tramp, tramp/ of a mil- lion men out of work. 'MANUFACTURER: Without this system of industry the subjuga- tion of North America to civilisation would have been impossible; we could never have shown the world the magnificent spectacle of ' CONSCIENCE : There is a little boy standing ten hours a day up to his ankles in the water in a coal-mine. ' COAL MONOPOLIST : I have a statistician who can prove he can prove anything that the workingrnan. is a great deal better off than he ever was, that he makes more than I do, that small in- comes are increasing and large ones decreasing, that there is no in- voluntary poverty, and that the workingmen could live on twenty- five cents each a day and buy up the United States with their savings, and ' CONSCIENCE : How long shall it be cheaper to run over work- ingmen and women at the railroad crossings in the cities than to put up gates ? ' CLERGYMAN : The poor we are to have with us always. ' CONSCIENCE : That sewing-woman you see pawning her shawl has lived this winter with her two children in a room without fire. Are you wearing one of the shirts she finished? ' STATESMAN : The workingman has the ballot and the news- papers. He is a free citizen. ' CONSCIENCE : As the nights grow colder see how the number of girls on the street increases/ " It is this new conscience, the conscience of Jesus Christ, that ap- praises a hungry child to be of more value than ten thousand palaces, that must animate and dominate the church that is called by His name, in its war against the gold god of modern society." In a leaflet " Factory Work in Newark Homes," Elizabeth B. But- ler, Executive Secretary of the " Consumers' League " of New Jersey, 43 673 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION" says: "As is well-known, the home-workers for a factory are in a peculiarly defenceless position, because there is no union or other restriction to competition between them, and consequently no limit below which the rate of pay may not fall. In no case is the price paid for outside work equal to that paid for the same work when done by inside hands. Outside and inside workers are always studi- ously kept apart : ' They don't like you to talk to the inside hands/ one hears frequently, 'they don't want you to know what they get.' The pay for carding buttons was formerly 4 cents a gross, that is, sewing 12 buttons each on 12 cards; the work was then done by the girls in the factory. When the rate was cut to 2 cents a gross, the factory girls refused to do it for that price, and it was given to out- side workers; now, practically all carding of buttons is done outside for iy 2 to 2 cents a gross. Finishing pants is another case in point. When the work was, done in the shop, a pants finisher was paid 14 or 15 cents a pair. By the competition of unorganised home work- ers, the price was cut to 12 cents, and later to 10, 8, and even 6 cents a pair; with each fall in price more of the work was done in the homes and less in the shops, until now it is not' too much to say that all finishing of pants is done by individual workers at home. For making a dozen kimonos, the pay is 60 cents. For finishing waists, 12-button-holes in a waist, and tapes to put in, the pay is 42 cents a dozen. Jewellers give out much of their rope chain 'link- ing to home workers, and pay 22 cents a foot for exceedingly fine work which requires special instruments. Babies' crocheted sacques are made altogether by home-workers, who are paid from 50 cents to $1.90 a dozen, but as the work varies in fineness as much as in price, crocheters make but little more at the high-priced, than at the low-priced, grade of work. Crocheted booties pay 40 to 45 cents a dozen, and large circular shawls $3.00 a dozen. For felling, hem- ming and trimming a dozen corset covers, one is paid 30 cents; for making a dozen butchers' aprons 25 cents. In general, articles that are in constant demand pay the least, and articles pay the best that are a passing fad and consequently offer no steady employment, such as beaded purses or certain kinds of fancy collars." . . . " There are three main classes of home-workers : married women with large families, where the wages of the husband are insufficient to cover the cost of living, married women whose husbands are out of work, and women who although obliged to support themselves, are unable, because of age or illness, to work in a shop." We take the following from the Eeport of the " Consumers' League " of the City of New York for the year ending Dec., 1904 : " We have laws which if enforced would obliterate every sweat-room, great and small, in New York. To enforce these laws would require an army, of inspectors working day and night. In some sections of the city every tenement house would require two inspectors contin- ually, one at the street-door entrances, the other on the roof, and fire escapes are used as entrances and exits. We have a new law recently in effect, which provides that the house must be licensed and not the apartment. After an inspection by the labour inspector and consultations with the Health Department, if everything is found 674 POVERTY AND TOIL in good order, the owner is given a license, these buildings to be inspected every six months at least. I have a list of tenements li- censed by the Labour Bureau in my neighbourhood. I have been in thirty-eight of these houses, the license was posted in twelve. In one of these licensed houses I have attended a case of measles ; there are two families in the apartment, the notice of the contagious dis- ease was posted on the door, two women were finishing trousers within, one day I found the sick child lying on a bundle of the trous- ers, this is a common occurrence. There is also a clause forbidding the employment of any but members of the family not only is this not obeyed, but the work is carried to other apartments and even to other houses. The old law placed the responsibility of manufactur- ing on the worker and the manufacturers. The new law takes the responsibility off the worker and puts it on the landlord. On Jan. 9th, according to the daily papers, a raid was made by twenty-two inspectors in Elizabeth Street. The people were duly frightened, much of the work was hidden, and, to my personal knowledge, in the evening was being done in inside bedrooms with doors locked. Fresh work I saw carried in and finished in about the same way that the people would have made counterfeit money. The next day and since, it is being done openly, outlooks being posted in different parts of the house who will give the alarm in their own language, and work will be again hidden should another inspection be made. Any person, seeing such a spectacle as this, can but wonder what manner of United States Citizens these people thus treated are going to make, trying to earn an honest living and forced by this law to make it illegally. Is there any other remedy? / believe that a law absolutely forbid- ding any manufacturer to have, any part of his work done in a tene- ment house could be enforced. "If women must add to the income of the family they should do it in buildings built for this purpose, children, at least under eight years of age, would not be employed men and women in the last stages of tuberculosis could not work because of inability to go to a factory. The children, the future Americans, would stand a better chance of becoming useful citizens, and the consumers, pos- sessed of much wealth or little, could know that their garments were not stained with the blood of helpless women and little children." The evils of the sweat-shop are by no means confined to the filthy germ-laden tenements where the economic slaves wear out their miser- able lives in a daily increasing struggle for bread. This system menaces even those smug optimists who know nothing of its horrors and are not aware that it concerns them in the least. The goods made in these sweating dens go everywhere, and there is absolutely no safe-guard against them. The excellent work of the " Consumers League " deserves the strongest commendation, but, until the publ awake to a juster appreciation of the danger it is incurring the work of the League will he quite insufficient to guarantee its safety. The advertisements of concerns to the effect that their wares are made in carefully made and sanitary factories go for naught, are quite as likely as any others to come from the moat squalid sweat-shops. Investigation has shown goods being made in rooms 675 containing children sick with scarlet-fever, measles, diphtheria and the like. In some cases the sick children were lying upon piles of the goods which a little later were to be sold to the unsuspecting public. The cut presented herewith is that of a woman in the last stages of tuberculosis who was found working on fancy collars. The room is in the basement of a tenement-house in the block in New York known as "Lung Block," because of the prevalence of tuber- culosis. It will be noted that the woman is working by the light of a single gas jet, rgas burning at midday! for no daylight ever en- ters the room. The collars which this woman made went forth from her hands perhaps to spread death and destruction in homes of affluence. The outrageous treatment bestowed upon the female as well as the male workers in Packingtown, Chicago, is luminously described in Mr. Upton Sinclair's great book " The Jungle." The Great White Plague has killed not millions but billions of men, women and children. It has hung like a smothering pall for thousands of years over the human race, and to-day of the 80.000,000 people in the United States between seven and eight million must inevitably die of consumption, unless something is done to decrease the number of its victims. Every year it kills more than 100,000 of our men and women, most of whom are cut off in the very prime of life. In 1890 the number claimed by consumption, including general tuberculosis, was 102,199, which figure rose in 1900 to 111,059 ! One- third of all the women who die between the ages of 20 and 45 die of tuberculosis. Of the men who die between 30 and 45, 32 per cent, are victims of this plague, and, what is most alarming of all, 36 per cent, of all the deaths of young^men between 20 and 29 are from this cause. The Great White Plague is without a competitor in its fearful mortality. It has killed more than all the wars and other plagues combined, the world over. Commenting on this dreadful disease, Ernest Poole says : " It is a plague in disguise. Its ravages are insidious, slow. They have never yet roused a people to great, sweeping action. The Black Plague in London is ever remembered with horror. It lived one year; it killed fifty thousand. The Plague, Consumption, kills this year in Europe over a million ; and this has been going on not for one year but for centuries. It is the Plague of all plagues both in age and in power, insidious, steady, unceasing. " It can be stamped out. Its workings are no longer hidden. We know now that consumption is not produced by direct heredity the tendency alone is inherited. It is produced by infection from living germs, coughed up, millions in a day. Ignorance lets these millions live, spat out on walls and floors and pavements, to float later in the air and so spread the infection. Darkness, foul air, and filth keep these millions alive. Sunlight has killed them in fifteen minutes; in dark tenement halls they are known to have lived two years. Darkness, foul air, ignorance, drink these weaken men, women, and children, and so make them ready for infection. Then the germs, if breathed in, may bring pulmonary tuberculosis con- sumption; or if swallowed, tuberculosis of the stomach or the intes- 676 Basement of Tenement House in Block known as " Lung Block," because of prevalence of tuberculosis. No daylight gas burning at midday. A woman in the last stages of tuberculosis working on fancy collars. Reproduced from Report of "The Consumers' League" of New York. POVERTY AND TOIL tines; or, if brought in contact with a wound, tuberculosis of the skin or of the joints. These latter forms are most common in little children. They bring but one-fourth of all deaths from the Plague. Tuberculosis of the lungs is the one great form of the Plague to be fought above all others. It can be stamped out. " In New York City a strong beginning has already been made. While the population has vastly increased in the last twenty years, the number of deaths from this cause has remained about the same. Far greater effort, however, is now called for. Dr. Hermann M. Biggs, Medical Officer of the Department of Health, has recently said : ' The measures now in force are quite inadequate as compared to the importance and magnitude of the problem. The sanitary au- thorities, however enthusiastic and efficient, and the medical pro- fession, however influential and numerous, cannot grapple with this problem unless they have the hearty support of the people.' And he adds : ' I believe that tuberculosis may be practically stamped out.' This is said from years of wide experience. It is supported by sci- ence the world over. Experience everywhere has shown just what must be done. The time is ripe for the people to act on a tremendous scale. Not hundreds, not thousands, but tens of thousands are to be saved for New York City' alone in these next ten years. They aje to be saved by attacking this Plague in its stronghold. "THE STRONGHOLD OF THE PLAGUE." "Its stronghold is the tenement. Statistics prove this the world over. They show in New York State that in cities of over twenty- five thousand now swiftly absorbing young men from the country, sa making the problem still more appalling the death-rate from consumption is over twice the rate in smaller towns and villages. In the city, it is worst of all in the tenements. In New York City to-day there are at least twenty thousand in the tenements who are suffering in some stage of this disease. It is here among the crowded poor that the Plague feeds fat on ignorance and poverty, in dark halls, foul rooms, dark closets. It is here that it shatters the home as it has shattered homes among us all. Here it fastens on the bread- winner, eating up the small savings, lingering on for months and even years, so making the greatest of human powers Love only a means of infection and death. It is from here that sweat-Shop garments and wares of all kinds go out infected to all classes of people. It is here that unceasing danger lies for the whole com- munity." That consumption can be stamped out utterly few who are in- formed on the subject can for a moment doubt. The scientific work which is now being carried forward, as also the efforts which are being made to create an intelligent public opinion in the matter are earnlts of the time when this disease shall be stripped of its bane- ful Dower In this connexion the words of J. H. Pryor are most Ricmrficimt' He says: "We must care for the consumptive in the rigS "place, in the" right way, and at the right time, until he is GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION cured; instead of, as now, in the wrong place, in the wrong way, at the wrong time, until he is dead." The very best time to begin the campaign, against consumption is in the early childhood of our social units. One of the very best places to wage this holy war is in the public school. When our edu- cators can be themselves educated to a degree at which they will realise that proper breathing exercises, faithfully taken, will render scholars immune from the attacks of consumption, they will become an assistant, rather than a deterrent, to the scientific men who are giving their lives to this great cause. It is not enough that scholars should more or less slouchily go through perfunctory exercises for the development of full and deep breathing. Far more than this is needed. A way must be found to enlist the enthusiasm of the pupil himself, since otherwise he will, as he easily can, " go through the moves" without deriving any benefits whatsoever. The way to secure the proper faithfulness in the work is to judge it in terms of its results. A child should be marked according to his breathing capacity, his thoracic and abdominal expansion, and the like, and he should not be promoted, whatever may be his oth&r attainments, until he showed the requisite advancement in breathing. In short, our educators should insist once and for all that, in the matter of promo- tion, the capacity of the lungs should be taken into consideration even before that of the brain. The human organism at any one time contains but a certain amount of potential energy. To divert this energy to the head, when the lungs are weak, is a pernicious practice. The strength of a chain is that of its weakest link, and it is folly to attempt to develop a fine thinking mechanism by a process which dwarfs the vital functions until they cannot pump into it the blood which is necessary for thought. It reminds one of the town which spent all its moth ap- propriation in the purchase of spraying pumps, and then was unable to get anything to use in them. It is to be hoped that the time will soon come when our educators will realise that the human body is not a haphazard assortment of unrelated parts, but rather a composite whole made up of closely correlated organs, the healthful and efficient action of every one of which is necessary to the well-being of the organism as a whole. When this is duly appreciated, we shall aim properly to develop all the life functions of our pupil, and not con- duct ourselves as if we had no interest below his neck. When this time comes, it may be, too, that we shall see that fact which is as patent as a trunk on an elephant, to wit, that the social body is like the corporeal body, a correlation of parts, the disease, weakness or inefficiency of any one of which reacts upon the whole organism. This wisdom attained, the rich and the affluent will soon see that they can get a great deal more happiness out of life by so changing con- ditions as to abolish poverty and crime than by groping forever in their present black selfishness, fitfully illuminated by acts of explo- sive, and often ill-advised, philanthropy philanthropy, that sorry substitute for justice. 678 CHAPTER II THE WHITE PLAGUE AN ADDED BURDEN 679 The seed ye sow, another reaps; The wealth ye find, another keeps; The robes ye weave, another wears; The arms ye forge, another bears. Shelley Song. To Men *f England. O God! that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap! Hood The Song of the Shirt. Oh, room for the lamb in the meadow, And room for the bird on the tree! But here, in stern poverty's shadow, No room, hapless baby! for thee. ft. M. Milne. The city of Vercelli, Italy, has made feeding as compulsory as educa- tion! Every child, rich or poor, is compelled to attend the school dinners provided by the municipality, just as it is compelled to attend the school lessons. Not only food, but medical care and attention, are provided for every child, as a right, on the principle that it is absurd and wrong to attempt to develop the mind of a child while neglecting its body. It is a mocking judgment of our civilisation that such a natural, intelligent solution of a pressing problem should be impossible for our greatest and richest cities, 'though attained by a little Italian city like Vercelli. John Spargo The Bitter Cry of the Children. 680 CHAPTER II THE WHITE PLAGUE AN ADDED BURDEN T needs hardly to be said that in the public-school campaign against tuberculosis all the pupils could not be expected to attain to the same absolute meas- urements in the matter of breathing development. The essential thing is that each shall be held back from promotion until he has made a certain per cent. of the improvement which it is fairly possible for him to make. This is a matter which could easily be determined. The average person expels at each exhalation from 10 to 13 per cent, of all the air contained in the lungs. To ascertain the individual content of lungs within a narrow margin of error should not be difficult. The whole matter is of such vital importance that it warrants whatever of time and labour may be necessary to its furtherance. In an article published in "A Handbook on the Prevention of Tuberculosis," Ernest Poole treats of tuberculosis in the New York tenement. The title of his article is "The Plague in its Strong- hold." From it we extract " The Prayer of the Tenement," as illus- trative of conditions which are a stinging indictment of 20th-century civilisation. ' Breath breath give me breath ! ' A Yiddish whisper, on a night in April, 1903, from the heart of the New York Ghetto. " At 18 Clinton Street, back in the rear tenement, a young Rouman- ian Jew lay dying of consumption. I had come in with a Jewish doctor. With every breath I felt the heavy, foul odour from poverty, ignorance, filth, disease. In this room ten feet square six people lay on the floor packed close, rubbing the heavy sleep from tired eyes and staring at us dumbly. Two small windows gave them air, from a noisome court a pit twenty feet across and five floois deep. The other room was only a closet six feet by seven, with a grated window high up opening on an air-shaft eighteen inches wide. And in that closet four more were sleeping, three on a bed, one in a cradle. " ' Breath breath give me breath ! ' The man's disease was infectious; and yet for two long weeks he had lain here dying. From his soiled bed he could touch the one table, where the two families ate ; the cooking stove was but six feet from him ; the cupboard, over his pillow; he could even reach one of the cradles, where his baby girl lay staring frightened at his strange position: for his wasted body was too feeble to rise; too choked, too tortured, to lie down. His young wife held him up while the sleepers stared silently on, and that Yiddish whisper came over and over again, but now with a 681 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION new and more fearful meaning : ' Breath breath breath ! Or kill me : oh, kill me ! ' " Two years ago this man had come to America one of the four hundred and eighty-eight thousand in 1901. He came young and well and hopeful, with his wife and their baby son. Two more had been born since then. It was to be a new country, a new home, a fresh start, a land to breathe in. ' Breath breath give me breath \ ' He had breathed no air here but the close, heavy air of the sweat-shop, from six in the morning until ten at night. Sometimes he whispered he worked on until eleven. He was not alone. In New York to-day and to-night are over fifty thousand like him work- ing. And late in the night when he left the feverish labour, at the hour when other homes are sleeping, he had come in through the foul court and had sunk into restless sleep in the dark closet six feet by seven. There are three hundred and sixty-one thousand such closets in the city. And this. was his 'home/ ' Luf t giebt mir Luf t ! ' He spoke only Yiddish. The new coun- try had given the Plague before the language. For the sweat-shop and the closet had made him weak ; his weakened body could make no fight ; the Plague came in and fed swiftly. Still on through the win- ter he had worked over the machine in the sweat-shop, infecting the garments he sewed feverish, tired, fearful to buy food and coal, to keep his ' home ' alive. And now, on this last day of life, ten times he had whispered to his brother, begging him to care for the wife and the three little children. " The struggle now is ended. The home is scattered. The smothered whisper is forever hushed. ' Breath breath give me breath ! ' It speaks the appeal of thousands." We have already referred to what is known as " The Lung Block " in New York City. This block is bounded by Cherry, Catherine. Hamilton and Market Streets. It is close to East Eiver where there is fresh air and an open area, and it ought to be wholesome. On the contrary, however, it has well earned its name. The diagram of this block submitted herewith is reproduced from "A Handbook on the Prevention of Tuberculosis/' published by the Charity Organisation Society of New York City 1903. It is self-explanatory. In speak- ing of this block, Ernest Poole says, in part, in the article already referred to : " For a month I worked through it with the help of those who know it best. I went through with health and tenement inspectors, as a settlement visitor one week, as a * fresh-air man ' the next. I use this one block as a centre, not to prove, but to image what has already been proved all through the civilised world, to image the three great evils we must fight in the tenement. These evils are Con- gestion, Dissipation, Infection. " That the Plague spreads with congestion has long been proved be- yond the shadow of a doubt. It spreads even faster than the crowd pours in. So it is in the block we have taken. It stands in one of the most congested wards of the most crowded city in the world, and this Seventh Ward is steadily, swiftly packing closer. Between 1890 and 1900, the density of its already crowded population in- 682 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION creased no less than sixty-five per cent. Now it holds four hundred and seventy-eight humans to an acre. The Lung Block alone holds nearly four thousand, not to mention dogs, cats, parrots and one weakened old monkey. Of the humans, some four hundred are babies. " It is a block packed close with huge, grimy tenements ; these tene- ments are honeycombed with rooms; these rooms are homes for peo- ple. To squeeze in more homes, light and air are slowly shut out. Halls, courts, air-shafts, are all left cramped and deep and sunless. " It is a block of a thousand homes. Through halls, in rooms, on stairways, in courts, in shafts, and out on fire-escapes, are sprinkled the four hundred babies. At the age of two they are found alone in the street, already imbibing its deep, muddy wisdom. So this muddy street overflows into the home. It is hard for the home to keep whole- some and pure. Things and people good and bad have only partitions between them. " In a block so congested the Plague spreads swiftly. In the past nine years alone, this block has reported two hundred and sixty-five cases. From doctors, druggists, and all others who know, I gathered that this is but half the true number. " In a block so congested dissipation comes easy. Foul air, dark- ness, wretched surroundings these work on the home by day and by night. Here a thousand homes struggle on, while hundreds yield and sink and so pollute the others. So come squalid homes and wretched meals. So comes the humorous, shattered old chap who told me, * I aint never sober but when I gits out of bed/ So come hundreds of others, men and women, young and old; drunk, bestial, vile, forever steadily sinking. 'Hard drinking triples susceptibility to consump- tion.' This is seen most of all in the Irish; hence among the Irish the death-rate from the Plague is twice that of any other white nation- ality. The Jews, with their strict habits, their dietary laws, and a certain standard of cleanliness enforced by a rigid religion, show the lowest death-rate of all, though this is rising as they become tenemen- tised. At present, the Lung Block has only Jews on the Market .Street end, and among them we found hardly a case of consumption. The body of the block is packed with Irish and Italians, and a sprinkling of twelve other peoples. All these image best the dissipation, the shattered vitality which eats into savings, starves the home, then gives the Plague easy entrance, and makes it a constant danger to all in the family. " I give here but a few brief tales among many. In a tenement old, vile, infected, one of the worst on the block, an Italian lived some two years back. He had a wife and three little children. They lived in one room and a closet. They lived on four dollars a week. To make a home wholesome here means unceasing struggle. His wife gave up and took to drink. The man struggled on. He worked hard to sup- port his babies, but it was a wretched home to come to at night. Even the neighbours said so. The house was infected, and against its in- fection the home gave no protection, but only wretched food, wretch- edly cooked, for the tired man and his little children. The man took the Plague. He worked on. Friends tried to make him stop. ' No ! Me die not yet at all ! Me gotta bringa de grub to ma chilV This 684 WHITE PLAGUE AN ADDED BURDEN feeling is as old as the hills. He struggled on. One afternoon he had a hemorrhage at work, and was brought home on a shutter. The 'home' broke up. I could find but one more item. The baby girl died last year of the Plague tubercular meningitis over on Ran- dall's Island. " Not far off lives a German family, a mother and five girls, the old- est sixteen, the youngest four. The father drank, took the Plague, and died. The mother took it from him. Of the hundred and thir- teen dollars life insurance, she spent ninety dollars on his funeral. Then the starving began. The girl of sixteen lived three months on bread and tea alone, working each day at four dollars a week in a factory, pushing a heavy treadle from six in the morning until seven at night. She had worked so since she was twelve. ' She aint never seen the country/ said her little sister, who loved her. She went to night school always. She said she ' meant to be somebody.' She took the Plague in the winter, when coal had gone up, when the sleepless nights grew freezing cold. It was a brave fight, but it is over. I had her examined. She is hopeless. She knows now what the cough means when it shakes her thin, hollow chest; and her eyes, when the others are not looking, have that pitiful, hunted look which young eyes must ever have when suddenly meeting death. She had ( meant to be somebody ' ; but her father drank. " Other vice is thick in the neighbourhood. Among its victims, with no health, no love, no aid behind them, the Plague makes fearful havoc. ' Not worth the bother/ * I know a dozen but they aint worth helping' so I was told again and again when seeking for patients whom country air might cure." It is not so very long ago that the idea that consumption was in- fectious was ridiculed even by some physicians. To-day there is no medical fact more firmly established. Upon this point Mr. Poole offers the following testimony : " Of the two hundred and sixty-five cases reported on the block, one hundred and four came from the six old tenements alone. " There is one called ( The Ink Pot/ It has front and rear tene- ments five floors high, with a foul narrow court between. Here live one hundred and forty people. Twenty-three are babies. Here I found one man sick with the Plague in the front house, two more in the rear and one of these had a young wife and four children. Here the Plague lives in darkness and filth filth in halls, over walls and floors, in sinks and closets. Here in nine years alone twenty-six cases have been reported. How many besides these were kept secret ? And behind these nine years how many oases more? " Eooms here have held death ready and waiting for years. Up on the third floor, looking down into the court, is a room with two little closets behind it. In one of these a blind Scotchman slept and took the Plague in '94. His wife and his fifteen-year-old son both drank, and the home grew squalid as the tenement itself. He died in the hospital. Only a few months later the Plague fastened again. Slowly his little daughter grew used to the fever, the coughing, the long, sleepless nights. The foul court was her only outlook. At last she, too died The mother and son then moved away. But in this room 685 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION the germs lived on. They might all have been killed in a day by sun- light: they can live two years in darkness. Here in darkness they lived, on grimy walls, in dusty nooks, on dirty floors. Then one year later, in October, a Jew rented this same room. He was taken and died in the summer. The room was rented again in the autumn by a German and his wife. She had the Plague already, and died. Then an Irish family came in. The father was a hard, steady worker, and loved his children. The home this time was winning the fight. But six months later he took the Plague. He died in 1901. This is only the record of one room in seven years. In the rear house is an- other Plague room on the ground floor to the right of the low, nar- row entrance. Here, in '96, lived an old Irish hat-maker, with his wife, his small daughter, his two sons. He was housekeeper. He took the Plague, worked a year or more there on his hats, then died. The cough came on his wife soon after. She suffered long, weary months, only to see at the end her young daughter begin the same suffering. The mother died. The home was shattered. The girl was taken away by her aunt, and soon followed her mother. The two sons died of the same disease, spreading it out into other tene- ments. So by this room one whole family was blotted out. This is not all. When the next housekeeper came to this same room with his wife both were strong and well. The man took the Plague in '99. He still fought for life when all knew he was hopeless; he still lived on when he could not rise, could barely speak, but only lie alone in one of these closet bedrooms. There are no fewer than twenty such rooms in this rear house windowless, six feet by eight. That winter of 1900 brought the memorable blizzard. While it was raging, a settlement visitor came to this room, and found the water- pipe burst, the room flooded. The plucky little wife had carried her husband upstairs on her back. A few days later his struggle was ended. The wife is still here. " Infection comes not only from the room, but as well from halls and stairways. An old Italian, a hopeless victim, sits out on the steps in front, all day long in the sun while the children play around him, and all through the evening with men and women beside him. His cough never stops. The halls behind and above are grimy, offensive, hung heavy with cobwebs, and these cobwebs are always black. The stairways in the rear house are low and narrow, uneven, and thick with dust piled up in every nook and corner. This dust is virulent with disease. Through the years a score of consumptives have lived here, groping their way each night up the stairways, stopping on the land- ings to catch their breath and cough, and so spread the infection. But for light trickling through grimy panels in doors, these halls are forever dark. It is in halls like these that the germs can live two years or longer. It is with halls like those outside that one clean room cannot bring safety. " This house is a danger not only to those who live in it. From here the Plague is constantly spreading out all over the city to rich and poor alike." What shall we say of a civilisation which puts 478 human beings into living coffins called rooms packed upon a single acre of ground, 686 WHITE PLAGUE AN ADDED BURDEN in a city which averages only 19 persons to the acre? And these rooms are many of them unlighted by natural light, and only supplied with air from neighbouring rooms or little upwardly-extending slits grac- iously called air-shafts. Some of these are only twelve inches wide by six feet long, and they are six floors deep ! In the city of New York alone there are more than 361,000 such dark rooms! That the noble men and women who are devoting their lives to the stamping out of this worst of all Plagues have much to encounter from the hopeless greed and the degenerate money-madness which builds such structures as " Lung Block," as well as from the political corruption, graft and inefficiency which permit such pest-holes to continue to mar the face of civilisation and to spread wholesale infection broadcast over the land, is abundantly proved by facts within the easy reach of all. That the crusade is in some particulars carried on with better results in Germany than in America, is pointed out by Ernest Poole, under the heading, " The Warfare Against the Plague." He says : " Congestion, Dissipation, Infection ! The war against them will be fought on two lines, Prevention and Cure. " Prevention is slow. Foul air, darkness, and ignorance these must be steadily changed for fresh air, cleanliness, knowledge, and light. It means years of unceasing work ahead; unceasing work by the new Tenement House Department which in one year has made such a splendid beginning; unceasing support of this work by the people of New York ; unceasing appropriations ; unceasing belief that to save thousands of human lives is cheap at any cost. It means millions of dollars to be spent in new parks, in playgrounds, in public baths. It means big-hearted brotherhood. It means self-defence. " Cure need not be slow. Those sick , of the Plague must now be treated ' at the right time, in the right place, in the right way, till they're cured' not as before, 'at the wrong time, in the wrong place, in the wrong way, till they're dead/ " In Germany every labourer and servant is obliged by law to become insured against sickness, accidents, and old age, the companies being controlled by the government. Hence, as soon as the Plague's first symptoms appear, men are quick to find relief at one of the many sanatoria. There, in 1897 and 1898, eighty-two thousand insured men and women were treated, and of these seventy-one per cent, left with strength and hope won back. So they have now learned to hope ; and so by going in time are lastingly cured. Here in America men wait on until unable to work, then see a doctor, and at last are re- ported hopeless. The cry, ' The hopeless report, the hopeful don t ! comes from all the men and women who are striving to push this tremendous campaign." , Mr Poole then goes on to give the following reasons why those who have contracted the Plague do not report. He says .that many have a vague superstition that the City Hospital makes liberal use of the black bottle," -in short, that doctors give a medicine contamm fatal drug when tired of free patients. He says that this foolish Sperstition prevents thousands from reporting. Then there are o her thousands, he tells us, who do not report in time because they believe the Plague is absolutely fatal and such a course accordingly useless. (587 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Regarding this phase of the subject, Mr. Poole says : " On the ' Lung Block ' two hundred and sixty-five have been sick ; hardly one has been cured. Those sick feel the Plague fastening slowly. Many make up their minds to die, and wait, working. " In the house where Rosalie died I found a brave little woman working, waiting with her daughter eight years old. They have a room looking into that same foul pit ; a dark kitchen behind it, where the gas was lit when I went in at noon; and behind, wholly dark, a bed-room. In this room her mother died of the Plague eighteen months back. Her father and brother both died of the Plague in a house quite as bad a few doors up the street. Her husband was already stricken. He drank. He had left her. His mother and father, his sister and two brothers, had all died of the Plague over on Hamilton Street. And now in the last five years her two babies had died from another form of the same disease. ' What's the use ? What's the use ? ' While her mother was sick she was working through the sum- mer in a factory from 7 :30 in the morning until 10 :30 at night. I have seen such places in summer. A hasty swallow at noon and six o'clock ; between, only desperate haste. ' The steam was the worst,' she told me ; 'it was awful awful awful ! ' The few hours at night were by the sick mother. In a few months her weakened lungs, too, were infected. The Plague fed with terrible swiftness. In eight months she lost eighty-five pounds but still worked on. At last, too weak for the factor}', she worked from seven until nine, and again from five until eight, at office cleaning. So we found her and had her examined. The doctor said there was still a chance. And because the girl of eight was pale and delicate, we offered to send both for three months to the country, where medical care could be given. But she said : ' It's got to come anyway, an' we'd get homesick for the block, so I guess we'll stay/ ' It's got to come ! ' this is the belief of thousands. This belief can only be destroyed by hundreds of cures to be begun in 1903." Another reason why the afflicted do not report their conditions- is that hundreds are insured in small companies, and that this insur- ance is all but lost to the family if one's disease is reported as con- sumption. " It is for this cause that thousands have died of the Plague, begging their doctors to call it pneumonia or bronchitis. Doc- tors, too, are human, and the immediate needs of their patients ob- scure the importance of accurate records. So thousands have died in years past and the records, startling as they are, have not yet told the whole story/' Many do not report because they believe the quack's advertisements of his " sure cure for consumption," and think to get well quickly by taking it. The last reason, and the strongest of all, is because they wont give up. " Life in the tenements is bright and full of colour, if only you keep up. Lose your grip, and things seem to pile up in a day and bury you under. All who watch the tenements will tell you this, * Don't lose your grip ! ' is the motto." We have alluded to the great danger to the public which comes from the manufacture of articles to be worn and used by the general 688 WHITE PLAGUE AN ADDED BURDEN public under conditions which make it certain that they go on to the store counters, in many cases, laden with germs which mean death. In reference to this Mr. Poole says, in closing: "Millions must be spent because hundreds of thousands from every class in the city are in constant danger. As Dr. Knopf has said, the patient up and about, attending often to his usual work, but expectorating indiscriminately everywhere from ignorance or carelessness, is the most dangerous of all consumptives. You have heard stories of how the sick struggle on. In laundry, cigar factory, cook shop, fish market; as waiter, as midwife; in scores of callings they have worked on and coughed and worked on still, infecting their fellows and the products of their la- bour. Of these the sweat-shop work is most dangerous, most potent to spread the Plague to all classes. It is an open fact that most tail- ors from every class put their work out to be done in the sweat-shop or in the tenement home. The home itself becomes then a sweat- shop. " In a row of fifteen old houses on Cherry Street I found thirty-one little children and eighty-seven women sewing on garments. The gar- ments they sewed were almost all to be worn by young children the kind you buy in our clothing stores. This row of fifteen houses in- cluded the five most deadly Plague strongholds on the block. " This home work shows most clearly what is true in some degree in all other trades that the Plague-stricken poor must work on to the very end. You have had stories enough. I will add but a scene taken from the written records of a visiting nurse. " The man was dying down in the Ghetto. His cough kept on day and night. It was January. Coal was high. The room at night grew freezing cold. The Plague grew worse. He worked on in bed. He had but one blanket. He used the coats and trousers to cover him. Now consider our tense, rushing, strained city life; remember the scores of your own friends whose vitality is now at the lowest ebb; and then think of the constant danger to them from a Plague whose victims keep on working, who are constantly on the streets, the cars, and all public places. We all use the products of their work. Only be human and think of these hundreds of thousands, rich and poor alike, in constant danger. Thousands of these will inevitably be taken with the Plague this year, as thousands were taken last year and before. It is for next year, the next, and the next, that I appeal. "Millions must be spent because we are human. It is my last word. It holds all the rest. 1 once heard a little chap uptown on his knees at night whispering, ' Give us this day our daily bread/ He stopped and asked, 'How many is us?' From a visiting nurse I heard of another. He was four years old, in a tenement room, and dying. The Plague had gone all through his weak little body. The eyes were blind. And each night, when her half-hour visit was ended, he used to grope for her hand to hold it just a moment, that it might help him bear the long night. This baby might have been saved. He is one cost of delay. The weak groping hand seemed to ask the same question, ' How many is us ? ' And this is the answer : * I was an hungered and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye 44 689 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me. . . . Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me/ " The pauperism of our cities is very much greater than that of our rural sections, so great, in fact, that many of us would not believe it were not the evidence beyond question. Mr. Riis says, in his " How the Other Half Lives " : " The Reader who has followed with me the fate of the Other Half thus far, may not experience much of a shock at being told that in eight years 135,595 families in New York were registered as asking or receiving charity. Perhaps, however, the intelligence will rouse him that for five years past one person in every ten who died in this city was buried in the Potter's Field. These facts tell a terrible story. The first means that in a population of a million and a half, very nearly if not quite half a million persons were driven, or chose, to beg for food, or to accept it in charity at some period of the eight years, if not during the whole of it." In his " In Darkest England," General Booth says : " I sorrow- fully admit that it would be Utopian in our present social arrange- ments to dream of attaining for every honest Englishman a jail standard of all the necessaries of life. Sometime, perhaps, we may venture to hope that every honest worker on English soil will always be as warmly clad, as healthily housed, and as regularly fed as our criminal convicts but that is not yet. " Neither is it possible to hope for many years to come that human beings generally will be as weU cared for as horses. Mr. Carlyle long ago remarked that the four-footed worker has already got all that this two-handed one is clamouring for : { There are not many horses in England, able and willing to work, which have not due food and lodging and go about sleek-coated, satisfied in heart/ You say it is impossible ; but, said Carlyle, ' The human brain, looking at these sleek English horses, refuses to believe in such impossibility for English men/ Nevertheless, forty years have passed since Carlyle said that, and we seem to be no nearer the attainment of the four- footed standard for the two-handed worker/' . . . " England emancipated her negroes sixty years ago, at a cost of 40,000,000, and has never ceased boasting about it since. But at our own doors, from ' Plymouth to Peterhead,' stretches this waste Continent of humanity three million human beings who are en- slaved some of them to taskmasters as merciless as any West In- dian overseer, all of them to destitution and despair. Is anything to be done with them? Can anything be done for them? Or is this million-headed mass to be regarded as offering a problem as insoluble as that of the London sewage, which, feculent and festering, swings heavily up and down the basin of the Thames with the ebb and flow of the tide? " This Submerged Tenth is it, then, beyond the reach of the nine- tenths in the midst of whom they live, and around whose homes they rot and die ? " In his " Poverty," speaking of the poor which we must not have al- ways with us, Mr. Robert Hunter says : " The poor of this latter 690 WHITE PLAGUE AN ADDED BURDEN class are, it seems to me, the mass of the poor ; they are bred of miser- able and unjust social conditions, which punish the good and the pure, the faithful and industrious, the slothful and vicious, all alike. We may not, by going into the homes of the poor, be able to determine which ones are in poverty because of individual causes, or which are in poverty because of social wrongs; but we can see, by looking about us, that men are brought into misery by the action of social and economic forces. And the wrongful action of such social and eco- nomic forces is a preventable thing. For instance, to mention but a few, the factories, the mines, the workshops, and the railroads must be forced to cease killing the father or the boy or the girl whose wages alone suffice to keep the family from poverty; or, if the workers must be injured and killed, then the family must at least be fairly compen- stated, in so far as that be possible. Tenements may be made sanitary by the action of the community, and thereby much of this breeding of wretched souls and ruined bodies stopped. A broader education may be provided for the masses, so that the street child may be saved from idleness, crime, and vagrancy, and the working child saved from ruinous labour. Immigration may be regulated constructively rather than negatively, if not, for a time, restricted to narrower limits. Employment may be made less irregular and fairer wages assured. These are, of course, but a few of the many things which can be done to make less unjust and miserable the conditions in which about 10,000,000 of our people live. " Among the many inexplicable things in life there is probably noth- ing more out of reason than our disregard for preventive measures and our apparent willingness to provide almshouses, prisons, asylums, hospitals, homes, etc., for the victims of our neglect. Poverty is a culture bed for criminals, paupers, vagrants, and for such diseases as inebriety, insanity, and imbecility; and yet we endlessly go on in our unconcern, or in our blindness, heedless of its sources, believing all the time that we are merciful in administering to its unfortunate re- sults. Those in poverty are fighting a losing struggle, because of un- necessary burdens which we might lift from their shoulders ; but not until they go to pieces and become drunken, vagrant, criminal, diseased, and suppliant, do we consider mercy necessary. But in that day re- clamation is almost impossible, the degeneracy of the adults infects the children, and the foulest of our social miseries is thus perpetuated from generation to generation. From the millions struggling with povertv come the millions who have lost all self-respect and ambition, who hardly, if ever, work, who are aimless and drifting, who like drink, who have no thought for their children, and who live conten- tedly on rubbish and alms. But a short time before, many of them were of that great, splendid mass of producers upon which the ma- terial welfare of the nation rests. They were in poverty, but they were self-respecting; they were hard-pressed, but they were ambitious, determined, and hard-working. They were also underfed, under- clothed, and miserably housed the fear and dread of want possessed them, they worked sore, but gained nothing, they were isolated, heart- worn, and weary/' To touch even lightly upon all the wrongs done to the toilers would 691 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION require a library. The story of those who, taking their lives in their hands, go burrowing through the earth in coal, iron, gold and silver mines is indeed pitiable, but what shall we say of those who go to certain death, knowing that they cannot live beyond a few short years, and that they will die, as is the case in certain kinds of work, a most horrible death? What of the mercury miners who know that their bones will be rapidly consumed ; of those engaged in certain branches of the glass industry, who can calculate to a practical certainty the length of time it will take for the spicules floating in the air to cut their lungs and kill them ; of the alkali workers ; the white-lead work- ers ; the toilers in match-factories, fertiliser and chemical workers and the like who sell their lives for the means to drag out a few miserable years of unremitting toil ? In his " The White Slaves of England," Eobert H. Sherard devotes a chapter to the white-lead workers of Newcastle. Apropos of the death of one of these workers, he says : " A group of women stand- ing outside the ' Black Boy ' public-house were talking as I passed, and something was said that made me listen. ' She screamed hor- rible,' said one, ' and tore out her hair in handfulls/ ' Such nice hair she had too/ said another, ' poor lamb/ I stopped and inquired, and heard the name of Elisabeth Eyan. The coroner's inquest had been held at the workhouse three days before. " The death of a white-lead worker is so trivial a matter that public curiosity concerning it is too small to warrant an able editor to sacri- fice any of his space to such an item of news. " And yet, and yet, there may be some to think this death of Elisa- beth Byan, at the hands of an English industry, an event of tre- mendous importance, not local only, but national, political, universal. She was only nineteen, and she had. worked but four months as a white-bed woman. There had come pain almost from the first, but she had remained at her work, till one morning she fell down on the floor of the factory, foaming at the mouth and tearing her hair, ' as it might have been in an epileptic fit,' said one. " She was carried to the workhouse, and, as a nurse told me, ' Car- ried on terrible,' in wild delirium. I looked at' the' entry in the work- house register : * Elisabeth Eyan Lead-poisoning/ The entry on the following day ran : ' Elisabeth Eyan very bad.' There was yet another note concerning her on the third day, and that was : ' Elisa- beth Eyan died to-day.' Et voila ce nest pas plus malin que cela. " Her body looked like that of a person who had died of strychnine poisoning, and here was a fresh example to illustrate the terrible in- dictment contained in the paper read some years ago by Professor Thomas Oliver (An Analytical and Clinical Examination of Lead- poisoning in its Acute Manifestations). ' The fact remains,' he says, ' that every now and then a girl of from eighteen to twenty-three years of age works only a few weeks or months in a lead factory, when symptoms of acute lead-poisoning are noticed namely, colic, constipation, vomiting, headache, pains in the limbs, and incomplete blindness. In a few days, with or with- out treatment, she becomes convulsed, and dies in a state of coma, 692 WHITE PLAGUE AN ADDED BURDEN the death being so sudden that we cannot but regard it as due to acute toxaemia/ " Again. ' For example, a girl works, it may be, only a few weeks or months in a lead factory, when, after having been noticed by her friends to have been rapidly becoming anaemic, she complains of colic, constipation, headache, dimness of vision, and in a few days develops convulsions, or becomes delirious and dies comatose. As the symptoms are so rapidly developed, and as no organic change is found post-mortem, the death can only be attributed to toxaemia. Death in these cases is analogous to strychnine poisoning/ " Regarding the alkali workers, the same authour says, in speaking of a particular branch of their work : " The packers, whose dangerous work and strange accoutrement have been described, receive two shil- lings per ton for turning and packing the poisonous bleaching-pow- der, and some can earn as much as fifty shillings a week. These men literally carry their lives in their hands. One hears of too many cases where * men got gas ' and died within a few hours. ' And it's almost always brought in accidental,' said a packer, who was suspicious of the ' crowner's ' juries. ' Or,' says another, ' the master's doctor will say the man died of a faint. It's like this. You get gas. We run to the office for the brandy bottle and say, 'so-and-so's got gas/ Brandy is served out. You go home and die. Doctor says you died of faint, and the proof is that brandy was needed to revive you/ J: It is needless to tire the Reader with specific cases, since, having eyes to read, he cannot have failed to observe for himself the terrible iniquities forced by our present system upon millions of his brothers and sisters. Says Horace Traubel, " The world is tired of hearing that the la- bourer is worthy of his hire. The labourer is worthy of his product." In like manner Proudhon said that to labour belonged the total product of labour. When this truth is manfully recognised and hon- estly lived up to, the worker will be emancipated from that economic slavery which often is worse than any chattel slavery the world has ever known. Under the Gillette System toil would be made pleasur- able and exhilarating; work would be performed in response to indi- vidual desire and would be rewarded by its exact equivalent at any point in the circle of exchange. The new- system recognises the fact that in their last analysis all values are labour values. Under its beneficent influence, for the first time in history, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the guarded and the defenceless, would enjoy that widest possible liberty, compatible with equality of liberty, which has been the dream of countless philosophers. 693 CHAPTEK III THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 695 Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; The young birds are chirping in the nest; The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing toward the west: But the young, young children, O my brothers! They are weeping bitterly. They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In * the country of the free. Do you question the young children in their sorrow, Why their tears are falling so? The old man may weep for his to-morrow Which is lost in long ago; The old tree is leafless in the forest; The old year is ending in the frost; The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest; The old hope is hardest to be lost: But the young, young children, O my brothers! Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy fatherland? They look up with their pale and sunken faces; And their looks are sad to see, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy. "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary; Our young feet," they say, " are very weak; Few paces have we taken, yet are weary; Our grave-rest is very far to seek. Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children; For the outside earth is cold, And we young ones stand without in our bewildering, And the graves are for the old." ******* They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see. For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity. " How long," they say, " how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world on a child's heart, Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart! Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath." Mrs. Browning. 696 CHAPTER III THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN treatment of present labour conditions which omit- ted at least a reference to the story of the toiling child would be at all fair to the subject. That little children, with the milk upon their lips, are forced by commercial greed into the roaring maelstrom of com- mercial competition, is one of the worst crimes for which our so-called modern civilisation has to answer. Something more than a century ago, the British Parliament passed the first act for the abatement of the evils of child labour. This was the Factory Act of 1802. Referring to conditions which called forth this Act, Felix Adler says : " The pauper children of London work- houses were being fed to the machine, almost as the children in the ancient idolatry were fed to Moloch. Pauper children whom nobody owned, deserted waifs, orphans left on the parish a burden on the rate payers were sent by hundreds and thousands to supply the de- mand for cheap labour on the part of the factories, which at this time were everywhere springing up. These puny labourers many of them not over seven years of age were worked to death. But that hardly mattered, because the workhouse supply was sufficient to fill up the depleted ranks. The workhouses at first even paid a small premium to the manufacturers for taking their wards off their hands. The children were lodged in rough barracks, were cruelly driven by their taskmasters while at work, their food was of the worst descrip- tion, they were forced to labour often fourteen hours, and they were decimated by disease. It was this state of things that provoked the law of 1802 \ but this law was the barest beginning. The law applied only to pauper children, and it was soon found necessary to protect children also against the pitiless egotism or the desperation of their own parents. The law applied only to certain industries, and it was found necessary to extend it to others. With the substitution of steam for water power, manufactories were transferred to cities, and the de- mand for cheap labour grew apace. It was felt that an age limit of some kind below which children might not be employed must be set. The efforts to do so were strangely hesitant and inadequate, but at least the principle of an age limit came to be recognised. In 1833 it was estimated that 56,000 children between nine and thirteen were employed in factories, a whole army of child workers; but nine was a high limit compared with what in many branches had been custom- ary. Before the Children's Employment Committee a man named Apsden testified. Pointing to his boy, he said : ' This boy when he was seven years old, in winter I carried on my shoulders across the 697 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION snow to his place of work, and he would work for sixteen hours/ What a picture ; the man rousing a child of seven from his sleep, forc- ing him out of bed in the dark winter morning, trudging with him on his back across the snow, and depositing the little fellow, seven years old, to work for sixteen hours. And then another picture, for he adds : ' I have often knelt at his side and given him food while he was working, because he was not allowed to leave the machine.' If you wish to realise what child labour means, think of the inmates of London workhouses systematically done to death in the Yorkshire factories. Think of Apsden and his seven-year-old boy, and then think if you can bear to do so of another picture ! For till now only the factories and not the mines had been touched. In the year 1842 evidence was taken as to the state of things in the coal mines. Children began their work in the mines sometimes as early as at five years of age. Little girls were found to jnake ten or twelve trips a day up steep ladders to the surface, carrying heavy loads of coal in wooden buckets on their shoulders. For the development of little girls into womanhood, what an admirable device ! Women and girls, half nude, worked side by side with boys and men wholly so; every consideration of human decency was flung to the winds. And in Mr. Cheyney's book on * The Industrial History of England/ which use- fully summarises these facts, you will find a picture representing a woman crawling on all fours, dragging through a passageway about two feet high a car containing three or four hundredweight of coal by a chain attached to a girdle around her waist. And this is des- cribed as a common form of labour." In an article entitled " The Wreck of the Home, How Wearing Ap- parel is Fashioned in the Tenements/' Annie S. Daniel narrates the conditions under which the work is done. She says in part : " The tenement-house department states that there are * thousands ' of apart- ments in which all rooms open on an air-shaft ; in such an apartment I attended a woman ill with tuberculosis, finishing trousers. Dur- ing the summer, and then only for about two hours, daylight (not sunlight) came in. This daylight lasted two months and for this place of three air-shaft rooms, ten dollars per month was paid. Three years of life in this apartment killed the woman. The finishers are made up of the old and the young, the sick and the well. As soon as a little child can be of the least possible help, it must add to the family income by taking a share in the family toil. A child 3 years old can straighten out tobacco leaves or stick the rims which form the stamens of artificial flowers through the petals. He can put the covers on paper boxes at four years. He can do some of the pasting of paper boxes, although as a rule this requires a child of 6 to 8 years. But from 4 to 6 years he can sew on buttons and pull basting threads. A girl from 8 to 12 can finish trousers as well as her mother. After she is 12, if of good size, she can earn more money in a factory. The boys do practically the same work as the girls, except that they leave the home work earlier, and enter street work, as peddlers, boot- blacks, and newsboys. I have seen but two children under 3 years of age working in tenements, one a boy 2~y 2 years old who assisted the mother and 4 other children under 12 years in making artificial 698 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN flowers. The other, an extraordinary case of a child of 1V 2 years, who assisted at a kind of passementerie. '< The sick as long as they can hold their heads up, must work to pay tor the cost of their living. As soon as they are convalescent they must begrn again. The other day a girl of' 8 years was dismissed trom the diphtheria hospital after a severe attack of the disease. Al- most immediately she was working at women's collars, although scarcely able to walk across the room alone. '' The greatest evils of this particular form of sweating found in tenements can be grouped as follows: Child Labor. A child from 3 to 10 or 12 years adds by its labour from 50 cents to $1.50 per week to the family income. The hours of the child are as long as its strength endures or the work remains. A child 3 years old can work continuously from iy 2 to 2 hours at a time; a child 10 years old can work 12 hours. Obviously under such conditions the child is deprived of the two greatest rights which the parents and the state are bound to give each child* health and an education. : ' The particular dangers to the child's health are such as can be in- duced by the confinement in the house, in an atmosphere always foul. The bad light under which the child works causes a continual eye- strain, from the effects of which the child will suffer all its life. The brain of the child under 8 years of age is not developed sufficiently to bear fixed attention. Hence it must be continually forced to fix its attention to the work and in doing this an irreparable damage is done to the developing brain. A child forced to earn its bread has neither the time nor the opportunity to obtain an education." Consider for a moment a social condition which makes it necessary for babies 18 months old to begin work! What sort of a corrollary in the way of a future "social price " will this call down upon us? It has been pointed out again and again, and it is a biological truth of the widest generality, that the higher the type the longer will it be in reaching maturity. The lower forms of life mature quickly. Cer- tain ephemeral insects spring into being, mature and die in a single day. As we climb higher and higher up the biological tree we find the species maturing more and more slowly, until we come to man, the slowest of all. When, therefore, Nature's hand is forced, and the child is arrested in its natural development and crowded into a precocious existence, the result will be that it will become puny, of stunted stat- ure, anasmic, thin, with sunken cheeks, hollow eyes and emaciated limbs, subject to all manner of diseases of the lungs, joints and spine; for, checking development does not mean merely a stoppage of growth, it means malformation as well. What occurs in the physical realm occurs also in the mental and moral domains. The precocious child, the rareripe, lacks the ability to "train on." Seldom do precocious children develop into brilliant adults. The prominence of the few who have done so is the very best of evidence that they were glow- ing exceptions to an all but universal rule. The brilliant precocity of the newsboy whose sharp repartee amuses us is the result of an abnormal state, a nervous excitability which will soon depart and leave him as still another example of the appalling "social price" 699 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION which is a part of our present system. In his paper entitled " Child Labour in the United States," Felix Adler says : " At the beginning of 1903 it is estimated that there were in the factories of the South chiefly cotton factories about 20,000 children under the age of twelve. Twelve is a very early age at which to begin work ; but under the age of twelve, and 20,000, and in the United States of America who would have credited it? And these children, too, not the children of foreign immigrants, but for the most part the offspring of the purest American stock of this continent; and some of these children, as eye witnesses attest, were at their work even more than twelve hours, as much as thirteen and fourteen hours a day. Where are our instincts of mercy, where is the motherliness of the women of this country, where is the chivalry of our men that should seek a glory in protecting the defenceless and the weak? Within the last two years child labour laws have been passed which have doubtless reduced the number of children under twelve years of age in the fac- tories; how great the reduction is it is impossible to say. But the South is by no means singular, though it has of late been more con- spicuous in its employment of child labour than other sections of the country. And there is no excuse for adopting a pharisaical attitude toward the southern communities and saying : * We are glad that we are not like these/ For in the first place, in not a few instances it is northern capital invested in southern mills that shares the re- sponsibility for the conditions named; and then again, while the pro- portion of child to adult labour in the South is greater than any- where else in the country, the absolute number of children employed is greater in the industrial centers of the North. " The lack of adequate statistical inquiries makes it impossible to express in figures the extent of the evil of child labour. But wher- ever investigation is undertaken, wherever the surface is even scratched, we are shocked to find to what an extent the disease is eating its way underneath, even in those States in which legislation on the subject is almost ideal. The laws are admirable, but the enforcement is defective. Thus glancing over the reports recently transmitted to the National Child Labour Committee by its agents I find that in New Jersey, in one of the woollen mills, 200 children under the legal age are d; work. In the glass industry of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, the evils of premature work and of night work are combined. A boy, Willie Davis, for instance, thirteen years old, works on alternate nights from G.30 p. m. to 4.30 a. m., earning ninety cents a day. In one of the glass houses of Wheeling, W. Va., forty boys were seen by the agent, apparently from ten to twelve years of age ; one child looked not over nine years old, ' but was too busy to be interviewed/ In this place 3,000 children of the school age were found to be out of school. In this town there are also many cigar factories that employ children. And speaking of the tobacco industry reminds me of the case of a child worker just reported from Pittsburgh. The boy is employed in a toby factory * tobies ' being a cheap kind of cigar in rolling tobies. He is twelve years of age ; he has already been at work for seven months ; the hours of labour are from 6 a. m. to 8 p. m., intermission for lunch fifteen 700 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN minutes, for supper twenty minutes, in all thirty-five minutes in four- teen hours. He works Saturday nights from seven until midnight, and sometimes until 2 Sunday morning; does not work Saturdays, but works Sundays. The room in which he rolls his 'tobies' is described as dark and poorly ventilated ; the atmosphere is charged with tobacco dust. The boy seems gentle and uncomplaining, but he coughs; and when he was asked whether he was well, he pointed to his chest and to his back and said : ' I have a pain here and there.' " And in our own state of New York, which in point of legislation is in advance of all the rest, the infractions of the law that occur are frightful enough, as the petition for the removal of the present Fac- tory Inspector sent to the Governor by the Child Labour Committee of New York plainly proves. In a single one of the canning fac- tories where abuses are particularly flagrant, the foreman himself estimated the number of children at work in violation of the law to be 300. Children as young as ten, nine, and seven were found to be at work side by side with their mothers, from 9 a. m. to 9 p. m. In the Chelsea Jute Mills of Brooklyn, an establishment which ac- quired an unenviable notoriety in connexion with the Annie Ventre case some months ago, there are reported to be at the present time 85 children at work under the legal age. In the sweated trades the evils are the same, or if possible worse. The report further states that the number of violations, not of the child labour laws in par- ticular but of the factory laws in general, are alarmingly on the in- crease; 33,000 reported in 1901, 50,000 in 1903." Mr. Adler further says that the emancipation of childhood from economic servitude is a social reform of the first magnitude. He says that if it once " comes to be an understood thing that a certain sacredness 'doth hedge around' a child, that a child is industrially taboo, that to violate its rights is to touch profanely a holy thing, that it has a soul which must not be blighted for the prospect of mere gain ; if this be once generally conceded with regard to the child the same essential reasoning will be found to apply also to the adult workers; they, too, will not be looked upon as mere commodities, as mere instruments for the accumulation of riches; to them also a certain sacredness will be seen to attach, and certain human rights to belong, which may not be infringed. I have great hopes for the adjustment of our labour difficulties on a higher plane, if once we can gain the initial victory of inculcating regard for the higher hu- man nature that is present potentially in the child/ It would seem as If child-labour were so utterly indefensible a thing that no one could be found with effrontery enough to advocate it yet we have come to such a social pass that such is far from being the case. The glass manufacturers, those engaged m textile indus- tries in the South, have some of them averred that child-labour was necessary in order that these industries might not cease In a series of articles by Mrs. John Van Vorst entitled "The Cry of the Children," " Human Documents m the Case of the New Slavery," published in the - Saturday Evening Post," beginning March 10, 1906, this same subject is adverted to Mrs Van Vorst says: " Profiting by the presence at Birmingham of several ladi GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION had been more or less active in passing the only laws which place any restraint upon Alabama manufacturers, I called upon them before proceeding to Anniston, and gathered from their conversation certain facts regarding the situation in their State. " My chief informant was a pretty woman of the graceful, languid type we designate in a word as ' Southern.' It was a shock to hear her affirm in her soft, musical voice, with its drawling intonation: * Why, child labour in Alabama is a necessary evil.' ' Do you think,' I exclaimed, ' that it is just as well for a child twelve years old to be at work as to be in school ? ' " Her gentle eyes reflected in their smile a feeling of inward indul- gence. ' That,' she said, ' is not a fair question. When you know more of these people you'll see that they're just like animals. In the mill they have some chance of getting civilised. If we made laws restricting labour we should frighten away capitalists and wreck our Very surest chances of progress and prosperity.' " She followed up her argument with pitiful descriptions of ignor- ance among the people who flock in from the hills and plains to feed the mill machinery. ' They don't even know enough to level the ground where they build their cabins. They fry every bit of their food, even the bread.' And then she repeated the comprehensive phrase: ' They're just like animals.' " She was a stockholder, this gentle ' Southerner,' in the mills I had just attempted to visit. Oh, hideous logic which greed alone makes plausible ! What part, pray, had God in creating a class ' like ani- mals,' and who could maintain, with justice, that out of such mental and moral insufficience a better state might come, were it coupled to physical oppression and miser}'? Two wrongs cannot make a right; and the cursory dispatching of a whole class of people to the realm of the animal does not free the bondsman from his ultimate account- ing for the soul which has passed, along with the body, into his keep- ing." In testimony of the tender age of some of those employed in the southern mills the same author says : " Some of my Birmingham in- formants had told me that there were whole families of dwarfs who came down from the mountains and took work in the mills, greatly misleading certain visitors who supposed them to be children * under age.' As I walked on now through the mills, talking with a twelve- year-old red-headed girl who had been four yelirs at work, my eyes suddenly fell upon a strange couple (doubtless, I thought, some of the dwarfs against whom I had been warned). I could not take my attention from the tinest of the tiny pair; the boy's hands appeared to be made without bones; his thumb flew back almost double as he pressed the cotton to loosen it from the revolving rod in the spin- ning frame; they no longer moved, these yellow anemic hands, as though directed in their different acts by a thinking intelligence : they performed mechanically the gestures which had given them their de- finitive form. 702 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN red-headed girl laughed and nodded in the direction of the 'He's 'most six/ she said. 'He's been here two years. He come m when he wa* most four. His little brother 'most four's workin' here now. 'Yes? Where?' ' Oh he works on the night-shift. He comes in 'beaut half-a^past five and stays till six in the mornin'.' "I went over to the other dwarf of the couple, older evidently than the boy most six.' Below her red cotton frock hung a long" apron which reached to the ground. Her hair was short and shaggv her face bloated, her eyes like a depression in the flesh, and about her mouth trailed dark streaks of tobacco. It seemed atrocious to ques- tion her. Oblivion was the only thing that could have been merci- fully tendered, and even the peace of death could hardly have relaxed those tense features, cast in the dogged mould of misery. ' How old are you ? ' I asked. " She shook her head. ' I don't know/ ' What do you earn ? ' " She shook her head again. " Her fingers did not for a moment stop in their swift manipula- tion of the broken threads. Then, as though she had suddenly re- membered something, she said: ' I've only been a-workin' here a day.' ' Only one day ? ' ' I've been on the night-shift till now.' " Dwarfs ? Ah, yes ; dwarfs indeed ! But would that those who af- firm it might once catch sight of the expression that lowered under the brows of these two miniature victims. Like a menace, threatening, terrible, it seemed to presage a great storm that shall one day be un- chained by the spirits too long pent up in service to the greed of man." Speaking of Alabama school conditions, Mrs. Van Vorst says: " There are no compulsory school laws in the State. ' We don't think it's right in a democracy/ one of the Alabama club women explained to me, ' to force any one to do anything. If the parents want their children to go to school, it's their privilege to send them; but we don't believe in compulsion we believe in lib- erty.'" In "Some Ethical Gains Through Legislation," Florence Kelley says : " The noblest duty of the Eepublic is that of self-preservation by so cherishing all its children that they, in turn, may become en- lightened, self-governing citizens. The children of to-day are poten- tially the Eepublic of 1930. As they are cherished and trained, so will it live or languish a generation hence. The care and nurture of childhood is thus a vital concern of the nation. For if children perish in infancy, they are obviously lost to the Eepublic as citizens. If, surviving infancy, children are permitted to deteriorate into crim- inals, they are bad citizens ; if they are left illiterate, if they are over- worked and devitalised in body and mind, the Bepublic suffers the penalty of every offence against childhood. 703 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION a An unfailing test of the ethical standards of a community is the question, ' What citizens are being trained here ? ' " Where young children die by thousands, the ethical standards of the community are, so far, bad. For science has long shown how to minimise infant mortality. The failure of a community to follow the teachings of science in this direction is a moral dereliction of the gravest character. The death from preventable disease of thousands of young children in the tenement houses of the city of Xew York, occurring year after year, from generation to generation, stamps the ethical standards of the metropolis as bad beyond belief. For the exposure of infants on the highways of China is not more obvious to the people of China, than the preventable mortality of infants in Xew York City has for years been obvious to the people of the United States. It is, moreover, one of the incredible things of our civilisa- tion that this excessive infant mortality, from generation to genera- tion, is left to local boards of health and to local philanthrophies, whose inability to cope with it its persistence has long conspicuously proved." . . . " The presence of children in mills began with the division of labour, and the development of machinery driven by steam. It was a feature of. the civilisation of the nineteenth century, but reached no large dimensions in the United States before 1870. Since then it has increased and continues to increase wherever no counter order is given by restraining laws rendered effective by alert and organised public opinion. M It has been shown that the end of childhood and the beginning of toil is an undetermined epoch. Even where, as in Xew York and Illinois, manufacture and commerce are closed, to children under the age of fourteen years, street-life, tenement-work and the drudgery of the 'little-mothers' may occupy the earlier years. In less en- lightened states, manufacture and commerce are open to children at an earlier age, until in Georgia there is no statutory protection." In his preface to "The Bitter Cry of the Children," the author, John Spargo, publishes what we consider the real optimistic gem of the 19th century, while modestly disclaiming any originality therein. He says : " Xature starts all her children, rich and poor, physically equal, and that each generation gets practically a fresh start, un- hampered by the diseased and degenerate past. The tremendous sociological significance of this truth if truth it be will I think, be generally recognised." In making what he calls " the necessary qualifications of this broad generalisation," Mr. Spargo gives a chapter on the question of hered- ity in his Appendix. We extract the following from the mass of evi- dence there submitted. "In his testimony before the British Inter- departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, Dr. Alfred Eich- holz, one of H. M. Inspectors of Schools, a Doctor of Medicine, and formerly Fellow and Lecturer of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, said: ' I have drawn a broad distinction between physical degeneracy and hereditary deterioration. The object of my evidence is to dem- onstrate the range and the depth of degeneracv among the poorer 704 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN population, and to show that it is capable of great improvement I say improvement purposely even within the areas of the towns and to show that there is a lack of any real evidence of any hereditary taint or strain of deterioration even among the poor populations of our cities. The point which I desire to emphasise is that our phy- sical degeneracy is produced afresh by each generation, and that there is every chance under reasonable measures of amelioration of re- storing our poorest population to a condition of normal physique. * I draw a clear distinction between physical degeneracy on the one hand and inherited retrogressive deterioration on the other. With regard to physical degeneracy, the children frequenting the poorer schools of London and the large towns betray a most serious con- dition of affairs, calling for ameliorative and arrestive measures, the most impressive features being the apathy of parents as regards the school, the lack of parental care of children, the poor physique, powers of endurance, and educational attainments of the children. . . . While there are, unfortunately, very abundant signs of physical de- fect traceable to neglect, poverty, and ignorance, it is not possible to obtain any satisfactory or conclusive evidence of hereditary physical deterioration that is to say, deterioration of a gradual, retrogres- sive, permanent nature, affecting one generation more acutely than the previous. There is little, if anything, in fact to justify the con- clusion that neglect, poverty, and parental ignorance, serious as their results are, possess any marked hereditary effect, or that hered- ity plays any significant part in establishing the physical degeneracy of the poorer population. In every case of alleged progressive hered- itary deterioration among the children frequenting an elementary school, it is found that the neighbourhood has suffered by the migra- tion of the better artisan class, or by the influx of worse population from elsewhere. Other than the well-known specifically hereditary diseases which effect poor and wdll-to-do alike, there appears to be very little real evidence on the prenatal side to account for the wide- spread physical degeneracy among the poorer population. There is, accordingly, every reason to anticipate RAPID amelioration of phy- sique so soon as improvement occurs in external conditions, particu- larly as regards food, clothing, overcrowding, cleanliness, drunken- ness, and the spread of common practical knowledge of home man- agement. In fact, all evidence points to active, rapid improvement, bodily and mental, in the worst districts, so soon as they are exposed to better circumstances, even the weaker children recovering at a later age from the evil effects of infant life/ " Well may Mr. Spargo refer to the " tremendous sociological signifi- cance of this truth, if it be a truth," that " the number of children born healthy and strong is not greater among the well-to-do classes than among the very poorest." If this be indeed true, we should all sing hallelujah! since no more jubilant promise has been vouchsafed the race in a thousand years. If practically all infants start with a clean bill of health, so far as heredity is concerned, we have only to establish proper social conditions to produce a race of moral, mental and physical giants. Is there any other course to-day which offers anv inducements to him who loves mankind at all comparable with this work of social betterment? Its success means the banishment 45 705 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION of poverty, misery and crime, and the general raising of the level of the whole human race. That poverty is a close relative of death, who can doubt? In the work already quoted, Mr. Spargo says: " Poverty and Death are grim companions. Wherever there is much poverty the death-rate is high and rises higher with every rise of the tide of want and misery. In London, Bethnal Green's death-rate is nearly double that of Belgravia; in Paris, the poverty-stricken dis- trict of Menilmontant has a death-rate twice as high as that of the Elysee; in Chicago, the death-rate varies from about twelve per thousand in the wards where the well-to-do reside to thirty-seven per thousand in the tenement wards. The ill-developed bodies of the poor, underfed and overburdened with toil, have not the powers of resistance to disease possessed by the bodies of the more fortunate. As fire rages most fiercely and with greatest devastation among the ill-built, crowded tenements, so do the fierce flames of disease con- sume most readily the ill-built, fragile bodies which the tenements shelter. As we ascend the social scale the span of life lengthens and the death-rate gradually diminishes, the death-rate of the poor- est class of workers being three and a half times as great as that of the well-to-do. It is estimated that among 10,000,000 persons of the latter class the annual deaths do not number more than 100,000, among the best paid of the working-class the number is not less than 150,000, while among the poorest workers the number is at least 350,- 000. The following diagram illustrates these figures clearly and needs no further comment: " This difference in the death-rates of the various social classes is even more strongly marked in the case of infants. Mortality in the first year of life differs enormously according to the circumstances of the parents and the amount of intelligent care bestowed upon the in- fants. In Boston's ' Back Bay ' district the death-rate at all ages last year was 13.45 per thousand as compared with 18.45 in the Thirteenth Ward, which is a typical working-class district, and of the total num- ber of deaths the percentage under one year was 9.44 in the former as against 25.21 in the latter. Wolf, in his classic studies based upon the vital statistics of Erfurt for a period of twenty years, found that for every 1,000 children born in Working-class families 505 died in the first year; among the middle classes 173, and among the higher classes only 89. Of eveiy 1,000 illegitimate children registered almost entirely of the poorer classes 352 died before the end of the first year. Dr. Charles E. Drysdale, Senior Physician of the Metro- politan Free Hospital, London, declared some years ago that the death-rate of infants among the rich was not more than 8 per cent., while among the very poor it was often as high as forty per cent. . Dr. Playfair says that 18 per cent, of the children of the upper classes, 36 per cent, of the tradesman class, and 55 per cent, of these of the work- ing-class die under the age of five years. "And yet the experts say that the baby of the tenement is born physically equal to the baby of the mansion. For countless years men have sung of the Democracy of Death, but it is only recently that science has brought us the more inspiring message of the Democracy of Birth. It is not only in the tomb that we are equal, where there is neither rich nor poor, bond or free, but also in the womb of our mothers. At birth class distinctions are unknown." 706 u 8 I hj CHAPTER IV THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS 709 I am not easily discouraged. But I confess I was surprised by the sights I have seen in the national capital. You people of Washington have alley after alley filled with hidden people whom you don't know. There are 298 such alleys. They tell me the death-rate among the negro babies born in these alleys is 475 out of a thousand before they grow to be 1 year old. Nearly one- half! Nowhere I have ever been in the civilised world have I ever seen such a thing as that. Jacob D. Riis, in Washington Times. Dec. 16, 1903. Leave the poor Some time for self-improvement. Let them not Be forced to grind the bones out of their arms P'or bread, but have some space to think and feel Like moral and immortal creatures. Bailey Festus. In this boasted land of freedom there are bonded baby slaves, And the busy world goes by and does not heed. They are driven to the mill, just to glut and overfill Bursting coffers of the mighty monarch, Greed. When they perish we are told it is God's will, Oh, the roaring of the mill, of the mill! Ella Wheeler Wilcox. " Faster and faster, our iron master, The thing we made, forever drives, Bids us grind treasure and fashion pleasure, For other hopes and other lives." 'Tis not a life, 'Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away. Beaumont and Fletcher Philaster. 710 CHAPTER IV THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS T is a sad commentary on modern civilisation that England's inability to get good recruits wherewith to kill her fellow man, as experienced in the South- African war, has led her to an alarmed realisation of her physical degeneracy, after all gentler influences had failed to produce any effect. The physical in- feriority of the English soldiery, so manifest in the South-African struggle, led to a rigourous investigation into the causes of deteriora- tion, and what was the net result thereof? This, that poverty in childhood was the chief cause of the deplorable condition. This called renewed attention to the excessive death-rate among infants and young children. Out of 587,830 deaths in 1890 in England and Wales more than 24 per cent, of the whole or 142,912 were infants under one year, while 35.76 per cent, were under five years of age. It is frankly admitted by the English authorities that this death- rate is excessive, and many of the leading medical men contend that it could be reduced, under proper social conditions, by at least one half. If we accept these statements, and there appears to be no rea- son why we should not, it will be seen that more than 70,000 baby lives are needlessly sacrificed in England and Wales every year. Talk about race suicide! Here is a phase of the subject which well may not only alarm us, but, at the same time, move us to pity and to shame. It is not for us Americans to plume ourselves upon the idea that these horrible conditions are not applicable to us, for our gen- eral death-rate of 16.3 per thousand, as given in the census returns, is only about 2 per thousand less than that in England. In com- menting upon this subject, Mr. Spargo points out the unreliability of our census returns for purposes of comparison. Referring to the awfulness of these facts, he says: ".Only by gathering them all into one vast throng would it be possible to conceive vividly the immensity of this annual slaughter of the babies of a Christian land. If some awful great child plague came and swept away every child under a year old in the states of Massachusetts, Idaho, and New Mexico, not a babe escaping, the loss would be less than those that are believed to be needlessly lost each year in England and Wales. Or, to put it in another form, the total number of these infants believed to have died from causes essentially preventable in the year 1900 was greater than the total number of infants of the same age living in the following six states, Connecticut, Maine, Delaware, Florida, Colorado, and Idaho. Even if the estimate of the sacrifice be regarded as being ex- cessive and we reduce it by half, it still remains an awful sum," and 711 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION then, coining to a consideration of conditions in the United States, he continues, " That with all these favourable conditions our infan- tile mortality should so nearly approximate that of England, that of every thousand deaths 307.8 should be of children under five years of age according to the crude figures of the census, more if a cor- rect registration upon the same basis as the English figures could be had is a matter of grave national concern. If we make an ar- bitrary allowance of 20 per cent., to account for the slight improve- ment shown by the death-rates and for other differences, and regard 30 per cent, of the infantile death-rate as being due to socially preventable causes, instead of 50 per cent., as in the case of England, we have an appalling total of more than 95,000 unnecessary deaths in a single year. " And of these f socially preventable ' causes there can be no doubt that the various phases of poverty represent fully 85 per cent., giving an annual sacrifice to poverty of practically 80,000 baby lives. If some modern Herod had caused the death of every male child under twelve months of age in the state of New York in the year 1900, not a single child escaping, the number thus brutally slaughtered would have been practically identical with this sacrifice. Poverty is the Herod of modern civilisation, and Justice the warning angel calling upon society to ' arise and take the young child ' out of the reach of the monster's wrath/' Some faint idea of the part poverty plays may be gathered from the following extracts from " The Bitter Cry of the Children :" " Even as the Great White Plague recruits its victims from the haunts of poverty, so bronchitis preys there and gathers most of its victims from the ranks of the children whose lives are spent either in the foul and stuffy atmosphere of overcrowded and ill-ventilated homes, or on the streets, under-fed, imperfectly clad, and exposed to all sorts of weather. " For nearly half a century rachitis, or ' rickets/ has been known as the disease of the children of the poor. It has been so called ever since Sir William Jenner noticed that after the first two births, the children of the poor began to get rickety, and careful investigation showed that the cause was poverty, the mothers being generally too poor to get proper nourishment while nursing them. It is perhaps the commonest disease from which children of the working-classes suffer/' . . . " Tens of thousands of children suffer from this disease, which is due almost wholly to poor and inadequate food. Here again statisti- cal records hide and imprison the soul of trutli, failing to yield the faintest idea of the ravages of this disease. The number of deaths credited to it in 1900 was only 351 for the whole of the United States, whereas 10,000 would not have been too high a figure. " Seldom, if ever, fatal by itself, rickets is indirectly responsible for a tremendous quota of the infantile death-rate. In epidemics of such infectious diseases as measles, whooping-cough, and others, the rick- ety child falls an easy victim. In these diseases, as well as in bron- chitis, pneumonia, convulsions, diarrhoea and many other disorders, definite. 712 SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS the mortality is far higher among rickety children than among others." . . . "Dr. Henry Ashby, an eminent authority upon children's diseases, says: In healthy children among the well-to-do class the mortality (from measles) is practically nil, in the tubercular and wasted chil- dren to be found in workhouses, hospitals, and among the lower classes, the mortality is enormous, no disease more certainly being attended with a fatal result. William Squires places it in crowded wards at 20 to 30 per cent, of those attacked. Among dispensary patients the mortality generally amounts to 9 or 10 per cent. In our own dis- pensary, during the six years, 1880-1885, 1395 cases were treated with 128 deaths, making a mortality of 9 per cent. Of the fatal cases 73 per cent, were under two years of age and 9 per cent, under six months of age/ " These are terrible words coming as they do from a great physician and teacher of physicians. Upon any less authority one would scarcely dare quote them, so terrible are they. They mean that prac- tically the whole 8,645 infant deaths recorded from measles in the United States in the year 1900 were due to poverty to the meas- ureless inequality of opportunity to live and grow which human ig- norance and greed have made. Moreover, the full significance of this impressive statement will not be realised if we think only of its relation to one disease. The same might be said of many other dis- eases of childhood which blight and destroy the lives of babies as mer- cilessly as the sharp frost blight and kill the first tender blossoms of spring. The same writer says : ' It may be taken for granted that no healthy infants suffer from convulsions; those who do are either rickety or the children of neurotic parents.' And there were no less than 14,288 infant deaths from convulsions in the United States in the census year. It would probably be a considerable underestimate to regard 10,000 of these deaths, or 70 per cent, of the whole, as due to poverty," and then comes this awful indictment : " I think it can safely be said that in this country, the richest and greatest country in the world's history, poverty is responsible for at least 80,- 000 infant lives every year more than two hundred every day in the year, more than eight lives each hour, day by day, night by night, throughout the year. It is impossible for us to realise fully the im- mensity of this annual sacrifice of baby lives. Think what it means in five years in a decade in a quarter of a century." The table at the top of the following page, which Mr. Spargo gives at page 21 of " The Bitter Cry of the Children," makes significant reading for the sociologist and the reformer. "The Lancet" for February 2, 1901, is authority for the state- ment that Drs. Baillestre and Gillette have estimated that three- fourths of the deaths of French infants are due to avoidable causes: " Five years of ignorance," they say, " have cost France 220,000 lives equal to the loss of an army corps of 45,000 men annually." In all parts of the world the story is sensibly the same or worse. We cannot forbear making the following somewhat lengthy quo- tation in the hope that it may save at least one infant life. It is from Mr. Spargo's excellent work. " The tragedy of the infant's 713 No of Est. per Est. No. of Disease deaths un- cent. Due to Deaths Due to der five Bad Condi- Bad Conditions years tions. Poverty. Measles 8,465 85 7,195 Inanition 10,687 90 . 9,618 Convulsions 14,288 70 10,000 Consumption 4,454 60 2,648 Pneumonia 37,206 45 14,340 Bronchitis 10,900 50 5,450 Croup 10,897 45 4,900 Debility and Atrophy 12,130 75 9,397 Cholera Infantum 25,563 45 . 11,502 Diarrhoea 3,962 45 1,782 Cholera Morbus 3,180 45 1,431 151,732 51.57 78,263 position is its helplessness ; not only must it suffer on account of the misfortunes of its parents, but it must suffer from their vices and from their ignorance as well. Nurses, sick visitors, dispensary doc- tors, and those in charge of babies' hospitals tell pitiful stories of al- most incredible ignorance of which babies are the victims. A child was given cabbage by its mother when it was three weeks old ; another, seven weeks old, and fed for several days in succession on sausage and bread with pickles ! Both died of gastritis, victims of ignorance. In another New York tenement home a baby less than nine weeks old was fed on sardines with vinegar and bread by its mother. Even more pathetic is the case of the baby, barely six weeks old, found by a district nurse in Boston in the family clothes-basket which formed its cradle sucking a long strip of salt, greasy bacon and with a bottle containing beer by its side." (This in the light of Packingtown dis- closures!) "Though rescued from immediate death, this child will probably never recover wholly from the severe intestinal disorder in- duced by the ignorance of its mother. Yet, after all, it is doubtful whether the beer and bacon were worse for it than many of the patent * infant foods ' of the cheaper kinds commonly given in good faith to the children of the poor. If medical opinion goes for anything, many of these ' foods ' are little better than slow poisons. Tennyson's aw- ful charge is still true, that: ' The spirit of murder works in the very means of life/ Nor is the work of this spirit of murder confined to the concoction of ' patent foods ' which are in reality patent poisons. The adultera- tion of milk with formaldehyde and other base adulterants is re- sponsible for a great deal of infant mortality, and its ravages are chiefly confined to the poor. It is little short of alarming that in New York City, out of 3970 samples of milk taken from dealers for analysis during 1902, no less than 2095, or 52.77 per cent., should have been found to be adulterated. Mr. Nathan Straus, the philan- thropist whose Pasteurised milk depots have saved many thousands 714 SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS of baby lives during the past twelve years, has not hesitated to call this adulteration by its proper name, child-murder. He says ' f l shuld hire ^^son Suar , 1 Square Garden and announce that at eight o clock on a certain evening I would publicly strangle a child, what excitement there would be! ' If I walked out into the ring to carry out my threat, a thousand men would stop me and kill me and everybody would applaud them for doing so. 'But every day children are actually murdered by neglect or by poisonous milk. The murders are as real as the murder would be if I should choke a child to death before the eyes of a crowd. 'It is hard to interest the people in what they don't see.' * * * " One poor woman, whose little child was ailing, became very irate when a lady^ visitor ventured to offer her some advice concerning the child's clothing and food, and soundly berated her would-be-adviser. ' You talk to me about how to look after my baby ! ' she cried. * Why, I guess I know more about it than you do. I've buried nine already! ' It is not the naive humour of the poor woman's wrath that is most significant, but the grim, tragic pathos back of it. Those four words, ' I've buried nine already ! ' tell more eloquently than could a hundred learned essays or polished orations the vastness of civilisation's fail- ure. 'For, surely, we may not regard it as anything but -failure so long as women who have borne eleven children into the world, as had this one, can say, ' I've buried nine already ! ' ' Regarding child labour in the United States, Eobert Hunter says, in " Poverty :" " The cotton trade is growing, the South is pros- perous, and children of from five to fourteen- years, who formerly ran wild in the fields, can now have ten, twelve, and fourteen hours of work and earn ten, fifteen, and twenty cents a day in a cotton- mill! England was once proud of this same business and talked much of how good it was for her children to be at work and how much the children liked it; but latterly she has become concerned about the physical deterioration of her people and has about decided to weigh and measure every workman in England to see how far she has been ruined by her cotton and other trades. " Not less than eighty thousand children, most of whom are little girls, are at present employed in the textile mills of this country. In the South there are now six times as many children at work as there were twenty years ago. Child labour is increasing yearly in that sec- tion of the country. Each year more little ones are brought in from the fields and hills to live in the degrading and demoralising atmos- phere of the mill towns. Each year more great mills are being built to reap the profits which these little hands make possible. In one Southern town there are five great mills and five settlements of work- ers < pest-ridden, epidemic-filled, filthy ' settlements ' to be shunned like the plague'; each with its poverty-stricken, hungry-looking wage- slaves ; and 'each with its group of box-houses, looking all alike and built high above the malarial clay-mud. Tin cans, rubbish, filth, are strewn everywhere inside and outside the houses. The great mills shriek at 4.45. The men, women, and children turn out of bed or rise from mattresses on the floor, gulp down some handfuls of food, and 715 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION leave the home for the mills. Sleepy, half-awake, frowsy girls, sleepy, yawning, half -dressed children, drowsy, heavy men and women, hurry along in crowds to be in time to begin their twelve or more hours of continuous work. * The day in winter is not born when they start their tasks; the night has fallen long before they cease. In summer they are worked far into the evenings/ And after the day of labour ' they are too tired to eat, and all they want to do is to turn their ach- ing bones on to their miserable mattresses and sleep/ " In the worst days of cotton-milling in England the conditions were hardly worse than those now existing in the South. Children the tiniest and frailest of five and six years of age rise in the morning and, like old men and women, go to the mills to do their day's labour ; and when they return home, they wearily fling themselves on their beds, too tired to take off their clothes. Many children work all night ' in the maddening racket of the machinery, in an atmosphere in- sanitary and clouded with humidity and lint/ It will be long before I forget the face of a little boy of six years, with his hands stretched forward to rearrange a bit of machinery, his pallid face and spare form showing already the effects of labour. This child, six years of age, was working twelve hours a day in a country which has estab- lished in many industries an eight-hour day for men. The twelve- hour day is almost universal in the South, and about twenty-five thou- sand children are now employed on twelve-hour shifts in the mills of the various Southern states. The wages of one of these children, however large, could not compensate the child for the injury this monstrous and unnatural labour does him ; but the pay which the child receives is not enough, in many instances, even to feed him prop- erly. If the children fall ill, they are' docked ,for loss of time. And if, ' For indisposition or fatigue, they knock a day off, there is a man hired (by the mill) especially for this purpose, who rides from house to house to find out what is the matter with them, to urge them to rise, and, if they are not literally too sick to move, they are hounded out of their beds and back to their looms/ The mill-hands confess that they hate the mills, and no one will wonder at it. A vagrant who had worked in a textile mill for sixteen years once said to a friend of mine: 'I done that (and he made a motion with his hand) for six- teen years. At last I was sick in bed for two or three days with a fever, and when I crawled out, I made up my mind that I would rather go to hell than back to that mill/ . . . " When the people of the North learned a few years ago of the con- ditions of child labour in the South, there was a great expression of public indignation. But while it is only fair to say that the condi- tions in the South are undoubtedly worse than those in the North, there are nevertheless many conspicuous examples of child slavery of the worst kind in almost every section of the Union. The South is not alone in its violation of the Jeffersonian principle. It is violated in the North, East, and West as well. " In the mining districts of Pennsylvania children labour under con- ditions which are, if possible, even more injurious to them than the child labour of the cotton-mills is to the children of the South. In the mines, mills, and factories, before the furnaces, and in the sweat- 716 shops of Pennsylvania, that state of colossal industrial crimes, one hundred and twenty thousand little ones were, in the year 1900, sac- rificing a part of their right to life, most of their right to liberty, and all of their right to happiness except perhaps of a bestial kind. The Commission appointed to settle the anthracite coal strike of 1902 heard the cases of Theresa McDermott and Eosa Zinka. These chil- dren represented, though unknown to them, seventeen thousand little girls under sixteen years of age, who were toiling in the great silk- mills and lace factories of the mining districts of Pennsylvania. The chairman could not repress his indignation when these two eleven- year-old children told the Commission how they left their homes to report at the factory at half past-six in the evening and spent at work the long hours of the night until half-past six in the morning. " The girls go to the mills, the boys to the breakers. A year or two ago Mr. Francis H. Nichols said regarding these working children: ' I saw four hundred lads working in the breakers. One of the chil- dren told me, ( We go to work at seven in the morning and stay until six in the evening/ e Are there many in the breakers younger than you? ' he asked one of the children. ' Why, sure, I'm one of the old- est; I'm making sixty cents. Most of them is eight and nine years old/ Mr. Nichols then asked, ' Did you ever go to school ?' 'To school ? ' the child echoed ; ' Say, mister, you must be a green hand. Why, lads in the anthracite doesn't go to school; they works in the breakers ! ' They do not go to school, but instead they are put to work as soon as they may be trusted not to fall into the machinery and be killed. There is hardly an employment more demoralising and physically injurious than this work in the breakers. For ten or eleven hours a day these children of ten and eleven years stoop over the chute and pick out the slate and other impurities from the coal as it moves past them. The air is black with coal dust, and the roar of the crushers, screens, and rushing mill-race of coal is deafening. Sometimes one of the children falls into the machinery and is terri- bly mangled, or slips into the chute and is smothered to death. Many children are killed in this way. Many others, after a time, contract coal-miner's asthma and consumption, which gradually undermine their health. Breathing continually, day after day, the clouds of coal dust, their lungs become black and choked with small particles of anthracite. There are in the United States about twenty-four thou- sand children employed in and about the mines and quarries/' John Spargo says, in his chapter entitled " The Blighting of the Babies " : " Perhaps the employment of mothers too close to the time of childbirth, both before and after, is almost as important as the subsequent neglect and intrusting of children to the tender mer- cies of ignorant and irresponsible caretakers, filie Reclus tells us that among savages it is the universal custom to exempt their women from toil during stated periods prior to and following childbirth, and in most countries legislation has been enacted forbidding the employ- ment of women within a certain given period from the birth of a child. In Switzerland the employment of mothers is prohibited for two months before confinement and the same period afterwards. At present the English law forbids the employment of a mother within GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION four weeks after she has given birth to a child, and the trend of pub- lic opinion seems to be in favour of the extension of the period of ex- emption to the standard set by the Swiss laws. So far as I am aware there exists no legislation of this kind in the United States, in which respect we stand alone among the great nations, and behind the sav- age of all lands and ages." . . . " Not long ago, in one of the largest cigar factories in New York, a woman left her bench with a cry of agony and sank down in a corner of the factory, where, in the presence of scores of workers of both sexes, whose gay laughter and chatter her shrieks had stilled, she became a mother. The poor woman afterwards confessed that she had feared that it might happen so, but said she 'wanted to get in another day so as to have a full week's pay and money for the doc- tor/ Within two weeks she was back again at her trade, but in an- other shop, her baby being left in the care of an old woman of seventy who supports herself by caring for little children at a charge of five cents per day. In another factory a woman returned to work on the seventh day after her confinement, but was sent back by the foreman. This woman, a Bohemian, explained that she did not feel well enough to work but feared that she might lose her place if she remained longer away. The dread prospect of unemployment and hunger had forced her from her bed to face the awful perils attendant upon premature exertion and exposure. Had she been a ' savage heathen ' in the kraal of some Kaffir tribe in Africa she would have been shielded, protected, and spared this peril, but she was in a civilised country, in the richest city of the world, and therefore unprotected ! " The brutality, the hyena-like lack of sympathy in many quarters of our present cut-throat competitive system is well illustrated by the following quotation from the same author : " In many factories, prob- ably a majority, women in whom the signs of approaching mother- hood are conspicuous are discharged. ' It don't take two people to run this loom/ or ' Two can't work at one job/ are typically brutal examples of the language employed by bosses of a certain type upon such occasions. The fear of being discharged causes many a poor woman to adopt the most pitiful means to hide her condition from the boss. ' It wouldn't be so bad if we were only laid off for a few weeks, but it's getting fired and the trouble of finding a new job that hurts/ they say." Mr. Bobert Hunter, analysing the principal data available, has es- timated the measure of privation in this country. He concludes that, in normal times, there are at least 10,000,000 persons in the United States in poverty, by which is meant that there are so many persons underfed, underclad, poorly housed, and having no security in the means of life. He has observed that the misery of poverty seems to fall most heavily upon the children, of whom not less than from sixty to seventy thousand in the single city of New York " often arrive at school hungry, and unfitted to do well the work required." It has been pointed out that, if there are ten millions of poverty-stricken people in the United States, at least 3,300,000 of them must be chil- dren under 14 years of age. Eeturning once more to " The Bitter Cry of the Children," we extract the following from the chapter en- 718 SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS , 1 Child " : " This P roblem of P ^ in its relation to childhood and education is, to us in America, quite new. We have not studied it as it has been studied in England and other European countries where, for many years, it has been the subject of much in- vestigation and experiment. When it was suggested that 60,000 or 70,000 children go to school in our greatest city in an underfed condi- tion, and when Dr. W. H. Maxwell, superintendent of the Board of Education of New York City, declared in a public address that there are hundreds of thousands of children in the public schools of the nation unable to study or learn because of their hunger, something of a sensation was caused from one end of the land to the other. But in England, where for more than twenty years investigators have been studying the problem and experimenting, and have built up a consid- erable literature upon the subject, which has become one of the most pressing political problems of the time, they have become so conversant with the facts that no fresh recital, however eloquent, can create anv- thing like a sensation. And what is true of England is true of almost every other country in Europe. Only we in the United States have ignored this terrible problem of child hunger. We have so long been used to express our commiseration with the Old World on account of the heavy burden of pauperism beneath which it groans, and to boast of our greater prosperity and happiness, that we have hardly observed the ominous signs that similar causes at work among us are fast pro- ducing similar results. Now we have awakened to the fact that here, too, are two nations within the nation, the nation of the rich and the nation of the poor, and that Fourier's terrible prophecy of ' pov- erty through plethora,' has found fulfilment in the land where he fondly dreamed that his Utopia might be realised. The poverty prob- lem is to-day the supreme challenge to our national conscience and instincts of self-preservation, and its saddest and most alarming fea- ture is the suffering and doom it imposes upon the children." . . . " It cannot be too strongly emphasised that it is not a question of whether so many children go without breakfast occasionally, but whether they are underfed, either through missing meals more or less frequently or through feeding day by day and week by week upon food that is poor in quality, unsuitable, and of small nutritive value, and whether in consequence the children suffer physically or mentally, or both. Only a comprehensive examination by experts of a large num- ber of children in different parts of the country, a careful inquiry into their diet and their physical and mental development, would afford a satisfactory basis for any statistical measure of the problem which could be accepted as even approximately correct. Yet such inquiries as those described cannot be ignored ; in the absence of more compre- hensive and scientific investigations they are of great value, on account of the mass of observed facts which they give ; and the results certainly tend to show that the estimate that fully 2,000,000 children of school age in the United States are badly underfed is not exaggerated.' From an "Appendix to Poverty," by Robert Hunter, we take the following- "'FALL RIVER, MASS., MARCH 11. Situated in the very centre of Fall River's wharf line and flush with the waters of Mount Hope Bay is the mammoth plant of the American Printing Company, 719 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION the largest establishment of the kind in America, and the individual property of Matthew Chandler Durfee Borden, the millionaire resident of New York. ' Hundreds of small hoys work for Mr. Borden, and many of them toil ten hours a day without a thread of clothing on their bodies. No one except employes is allowed to enter the works, and therefore when it was stated before a woman's club in New York, last week, that naked babies were at work in the Fall River mills, much interest was aroused. ' They work in the big tanks called ' lime keer/ in the bleach house, packing the cloth into the vats. ' This lime keer holds 750 pieces of cloth, and it requires one hour and twenty minutes to fill it. During that time the lad must work inside, while his body is being soaked with whatever there is of chem- icals which enter into the process of bleaching, of which lime is a prominent factor. ' The naked bodies of the children who do this work day after day are never dry, and the same chemicals which effect the bleaching pro- cess of the gray cloth naturally bleach the skin of the operator, and after coming out of the vats the boys show the effects in the whiteness of their skins, which rivals the cotton cloth/ ' The Child Labour Evil/ by Hon. James F. Carey." Volumes might be written upon the modern abuse of the child, but enough has been said to show all good men and women, who have the love of humanity at heart, that there is urgent need of radical and widespread reform throughout our entire social system. We have had far too much of an ill-advised "optimism," and it is now high time that we face the issues squarely, and tear the evils up roots and all. Those who contend that reform is not good, because it is " destruc- tive " rather than " constructive," deserve no more consideration than a patient afflicted with cancer who would not permit a surgeon to re- move it until he should be informed what was to be given him in place of it. Let the evil be removed, destroyed, if you please ; let us slough off the old dead skin of savagery in any way we can, confident that a new and better skin has already begun to form beneath it. There are signs that the country is awakening. God speed the day when the last doubt of it may have vanished! Speaking of the importance of our treatment of the child, John Spargo says : " Surely, it is not too much to hope that, before long, the nation will realise in the destruction of its future citizens by greed and ignorance a far more serious attack upon the republic than any that could be made by fleets or armed legions. To sap the strength and weaken the moral fibres of the children is to grind the seed-corn, to wreck the future for to-day's fleeting gain. " A great Frenchman once said of the alphabet, ' These twenty-six letters contain all the good things that ever were, or even can be, said, only they need to be arranged/ To complete the truth of this aphorism, he should have included all the bad things as well. And so it is with the children of a nation. Capable of expressing all the good or evil the world has known or may know, it is essentially a matter of arrangement, opportunity, environment. Whether the children of to- 720 SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS day become physical, mental, and moral cretins, or strong men and women, fathers and mothers of virile sons and daughters, depends upon the decision of the nation. If the responsibility of this is fully recognised, and the employment of children under fifteen years of age is forbidden throughout the length and breadth of this great country ; if the nation realises that the demand for the protection of the chil- dren is the highest patriotism, and enfolds every child within its strong, protecting arms, then and not till then will it be possible to look with confidence toward the future, unashamed and unafraid." Under the new system proposed by Mr. Gillette the child will be given back his childhood, a happier childhood than the race has ever known, surrounded as it will be by the environments of an idealised social system. Under the new system justice will take the place of philanthropy, and charity, which too often debases the giver as well as the recipient, will be replaced by equity. Under our present system we too often rob the labourer of his just due, a tithe of which we osten- tatiously dole back to him under the name of charity. The following poem well illustrates the present sad condition. CHARITY. (By Charlotte Perkins Gilman.) Came two young children to their mother's shelf (One was quite little and the other big) ; And each in freedom calmly helped himself (One was a pig). The food was free and plenty for them both, But one was rather dull and very small: So the big, smarter brother, nothing loath, He took it all. At which the little fellow raised a yell Which tired the other's more esthetic ears; He gave him a crust and then a shell To stop his tears. He gave with pride, in manner calm and bland Finding the other's hunger a delight; He gave with piety his full left hand Hid from his right. He gave and gave; Oh, blessed Charity, How sweet and beautiful a thing it is! How fine to see that big boy giving free What is not his! 46 CONCLUSION 723 Unseen hands delay The coming of what oft seems close in ken, And, contrary, the moment, when we say " Twill never come! " comes on us even then. Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton) Thomas Munzer to Martin Luther. That which is unjust can really profit no one; that which is just can really harm no one. Henry George The Land Question. It is impossible to have an industrial revolution without political change. The good of society demands the protection of every class, and this can only be assured by securing to each such voice in government as will check and eventually eradicate that worst of all tyranny class domination. Walter O. Cooper The Fate of the Middle Classes. The present wretched social arrangements are the only hindrances to the attainment by almost all of an existence made up of a few and transitory pains and many and various pleasures. John Stuart Mill. I found my soul lying neglected, and I picked it up and wondered what the strange mechanism was for. I went to school to learn what use to make of my soul. They taught me to think with it, but it strained and creaked and nearly gave way under the ordeal. They showed me how to amuse myself with it, but it speedily got out of order and refused to work. Then they trained me to hate with my soul, but it broke down utterly and nearly fell to pieces. I came back from school disgusted with my soul and my teachers. It was long after (alone, lying on my bed in the nightwatches) that it flashed upon me what my soul was for. Why did ncne of them tell me that my soul was a loving machine? Ernest Crosby in " Broad-Cast." 724 CONCLUSION T has been our purpose in the foregoing chapters to show a few of the many conditions in this and other countries which can be, and ought to be, improved. In doing this we have, perforce, been led to cite many things which we, as well as the Reader, most heartily wish were otherwise. We do not contend that every- thing or everybody in any department of this or any other government is bad. Far from it. We appreciate fully the truth of Victor Hugo's assertion, that a dislike in the mass is always a prejudice. Indeed we recognise much truth in the following quotation from John Adams' " Opinions of Philosophers " : " It is weakness rather than wicked- ness, which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power. The passions are all unlimited ; nature has left them so ; if they could be bounded, they would be extinct ; and there is no doubt they are of indispensible importance in the present system. They certainly in- crease, too, by exercise, like the body. The love of gold grows faster than the heap of acquisition; the love of praise increases by every gratification, till it stings like an adder, and bites like a serpent ; till the man is made miserable every moment when he does not snuff the incense. Ambition strengthens at every advance, and at last takes possession of the whole soul so absolutely, that a man sees nothing in the, world of importance to others or himself, but in his object. The subtlety of these three passions, which have been selected from all others because they are aristocratical passions, in subduing all others, and even the understanding itself, if not the conscience too, until they became absolute and imperious masters of the whole mind, is a curious subject of speculation. The cunning with which they hide themselves from others, and from a man himself, too; the patience with which they wait .for opportunities ; the torments they voluntarily suffer for a time, to secure a full enjoyment at length; the inventions, the dis- coveries, the contrivances they suggest to the understanding, some- times in the dullest dunces in the world, if they could be described in writing, would pass for great genius." There is the best of reason, while fighting evil early and late, why we should spread a very broad mantle of philosophical charity over the heads of evil doers with their direful content of curdled brains. Nor is the story by any means a hopeless tale. .. There are many noble men and women who are putting forth their utmost endeavours to right the awful wrongs which oppress their fel- lows on every hand. There are many others who wish their fellows well, but know not how to give their wish the impetus of an act. There are still others who have no love for the evil which surrounds them, and who would strike at it, if they were conscious of its presence and 725 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION could find it. They are simply misguided individuals who are pleased to think themselves optimists, but who are, for the most part, of that neutral, negative, static brand of thought which is the essential char- acteristic of the worst kind of pessimism. When a man is tempted to do an evil act and is about to yield, he does not discuss with him- self in all its bearings the sin of his proposed course. Far from it. The psychology of crime shows quite another course of procedure. What the wrong-doer does is to fasten his mind upon the agreeable results which he expects to follow his questionable act. If the thought of its harm comes into his mind at all, it is dismissed outright, or laid upon his intellectual table for consideration after he shall have done the deed. His course is precisely that of the spurious optimist who, with evil all about him which he should assist in remedying, lolls in the lazy hammock of his own pleasant thoughts, shirking the burden upon other shoulders. If optimism presuppose that all is as it should be, it would certainly not wish to change anything, since that could but make perfection less perfect. Such optimism, there- fore, would be inert, static, dead and futile, and an Egyptian mummy could efficiently perform all its functions. If pessimism be held to be absolutely hopeless, then it offers its votaries no incentive, whatsoever, for any effort at betterment, since by the terms of its definition all such efforts must be useless and abortive. This, too, leads to a static, inert, and inactive condition as well typified by death as by anything else. We see, therefore, that the superlative degree of optimism and the superlative degree of pessimism result philosophically in the same thing, viz., inaction. The one holds it foolish to attempt to better that which is good beyond hope of improvement, the other holds it futile to attempt to better that which is bad beyond hope of improve- ment. Both make the mistake of assuming that superlative conditions exist. Nothing is so good that it cannot be bettered, nothing is so bad that it may not be worse. The 20th century citizen has heard a vast deal too much of both optimism and pessimism. Why need a man put on either blue or pink goggles, if he have visual strength enough to stand the untempered white light of truth ? We put blind- ers on our horses to direct their vision forward, and the optimists and pessimists seem to have borrowed the practice with a singular and somewhat ridiculous variation. The one puts blinders below his eyes, so that his vision is directed entirely at the skies, until he is as innocent as a wooden Indian of the affairs in which his feet are immersed. The other puts his blinders visor-like above his eyes, so that he sees only downward, shutting out the hope and the promise which sings in the upper sunshine. What folly ! Off with the blinders altogether. Let us have men and women who can face the truth without decking it in the lying livery of distorted thoughts. The conditions to-day through- out the world are very, very bad, but they are not hopeless. It is always darkest before the dawn, and the thick blackness which now besets us still leaves us faith to believe that the morning is almost come. Can there be any cause nobler than that of hastening this new day ? Should we not all strive to build at least a single stone into this grand temple of the future, deserving thus, and surely winning, the 726 CONCLUSION gratitude of coming ages? Can any human being leave behind a better history ? " If so men's memories not thy monument be, Thou shalt have none. Warm hearts and not cold stone, Must mark thy grave, Or thou shalt lie unknown. Marbles keep not themselves; how then keep thee?" The crying evil of to-day may be summed up in a single phrase, lack of the social sense. This is to say, that most of us are selfish, a few only selfial, while still fewer are denizens of the domain of " otherdom." Man is a gregarious animal, but as yet he is only half social. This is due to the environments in which he has been placed, and not to any inherent inadaptibility to high social requirements. The system of commercialism, in which creation now wallows, is a veritable sty of greed and corruption, and it is small wonder if many a man scurries through life like a pig with his feet in the trough. The following, entitled " The Civilised Pig," copied from Bolton Hall's "The Game of Life," is not without food for thought: "I couldn't make out whether the animal I was talking to was a man or a pig. You have noticed how like men pigs really are? They have the same pinky, hairless skin, their dental formulas are the same, and they both eat anything 1 they can get. Then, too, they have the same range of voice, from a squeal to a grunt. " Said the Animal, ' I keep several wives/ ' Oh/ thought I, ' he must be a pig unless he is a Mormon/ ' But, I'm not married to them/ he said. ' Ah/ thought I, ' surely he is a pig unless he is a man about town/ ' I squeal and struggle when I'm hurt/ said the Animal. ' Now/ said I, ' I know he's a pig unless he's a Bryanite/ 1 Do you pay any rent ? ' I asked for a test. ' Kent/ said he, ' I don't know what it is/ ' Now I am sure he is a pig/ I said, ' unless, indeed, he is a gen- tleman/ for I remembered that according to the Irish, the pig is the ' gentleman that pays the rent/ " I tried him again : ' Would you die in defense of your hearth and home ? ' said I. " Said he, ' I haven't a home/ " Again I thought he must be a pig, till I remembered that home means to most men a pig-sty of a tenement. " I said, * You are dirty and sensual/ ' Not more than others/ said he, ' that are shut put from the clean earth and clean pleasures, and shut in to the slums/ " Now do you think I was talking to one of you or to a pig? The fact of the matter is that the age-long saturnalia of com- petitive greed, in which the human race has suffered throughout all history has developed in each social unit an e^o-centric habit of thought which makes it all but impossible for him to view things from that aZfro-centric position so necessary to the realisation of the true 727 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION social sense. So long as astronomers viewed our planetary system from a ^eo-centric standpoint, chaos reigned in their theories. When, however, Copernicus gave them the concept of a /le/to-centric system, chaos gave place to order. In like manner, when man evolves to the altro-centric level, the present e^o-centric chaos of our social system will give place to the perfect order of that highest liberty compatible with equality of liberty. In his " Politics for Young Americans," Charles Nordhoff expresses the current theory of government, when he says : " Governments may be said to be necessary evils, their necessity arising out of the selfish- ness and stupidity of mankind/' The selfishness a_d stupidity of mankind ! There is the difficulty in a nut-shell. We are all so like the Illinois farmer who, according to Abraham Lincoln, asserted ; ' I ain't greedy 'bout land. I only just wants what jines mine.' That this condition obtains is no marvel; the marvel would be if, under our present system, it did not obtain. " The imperfections of equality of competition," says John A. Hob- son, "may be met and overcome by securing equality of opportunity for individuals." That all would be happier if this equality of oppor- tunity obtained is a matter beyond peradventure, for the injury done by the privileged class to the toilers reacts upon themselves and throughout the whole social fabric. " That which does no harm to the State," said Marcus Aurelius, " can do no harm to the citizen. That cannot be for the good of a single bee which is not for the good of the whole hive." Conversely, nothing can harm a single bee which does not harm the whole hive. Again let us insist that the body cor- poreal is a perfect analogue of the body social, and that just as the well-being of the physical body is only maintained by a just distribu- tion of its labour and its nourishment, so the well-being of the social body can only be reached through a similar just apportionment of labours and amenities. If the liver enlarges itself at the expense of the other organs, it brings about a condition which shortly reacts upon itself, to its own annihilation. Those bloated social glands, known as multi-millionaires, are in precisely the same fix. The short-sighted in- . dividual who thinks to exist socially in spite of society, and who never realises that each injustice he practises slashes a small slice off his own nose, reminds one of the story of the two men who pooled their money for the purpose of buying an elephant. After a time one of the purchasers got disgusted with the elephant business and went to his partner with this proposition : " I'm not going to interfere with any of your rights in our partnership. You may do what you please with your half of our elephant, but I'm tired of my half and I'm going to shoot it." Now the man who wrongs his fellow man is, in a sense, shooting a portion of the social elephant, in which he himself, in company with all others, is interested. That he does not see this is only be- cause of the ignorance and selfishness which result from our debauch- ing social system. In " Everybody's Magazine " for March, 1906, Mr. Charles Edward Eussell says : " It is very much the custom in our country to regard our problems as peculiar to ourselves. We are not accustomed, for 728 CONCLUSION instance, to think that any other country has its struggles with cor- porations, money mania, the < System,' corruption, political debauch- ery, influence, the monstrous cruelty, rapacity, and savagery of awak- ened and organised greed ; but in truth these conditions are world- wide. Some differences of names, some of methods are to be seen here and there, but the essential principle of the contest between the decent instincts of man and his gainful appetites remains the same under whatsoever sophistical disguise. We do not officially admit that human slavery exists on the Kongo and in the South African mines, but we know perfectly well that it does exist in those regions and differs nothing from the human slavery that we suppressed by our Civil War. We do not hear much about political and official cor- ruption in other countries, Italy and Russia, for instance, but some- times it is as richly developed abroad as here. In the same way, to come to the instances I have in mind, the recent Cunard Line con- tract in England, the contract by which the Government used the national funds to supply a private corporation with new ships, was as rank an example of pull and influence as anything we have achieved as rank, and somewhat ranker. It outdoes our fat mail subsidies to Mr. Morgan's American Line, or our Government's tenderness for the Beef Trust. Nothing could make it worse except the defence of- fered for it. We are told it was advisable to help a British company to compete with the fast new German boats. If that argument were good for anything you could defend with it any perversion of govern- ment functions for private profits. " Or consider that singular alliance between the British Government and the British Telephone Trust, a thing that has a hall-mark both familiar and evil. The Telephone Trust has certain lines and the Oovernment has certain other lines, and the agreement, as reported in the London newspapers, is 'to prevent rate-cutting and provide a di- vision of territory.' It is hard to see what more any trust could ask of any government. The British Telephone Trust is an offensive and grasping monopoly; it exacts exorbitant rates and it meddles with politics for its own great gains, and now it seems to have secured the Government for its partner. We have seen in the story of the fight at Tunbridge Wells how the Trust manipulated elections and how in its schemes against the citizens it had the national post-office department for accessory. These things do not look as if the British corporations needed instructions from our own, nor as if the situation in Great Britain were essentially different from the situation in the United States. No, nor anywhere else. What are all these terrible revela- tions of the so-called * Labour Trade ' in the Pacific Islands but so much evidence of the universal struggle ? There is no corner of the world in which the problem of keeping greedy hands from the throat of free government is not chronic and growing." Mr. Russell but voices the perception of all close observers, that the struggle is on in good earnest. It may be presumptuous to predict just what the outcome will be, but it requires no great penetration to ascertain that some social change more radical than history has yet -known is sadly needed, and to perceive many evidences of determina- tion upon the part of the world's creators of wealth, to see that this 729 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION radical change, whatever it may be, is brought about. Labour now demands bread in just and sufficient quantities. It no longer suppli- cates. It demands, and it keeps its voice up in a way that implies an alternative, should its demand not be complied with. Perhaps, asking for bread, it will accept a stone and perhaps not. Slowly, but none the less surely, is the best economic thought of the country coming to realise the truth and the importance of Adam Smith's asserveration : " Labour, therefore, is the only universal as well as the only accurate measure of value, or the only standard by which we can compare the values of different commodities at all times and at all places." Similarly John Euskin has said : " A mans labour for a day is a better standard of value than a measure of any produce, because no produce ever maintains a consistent rate of productibility." De Tocqueville has said: "A new and fair division of the goods and rights of this world should be the main object of those who con- duct human affairs." Such a division can only be made upon a ratio of exchange which deals with labour as the one great unit of value. That current polit- ical economy, of a certain school, does not define the value of a com- modity as proceeding entirely from the labour expended in its produc- tion, is regrettable but true. For instance, J. M. Gregory says, in the second chapter of his " Political Economy/' " Value is made up of three essential notions or elements, (1) Utility, . . . (2) Effort, or labour required in procuring or producing the article valued, (3) Ownership or appropriation." We believe that a little thought on the part of the discerning Eeader will convince him that Mr. Gregory's definition is unnecessarily com- plex. These complicated and erroneous definitions of value have been sedulously promulgated by those for whose interests it is to keep the working-man in ignorance of the truth. This for the reason that, being ignorant of the truth, he will likewise be ignorant both of his rights and of the means whereby he is to attain them. Once perceive that the value of a commodity is measured in terms of labour, and two things at once suggest themselves as inevitable corollaries, first, that the labouring class should be the wealthy class, and, second, that all exchanges should be upon a basis of labour units. The Chinese say- ing : " All the grains of rice that are in the soup have been matured by the sweat of labour," is indisputable and, when its significance is fully realised, the labouring-man will perceive that to labour belongs the total product of labour. The Danish say : " Adam got a hoe and Eve got a spinning-wheel and thence came all the nobles/' and, lest these nobles should be asked to get off the Labouring-man's back, they have busied themselves early and late in writing so-called political economies with the primary intent of throwing sand in the toilers' eyes. One would think, to read the creations of the privileged class and of their paid makers of public opinion, that the present socialistic trend, which is visible in some quarters, contained a menace to the human race second only to the flood. That several of our present most effi- cient and successfully performed governmental functions, as for ex- ample, our postal service, public roads, public schools and the like, are entirely socialistic in principle, one would never suspect from a pe- 730 CONCLUSION rusal of this anti-socialistic literature, neither would one suspect that any phase of socialism had ever been successfully tried in any com- munity in the world. Great pains are taken to create the impression that all forms of socialism are so radically different from anything which has been successfully tried, that it is all but certain civilisation would go to pieces if any of these shocking social programmes were ever carried out. This is not to say that we ourselves are advocates for any form of socialism which has thus far been given to the world nor is it to say that we would not be, had we not had what seems to us a better solution of the problem presented to us. That almost any kind of socialism would be an immense improvement over the present iniquitous system we make no doubt. We are merely desirous, at this juncture, to point out the gross unfairness of the anti-socialistic side, which never tires of referring to socialism as an unproved thesis a dangerous and socially disorganising experiment never yet successfully tried. This is most emphatically false, as we shall show. In a large and valuable work entitled " Great Japan," Mr. Alfred Stead says : " There are even at the present moment in existence several socialistic communities within the empire. These are recog- nised and are not interferred with. So interesting are these communi- ties that a somewhat detailed account of the conditions there is of value to give guidance and instruction to those anxious for the age of practical socialism." In one division of the Japanese Empire it is stated that the Single- Tax has been in operation for centuries. This community levies all the tax on its land as advocated by Henry George, with this important variation, to wit, every eleven, thirteen or seventeen years the land is impartially apportioned among the people. In describing this com- munity, Mr. Stead quotes a detailed account of it given by the leading socialist writer of Japan, Mr. Katayama, who says: " We can show a most convincing proof of socialism fully and ac- tually in force for centuries in a land once a kingdom and now one of the prefectures of our empire. This prefecture is Okinawa, formerly the kingdom of Eiukiu. Kiukiu comprises thirty-six islands, with 170 miles ^nd 170,000 people. Here in these islands we have a complete and well-developed socialism that has had long practice. The peace- loving islanders have been living under the system of socialism undis- turbed for several centuries. They have their own land system; one that may surprise the world in this age of competition and greed. It has been a long and time-honoured institution with these people that every eleventh year, in some cases thirteenth or seventeenth year, the whole land is equally divided into as many as there are able-bodied persons in the community. During this term each is obliged to pay nothing but a tax imposed upon him for the section of land allotted to him. Besides these allotments the community owns a large tract of land as common land, where they plant banana trees. These plants are cultivated and preserved carefully to feed all the people on them in time of famine. Thus these islanders are assured of their means of subsistence as long as they are willing to cultivate their allotted piece of land. The taxes on the land are very light, and they are secure of attacks from greedy capitalists or landlords. There is no landlord in 731 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION the whole of the islands. No one owns the land, but every one is en- titled to get an allotment and live on the fruits of his own labour. There is no anxiety for him to increase his portion by acquirement or by intrigue or by purchase, as is so common a fact and a miserable burden in the so-called civilised communities. They do not own land, therefore they cannot mortgage or sell the land which they cultivate, but they are fully assured of possessing the results of their own labour. Thus every one owns his own income, which is the result of his own work. Private property is not in the land, but in the income from the land; there is no rent because there is no landlord, and there is no capitalist who may squeeze and exploit the poor, because there are no poor in the whole community. Every one can live by his own labour, because he owns a piece of land to cultivate so long as he is a member of the community. They have not lost individuality or independence, but maintain fully their own personality. The very absence of poor in the whole island is the strongest argument in favour of socialism. There are no poor there, and at the same time there are no rich, be- cause private monopoly consists of income only. It is said that the richest in the island is no wealthier than 200,000 yen (20,000). In spite of some attempts to encroach upon their institutions, so far the people have been able to maintain the land system. They are opposed to change, lest the happiest and best form of socialism should be done away with within a few years. But be this as it may, it is the unde- niable fact that there has existed for centuries the workability of so- cialism." In a most excellent study of Mr. Stead's work, " The Arena " for March, 1906, says in part : " In concluding his discussion on the sim- ple life our author observes : ' The Japanese people are the happiest people in the world, and they derive their happiness from their innate simplicity of nature, which they have obtained from their long association with, and loving study of, the beauty of the universe, of the sky, and of the world. Gradu- ally the eyes of the people, accustomed to look at and to enjoy beauti- ful things, instinctively seek out the beautiful, and the best points in the new things which come into their lives, and thus attain tranquility, if not happiness/ ... . . " Perhaps the chapter that will be of greatest interest to our readers is entitled ' Socialism and the Condition of the People/ Mr. Stead holds that a modified form of Socialism, in all probability, will be ere- long introduced by the national government. Indeed, he inclines to believe that Japan will be the first of the nations to practically enter upon a Socialistic regime" . . . " However, from the consistent course of the government in promptly meeting the wishes of the majority of the people, and often in going far in advance of them in radical innovations along democratic lines, and from the further fact that different forms of Socialism have been in successful practice in parts of Japan for centuries, and finally be- cause the attitude of the government has been strongly favourable to communal and Socialistic experiments, as has been amply shown, he believes that the hour approaches when the government will decide upon a modified form of Socialism, and that at such a time Mr. Kata- 732 CONCLUSION yama, the foremost Socialist leader, will be called to the cabinet and entrusted with the working out of a scheme along general Socialistic lines; but Mr. .Stead is confident that, owing to the deep-rooted love, veneration and reverence on the part of the nation for the Mikado, no form of Socialism will be entertained by the people that should seek to eliminate the head of the nation from the position he holds. " Mr. Stead holds, however, that ' the idea of modern Socialism is not objected to; in fact, the idea recommends itself to many of the thinking Japanese. But just as everything else has been altered and adapted before obtaining full acceptance by the people, so Socialism in Japan is likely to develop along lines vastly different to those fol- lowed in other lands. Japanese Socialism will have less of the de- structive, and more of the improving, idea as its base/ " He insists that the government has no ' decided objections to So- cialistic ideas in themselves/ 'Japan presents the paradox of being at one and the same time the most communistic of nations and a modi- fied absolute empire. It has solved the problem of preserving the rights of the people and of the sovereign. There are even at the pres- ent moment in existence several Socialistic communities within the empire. These are recognised and not interferred with. So interest- ing are these communities that a somewhat detailed account of the con- ditions there is of value to give guidance and instruction to those anx- ious for the age of practical Socialism/ " In this connexion Mr. Stead gives detailed descriptions of three Socialistic village communities, as published by the Home Office of the Government for the purpose of leading other communities to imi- tate the model villages/' . . . " We close this notice with the final paragraph of Mr. Stead's vol- ume: ' The Japanese feel, in the words of one of their writers, that ' we have been raised by Providence to do a work in the world, and that work we must do humbly and faithfully as opportunity comes to us. Our work, we take it, is this; to battle for the right and upbold the good, and to help make the world fair and clean, so that none may ever have cause to regret that Japan has at last taken her rightful place among the nations of the world/ '' In his series of excellent articles entitled, " Soldiers of the Common Good," Mr. Charles Edward Russell, says in the instalment entitled "Japan, The Economic Revolutionist," published in "Everybody's Magazine" for July, 1906: "For many years after Commodore Perry's historical visit it was the custom of Western nations to regard Japan as peopled chiefly by amusing idiots that existed to supply us with curios and consume our surplus products. Presently we discov- ered that these amusing people were duplicating our products instead of consuming them. This jolted the Western complacency until some one formulated the theory that the Japanese were merely ' a nation of imitators/ With joy we laid hold of this emollient ; with fond per- sistent faith we still cling to it. Even when we see Japan with new methods and a new efficiency crushing the fleets and armies of one of the greatest of European nations, when we see it making unprece- dented and sinister records in mobilisation, maneuvering, tactics, com' 733 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION missariat, hospital service, still we cling to it. And when, the war being over, there begins to appear a huge Japanese plan for commer- cial supremacy and commercial activities as strange and startling as any the Japanese forces used in war, still with pathetic confidence we hug the old delusion. " A nation of imitators ! As soon as may be we should come out of that trance. Imitation as practised by the Japanese consists of taking the best thing done by the Europeans and improving it and perfecting it and excelling it, and then turning it in its bettered state against its originators. Something in this may be fortifying to Western com- placency, though I do not know what it is; but in any event we are now face to face with one development of it that may well make us gasp and give grave heed." In this article Mr. KusselT gives the figures which illustrate the un- paralleled strides which Japan is making in practically every direction. He shows that the " little brown man " is speedily developing a system in which internal competition is rapidly being made a thing of the past, and he points out that the successful competition of other na- tions, in the East at least, will soon be but a memory. Eegarding this, he says of the Japanese : " They h^ave pitted themselves against Europeans and have won ; the holy white man has no awe for them, and now they feel assured that they can beat him at any game he may choose. " More than this, these wise, keen-eyed people that sit watching in- tently the daily trend of the world's progress know well enough that the real struggles for world power are to be commercial, not military ; and it is on commercial and industrial fields that chiefly they expect to win glory and domination and empire for Japan. " For such contests they have two weapons of astounding and unpre- cedented power. " First, a working population, intelligent, capable, facile, orderly, extremely industrious, and having a low standard of living. "Second, a government astute as to modern conditions, resolutely determined to force Japanese manufacturing, and Japanese commerce, and utterly unscrupulous as to the means it uses to that end. " The world has never seen anything like this combination ; it has never seen nor imagined nor dreamed of the stupendous results that can be secured by it. With cheap and efficient labour Japan can pro- duce at lower cost than any other nation ; with its skilful and indomi- table government it can build its industrial forces to imposing great- ness ; with the two, in existing conditions of private enterprise, it can annihilate competition. " For individuals can compete with individuals, firms with firms, corporations with corporations, trusts with trusts; but neither indi- vidual, firm, corporation, nor trust can compete with a government. And back of every great manufacturing, commercial, or financial en- terprise in Japan, back of it or actively involved in it, is the Japanese Government, the greatest governmental trader in the world. " More and more it becomes clear that this is the new political econ- omy of Japan, these are the tactics by which she expects to win on the commercial battle-field. The Government is not merely to foster 734 CONCLUSION manufactures and encourage trade ; the Government itself is to do the manufacturing, the Government is to do the trading. " In all the world not one individual, private firm, corporation, or trust will be able to compete in the Japanese market with this Gov- ernment, thus gone into manufacturing and trading." One of the most impressive arguments adduced by Mr. Russell in verification of his conclusions is found in the following two lines of figures which he offers with this comment : " Here is the curt story of thirteen years : JAPAN EXPORT TEADE 1891 1904 To China $291,292 $33,997,936 To Korea 733,020 10,199,861 " With quite delicious humour Mr. Russell thus comments upon the problem which Japan is day by day preparing for American com- merce : " In old days the experts were wont to derive great satisfac- tion from proving how wrong were all Napoleon's tactics, how they violated precedent, practice, and all the rules of the game and would have been condemned by the authorities and all the learned writers. He attacked by night, he made forced marches, he performed be- wildering flanking movements all illegitimate and most reprehensi- ble. But he won the victories, which is something never provided by the learned writers ; he won the victories and made himself master of Europe and rewrote the art of war to suit himself. " Doubtless it is very wrong for Japan to go into trade and govern- ment ownership. Properly conducted governments have no right to become manufacturers, merchants, and transportation agents. All precedent is against it, the learned writers condemn it, the accepted rules of the government game forbid it. But there she goes day after day plunging farther upon her evil course, and the plain, practical question for nations like ours is not how far Japan has wandered from the true faith of Adam Smith, but what are we to do to keep our trade from being batted to pieces by her. " For evil as Japan's course may be, no one can deny that it is plan- ned with amazing skill and with a knowledge of Western world condi- tions both accurate and exasperating, and that it means mischief to the rest of us." Mr. Russell pays a glowing tribute to the intelligence and thorough- ness of the " little brown man " in the following paragraphs : " The Japanese Government knows quite well what is going on elsewhere. For years it has been in the habit of quietly sending abroad commis- sions of its grave, silent, obseryant citizens to study various conditions. These bodies are wont to beat no tom-toms and to make no proclama- tions of their errands. Noiselessly they go from place to place to study, to watch, to compare, to weigh, and when they are done they have absorbed every phase of the subject. Thoroughness is the first of the Japanese virtues ; when these people embark upon an undertak- ing they leave nothing for any one else to show them. With these 7o5 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION commissions and its own vigilant observations, the Government seems to have mastered about everything worth knowing in the modern Eu- ropean experience, whether of economics or finance. Not a new in- dustry has been established in Japan until the Government has sent one or more of these commissions to study it wherever it exists, to study it and what conditions affect it, and how it can be improved, and then report upon it, cold-bloodedly, without enthusiasm, purely on the basis of practical advantage to Japan. Not an important national policy has been adopted without the like deliberate study. If two, three, five years be consumed, if the inquiry lead around the world, no matter. First the whole subject must be turned inside out, then the Government decides whether the enterprise or policy will be to Japan's benefit ; and if the judgment be affirmative, the Government proceeds to establish or adopt the policy. " One of the first conclusions of this astute Government was that a nation's money-supply is the very heart's blood of its commerce, and that private control of the money-supply not only gives too much power to individuals, but subjects the nation's commerce to many dan- gers of arbitrary and selfish influences. Hence it arranged to keep in its own hands the control of the Japanese banking business. This is effected through three great institutions, all practically owned by the Government: the Central Bank of Japan (the leading bank of issue and the Government's financial exponent) ; the Hypothec Bank, whose function is to care for agricultural interests ; and the Industrial Bank, whose specialty is to supply manufacturing concerns and to foster trade extension. Besides these the Specie Bank of Yokohama has spe- cial functions in looking after foreign commerce. Through these in- stitutions the Government has in its control the vital supply for every commercial interest of Japan." We cannot too strongly urge upon our Eeaders a thorough perusal of all of Mr. Eussell's articles, for they are all preeminently worth an earnest reading on the part of every really patriotic American. We have heard a deal about the " Yellow Peril," and we are wont to look upon it as some more or less remote social pestilence. We be- lieve that a knowledge of the facts, however, will lead the thinking to realise that our real danger, if such a thing can be called a danger, is that the Orient will develop a fitness to exist superior to our own. Certain it is that the present progress of Japan will soon outstrip our wildest imaginings, unless unless she fall a prey to that almost in- evitable toxin of success, namely, cranial enlargement. Had the Uni- ted States not gotten the idea, as the result of its phenominal develop- ment, that it was all there was, that it represented the political, eco- nomic and educational summum bonum of the earth, there is no know- ing to what an extent we might have developed. It was only our inor- dinate pride which prevented us from learning many a much- needed lesson from humbler peoples. We preferred, however, to estab- lish ourselves as the chief representative of Omniscience among nations, with the result that we are rapidly becoming politically an economic- ally archaic a back number, if you please. This disintegration has not gone far enough as yet to slap a blind man in the face, but it has gone far enough to attract the fearful attention of those who have 736 CONCLUSION eyes anchored in a suitable intelligence. Up to the present writing, Japan seems to have steered so clear of that national egotism which has been our greatest drawback that we cannot but conclude that her clever commissioners have correctly diagnosed, reported and warned their countrymen against the great American malady. Should Japan remain immune from this ailment, there is no reason in the world that we can see why the ultimate course of Empire should not be east- ward instead of westward. The earth has never produced a nation which could compare with Japan as an organiser. Between her and China and Korea there exists a natural community of interests, senti- ments and customs. The European is not a kindred race. What, then, may We expect from the East when Japan arouses, stimulates and or- ganises Eastern Asia? Every fourth man in the world is a China- man, and it is quite within the range of possibilities that a Japan- China alliance may knock at the gates of India before the supposedly imminent Russian menace moults a practical feather. If we Ameri- cans are to hold our place on the national and commercial map of the world, it behooves us at once to quit listening to the siren song of in- dividual greed, and bestir ourselves toward some form of co-operative effort which may have the seeds of life within it. The knell of war- like competition has struck, and those nations which fatuously cling to this dying relic of barbarism must inevitably go down with it. Competition, as we know it, is not social, it is individual, and the world is passing into the social stage. We say competition " as we know it," because we do not care to split hairs over what competition might be if it were to become something which it never has been, that is, perfectly free. Were we to discuss such a thing we should prefer to begin by finding an entirely new name for it, since it does not repre- sent any condition which society has ever known. Competition " as we know it " is doomed. It is un-Christian, immoral, corruptive, un- just, inequitable, iniquitous, wasteful, brutal, uncertain, chaotic and inefficient. All these things it would seem the clever Japanese has perceived. Whether or not he has arrived at a perfect system which corrects all these defects is not for us to say, but we will hazard a guess- that, if not, he will approach it by swift strides with which it will greatly trouble us to keep pace. Our economic self-sufficiency is capitally hit off by the opening lines of Mr. Russell's article, from which we have already quoted. He says: "To sit at ease and discuss the academic theories of government and the dark secrets of political economy is one of the most delightful and useless occupations known to mankind. With the help of the learned authorities one minded to these gentle pursuits can demonstrate beyond cavil that the state should not engage in trade, that industrial enterprises should be left to indi- vidual effort, that all profits are legitimate, however secured, that without a system of reciprocal robbery there would be no incen- tive to trade, that the way anything has been done in the past is exactly the way it should be done in the future, and the like com- fortable doctrines. So readily can these truths be shown that by most of our hearthstones all such problems have been pleasantly and defi- nitely ettled forever. But while we are engaged in making these 47 737 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION philosophical mud-pies, Evolution, which has no sense of propriety and cares not a whit for theories, schools, dogmas, university profes- sors, nor even for the sainted Adain Smith, is preparing for our heads the club that is likely to put an end to all these diversions and dislo- cate (for us) the whole sanctified science of economics." In this connexion we cannot refrain from calling attention to the fact that the Japanese development furnishes yet another instance of a natural law, to which we do not remember ever to have seen any reference, the law that all radical improvements almost invariably come from the outside. The psychology of this is simple. Long famil- iarity with a subject breeds dogmas. Thought crystallises in adaman- tine structures. All intellectual roads become so deeply rutted that each specialist finds his " wheels " confined to them. The invention of all such tends ever to be along the line of slight and progressive improvements. Now comes a strong mind from without. The breadth of his intellectual running-gear has never been adjusted to specialistic ruts, and he forthwith takes a short cut across lots and wins the race. So Japan, a country without any commercial traditions, is able after a careful study of conditions to take an economic short cut to the de- sired goal of supremacy, while the United States, hampered by a deeply grooved system, cloyed with befogged legislators, befuddled by college economists, with a superstitious reverence for authority which is truly monkish, and tricked by the designing greed of those who are willing to pluck the American eagle naked so they may have soft feathers to loll upon, backs and fills in opposing currents, driven now this way and now that, until the observing despair of our ever making, without something akin to a revolution, that substantial headway which is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of our place among nations. Where we should have taken Emerson's advice and hitched our waggon to a star, we have bolted it to the headstone of the dead past, and now wonder why the wheels do not turn faster. Even the sleepiest of us will awake ere long to the realisation that we have overslept ; for, just as sure as effect follows cause, we shall be driven in self-protection to adopt a more rational, because more successful, eco- nomic system. All assertions to the contrary, notwithstanding, it must be admitted that there has never been a time in the history of the world when the various phases of socialism excited as much interest as they command today. This is not to say that everyone who is interested in socialistic literature necessarily endorses all the tenets of any particular phase of this much mooted doctrine, but it is to say that there is a widespread and constantly increasing social unrest, born of the conviction, which is seising the unprejudiced thinking intellect, that social conditions the world over are bad, and yearly growing worse. To stem this tide, the privileged classes and those who plead their cause are at present making frantic efforts to convince the public that the recent disclos- ures of political, social and commercial rottenness have been greatly exaggerated ; that they are very exceptional, and that all they need .is a little gentle and kindly, pressure .to guide the erring feet of the; wrong-doers back into paths of holiness. In a current number of a magazine, John E. Jones makes " a pleat 738 CONCLUSION for conservatism" along such lines. In this he makes hysterical efforts to prove that the labouring-man is paid better than ever before, and that he is better off in all respects. The well-known fact, that year after year labour has been getting a smaller and smaller portion of its production, does not in the least trouble Mr. Jones nor the writers of similar articles. The following diagram is all the refutation needed by such optimistic falsehoods whatsoever their source. Mr. Jones proceeds to mention and to hold up to admiration some of the worst political measures of this and the preceding century. The Reader may gather some idea of the accuracy of Mr. Jones' ob- servation from the following : " The rich are not specially privileged in this country except in so far as the possession of money grants spe- cial privileges to its possessors in all countries. The rich can employ the best lawyers and doctors, and can have the most luxuries, of course. The remedy for that is to get rich. The race is open to all, and most of those who are rich to-day were poor ten or twenty years ago. If a man cannot get rich in this free and prosperous country, it is often either his own fault, through lack of moral stamina, or his misfor- tune, through lack of physical or mental ability. In either case, are the laws and his neighbours to blame ? In the first case he himself is to blame; in the second case his quarrel is with his ancestors or with God/' Mr. Jones denies that the tariff affords anyone special privilege! Indeed his indignation against newspaper and magazine criticism of existing evils so sweeps away his sense of proportion and of humour that he cries now of all times ! " Why should American citizens desert their tried and true leaders and follow these false prophets and blind guides ? " He loses the subtle point that, if all our leaders are determined to reach a political, moral, and social Gehenna, the only hope of the good citizen is in joining the standard of one who is so blind that he can't find the perdition for which he searches. Mr. Jones is but a sample of many another who does not want present predatory methods disturbed, only most men have a respect for facts and a sense of humour which does not permit of their making a plea so ridiculous that one has to read it twice to determine whether or not it is a serious or humourous article, and even then puts it down with a lingering fear that perhaps, after all, the laugh is upon him. We submit that present conditions in this country and in all other countries are capable of great and radical improvement. We believe we have thoroughly sustained our contention that the United States is leaving behind her most glorious and cherished ideals faster than the Empire of the Czar is departing from Russian standards. We think we have made it clear that the just way of determining the social trend of a country or the physical trend of an individual whether toward health or disease is not by comparing the nation with other nations, or the person with other persons, but, rather, by comparing the con- dition of each to-day with their condition yesterday. In this way only can countries or persons determine whither they are going. We have offered a vast amount of material from able writers and publicists, in order that the Reader should be convinced that our contentions were not mere personal crotchets, but were endorsed and verified by a great 739 1! SI I Value of Product Produced per Worker Average Wages Paid in Dollars oo o c Decreasing % of Product which Went to Labour as Wages CONCLUSION number of our ablest writers and closest observers, men the sanctity of whose word and the honesty of whose purpose we do not believe the Reader will feel impelled to question. In conclusion, we wish once more to remind the Reader that careful diagnosis is the first step toward the intelligent application of a reme- dial agency, on the one hand, and that, on the other, a doctor's inter- est naturally centres in those conditions which need a doctor's care. We are quite aware that in this and in all other countries in varying degree, there is much that is noble, true, generous and just. This will take care of itself, it needs no altering. What we contend is that there is in every country a shocking amount of what is ignoble, untrue, selfish and unjust, so much, indeed, that it constitutes a stinging and unanswerable indictment of all existing social systems, and affords every thinking man, who has at heart the good of the race, unques- tionable warranty for the most careful and painstaking investigation of any system which claims to be able to cure forever the awful social ills under which the race now groans. These are precisely the claims made by Mr. Gillette's system, and the reason for their promulgation will be fully given in the next volume.* This new system will give the wealth of the world to those who produced it. It will usher in the reign of justice and equity. It will revolutionise the present egregiously unjust distribution of wealth by a process so gentle and -evolutionary that it will hardship no one. Our present iniquitous social system will be replaced by a conscience-quick- ened and morally revivified regime, even as the dead leaf of last year is silently pushed, from the bough by this year's young bud without violence, without animosity, and with only the best good of life's tree at heart. The change will emancipate the poor, but it will free the rich also. Want and the Fear of Want, which spreads a black wing in every sky, will be driven forever from men's thoughts, and there will be born in every soul that high social sense which has been the distin- guishing mark of all saviours of the race. Liberty will reign supreme, the highest liberty compatible with equality of liberty. Every man will be free to choose any line of work suitable to his ability and inclina- tion, and he will do as much or as little of this work as he pleases, receiving in return therefor, the full equivalent of the labour per- formed. The abolition of masters, as we now know them, will abolish ser- vants as now known, thus effecting an emancipation at both ends of the social scale, since slavery enslaves the master even more than it does the slave. Work under this system is defined by the terms which we now use for play, and, being freely chosen and spontaneous, it will indeed be play. The vast social mechanism will, under the new order of things, be run for the common good in a way that makes possible a productiveness almost beyond belief, since it eliminates en- tirely all that pulling and hauling, that waste and strife, that crime, want debauchery and that loss of energy, which arise from the pro- duction of useless and futile commodities, in short, it removes from the social machine all that friction which, though veritable sand in its bearings, is the result of our present competitive system. *For a brief description of the Gillette System see Appendix " A." 741 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Under the new order, all men regardless of race, nationality or colour will become as brothers for the first time in the history of the world. The newly-born social sense will become a guiding conscience, permitting us to enjoy the millennium now. These are indeed strong claims, but they are to be backed by proof quite sufficient, we believe, to demonstrate every one of them. The evidence will be spread before you, and we are quite sure that its faithful perusal will convince you, even as it has convinced others, that the time is close at hand when Liberty shall light her torch with a Promethean fire which will dispel the heavy pall of slavery from every heart to the uttermost ends of the earth. Too long by far have we been obliged to say with the poet : " My soul is sick with every day's report Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled." Let us thank God for the cries of discontent which are pouring in to us from every corner of the earth, for they are harbingers of better things. They bring to us the knowledge that the down-trodden are regaining their feet, that the victims of slavish fear are at last finding their voices. All honour to him who flashes the indignant search-light of truth into every dark cranny of injustice and corruption, and shame to him who for a selfish mess of poor pottage seeks to screen from in- Vestigation these dark, dank devil-vaults of corruption. Well may we all exclaim with the Bev. L. A. Banks: "I thank God for every indication of discontent, on the part of the labouring men and women, at conditions which cramp or fetter the free utter- ance of their manhood or womanly glory. In that divine discontent Is the hope of the race." 1 There is nothing whatever to be gained by an attempt to serve God without offending the devil to fight for the good without hurting the evil. We live in the age of the red corpuscle, and there is some- thing wrong with the man who thinks that truth should be presented to the people on a salver of apologies. For ourselves, we glory in the nimble of social thunder, since our faith finds in it the promise of a bow of hope which shall not be sprung in vain, an irridescent and arched glory following which shall come such peace that man shall cry with Othello: " If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have wakened death! And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas Olympus high, and duck again as low As hell's from heaven! " The ringing words of our own poet, Lowell, are no less inspiring than prophetic. " The hope' of truth grows stronger day by day. I hear the soul of man around me waking, Like a great sea its frozen fetters breaking, And flinging up to heaven its sunlit spray, Tossing huge continents in scornful play, And crushing them with din of grinding thunder That makes old emptinesses stare in wonder. 742 CONCLUSION The memory of a glory passed away Lingers in every heart, as in the shell Resounds the by-gone freedom of the sea. And every hour new signs of promise tell That the great soul shall once again be free; For high and yet more high the murmurs swell Of inward strife for truth and liberty." Let us hope that this strife may be peaceful, and that the rich and the poor, the high and the low, the learned and the ignorant, the powerful and the weak, may all realise that the struggle is their cause, and that whatever superficial differences may seem to exist between the various social stratas are as nothing to the underlying unity of interest which the issue exhibits to all who look below the surface. Well may we heed the tender adjuration of Zoroaster: "Hate not each other because you differ in opinion rather love each other ; for it is impossible that in such a variety of sentiments there should not be some fixed point on which all men ought to unite." That there is such a point we ourselves are thoroughly convinced, and it will be the purpose of the work following this to explain what this is. In the meantime pending the issuance of the forthcoming work we must content ourselves with putting before the Reader the brief outline of the system contained in our Appendix. Were the Gillette System to be stated in a single word that word would be Justice Justice, the highest soul-product of the evolving human race. Says Lewis Berens " The basic principles of Economics, of the art of ordering the social relations of mankind, may then be summed up in the word Justice." Upon the same subject the Rev. L. A. Banks says : " No investment exacts such cruel usury as in- difference to Justice/' Charity, philanthropy, generosity, these are all noble, all tender, all kind, but they are not substitutes for justice; and when the day of justice is finally ushered in, there will be but little occasion for these pleasant makeshifts. That the dawn of such a day even now reddens the east, in fulfilment of Thomas Wentwprth Higginson's prophecy, is to us a hope whose strength presses the confines of certainty. * Not ermine clad, nor clothed in state, Their title deeds not yet made plain; But waking early, toiling late, The heirs of all the earth remain. Some day, by laws as fixed and fair As guide the planets in their sweep, The children of each outcast heir The harvest fruits of time shall reap. Some day without a trumpet's call, This news shall o'er the earth be blown: The heritage comes back to all; The myriad monarchs take their own." 743 APPENDIX A 745 SENATORIAL CONSEQUENCES. Senator Hush was as good as gold; He always did as the railroad told. He never asked if a thing was just Or gave offense to the Sugar Trust; He never sniffed at the tainted dough Which lobbyists dropped in his hand of snow. He never squealed when the gang kept still Or stood in way of a land-grab bill : And the consequence was he advanced in station And died at the head of a corporation. Senator Growl was a naughty boy; To start reforms was his chiefest joy. He wouldn't vote as his Boss decreed; He wouldn't pander to private greed; He said rude things to the Wall Street man When he came round with the whitewash can; And he often wrote with a fiendish gall, Thou shalt not steal," on the Senate wall: And the consequence was when his term was over He faded back to the tall, tall clover. Wallace Irvin in Life. THE SONG OF THE VESTED RIGHT. Oh, I am the Cause and the Capital too, And the Lord's anointed as well; I'm a Vested Right and I'm sitting tight, And the rest may go to . The Public. Arms nor the man I sing, Observe 1 humbly beg, HoMv steadfast Traction pulls upon Your Uncle Sam, his leg." 746 APPENDIX 'A THE SYSTEM OUTLINED. The following adapted from an article written by the author for mag- azine publication will give the Reader a brief glance at some of the more cardinal points of the Gillette System. At no time in the history of this country, if indeed in the history of the world, has there been such an intense and wide-spread interest in social questions as exists to-day. The theories put forth for the amelioration, or radical cure, of the diseases of the body politic are legion and, as we examine them in deadly parallel, we are astonished to find how little they have in common in the matter of diagnosis. Tacking a great name to a published theory seems to have no other significance than to show that even the so-called upper classes are in- terested in social subjects. The chaos of thought upon these topics, if, indeed, it may be called thought, is well illustrated by the following utterance of President Roosevelt : " Single Tax won't do any good ; Socialism won't do any good ; none of these things will do any good so long as our factories produce more goods than the people can buy. There are bound to be idle mills and factories and idle workers, whenever there's a general overproduction such as we've been having lately." Another illustration of the same thing is found in the following, by Prof. George Gunton : " The people have ceased to buy, hence the production has stopped. Overproduction is the real cause of financial depression." Still another proof, if more be needed, is found in the following sin- gular .utterance of Prof. Richard T. Ely of Wisconsin University: " Yet the statement that the cause of hard times is prosperity, para- doxical as it seems, has a large element of truth in it and suggests one line of fruitful thought." We have illustrated in these quotations the danger to which truth is subjected when men talk about terms rather than the concrete things for which the terms stand. Even a child can see that if over- production pdr se were the cause of poverty, a rich man, or rich com- munity, might be impoverished by flooding it with wealth which it could not assimilate; or, to change the simile, fat Prosperity sitting at his bountiful repast could be driven to the verge of starvation by overloading the table with viands too plentiful for his appetite. To such an extent have these ridiculous ideas of political economy been disseminated, in some cases ignorantly, in more cases viciously, that to get the people at large to view the subject in any sane light is no easy task, yet it is to just such a task that Mr. Gillette has ad- dressed himself, confident that the Single Tax could not have gained 747 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION the intelligent supporters it now has, and that the various schoois of Socialism could not have secured the following they now show, had not these systems possessed at least certain essential points of truth. Eealising further that these two systems would probably have coalesced had either of them been right in all particulars, he has aimed to secure a generalisation broad enough not only to include the truths of both of these systems, but also the best part of our present system as it exists to-day, and to weld all together into an harmonious whole which shall solve the social problem once and for all. The task involved in the presentation of Mr. Gillette's system is one of more than ordinary proportions. It is impossible, therefore, in the limits of a short article, to give anything like the full details of this new plan for the redemption of the human race. This we re- serve for another work to be published at an early date. We shall at- tempt here merely to give a sufficiently complete outline of the sys- tem's essential characteristics to enable the Eeader to form some idea of the magnificent results it is expected to achieve. Let us then begin at the beginning. In imagination place yourself in the midst of any body of toilers to be found in America to-day. Now look about you. What do you see and hear? It is Saturday afternoon. The men are tired with their week's work, yet, as you listen, you hear them discussing the probable outcome of the game of baseball they are about to play with ,a rival factory. Maybe they are doing a little betting. Presently one of the older and more staid men says : " Can't you fellows get work enough into a week without tearing yourselves to pieces over a fool game of ball? If you had to do it you'd demand pay for time and a half and think it hard work at that." To this one of the younger men replies : " Do you hear that, fellows ? Crusty is trying to make us think playin' ball is work ! " Perhaps were we not at your elbow you would not give these remarks a second thought, but, as we jog your attention with the statement that they are most significant, you lend them a careful consideration. And what is the net result thereof ? This. That certain kinds of exertion are called "work" and shunned, while certain other kinds, often physically more taxing, are called " play " and eagerly sought. It is like the experience of the farmer who long tried in vain to get his sons to pick stones out of his : mowing field, but who finally hit upon a clever plan for attaining his end. He put a tomato can on the bound- ary wall, and then, going into the middle of the field, began throw- ing stones at it. The boys thought their father was renewing his youth, joined him in the sport, and kept it up as long as there was any ammunition in the field. Throwing stones at the target, to see if they could hit it, was rare sport, while throwing the same stones, in precisely the same way, for the purpose of getting them out of the field, would have been irksome work. In each case, however, physical effort would have been identi- cal. Wherein is the difference ? Is it not due to the fact that in the one case the act is the result of desire, and in the other the result of compulsion? Herbert Spencer says: "Just as food is rightly taken 748 APPENDIX only when taken to appease hunger, while the having to take it when there is no inclination implies deranged physical state, so, a good act or act of duty is rightly done only if done in satisfaction of immediate feeling, and if done with a view to ultimate results in this world or another world, implies an imperfect moral state." The Gillette System carries this reasoning one step further and says : " Physical effort is only ideally performed when performed as the result of physical craving." In an ideal social state, then, men would do those things which were pleasant for them to do. We fancy we hear you say : " If that were the case a great many would do nothing," but, fortunately for human- ity, that statement is not true. Life is a struggle, and all our pleasures come from some sort of activity. It is as natural for the children of men to exercise their bodies as it is for the offspring of cats to play. Now, were work made pleasurable, it would become to all intents and purposes play. This assertion needs no proof, since it is a fact of common observation that men engaged in pleasurable pursuits enjoy their work to such a degree that they could not be enticed away from it to indulge in so-called play. Take the biologist with a new bug under his microscope, or the botanist with a new specimen which he is itching to dissect, and see how he will regard an invitation to play golf. We see, therefore, that were it possible so to alter social conditions that every man could make play of his work, the whole face of human creation would take on such a smile as has never been known to the sons of men. Now this is precisely one of the things which the plan known as Gillette's Social Redemption aims to accomplish. At first thought it would, perhaps, seem to you that were everyone permitted freely to select his vocation, two difficulties would immediately become apparent; first: that each one would choose the pleasantest and least onerous work, and, second : many would select pursuits for which they were not qual- ified. The system in question, however, perfectly meets both of these objections. The number of workers in any pursuit is regulated by the amount paid for that particular class of work, and this, in turn, is regulated by the law of supply and demand. If there be a dearth of any com- modity the price paid for the production thereof is increased until the supply equals the demand. The determination of the exact price which shall be paid to the producer of any article is one of the most ingenious features of the system, and one which, so far as we know, has never before been proposed. We refer particularly to the method by which the ratio of supply to demand is made automatically, and without the intervention of human judgment, to fix the price with ab- solute justice. We regret that space does not permit us to explain this self-adjusting social mechanism in sufficient detail to enable the Reader thoroughly to understand it. Suffice it to say that it is as unfailing and impersonal, as free from favouritism and as coldly exact, as a perfectly interacting, self-regulating mechanism of steel. Now as to the choice of pursuits by those who are not properly fitted -to follow them. It is frankly admitted that ordinarily this would in some cases occur, and the new system adjusts itself perfectly to this 749 prospective condition of affairs. It holds that public opinion, and that great law of human nature which makes most of us like to do those things which we can do best, would prevent this condition from attaining the significance of an actual menace, were no pains taken to guard against such an eventuality, but, at the same time, it renders such an outcome impossible by providing that each applicant shall prove his fitness for the work he elects to perform before a competent tribunal. This at once raises the question; who shall be judge? Clearly, if it were possible for a certain clique or class to arrogate to itself the right to determine for what pursuits each worker were eligible, the whole system might result in a dangerous autocracy. Such a thing, how- ever, is rendered impossible by provisions too carefully worked out to permit of brief statement. The succeeding work will go into this matter in detail. We must here content ourselves with stating the broad fact that this plan for social redemption is built upon the bed- rock of fundamental democracy. Its government is centralised, as will be seen, only for the purpose of decentralising it again, giving it back to the people, as it were. The initiative, the referendum, and the power of recall are riveted into its very corner-stone. In all de- partments, and at all times, the people hold the tiller of this social ship. If they let any chosen official captain place his hand upon it, they place their hand upon his, and keep it there. Imagine a merit system, a civil service regime, where politics could not become a consideration, and where every official head habitually had a basket under it, and a sword over it, and you can get a fair idea of the regime we are describing. Another illustration might be the ordinary public school system, determining as it does, the different grades which the abilities of the various students warrant them to enter upon, provided that you imagine the school examiners as servants of the people in such close touch with them that they could be summarily called to account immediately they swerved either from justice or effi- ciency, a condition, by the way, which by no means obtains with our present school system. Considering present conditions still further what are some of the other most noticeable defects? What are the things which, were it possible, we would like to cure? Do we not find the great mass of the people toiling like slaves for a mere sustenance, while the fa- voured few are living in luxurious idleness upon the products of their labour ? Do we not find that he who produces the most consumes the least, while he who ostentatiously wastes the sustenance of a small army usually produces nothing, and never produces anything at all commensurate with his destructive consumption. The one effects so- ciety like a harvest, the other like a famine; and the harvest starves, while the famine gluts itself to satiety. As the weeks go by, the wage question grows ever more insistent. More and more clearly is labour coming to recognise its rights. Horace Traubel sums up the whole issue in a single paragraph: " The world is tired of hearing that the labourer is worthy of his hire. The labourer is worthy of his product." We believe it was Proudhon who said that to labour belonged the total product of labour. 750 " I hold if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, he would have made them with mouths only, and no hands; and if he had ever made another class that he had intended should do all the work and none of the eating he would have made them without mouths and with ail hands." - A. L- c Beard. APPENDIX If the factors of production are land, labour and capital, the re- turns from these factors must be respectively, rent, wages and interest The only point, therefore, to be considered in reference to wages is the estimation of just what part of the total production is the pro- duction of labour, and to see that labour gets all of this, no more no less. Would we not like to bring about a condition in which nobody would consume where he did not produce; where there would be no drones in the social hive ; and where everyone would receive just what his labour produced ; that is to say, a regime under which every human being, from the greatest to the humblest, could with perfect freedom transmute his effort intp whatever kinds of wealth he needed for the gratification of his desires ? Were this consummation brought about there would be no tawdry plutocrats attending horse-shows with rows of diamonds around the heels of their boots, and no sweat-shop victims forced to work babies, four years old, in order to stave off, as long as may be, the slow starva- tion which is as certain as fate finally to seise them. It seems to us that the mere fact that this new social system would cure, for all time, not only the pangs of poverty, but those offences against morality and good taste which, like maggot-holes, afflict the upper crust of society, should be enough to insure its enthusiastic wel- come and adoption by all lovers of their kind. Under the proposed regime there will be no compulsion. A man may work as much or as little as he pleases, but, and here is the great point, he cannot consume one iota more than he actually produces. If you imagine that great storehouse of wealth, the earth, to be a lake, and human endeavours to be dippers, you will be able to form a mental picture of conditions as they would exist under the new system. Each social unit would be free to dip up whatever water he needed to satisfy his thirst. If he cared for much, he would dip up much. If he were not thirsty he would not be compelled to dip up any, but in no case could he idrink a drop which he had not dipped up. Compare this with the present system, where men are forced to dip from mom till night, and to go thirsty meanwhile, being only permitted to take into their mouth, to satisfy their thirst, about what oozes through their skin as" the sweat of their thankless task ; and this, while the few, who never dip at all, are enabled to maintain ostentatious and geyser-like fountains from the water furnished by an army of thirsty toilers while they themselves in many cases, do not so much as know the feel of the dipper. Were the great wastes of our present system eliminated, and effort rewarded upon a system of equity, man would be able abundantly to supply all his present needs by three or four hours' work a day.* The foregoing pages have abundantly proven the truth of this assertion, and have shown a wastefulness resulting from our present social chaos which is little short of appalling to the average layman. As the Eeader will probably want to know how this new system is to attain to that perfect justice to which we have referred, we will en- deavour to outline a few of the more cardinal points of the plan, *See Chart C, page 659. 751 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION frankly admitting at the start that we cannot go into its details, and must do scant justice even to its main features. Commercially, the system is a further evolution of the strongest business tendency with which we are to-day confronted, namely, the trust principle. So brazenly lawless and atrociously greedy are our present trusts, that it is hard for the average layman to imagine that their underlying principle contains anything but unalloyed evil, yet the truth of the matter is, that the trust, like fire, is a good servant but a bad master. Thus far we, in America, have only seen it with the eyes of slaves, looking at a maste? with the heart of an Apache savage. The persistence of the trust, and its world-wide application, fur- nish together quite sufficient evidence to show that there is something in the principle so closely in line with nature's methods, so fit to survive if you please, that it cannot be gainsaid by any amount of human legislation. Not to go into detail, we may say that this fitness chiefly inheres in the trust's ability to eliminate unnecessary waste ; its simplicity and directness of action ; and its transformation, within the field of its own operations, of that war and chaos known as com- petition, into the orderly and efficient co-operation of productice peace. We should no more blame the trust principle per se for our present social ills than the shipwrecked mariner should blame gravitation for the sinking of his foundered vessel. It is by this same law that he floats as well as sinks, and it is by the trust principle rightly applied, that the social ship shall yet float on sunny seas beneath a smiling sky. In a word, the new system proposes to bring about the amelioration of the race by organising a world-wide corporation with an unlimited, elastic, and constantly self-adjusting capitalisation, a capitalisation which shall always represent the exact amount of the corporate assets, falling as they fall, rising as they rise. This corporation will make no distinctions of locality, race, colour, nationality, social condition, age, sex or occupation. Its purposes are manifold. First; it aims to offer to every human being an opportunity for investing his earn- ings with a more absolute assurance of profitable results, and with a completer and a' more far-reaching safeguard against loss, than any proposition heretofore presented to the human race. This, indeed, seems like a strong statement, but let us analyse it a bit. Montaigne has written : " One man's profit is another man's loss." Let us not pass by this remark without realising its full significance. Losses of wealth are of two Tcinds. First, those which destroy, and second, those which merely displace. The losses from fire, earthquakes, floods, and the like elemental forces, are destructive. They simply blot wealth, as such, out of existence. With them political economy has nothing to do. It is with the second kind of losses, and their accompanying gains, that business concerns itself. In this domain, as Montaigne has re- marked : " One man's profit is another man's loss." We see, there- fore, that the whole competitive business struggle to-day, is an effort to acquire wealth on the one hand, and to. prevent, on the other, that displacement of wealth which is called loss. Imagine, if you please, a house of as many rooms as there are com- mercial nations on the planet. Give to each nation one of these rooms. Suppose now, that the wealth of these nations be represented 753 APPENDIX by books placed upon the shelves of bookcases in each room. Now, let us paraphrase what is occurring to-day all over the world, omitting, for the sake of simplicity, the question of creation of wealth, and dealing merely with the trading of the wealth this moment on hand. What is the picture ? Is it not this ? Each nation is striving to en- large its own library, not only by creating wealth, which act at the mo- ment does not interest us, but by displacing the wealth upon the shelves of the other nations. America is burning the midnight oil to find out how it may give one book to England and get two back, and when it is able to increase the number of books on one of its shelves, it chuckles in satisfaction and tickets it, " our favourable balance." To follow the simile fur- ther in imagination, we may see how most of the books might ulti- mately get into one or two of the rooms of our hypothetical house, and we can also see how the occupants of those rooms whose shelves were depleted might complain bitterly of their losses. Yet there would be just as many books in the house as before. They would simply be in different rooms. Suppose now, the occupants of these rooms should all meet on a front porch, called, perhaps, " The Hague," and agree to form a book corporation, all of the books to be owned by said cor- poration and each nation to own stock therein upon a basis of absolute equity. The conditions would then be very like your condition, Eeader, in your own house. Your books are not lost, in a commercial sense, when they are taken from the library to the sitting-room. Now it is the object of the new system to abolish, more and more completely as it develops, every sort of loss to which we have referred as losses caused by the displacement of wealth, until, in the end, such loss will cease entirely. How is this to be brought about ? In brief the plan is as follows, omitting details. The world-wide corporation with the unlimited, elastic capitalisa- tion, to which we have referred, will be organised for the purpose of purchasing and ultimately controlling all means for the production of wealth throughout the world. Its capital will consist of the money paid in by the people, and these funds will be used for the purchase outright of approved standard, dividend-paying securities of well- known and unquestionable valud. The corporation by-laws will provide, with the utmost care, for the selection of the finance board which has the matter in charge, and the investor will be safeguarded in every way against the inefficiency, or wrong-doing of this board. The purchases made by the corporation will be spread over such a number of standard securities as will make loss impossible. Tbe principle here taken advantage of is that of the insurance company which, while it cannot tell how long Jones or Smith will live, can yet figure, within a very narrow margin of error, how many men out of ten thousand will die in a given time. In the case of this corporation which had spread its investments over a list, say of two hundred unquestionable securities, any fortuitous decrease in the dividends of one or two of these would be more than counter- balanced by the unexpected similar increase in the earnings of others. In this way would the investor be safeguarded as never before. More- over, by this ingenious plan, he would be able to invest his money, ' 48 753 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION and draw his dividends at the same time that he held his earnings sub- ject to check; for the corporation purposes the establishment of banks all over the world, banks in which depositors become investors and sharers in the profits of the whole system, without losing any of their rights as depositors. It needs not to be said that we have omitted most of the financial details of this plan. No other course was open to us, considering the space at our disposal. We would like to enlarge upon a beautiful bit of financial mechanism, whereby the people secure by purchase, the entire wealth of the world, with safety to all, with hardship to none, with universal justice and without invoking a single syllable of legisla- tion in its favour. We would like to call attention to what we have said in the early part of this article, namely, that this plan for social redemption is a generalisation broad enough to include the most highly evojved business practice of the day, the essentials of the Single Tax doctrine, those of Socialism and of many other plans for social amelioration, and to reconcile all those points of divergence which have been partisan bones of contention from the earliest promulgation of these various theories. It would be a pleasant task to explain how the earth should be given back to the inhabitants thereof, and the gross injustices of economic rent entirely abolished, without in the least hardshipping the man who has given an honest quid pro quo for his land, under a system in which, though evil and unjust, all humanity is particeps criminis with him. We would gladly enlarge here upon all these details, yet we are obliged to content ourselves with this mere allusion to them. The crucial difference between the Single Tax and Socialism, were it to be stated in a single sentence, would formulate itself thus: The Single Tax aims to free competition ; Socialism aims to abolish it. The ex- ponent of the former system holds that when competition is properly freed, it will have scarcely any other function than that of determining the exchange value of products. The Gillette plan recognises, as fully as any socialist could, the awful indictment which is justly brought against our present competitive system, and, therefore, it aims to eliminate entirely all that cruel and wasteful strife which forms what we colloquially mean by the term competition. It holds that such competition is the fruitful cause of social friction, and shows that it has absolutely no logical basis for existence. In short, the new sys- tem saves that part of competition upon which the advanced Single Taxer insists, while, at the same time, it abolishes that other part of it to which the logical Socialist so strenuously objects. In the determination of the exchange value of commodities the new system makes use, as aforesaid, of the law of supply and demand, but there is none of that competitive strife with which we are now so famil- iar. Men do not compete with each other for positions, because, under the new system, the number of men who can work at any calling is lim- ited only by the number of men who are qualified to perform its duties. If ten thousand men could make all the shoes the whole world needed, there would be nothing whatever to hinder one hundred thousand properly qualified men from becoming shoemakers on any Monday morning, - nothing except their own desires, for the sign, " no 754 APPENDIX more help will be employed in this department," will never be used under the new system. We have said : '' nothing except their own de- sires," by which we mean to convey the thought that the diminished returns which would come to these men under the conditions named, would operate to prevent their wishing to overcrowd any department, and these returns, as we have hinted, would not be arbitrarily appor- tioned, but would be automatically self -adjusting, and as unfailing as mathematics in their equity. The first partial publication of tlie Gillette plan occurred in a pamphlet entitled " The Human Drift " which Mr. Gillette published in 1894. In view of prophecies then made and since justified, this publication makes most interesting reading at this time. Since is- suing " The Human Drift " Mr. Gillette has constantly been perfect- ing his system until it is now confidently believed that this, and the forthcoming publication, will exhibit a plan so thoroughly worked out in all its details, so practical in all its applications, and so far-reaching and desirable in all its results, that its speedy success will be assured. We cannot refrain, in closing, from pointing out a few of the effects of such an eventuality. Under the new regime the horrible figure of War would forever be blotted from the human landscape. No men are anxious to discharge cannon against their own property. They who live in glass houses, if they throw stones, do not throw them towards home ! Since all the world would then have a common in- terest in all the created wealth of the planet, there would be no likeli- hood of anyone desiring to destroy his own possessions. Human life would then be an asset of the entire racial community, and, as such, would be sacred. The loss of lives through any cause, instead of de- creasing the burden of those who survive, as many hold in this present day of heartless competition, would then operate to increase it, since, where all are brothers joining in a common task, the death of one leaves a larger proportion of effort to the share of each of the others. Under the new regime, patriotism, which has now degenerated to a mere prejudice of locality would then become a world-wide humanita- rian sentiment, without meridian or parallels of latitude; without distinctions of race or colour; without discrimination in the matter of nationality or social status ; and without differences in the matter of belief, age or sex. All mankind would then be one common brother- hood. For the first time in the history of the race all the members of the human family would be integrated into one compact social organism, correlated in all its parts, and informed by a composite in- telligence which, on the clock of the world, would make the minute- hand mark hours, so rapid would be the march of human progress. The present irksome toil of the masses would become play, in which the classes would share, until all distinctions of class consciousness utterly broke down. The drones turned into workers; the waste of the hive eliminated; each social unit would have ample time for the development of mind and soul, as well as body. A hitherto unknown esprit de corps, a delightful comradery, a sympathy which feels not only for, but with, would then pervade the whole human fabric. Then, and for the first time, would society attain to anything worthy the name of organisation, for our present so-called organisation is that of GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION the cancer and the tumor, rather than of the healthful human body. Under the new regime a few great cities, possibly only one or two to a continent, would spring up under the magic touch of perfect co- operation. They would be dreams of architectural beauty, exaggerat- ing in size and marvellous loveliness the Columbian Exposition many hundred fold. Their sites would be chosen with a view to natural advantages, and in them would be gathered the art, the literature and the science of the world. The beauties of all creation would be at the very door of every human soul. Into this atmosphere would the new child be born, and surrounded by these uplifting environments would the new soul gain its strength and solidify its character. Pub- lic opinion, which is the social conscience, would become so keenly alive to the petty, the mean and the unjust, that lawyer and court of law would be " As idle as a painted ship, Upon a painted ocean." If they are best governed who are governed least, they are ideally governed who are governed not at all. The new regime would usher in the age of altruism, and give to every human creature that keenly alive social sense which is now possessed only by the few high heads of the race, they who are the heralds of the coming dawn which one day shall spread its glad smile over the face of the whole human race. The ravening wolves of greed which are now devouring the weak, as well as the gaunt spectres of crime, debauchery and disease, would be laid forever. With the collected knowledge of the world, as well as the living specialists upon all scientific subjects, in one accessible locality, discovery and invention would leap like an unleashed hound, till disease, with all its attendant ills, were reduced to all but a vanish- ing minimum. The " great white plague " which takes every seventh human being in the world, would soon be made a mere memory. Pas- teurs, eager to sacrifice their lives if need be for the cause of humanity, would be almost as numerous as those miscalled patriots who are now glad to offer themselves to the disreputable cause of enslaving a free people. With the advent of such a system would come the negenera- tion of the human race, and that final universal brotherhood for which the grandest men who ever lived have given up their lives. Let those who will, think this an idle dream, but let the thoughtful realise that if life is not forever to continue an idle jest and hollow mockery, this thing must come. Could there be a fitter time than now? Is not this the psychological moment? Will not this system sustain its every specification? Will it not make good its every prom- ise ? The ultra-conservative will doubt and question and quibble, " for God hath made them so," but doubting is not reasoning, questioning is not proof, and quibbling is not argument. The millennium is within our reach. The Gillette plan offers a way which can be adopted to-day without asking for a word of legislation; without creating any new political party, and without seeking to make use of any of the existing political machines. A way, moreover, which is along the lines of present commercial and social evolution. A way which, once adopted, will quickly gather invincible headway, growing by what it feeds upon. A way, quiet, unobstrusive, effective, just, 756. APPENDIX kind and beneficent ; beneficial alike to the rich and to the poor, since it gives the former a wholesome psychic atmosphere, while it recog- nises in the latter that right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- ness which has so long been denied him. Is not this " a consumma- tion devoutly to be wished ? " 757 APPENDIX B While this book has been in press the railway carnival of death has gone merrily on. As the old year, 1906, drew to its close, acci- dent followed accident, and horror piled itself upon horror, until it fairly seemed as if a new, and terribly fatal, epidemic had seised our transportation companies. This sad condition of affairs has called forth several caustic criticisms from able journalists. Among these, we recommend for the perusal of those interested in this sub- ject, an article by Charles Edward Russell, published in " Ridgway's " for December 29, 1906. The title, " WALL STREET AND RAILROAD RUIN HOW THE COUNTRY'S TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM HAS BROKEN DOWN UNDER THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM OF THE CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY " is significant of the importance which attaches to Mr. Russell's treat- ment of the subject. Among other things, Mr. Russell makes the following statement, a statement, which cannot fail to astonish the average reader. " Of the 215,000 miles of railroad in the United States, 200,000 are single-track lines. No other country in the world has any such condition. It is just as impossible to carry the present traffic on single-track lines as it is to fly to Mars. " Almost every railroad in the country is single-tracked. Almost every railroad should be double-tracked to handle its business.- Al- most every railroad would be double-tracked if it were on the basis of a reasonable capitalisation. It is because of the dizzy financial juggleries of the Kings of Finance that we have single tracks and unprotected crossings, junk-pile locomotives and Noah's Ark cars simply for this reason and no other." Referring to the rapidly increasing perilousness of railway travel, Mr. Russell says: "Meantime^ also, the accidents increase in start- ling fashion, and the death lists grow upon us. Travel upon Ameri- can railroads daily becomes more perilous. Not only are more people killed, but the percentage increases of passengers slain to passengers carried, so that every day the travelers' chances of safety are les- sened. ... As observe in this table of fatal railroad acci- dents in the United States, compiled from the annual reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission: 758 APPENDIX Passengers Employes Other Persons Total killed. killed. killed. killed. 1897 222 1898 221 1899 239 1,693 1,958 2,210 4,522 4,680 4,674 6,437 6,859 7,123 1900 249 1901 282 1902 345 1903 355 2,550 2,675 2,969 3,606 5,006 5,498 5,274 5,879 7,'805 8,455 8,588 9,840 1904 441 1905 537 1906 (three- 418 fourths 3,632 3,261 3,807 5,973 not given not given 10,046 not given not given of the year only.) '' There is much reason to believe that the slaughter is really larger even than these terrible figures indicate, and that many accidents are not reported at all." ^ We extract the following, bearing upon the same subject, from an Editorial in the " Boston American/' of January 4, 1907, apropos of two railway disasters, one on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, the other on the Eock Island. In these two accidents about 100 persona were killed and many more than that number were injured. The Editorial says in part: " It took a good deal of writing and talking to wipe out slavery, the right of one man to own another's life. It will take a great deal of writing and talking to wipe out that peculiar property right which gives the man the right to take another's life. "We shan't worry you with fifteen arguments in connexion with these shameful murders of women and children by railroad corpora- tions. We call your attention to only two. " Here is the first one : " In the Baltimore & Ohio wreck a light engine and a light train of empty cars ran into a passenger train filled with human beings. They were in the railroad's estimation cheap human beings, not the very prosperous kind, and they were riding in the ordinary 'day coaches.' Day coaches, you know, are matchboxes that smash like pasteboard when anything hits them. " If those had been well-built cars, cars as well built as the ordinary Pullmans, there would have been little and probably no loss of life. There would have been a shaking up. But well-built cars would not crush like eggshells. "The dispatch tells us that the engine which ran into the train went through the flimsy cars, smashing them like paper, without damaging the engine, injuring the cowcatcher or the engineer or fireman. " Do you know why the cars in which those people were killed were like matchboxes? " It is because the difference between the cost of a good car and the cost of a cheap car goes into the pockets of the men that own the 759 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION railroads. That difference helps to pay dividends on the millions of watered stock that represent and create the fortunes of the hundred- time millionaires. " Of course, with government ownership we should have some stealing, although the people would soon begin to vote wisely and the railroads would soon be well managed. "But under government ownership no one would be interested in building cheap, flimsy passenger cars. On the contrary, the profit of the grafters would come from the cost of building the cars, and it would be to their interest to build the cars strong and expensive. The people would be robbed of some money, but their lives would be saved. " Now they are robbed of their money and of their lives at the same time. Government ownership would be some improvement, wouldn't it?" There is much food for thought in the following paragraphs taken from a recent Boston daily : " Discussing the recent terrible wrecks due to disregard of the regulations of the block system, a member of the cabinet told the following story to-day : ' I was in New York recently and met while there James J. Hill, the railroad magnate. He deplored the conditions resulting in so many disasters and said : ' Every time I undertake a railroad jour- ney nowadays I wonder whether it is to be my last. It is a fact that in this day from two to three trains enter at times into every block of every system in the country. There is danger in it/ " An exceedingly able and trenchant article upon this subject, by Arthur Warren, was published in the " Boston Herald," of January 3, 1907, under the caption " Terrible Sacrifice for Big Dividends." In the course of the article Mr. Warren says: " There's a funny inconsistency about us. We think bull fights are degrading. The other night a great railroad had a great accident and killed its great president. He was asleep in his private car. So were several friends. They were killed, too. A freight train came up behind, and in 30 seconds Charon had a new lot of passengers. A train can be as killing standing as running. There were several columns in the papers, but nothing happened for three or four days, except the funerals. Then there was another lovely killing on the same division of the same road, in the same way. And the commis- sioner who investigated found that the striking engine had tin win- dows! Don't laugh. It's a fact. Why should an engine have glass windows ? " . . . " When a railroad starts out to kill, it must have full rights and facilities. And that road has helped so many of us to die ! Are we glad ? Listen : ' Corporation Commissioner Henry C. Stuart said, with reference to the recent wreck on the Southern railroad at Danville, that the evidence disclosed the fact that the trainmen are often on duty 48 hours at a time. This must not be understood as being compulsory, however. It is a matter of choice on the part of the trainmen who do the extra work to their own advantage/ . 760 APPENDIX " Of course it is not compulsory. It's permitted by the great man- agement of the great railroad, whose great president was killed bv this great method. We like it. We live in hope that our turn will come next. "Again Mr. Commissioner Stuart: 'It developed at the hearing that the telegraph operators are not responsible to anyone. They are required to make no reports. ... The engine had a window on the engineer's side blocked with tin, completely obstructing his view of the track ahead of him/ Bless him for that happy innova- tion! Let all engines have tin windows! We shall perish the quicker/' Referring to the alarming increase in railway fatalities this well- known journalist says: "Ten years ago our majestic, moist and happy railway systems killed and injured only 38,687 of us, a mere nothing, a trifle, sheer experimentation! Behold the last official twelve months vastly better; you can be killed while you wait; 95,711 of us burned, carved, dismembered to killed. We progress. 'Tis an illustrous age." . . . " It's a really sublime progress we are making. Ten years ago one passenger was killed for every 2,984,832 carried on the railroads of our self-sacrificing country. But that proposition was unsatisfac- tory. We have improved upon it. Last year we killed one passenger out of every 1,375,856. But that's not the only measure of our mas- terly advance. Ten years ago one passenger in every 213,651 was injured. A futile tale. Last year we injured one in every 70,655. Injuring, alas! is not killing. There are so many of us who ought to be killed. But have patience. Give the railroads a chance. They'll smash us all if we continue our present eager quest for crash- ing death. " Safety ? Laws for safety ? Let the coward nations have 'em, not we. We can buy death coupons at any ticket office. 'Tis easier than buying poison, and cheaper than buying guns. Listen to the engineer whose death-bound train piled up a splendid mass of corpses and wounds just outside of Washington this week : ' The fog was so thick I couldn't see any signal lights, but I kept up full speed/ No torpedoes, no flares, no sense, no anything but fog and speed and hospitable death. Dear, delightful, ever-ready Death; we rush to him on wheels." The " rush " is becoming more and more swift. On January 19, 1907, ten railroad accidents occurred in different parts of the United States, four of them in Indiana. In one of the worst of these wrecks it is estimated that 27 persons were killed. The bodies were so com- pletely dismembered that it was difficult to ascertain the exact number of the dead. In another 16 were killed or burned to death. In four others several more were killed, and in all many were injured. Ten accidents in 24 hours ! What a record for one day ! And yet there are many, neither commonly known to be insane or foolish, who oppose government ownership of railroads and the like, lest the "ef- ficiency of the service should be cut down. Think of it! As we write tidings come to us of another shocking accident. On 761 GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Saturday night, February 16, 1907, the New York Central electric express was wrecked, killing 22 persons, and injuring 145, some fa- tally. Another case of insufficient road equipment, the rails being too light for the giant motors. When the accident took place the train was rounding a curve at the rate of 70 miles an hour. Everywhere carelessness and inefficiency are found and the slaughter goes on ! ' From an article entitled, " It's Time to Stop Railroad Slaughter," by Prof. Frank Parsons, published in the " Boston American " of January 30, 1907, we extract the following: " The German railways, which are operated by the State, kill only one passenger in 11,701,354 and injure one in 2,113,171, making the total killed and injured about half a passenger per million against 15 per million in the United States. " In other words, it is about thirty times as dangerous to travel on our private railways as on che public roads of Germany. " It is evident that Germany is way behind the times. She has the old fogy notion that it is part of the business of a railroad to look out for the safety of its passengers and provide all available appliances for that purpose. " Germany has not yet grasped the modern American idea that the sole business of a railroad is to make money for its owners, and that as safety appliances are costly, they must be dispensed with as far as possible. " Railway employes are just as cheap as passengers, and they get killed with a regularity and rapidity that keeps the great law of sur- vival of the fittest in vigourous operation. One in every 21 railway employes was injured, according to last year's statement, and one in 411 was killed. Among the trainmen one in 133 was killed. " That beats the passenger record for the same year 10,000 times, and the passenger record for ten years ago 20,000 times. "It is twenty times more dangerous to be a railroad employe on our roads than to be a railway employe on the German roads. A comparison of the mortality statistics on our railroads with the rec- ords of the Rebellion proves that it is more dangerous to be a brake- man on our roads than it was to enlist in the armies of the Republic for service of the Civil War. " What are the causes of the terrible accidents that give our roads their sad supremacy in the field of slaughter? The chief causes are overworking of employes and failure to provide adequate safety ap- pliances. " A flagman on duty sixteen hours, a telegraph operator on duty eighteen hours straight and half dead with sleep, a switchman twenty hours without rest, an engineer forty-eight hours on duty with two short intervals of rest that is one sort of thing the accident record brings out. And another is the absence of the block system with the automatic device that sets the brakes on any train which attempts to enter a block that contains another train. " Only 22 per cent, of our railways are protected by any block sig- nal system, and only 5 per cent, have the automatic system/' To all this a goodly number of disasters on water might be added, 762 APPENDIX one of the latest showing a record which for suffering, brutality and cowardice it would be hard to excel. We refer to the disaster which occurred on February 11, 1907, off Block Island, K. I. It is estimated that 150 persons perished as the result of the collision between the steamer Larchmont, of the Joy line, and a three-masted schooner. Although a zero gale was blowing and a heavy sea was running, there is no question but that a larger number of passengers might have been saved had the Captain and crew not been the first to leave the sinking steamer. The fact that while 18 per cent, of the crew were saved, only 6 per cent, of the passengers were rescued, is significant and needs no further comment. In addition to these transportation accidents are to be mentioned the factory, mining and foundry horrors, all tending to force home the conviction that among us as a nation, the increasing value of the dollar means the decreasing value of life. We cannot refrain, in closing this subject, from calling attention to an article by Arthur B. Reeve, entitled " Our Industrial Jugger- naut," published in " Everybody's Magazine " for February, 1907. The prefatory note by the Editor will give the Reader a fair hint of the subject matter of the article. It runs as follows: "Half a million men, women, and children killed and maimed is the annual blood bill of the American people. This is part of the cost of our precious industrial supremacy. When a nation has more railroads, greater mines, taller buildings than any other nation, and is running its trains faster, operating its mines more extensively, and erecting its buildings at a higher rate of speed than any other on the footstool dares attempt and incidentally cares little about the lives of its toilers that is about the slaughter record you may expect. Day and night this killing and maiming goes on in the every-day occupa- tions of life, and for the most part is due to sheer brutal carelessness, absence of rails or safeguards or security appliances of one kind or another. No one seems to care very much if we do kill more people in one year of peace than were slain and wounded throughout the terrible Russo-Japanese war. Law departments and human life are c j iea p a t i eas t cheaper than the cost of protecting the army of toil- ers from the whirring machinery of the industrial Juggernaut." Mr. Eeeve calls emphatic attention to what we have been at such pains' to point out, namely, the rapidly decreasing value of human life in the United States. He says: . . . "how many of us know that in this same civilised world of ours, human life, under certain conditions, is held as cheaply as in India or in China .'How many of us realise that out of the 29,000,000 workers in these United States, one is killed or injured every minute of the day in i o her words that every year more than 500,000 irien, women, and children "are killed or crippled as a direct result of the occupations in which thev are engaged? The total is bad enough; what renders it appall- ing is the fact that more than one-half of this tremendous sacrifice of life is needless; is due in great measure to the carelessness of greedy employers who are morally, if not legally, responsible for the lives of their men." Too GILLETTE'S SOCIAL REDEMPTION Considering special localities Mr. Keeve says: "In New York City occur ten violent deaths a day, as a direct result of daily activi- ties. In Chicago the number falls to six a day, according to Dr. Thomas Grant Allen. But the storm-centre of the country is Alle- gheny County, Pennsylvania, in which the city of Pittsburg is situ- ated, combining steel, iron, and coal industries, mills, mines, railroads, and building operations. Over seventeen thousand deaths and in- juries a year in all industries is the record for this single county. ' Conditions are such that the life of a foreigner employed in the mills is given less consideration than is the life of a horse or mule/ says the coroner of Allegheny County. ' During my first month in office I was astounded to find that within the thirty days twelve men were killed in one plant alone of the United States Steel Corpora- tion/ ' If even the present laws were enforced,' the Hungarian con- sul has protested, ' conditions would not be so bad.' '' The author closes his remarkable presentation with this significant paragraph : " For the fact remains that the only measures that will prove adequate are not remedial, but preventive. Not until employ- ers are willing to spend the money necessary for providing proper safeguards for their men; not until contractors have ceased to say, as one in New York said -recently, 'It is cheaper not to protect the men plenty more where they came from ! ' not until we realise that in our disregard for human life we are consciously or uncon- sciously fast approaching the callousness of the Oriental, will the wanton slaughter of the toilers cease." Think of it ! A half a million people killed and maimed every year and this only the schedule of risk among the toilers! To this stu- pendous roll-call of Death must be added the long retinue of transpor- tation accidents sustained by the travelling public. 764 INDEX 765 INDEX Addicks Bay Gas State Co., 422 Addickism a synonym lor political putrefaction, 421 Adulteration Amount of adulterated food con- sumed annually, 500 Of food, 497 Of lood and drugs reported in Mass. State Board of Health Bulletin, 503 Of whisky, 504 Potato flour, 504, 537 Public prefer not to know truth re- garding, 498 George F. Angell's campaign against, 501-503 Paraffine used in candy, 504 The extent of, 500 Advertising Cost of, 634 In America and England, 6,31 In newspapers, in periodicals, 631 " Letter broker " method of, 634 P. T. Barnum originated posters, 632 Power of, 632 Orlando Bourne first agent, 633 Remarkable progress in art of, 633 Success of patent medi'cines due to, 631 American Ideals On the down grade, 112 Which Washington bequeathed, 115 Jefferson's, 115, 116 Benjamin Franklin's, 117, 118 James Madison's, 118, 119 James Monroe's, 118, 119 Patrick Henry's, 119 John Adams', 120 John Stuart Mill's, 122 Broken down by commercialism and imperialism, 179 Of liberty debased to Russian level, 189 An offence to publish the Declaratic of Independence, 194 Dishonored in Filipino - America: war, 197, 235 Present condition of corruption U effacing, 423 Anarchist Treatment of John Turner, 181-183, 297 Treatment of Emma Goldman, 183, 297 Case of so-called Chicago, 29.3, 423 Dynamiting station at Independence, Colorado, 322 Reign of anarchy in Colorado, 298, 320 Colony at Home, Wash., 358 Areas and Populations Table of, 258, 259 Art Corruption in, 592 Awarding prizes without regard to merit at an exhibit in Boston, 592 Association Employers' Liability responsible for mortality among railroad em- ployees, 477 Automobiles A menace to life, 480 Beef Trust Water thefts from city of Chicago by, 457-460 What a stranger sees when visiting Packingtown, 460 Death and desolation by, 481 Juggled prices for live stock and dressed meat, 482 Herman Hirschauer, on the, 483 Defence of, by J. Ogden Armour, 540 Belgium Rate of illiteracy in, 10 Density of population, 11 Bench, The A deadly foe to the law, 381 Supreme, a dangerous menace to human liberty and social develop- ment, 382 Blackest chapter in history. The. 17 Blackest chapter in American history, 197 " Bucket-shop Bill " Bribery in connexion with. 572 Bucklin Amendment, 321, 403 767 INDEX Business man, little short of divine, 419 A commercial hunter, 419 Covetousness of, 575 Cancer Increase and cause of, 518 Capt. of industry articles, 481, 597 Caste, or class-consciousness In India, 59, 556, 557 In Russia, 59 Has desire to advance self, 339, 340 Exists on every hand, 583 Censorship In Russia, 64 Of the press, 184, 185 Power of the press, 185 Power of the Federal Bureau at Washington regarding, 185 In United States worse than in Russia, 185, 186 Congressional protection of, 185 Power of post-office, 186 Suppression of " Lucifer," 187 Present system of, should be abol- ished, 188 Of Rebecca J. Taylor, 189 Of the " Ladies Home Journal," 190 Of the " Unique Monthly," 190 Of " Discontent," 190 Of " Appeal to Reason," 190 Of "Wilshire's Magazine," 190 Extended to individuals, 190 Delivery of mail prohibited to the People's U. S. Bank, 191, 193 Delivery of mail prohibited to E. G. Lewis, 191, 192 The postal power of, unparalleled, 192 Of Mrs. Williams, 193 Of " Our Dumb Animals," 193, 194 In Philippines, 221, 222 Chemistry Coal-tar products used in medicine also in some dyes, 497 Chicago Four young men committed eight murders and one hundred hold-ups in, 407 Corruption in, 454 Child labor First act for abatement of evils of, 697 Felix Adler on, 697-699, 700, 701 Children fed to the machine, 697 In tenement houses, 698 The effects on young children, 699 Babes eighteen months old at work, 699 In the United States, 700 Some aver the necessity of, 701 Mrs. Van Vorst on conditions in the South, 701-703 Argument that children are better off at work, 702 Robert Hunter on, 715 Number of children at work in tex- tile mills in United States, 715 Is increasing, 715 Conditions of, in Pennsylvania, 716- 717 Conditions of, in factory in Fall River, Mass., 719-720 Conditions of cotton milling in United States equal worst in England, 716 Children Death rate of, 638 Death rate in New York, 639 Buried at public expense, 639 Economic conditions which affect birth rate of, 640 Birth rate of, in New South Wales, 640 Should be taught proper breathing in public schools, 681 Of to-day, the republic of the future, 703 Nature starts all physically equal, 704 John Spargo regarding, 704-706 Death rate in England and Wales, .711 Diseases of, 712-714 Ignorance the cause of deaths of, in France and the United States, 713- 715 Patent " infant foods," 714 Underfed school, 719 Treatment of, 720 China Density of population in, 1 1 Chinaman Cannot understand American energy, 466 Every fourth man a, 737 Christ Life of, not imitated by modern Christians, 12 Christianity " Modern Christianity a civilized Heathenism," 12 As practised by Mr. Baer and other coal barons, 469-470 Verestchagin regarding Christians. 594 Commercialism makes impossible, 631 Cities " The Shame of Cities," 437 Corruption in Philadelphia, 447 Corruption in Minneapolis, 448 Corruption in St. Louis, 448 Fred'k C. Howe on, 454 "The Bondage of the Cities," 456- 457 768 INDEX Clergy Little more than unproductive con- sumers, 379 Beginning to be active for good in social matters, 379 Catholic, in politics, 594-597 Coal How the people are compelled to pay for, 467 Dan Beard regarding exorbitant prices for, 468 Richard Olney in reference to mil- lionaire heads of coal companies, 468-469 Brutal treatment received by miners during coal strikes, 470 Accidents in mines, 479 Colombia Our treatment of, 19 Colorado Trouble in, 298 Dynamiting of station in Independ- ence, 298-322 Reign of anarchy in, 320-331 Henry George, Jr., on strikes in, 620-628 Judge Steele's opinion of treatment ofMoyer and others in, 324 R. S. Baker on lawlessness in, 320, 326-329 " Bull-pen " treatment, 327 " World Herald " (Omaha), on crime in, 329 Jas. H. Teller regarding conditions in, 329 Every outrage known to military despotism practised during strike in, 330 Springfield " Republican " on condi- tions in, 330 Haywood-Moyer outrage, 423-429 Pinkerton detective, McPartland, 428 Press censorship in, 330 Commercialism The system a pigsty of greed and corruption, 727 " The Civilised Pig," 727 Competition Physical, 12 Every man's hand on another man's throat, 12 Commercial, a rapacious warfare, 12 Wages fixed at cost of existence by, 604 Ninety-five per cent, of business en- terprises fail, 609 Birth of, 609 Illustrations of, 610 Choice between monopoly and, 610 Reaches equity, 611 Buying and selling, 611 Walter G. Cooper on, 611-612 John Graham Brooks regarding wage system, 613 Wm. Miller Collier on wastefulness of, 613, 614, 616 The mother of trusts, 617 Bolton Hall on free, 618 The war of, 617 W. H. Ghent on free, 623 Of to-day wasteful, cruel, and un- philosophical, 624 Louis F. Post on, 624-626 Abolition of monopoly will restore freedom to, 626 Sidney A. Reeve on, 626, 628 Adam Smith's exposition of effects of, 626 Cost of, to the community, 626, 627, 628 The imperfections of, how overcome, 728 As we know it, is doomed, 737 Congo Free State Description of, 83 King Leopold's rule in, 83-96 Methods of obtaining rubber in, 85, 93 Condition in, at the time of the advent of the white trader, 86-91 Amount of rubber annually pro- duced in, 95 Cannibalism in, 95 Atrocities in, 95, 104-106 Wages for labor, 95 Prices of rubber, 95 Description of a " rubber raid " in, 104-106 Depopulation of, 105, 107 Testimony of natives regarding treat- ment in, 105-106 Computation of King Leopold's murders in, 107 Abortion prevalent in, 641 Congress Disciplining of " Billy " Mason by, 127 Chargeable with knowledge of land graft, 128, 257, 282 Abolition of United States Senate, 128 Composed largely of lawyers, 128, 131, 383 United States Senate called " House of Dollars," 135 Power of, regarding legal tender, 164 Serves creditor class by contracting legal tender, 164, 165, 168 Has constitutional authority to relieve debtor class, 164, 165 In censorship, 185 Not expected to aid Gillette's plan for social redemption, 258 " The Beneficient Assistance of our 769 INDEX Congress," an act relating to land thefts, 278 Passed bill providing civil govern- ment for Alaska, 283 No account of money appropriated by, 417 Senate at bidding of Standard Oil, 421 H. H. Rogers can swing more than two dozen votes in, 421 " Ecclesiastical lobby," 596 , Free gifts to the Providence hospital by, 597 Corporations Imprisonment for contempt of, 314 Have no difficulty in controlling a legislative body composed of lawyers, 383 We are deprived of our rights at behest of, 457 " The Organisation and Control of Industrial Corporations," 465 Railroad, make use of Employers' Liability Associations, 477 Corruption Legislative and judicial, 127. 150, 290 In Congress, 127-131 In presidential campaigns, 129 In Life Insurance Companies, 129, 408, 409, 414 In railroad companies, 136, 139, 140, 148, 471 Of the press, 141, 598-603 Of judges, 151-160 Exposed by land graft in Alaska, 290 Disfranchisement of the negro, 401- 403 Bucklin Amendment, 403 Ripperism, 403-404 Mayoralty election in New York, 406 Effect of, on the courts, 408 Thomas Lawson regarding, 408 Henry George, Jr., on political, 416 State legislatures more vendible than national, 422 " The Shame of the Cities," 437 Emerson on, 440 Bolton Hall on political, 445 " The Source of Corruption," 456 Municipal, 461 In mercantile pursuits, 572 In Boston State House, 572-574 Thomas Lawson regarding bribery in Massachusetts legislature, 573 In the church, 593 Court Supreme judges appointed by Presi- dent, 157 Ages of judges of Supreme, 158 New York statute pronounced un- constitutional by, 159 Fourteenth Amendment disregarded by, 159 Federal, refuses to adjudicate upon postal censorship, 191 Decision regarding land thefts, 281 Standard Oil defies Supreme, 297 Chancery Court of Appeals, case of Dixon vs. Holden, 300 Case of Sherry vs. Perkins, 301 Eugene V. Debs arrested for con- tempt of, 304 Nature of, to draw aristocratic power to itself, 313 The Supreme, of New York managed a brothel through receivers, 314 Grasping at governmental power of legislation and administration, 314 Federal, acts in defiance of constitu- tional guarantee, 316 Monopoly has used, to strike at the ballot, 316 Perversion of a court of equity, 317 Contempt of, by H. H. Rogers, 388 Fostering care bestowed on railroads by the, 479 Crime, murders, and homicide Statistics on, 646 Highest rate of, in Russia, 646 Ratio of, increasing all over the world, 646 Social and commercial conditions cause of, 646 Cunard Line Contract with England, 729 Currency Contraction of, 163 Articles used as, 163-169 Diagrams illustrating chain lightning of prices, 166, 167 History of, 163, 170 Death rate Decreased in nearly every country, 647 Infant mortality, 706, 711-715 Why statistics mislead, 648 Chart of, 707 Deportation Of John Turner, 181-183 Of Colorado men, 423-429 Declaration of Independence An offence to publish, 194 The repeal of, 19 Given for a " ditch," 19 Diseases Some have increased, some have de- creased, 648 United States a nation of invalids, 648 Of children, 711-713 See " Plague " and " Death rate " Doctors Exorbitant and dishonest prices of, 593 770 INDEX Dramatic and literary criticism a farce, 593 England Enjoys more freedom than United States, 35 Government of India by, 120, 121 Postal facilities in, 149 Jury selected from aristocracy in, 152 Two high-toned avocations in, 379 Human beings not as well cared for as animals in, 690 " The White Slaves of England," 692 Effect of poverty in childhood in, 711 Infant mortality in, 711 Density of population in Great Britain, 11 Express companies Special privileges to, 147 Opposed to parcels post, 150 Factory Life in Russia, 66, 67 Casualties in, 479 Women and children working in, 671 Home workers for, and their condi- tion, 674-676 Condition in, in Fall River. Mass., 719-720 France Management of railroads in, 147, 148 Density of population in, 11 Free pass system Is forbidden by law, 141 Corrupts the press, 141 Chas. Ed. Russell in reference to, 139, 141 Germany Can teach us in insurance matters, 413 Density of population in, 11 Germs Small-pox, in expensive coat, 499 Government The least governed the best gov- erned, 435 No man great enough to rule his fellow man, 436 Do the people want good, 438 Of United States mulcted of large sums of money in construction of public building, 490 Donations for Indian boarding- schools, 596 Catholic influence at Washington 497 A necessary evil, 728 Graft Land, 128, 257-292 Postal, 147 Beginning and history of, 289 " Gradations of Theft," 290 Governor Hanley on public, 420 Politics degenerated into a special- ised, 435 Books the size of Encyclopedia Britannica could not contain his- tory of United States, 437 Grain Trust Exposed, 482 Hawaiian Islands Our coup d'etat in, 19 Holland Intensive farming of, 9 Density of population in the Nether- lands, 11 Human race Accommodated in a single state, 9 Also chart opposite page 9 Hypocrisy Commercial, 13 Russian, 17 Of Mr. Baer, 58 Of J. D. Rockefeller, Jr., 58 In Dred Scot case, 58 Bred by mixing commercialism and Christianity, 631 Illiteracy Rate of, in Great Russia, 10 In Belgium, 10 Immigration Atrocities laid at door of, 407 Political corruption charged to, 436 Race suicide charged to, 640 India Prince of Wales' visit to, 555 Caste the cause of misery in, 556 Famine in, 556-559 Chas. Ed. Russell regarding condi- tions in, 556, 557 Romesh C. Dutt regarding famine in, 557-559 Density of population in. 11 Indians Boarding-school donations for, 596- 597 Race suicide among the, 641 Inequality Illustrations of, 554-555 Prince of Wales' visit to India, 555 The effect of social, 564 Inhumanity Man's to man, two kinds, 56 Injunction Abuse of, 151, 301 A legal balloon, 299 Earned hatred of lovers of American principle, 299 Origin and application to labour troubles, 300 Illustrations of abuses of. 301-305 Anti-injunction league, 302 " Government by Injunction," 303 771 INDEX Recent history replete with outrages, 303 Judge Seabury traces development of principles of, 303, 315 Blanket, 307 In relation to the Pullman strike, 303 A device of the judiciary, 313 Government by, a legal quackery, 313 Justice Brewer on, 314 The judge is judge, jury, and execu- tioner, 313 New methods of, 315 A person can be punished twice for the same offence, 315 Ernest Crosby on, 317-319 Insanity Alarming increase of, 642 Number of people insane in United States, 643 In other countries, 643 In Chicago, 644 Worry, the mother of, 643 Insurance Crime of murdering children for, 407 Corruption unearthed, 408 Bribery of newspapers, 414-415 Money put in political campaign, 416-417 Cases of consumption not reported because if disease were known would lose, 688 Invocation By Rev. C. H. McDonald at Albany Assembly, 416-417 Japan Copied American-Philippine methods, 33 Steady advancement of, 734 Socialistic communities in, 731 Japanese the happiest people in the world, 732 The greatest governmental trader in the world, 734 Export trade of, 735 Intelligence and thoroughness of the Japanese, 735 Banking system of, 736 Leads the world as an organiser, 737 Japanese development an illustration of a natural law, 738 Density of population in, 11 Judge " The Dollar a Life Judge," 479 Corruption of the, 159 Jury Trial by, 151-156 The, a preeminently political insti- tution, 152 Attacks upon trial by, 153 The, insulted, 154, 155 Justice The key-note of Gillette's social redemption, 743 Labour and capital Join forces, 489 Walter G. Cooper on, 489 Land Distribution of public, 170 Railroad grants of, 171, 257, 264, 265 Graft, 257 Amount of, stolen, 257, 275-279 Amount of, given to railroads and stolen would support three times present population, 258 English noblemen hold large tracts of, in United States, 263 " Stumpage " demanded for trees cut, 264 Total royalty on, 265 " West Coast Grafters," 265 Beginning and history of land graft, 265-292 Congressmen thieves of, 266 Benson " steal," 266, 267, 268 Office of " dummy," 267, 268, 269 One name may stand for 100,000 acres of, 270 Stolen, sold to United States govern- ment, 270 Government officials bribed by grafters, 271 Wealthy western men steal, 271 Senators and Representatives in- dicted for conspiracy to defraud the government, 272 Senator Clark's theft of, 277 Henry Miller's theft of, 277 " Looting of Alaska," 282 The McKenzie trial and sentence, 290-292 Law One law for the rich and another for the poor, 387 Illustrative case of a rich and a poor man arrested for the same offence, 389 Lawyers Never produce, 379 Genesis of, 379-385 Peter the Great's opinion of, 380 Many fine men are, 380 One class of law-breakers, 381 Business of, is to sell their advocacy, 382 Part in governmental corruption, 382 Congress largely composed of, 383 Frank Parsons regarding, 383 Peter Altgeld regarding, 384-387 Wendell Philippe regarding Rufus Choate, 385 Boston has " shysters," 390 Leopold, King 772 INDEX And Congo atrocities, 83-107 " Philanthropic " rule of, 83-107 Col. Williams' open letter to, 91-93 " King Leopold's Soliloquy," 99-104 The king with a million murders to his charge, 107 Liberty Of speech, 179, 184 Of the press, 180 . Thomas Jefferson on, 180 Life Average duration of, 647 Why statistics mislead, 648 Locomotives Life of, 363 Lung Block Description of, 682-687 Deaths in, 688 Diagram of, 683 One of its victims (half-tone), oppo- site 676 Lynchings Of negroes, 59, 297 Not confined to a few localities, 59, 335, 339 A social disease, 335 Spread to all but five States, 335, 342 Not confined to negroes, 335 Cardinal Gibbons regarding, 335, 336 Feud between two families in Ken- tucky, 336 Number of, 336 Fewer negroes than whites in Sing Sing for crime of assault, 336, 337 Record of, 337 In Statesboro, Ga., 337, 345 President Roosevelt on, 337, 338 Morally and legally wrong, 338 Prof. William James regarding, 338, 342 Deadening of moral sense makes iynchings possible, 340 At Fort Leavenworth, 344 In Evansville, Ind., 344 In Vicksburg, 344 In Springfield, Ohio, 349 In Springfield, Mo., 349, 350 Woman burned at stake in Missis- sippi, 351 W. S. Scarborough on, 351 In Chattanooga, 351, 352 In Wilmington, Del., 370 Machinery Use of, causes " overproduction," 614 Mammon The worship of, 580 The god of this world, 580 Sorry effects of worship of, 593 Church member amassed fortune by malpractice business, 593 " Reforms will never come from the ^ gold box of," 671 " The love of gold grows faster than the heap of acquisition," 725 The " social price," and evil of wor- ship of, 603 Massachusetts Legislature bought and sold, 423 Thos. B. Lawson regarding bribery in the legislature of, 573-574 John B. Moran regarding star-cham- ber " investigations in State House, 574 Massacres and atrocities Kishineff, 17, 45, 56 Turkish-Armenian, 77-80 Congo Free State, 83-107 Fort Ethan Allen, 218 In Philippines, 229-252 Militancy In United States, 18, 219 Soldiering morally disorganising, 344 The soldier destroys. 379 Money Earning power of, 554 Washington Gladden regarding tainted, 577 The nation money-mad, 580 The common denominator of all desires, 609 Monopoly Establishes age dead-line, 364 Capital and labour should join forces to fight, 429 Compels people to pay exorbitant prices for coal, 467 Marches to the polls its bribed re- tainers, 565 Mummies African, imported for fertiliser, 17 Music Blackmail levied in musical trade, 592 Negroes Treatment of, Dred Scott case, 58 Lynchings of, 59, 297 In connexion with Packingtown strike, 296, 297 Denied rights of American citi/^ns, 341-342 " Appeal " sent to the Powers of the Old World, 342-344 Lynching of innocent. 343, 350 The equal of the white man in social and moral development, 352 Toussaint L'Ouverture greater than any historical white man, 353 Wendell Phillip's sketch of L'Ouver- ture, 353-357 " The Negro a Beast or in the Image of God," 357 A great negro novelist, 359 773 INDEX Paul Lawrence Dunbar, author and poet, 359 Wm. Ed. Burghardt DuBois, Prof, of Economics and History, 359 Booker T. Washington has few living equals, 358 Progress of, 359 First needle made in England was made by a negro, 359 " A Negro's Creed," 359-360 Peonage, 363-372 Policeman sold negroes to a South- ern planter, making money by the transaction, 371 Disfranchised, 401 Albert E. Pillsbury on disfranchise- ment of, 401 New Zealand Some contrasts between United States and, 34-35 Parcels post in, 149 Postal savings bank system in, 149 Post-office in, 149 Telegraph in, 149 Abolition of legal precedent in, 157 Governed by the ballot in, 384 Beyond the United States in human activities, 413 Crime -in, 646 Death rate in, 647 Occupations Of Franklin, Jefferson, John Adams, James Monroe, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Robert Treat Paine, Richard Stockton, John Penn, John Hancock, Philip Livingston, James Madison, John Hart, John Paul Jones, 123 Optimism and pessimism, 399-401, 521, 675, 726 Outrages Spanish-Cuban paralleled by United States in Philippines, 13, 14 Packingtown and meat supply Meat rejected by Jews as unclean eaten by Gentiles, 505 The " canner," 506-508 Government-inspected meat, 506-515 Condition in cold-storage beef- houses, 509 Boneless ham, 509-510, 538-539 Meat rejected by foreign nations the people of the United States eat, 511 Poisoned by sausage and dried beef, 514 W. K. Jaques, M. D., on meat in- spection, 515-518 Conditions of, responsible for in- crease of cancer, 518 Conditions in Packingtown as told by Doctor Hedger, 519-522 Thos. H. McKee on meat inspection, 523-525 Diseased hogs used for lard, 524 Conditions in Packingtown as told by Upton Sinclair in " The Jungle," 527 Bubbly Branch, 530 What goes into fancy grade of lard, 534 " Embalmed beef," 531 Conditions in pickling rooms, 535 Conditions in summer in, 536 Disappearances in, 537 Fertiliser plant, 537 " Thirty per cent.," 538 Sausage, 539 Every detail known to Mr, Armour, 540 Statements made by one of Mr. Armour's cattle butchers, 540-541 Affidavit of Thps. F. Dolan, 542-544 Laws regulating meat inspection written by the packers, 545 " Armour pays $5,000 for a gold brick in Boston," 542 Case of St. Bernard dog fed on arti- ficially coloured foods, 546 The London "Lancet" regarding con- ditions in Packingtown, 546-548 Abominable premises in which rep- resentatives of science work daily, 547 Work by artificial light, 547 Where soup is made, 547 An argument for vegetarian diet, 548 Parcels post Treaty with Belgium, 149 In New Zealand, 149 Express companies opposed to, 150 Patriotism Two effects of, 18 Real spirit of, is dead, 434 Paupers Buried at public expense in New York, 639 Burial insurance of, 639 Peace Commission How initiated, 17 Followed by Russian hypocrisy, 17 Futility of, 17 Peonage Story of negro peon, 365-370 In Georgia, 365, 370 Southern planters imprisoned and fined for enslaving negroes, 371- 372 Negro woman in, 372 White, flourishes in many cities, 373 Kidnapping of Boston man into, 374 774 INDEX A Roxbury, Mass., man a peon, 374 Escape of South Boston man from. 374 Trial of Bertha Claiche, 374 Peril The Yellow, 19, 736 The Russian, 19 The Northern, 19 Philadelphia One person in every seventeen ar- rested in, 407 " Comfortably rotten," 436 Lincoln Steffens regarding corrup- tion in, 447 " Corrupt and contented," 450 Public school system corrupt in, 452- 453 Franchise episode, 453 Names of Head dogs and children used in voting lists in, 451 Philippine Islands Senator Hoar's view of our course in, 19 Enslaved by United States, 197 No rebellion against Spain in, at time of Dewey's victory, 198 Filipinos our military allies, 199 Aguinaldo's cooperation with Ad- miral Dewey, 199-201 General Greene's report, 201 Admiral Dewey divided arms and munitions with Aguinaldo, 201 " Benevolent assimilation " proc- lamation, 203 Betrayal of Aguinaldo, 215-217 Beginning of war, 204 American nation deliberately de- ceived Filipinos, 204-205 Funston episode, 213-219 Suppression of facts relating to atrocities in, 221-222 " Reconcentrado " policy in, 224 Conduct of American soldiers in, 224-225 Major Waller court-martialed, 229 Major Waller's offences, 229-232 " Water-cure " and other cruelties, 231-232, 238, 240, 246-247 " The Deadly Parallel," 236 Torture of Father Augustine, 239 Cost of war in, 244-246 Jolo massacre, 248-250 Atkinson's statistics of cost of war in, 244-246 Plague and Black Death History of, 652 Great white plague, 652, 676 White plague killed more people than war and other plagues combined, 676 Police In league with criminals, 406 Lost-watch episode, 406 Politics Degenerated into specialised graft, 4oo Thoreau regarding, 435 Bolton Hail regarding corruption in, 445 Voting at elections in Philadelphia and other cities, 450-452 Influence of Catholic clergy in, 594- 596 Catholics support Republican party, if paid donations from Congress, cna o96 Population Relative density of, 9-12 Chart of, 11 Density in our cities, 654-656 Porto Rico Its sad plight, 19 Poverty Needless and superfluous wealth, 12 Discourages marriage, 638 Many who toil suffer abject, 670 In England, 690 A close relative of death, 706 The Herod of modern civilisation, 712 Number of people in, 718 Charts on, 657, 661 Chart of death rate of poor, 707 Press Freedom of the, 178 John Stuart Mill on liberty of, 180 Censorship of the, 186-191 Comments upon military measures in the Philippines, 221-222 Reports of atrocities in Philippines, 223-224 Efforts made in Philadelphia to muzzle the, 454 Elbert Hubbard regarding news- papers, 598 Sidney A. Reeve regarding news- papers, 598-601 " Yellow-Journal " evil, 602 Privilege Princes of, 559 Houses of princes of, 559-561 Newspapers and periodicals paid organs of, 576 Progress In manner of administering to human needs, 496-497 Property Rights of, right to kill, 57 Prophecy Of Immanuel Kant that commerce would ultimately suppress war, 20 Prostitutes In the United States, 604 Providence Coal barons agents of, 13 775 INDEX Prudential Assurance Co. vs. Knott, 300 Railroads Corruption of, 136-142 Accidents on Southern R. R., 142, 760 Postal graft of, 147 French management of, 147-148 Overcharge government, 149 Objection to government owning, 171 Free grants of land to, 171, 257, 264, 265 Poor service given by, 171 Exorbitant freight and passenger rates, 171, 663 Theft of timbe by Union River R. R., 281 General Managers' Association, 306, 307, 309 Railroad charges for transporting coal, 468 Govern our legislatures, 471 Accidents on, 471-479 Accidents on, in other countries, 473 Number of employees killed on, 473 Increase in mileage of, 477 Kill more people than war, 478-479 Elevated roads make dividends " off the straps," 663 Railroad interests dominate Ameri- can " House of Lords," 663 And Standard Oil, 664 Project for building a transconti- nental, 664 Capitalisation of street, 665 Rebates, 136, 138 Religious Revivals and commercial depression, 5 Fanatic offered up son in sacrifice, 298 Ripperism In Ohio, 404 In Michigan, 404 In Pennsylvania, 404 History of, 404-405 Roman Catholic Church Protector of the American flag, 594 To stand against Socialism, 594 Influence of Roman Catholic clergy in politics, 596 Difference between Catholicism and clericalism, 595 Roosevelt, President Acts unconstitutionally, 19 Carl Schurz's criticism of, 19 Message of, 136 Uses private cars, 141 Treatment of Assistant Post-Master General by, 156 " Shot a Bear," 193-194 Rockefeller a bigger man than, 388 Russia Rate of illiteracy in, 10, 65 Official murders in, 17 Kishineff massacre, 17, 45, 56 The strength of her autocracy, 18 Terrorism " white " and " red," 18 Size of, 39 Serfdom of, 39 Methods of, 39-40 Peasants and how treated, 39-40 Political corruption in, 40-42 Wife-beating, Maxim Gorky's sketch, 43-45 Treatment of political offenders, 46- 47 An inferno, 59 Nothing " permitted " in, 63 " Administrative methods " in, 47 Houses searched without warrants in, 63 Censorship in, 64 Density of population in, 11 No enlightenment of peasantry al- lowed in, 64, 65 Relief of poor in famine forbidden, 64 Ignorance of peasants in, 65 War appropriations in, 65-66 Factory life in, 66, 67 Agrarian situation in, 67-73 Description of the Great Black Belt, 72 Hibernating in, 73 San Domingo Our treatment of, under protocol, 19 Schools Donations from Congress for Indian, 596 System corrupted in Philadelphia, 452-453 University teaching costs more than it ever did, 579 University in relation to trusts, 576, 578, 580 Students taught to accept text-book authorities rather than think for themselves, 584 Greek peripatetic system, 584 Method of frequently changing the work of pupils, 584-585 " The Overworked School Boy," 590 Build up the character of the student, 591 Donations to Catholic, 595-597 Selfishness The present social system devised by, 445 " Shyster " methods used by Boston legal firm, 390 Siberia Awful conditions in, 46-69 Suffering of exiles to, 59-65 No schools in, 65 776 INDEX Single tax And free competition, 624-626 Has been in operation in Japan for centuries, 731 Slavery Russian serf, 39 African, in Congo, 89 In Philippines, 197 Economic, 363-364 Chattel, 363 Negro, restored, 365 White, 373 Oriental, in New York and other cities, 374 Economic, one cause of race suicide, 641 Economic, in England, 690-693 Child, in United States, 715-717 Socialism Prof. Henry Davies on, 624 Abolishes competition, 624 " The awful menace of," 664 Several successfully performed gov- ernmental functions socialistic, 731 In Japan, '731 Excites much interest, 738 Social Problems Similar in all countries, 728-729 Soldier The, characterised, 9 The, a burden, 9 Speech Freedom of, 179, 184 John Turner episode, 181-183 Emma Goldman episode, 183-184 Standard Oil Company Elkins Bill, 132 Clark episode, 133-134 Covet monopolies in Philippines, 242 On watch for new oil wells, 265 Defies court orders, 421 Stronger than the United States, 388 Proceeding for violation of Missouri laws, 421 Owns majority of United States Senate, 663 Colorado mine owners part of, 426 And railroad privileges, 664 Statistics Falsified, 172 False census reports, 173-175 Henry L. Bliss regarding " cooked," 175-176 Juggling of, 176 In Russia,, 172 Steel Trust One-twelfth of the wealth of United States represented by Board of Directors of, 562 St. Petersburg Founding of, 40-41 Strife Universality of, 14 Suffrage Advocated for some women and de- nied others, 341 Suicide Race, 637 Robert Hunter on race, 637 Immigration cause of, 637-638 " Observations Concerning Increase of Mankind," 638 Race, due to increased social pres- sure, 640-641 Bodies of newly born infants taken from River Seine, also from Boston sewer pipes, 641 Race, among the rich, 641-642 " The Facts about Suicide," 644 Rate of, in American and European cities, 645 Sweat-box Flourishes in our large cities, 391 A system of torture for extorting confessions, 391 Description of the system, 391-394 Inspector Shea defends the, 395 The victim a prisoner without money or friends, 395 The " aristocracy " of crime never receive the " third degree," 395 Sweat-shop Goods sold for " goods made in our own factory," 498 Babes four years old work in, 559 In Boston investigated by L. A. Banks, 672 Laws if enforced would obliterate, 674 Disease in homes where work is done for, 675-676 Switzerland Enjoys more freedom than the United States, 35 Leads in most things political and social, 413 No trusts, no political corruption- ists in, 413 Chas. Ed. Russell on, 413-414 Swiss astonished at fuss made by Americans over elections, 434 Elections simple and frequent in, 436 No beef trusts in, 518 Density of population in, 11 Tariff Its effect in this and other countries, 24 Annual average ad valorem rate, 24 American goods sold abroad cheaper than in the United States because of, 25 Synopsis of methods, 25-29 The effect of, upon the human family, 29 777 INDEX Chart, " The American Tariff from 1791-1901," opposite 24 Telegraph and telephone Companies publish what they know to be false, 481-482 War tax on telegrams, 481 Prof. Frank Parsons on Telegraph Monopoly, 481 British Telephone Trust, 729 Town-meeting Principle, 417-418 Rev. Herbert Bigelow on, 418-419 Transportation Companies own mines contrary to constitution of State of Pennsyl- vania, 469 Trusts The beginning of the so-called, 465 Contain principles in accord with laws of nature, 465 Effect of existing, upon society, 466- 467, 481 H. C. Ritchie regarding, 484 Capitalisation of, 562 Reaching for the schools, 576 Competition the mother of, 617 Cannot exist in Switzerland, 413 British Telephone, 729 Tuberculosis Persons in last stages of, preparing food for public, 499 The " great white plague," 652, 676- 690 Record of, 676 Lung Block, 682-687 Ernest Poole regarding, 676, 681-689 Can be stamped out, 678 Begin in childhood campaign against, 678 " The Prayer of the Tenement," 681 Infection of, 686 Warfare against, 687 Ignorance and superstition prevent many cures of, 687 If disease is reported " consump- . tion " the patient loses life in- surance, 688 Unions, Labour In the United States, 485 Prevent labourer having his wages cut to an unbearable extent, 671 United States England and Switzerland enjoy more freedom than, 35 Behind most civilised countries in postal matters, 149 Jury elected from all the people in, 152 Struggle in Philippines, 197 Imperialism in, 221 Law and order breaking down in, 310 No redress for negroes in, 343 Incomes of working people in the. 740 Density of population in, 11 Negroes barbarously treated in, 343 Soldiers at Fort Leavenworth lynched a negro, 344 Lynching atrocities equal to any- thing that Russia can produce, 345 Largely a government of wealth, 383 Larger murder and homicide rate than any other country except Russia, 407 American communities fifty years behind foreign pocket principali- ties, 420 Senate at bidding of Standard Oil, 421 Railroad and other accidents in, 471- 479 Second only to Russia in railroad inefficiency, 477 Lack of dignity in, 547 Babes four years old work in sweat- shops in, 559 Twenty-four men represent one- twelfth of wealth of the, 562 Number of men who own the, 562 Diagrams illustrating distribution of wealth in the, 563, 657, 659 Paid makers of public opinion cajole and cozen the people of the, 583 A parallel to Rome and Greece, 648 Age dead-line in the, 653 A victim of national egotism, 737 War Universality of, 14 Spanish-American, 17 Spanish-Cuban, 17 Filipino-American, 17 English-Boer, 17 Chinese vs. Allied Powers recalled, 17 Corsica with Genoa, 197 Appropriations in Russia, 65 The " honour of the army," 208, 218 Fort Ethan Allen episode, 218 Tends to brutalise men, 219 " Professional Militarism," 219 Blowing up of the Maine, 221 Criticism of war department, 222 Cost of war with Spain and Philip- pines, 244-246 Peace more bloody than, 478 Industrial, 479 Captain Hobson asked for one thou- sand million naval appropriation, 18 Wealth All, taken from the earth by labour, 10 Superfluous and needless poverty, 12 778 INDEX Distribution of, in United States, 563, Eltweed Pomeroy on distribution of, 656, 657 656 Spahr's table of distribution of, 564 Charts of, 563, 657, 659 A small per cent, of the people coil- White House trol half the, 656 Expenses of, 151 779 Abbott, J. S. C., 41 Abbott, Lyman, 596 Adams, Alvah, 317 Adams, John, 120, 422, 725 Adams, Samuel, 419 Addicks, J. Edward O'Sullivan, 282 Adler, Felix, 697, 700 Aguinaldo, 199, 200, 201, 204, 214, 216, 217 Aldrich, Nelson W., 595 Alexander II., 42 Altgeld, John Peter, 208, 219, 304, 308, 309, 384 Anderson, General, 205 Angell, George T., 501 Anitchkow, Michael, 23 Antisdel, C. B., 105 Archbold, John D., 132 Armour, J. Ogden, 540, 542, 546 Armour, Philip D., 541, 543 Arnold, Matthew, 564 Ashbridge, Mayor, 453 Atkinson, Edward, 244 Baer, George F., 57, 469 Baker, Ray Stannard, 320, 326, 327 Baker, Robert, 140 Banks, Rev. L. A., 671, 672, 742, 743 Barnes, Judge, 154, 155 Barnett, Canon, 565 Barnett, Ida Wells, 351 Beach, Rex E., 282, 283, 289, 291. 292 Beale, Joseph Henry, 151 Beard, Dan, 467, 468, 469, 471 Beecher, Henry Ward, 140, 142 Behrends, Rev., 373 Bell, Sherman M., 321 Bell, General, 423, 424 Bellamy, Edward, 624 Bellini, Gentili, 57 Benson, John A., 266 Bent ham. Jeremy, 164 Bereshkovsky, Catherine, 48, 67 Berge, George W., 140 Bessette, Ed. E., 301 Beveridge, 42 Beveridge, Senator, 206 Bigelow, Herbert S., 418, 548 Blackwell, Alice Stone, 67 Bliss, Henry L., 175, 176 Booth, General, 690 Brewer, Justice, 131, 313 Brooks, John Graham, 564, 613, 656 Brown, Edward Osgood, 216 Bucklin, James W., 321 Butler, Elizabeth B., 673 Butler, Samuel, 16 Byington, Stephen T., 4 Cairnes, Prof., 564 Campbell, Judge, 323 Carman, Bliss, Carnegie, Andrew, 576, 650 Chamberlain, 24 Chandler, Bishop, 336 Choate, Rufus, 385 Christmas, Captain W. , 421 Claiche, Bertha, 347 Clark, Wm. A., 133, 277, 421 Clemens, Samuel (Mark Twain), 38, 99, 217. 218, 219 Cleveland, Grover, 299, 303, 305, 307, 309. 320, 324 Cochran, Wm. Bourke, 129 Collier, Wm. Miller, 613, 614, 616 Commons, John R., 637 Conkling, Roscoe, 141 Cooper, Peter, 169 Cooper, Walter G., 464, 489, 611, 612, 614, 724 Cortelyou, G. B., 597 Crosby, Ernest, 135, 136, 317-318, 357- 358 Curtis, Wm. E., 242 Cutler, Dr., 336 Czolgosz, Leon, 297, 298 Daniel, Annie S., 698 Darrow, Clarence S., 387 Darwin, Charles, 381 Debs, Eugene V., 303, 304, 316 Dennis, James, 79 780 PERSONS REFERRED TO AND QUOTED Depew, Chauncy, 141, 414 Defocqueville, 115, 123, 152, 730 Deutsch, Leo, 47 Dewey, George, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202 Dilke, Sir Charles, 24 Dixon, Rev. Thomas, 357 Dolan, Thomas F., 541, 542, 544 Dole, N. H., 55 Dooley, 159 Drage, Geoffrey, 65 DuBois, Wm. Ed. Burghardt, 359 Punbar, Paul Lawrence, 359 Durbin, Governor, 337 Dutt, Romesh C., 557 Eichholz, Dr. Alfred, 704 Elkins, Stephen B. r 595 Elmer, Judge, 318 Ely, Robert E., 562 Ely, Richard T., 747 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 6, 440, 564, 571 Fiske, John, 565 Flint, Prof. George W., 4 Flower, B. O., 240 Folk, Joseph W., 440, 449 Franklin, Benj., 8, 117, 118, 169 Funston, General, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218 Gabbert, Judge, 323 Gage, Lyman J., 132, 295 Ganz, Hugo, 40 Gaynor, Wm. Jay, 172 George, Henry, Jr., 13, 136, 147, 171, 260, 294, 299, 301, 303, 305, 306, 307, 314, 317, 320, 322, 406, 407, 409, 416, 421, 479, 552, 553, 559, 579, 643 Ghent, W. J., 322, 436, 478, 479 Gibbons, Cardinal, 335, 336 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 525, 721 Gladden, Rev. Washington, 580, 582 Gladstone, William, 379 Goldman, Emma, 183, 297 Gorky, Maxim, 43, 592 Gould, George, 320, 427 Gould, Howard, 560 Greeley, Horace, 169 Greene, General, 201 Greene, Fred'k Davis, 78, 79 Gregory, John M., 616, 730 Gi-osscup, Judge, 304, 307 Guggenheim, Simon, 576 Gummere, Wm. G., 479 Gunton, George, 747 Hadley, Prof., 579 Halford, Lieut., 229 Hall, Bolton, 22, 260, 398, 445, 618, 727 Hamblin, Conde, 282 Hamilton, Alex., 129, 130, 160 Hancock, John, 123 Hanley, J. F., 420 Hanna, Mark, 132, 405, 594, 595 Hansborough, Senator, 284 Harris, Mr. and Mrs., 105, 106 Hawthorne, Julian, 381 Haydock, Rena, 453 Haynes, Rev. Artemas Jean, 526 Haywood, Wm., 423, 424, 425, 426 427, 428, 429 Hedger, Dr. Caroline, 505, 519, 520 Henry, Patrick, 5 Hepburne, A. B., 132 Hewitt, Abraham, 22 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 743 Hirschauer, Herman, 483, 505, 507, 509, 511, 512 Hoar, Senator, 19, 207 Hobson, John A., 728 Hobson, Capt. R. P., 18 Hoffman, Fred'k L., 644 Holdom, Judge, 303 Holt, Byron W., 25 Hooker, Richard, 52 Hopkins, John P., 307 Horack, Frank Edward, 465 Howe, Fred'k C., 454 Hubbard, Elbert, 149, 150, 358, 485, ,486, 559, 584, 591, 598 Hudson, J. F., 664 Hugo, Victor, 95, 640, 654, 671, 725 Humboldt, Baron, 116 Hunter, Robert, 473, 525, 637, 640, 690, 715, 719 Huntington, Chancellor, 298 Hyde, Fred'k A., 270 Hyde, James Hazen, 409 Ingersoll, Robert G., 429, 570 Ingham, D. H., 250 Irvin, Wallace, 494, 495 Jackson, Judge J., 315 James, Prof. Wm., 338 James, Lord Justice, 300 Jaques, Dr. Wm. K., 505. 515. 545 Jefferson, Thomas, 115, 116, 118, 156, 169, 170, 180, 313 Johnson, Thomas, 404, 405 Jones, John E., 738, 739 Jones, Samuel H., 405 Joubert, Carl, 55, 59 Kant, Immanuel, 20 Keller, Judge, 318 Kellor, Frances A., 373 Kelley, Florence, 497, 703 Kennan, George, 46, 53 Kipling, Rudyard, 600 Lacombe, Judge, 182 Lacy, John F., 284 Larrabee, Ex-Gov., 664 781 PERSONS REFERRED TO AND QUOTED Lawson, Thomas, 129, 132, 133, 282, 408, 421, 423 Lee, Joseph, 236 Leo, Pope, XIII., 565 Leopold, King, 18, 83, 84, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 106, 107 Lewis, E. G., 191, 192 Lighton, Win. R., 128, 275. 276 Lincoln, Abraham, 163, 169, 172, 196, 235, 403, 433, 436, 470, 728 Lloyd, Henry Demorest, 447, 575, 664 Lodge, Senator, 213, 222 London, Jack, 525 L'Ouverture, Toussaint, 198, 353, 354, 355, 357 Low, A. Maurice, 32 Low, Seth, 448 Madison, James, 119 Malcolm, John W., 298 Malins, Vice-Chancellor, 300, 301 Malvar, Miguel, 228, 242 Mason, Wm., 127 Maver, Justice, 391 McCall, Pres., 130 McClelland, Judge-Advocate, 323, 326 McClure, S. S., 646 McCreery, J. L., 170, 171, 279, 280 McDonald, Rev. C. H., 416 McKee, Thomas H., 505, 522, 523, 525, 540 McKenzie, Alex., 282, 283, 285, 286, ^89 '-*90 292 McKinley/Pres. Wm., 151, 203, 283, 284. 291, 299, 594 McLaurin, Senator, 203, 204 McPartland, James. 428 Melleigh, Lord-Justice, 301 Michaelson, Alfred, 374 Miles. General. 202 Mill. John Stuart, 122. 180, 256 Millard. Bailey, 265, 268, 269, 270, 272 Miller, Attorney-General, 325 Miller, Henry, 277, 278 Miller, Kelley, 359 Mills. J. Warren, 576 Milyoukoff, Paul, 68 Montague, James J., 131 Moody, John, 562 Moran, John B., 574 Morel, Edmund D., 83, 84 Morgan, J. Pierpont, 427, 439, 595 Morrow, Judge. 291 Morton, Paul, 136 Mover, Chas. H., 323, 325 Monroe, James, 118, 119 Nevinson, Henry, 95 Nichols, Francis H., 717 Nodal, B. H., 46 Nordhoff, Chas., 728 Noyes, Arthur "H., 283, 290 O'Brien, Charles S., 374 O'Hare, Kate Richards, 604 O'Keefe, P. J., 594 O'Reilly, John Boyle, 552, 589 Olney, Hon. Richard, 468 Orchard, Harry, 428 Otis. General, 202, 203, 204, 239 Palmer, John M., 82, 432, 444, 464, 534, 622 Paoli, 197 Parkhurst, Dr., 436 Parsons, Prof. Frank, 34, 146, 162, 260, 312, 383, 412, 432, 433, 444, 456, 481, 647, 762 Patterson, Senator, 213 Peabody, J. H., 320, 321, 323, 325 Pentecost, Hugh O., 427 Perkins, George W., 129, 409, 410 Peter the Great, 41, 380 Pettibone, C. A., 423 Phillips, David Graham, 383 Phillips. Wendell, 385, 496 Pillsbury, Hon. Albert E., 401 Pinker-ton, Allan, 428 Pitt, William, 23 Podstata, Dr. V. H., 643 Pomeroy, Eltweed. 447, 656, 657 Poole. Ernest, 69, 676, 681, 682, 687, 688.689 Post. Louis F., 153. 155, 184, 185, 186, 188, 198, 205, 217, 222, 317, 372, 400, 579. 624 Pratt, E. Spencer. 199 Putnam, Frank, 127 Quay, Matthew S.. 452 Quilter, Harry, 631 Reed. Thomas B.. 128 Reeve, Arthur, 763. 764 Reeve, Sidney A.. 599. 603, 626, 628 Richards, Ellen H., 500 Riis. Jacob, 690, 710 Ritchie. H. C.. 484 Robinson, Henry A., 265 Rockefeller, John D., 57, 58, 132. 320 Rogers, H. H., 282, 387, 388, 413, 421, 422 Roosevelt. Pres. Theodore. 136, 141, 156, 193, 194, 337, 422, 471. 541, 596, 597 Ruskin. John, 564, 730 Russell, Chas. Ed., 110. 120, 137, 138. 139, 147. 413, 457. 458, 459. 460, 505, 556. 557, 728, 729, 733, 734, 735, 737, 758 Ryan, Thomas F., 409 Salmone. Anthony H., 77 Scarborough. W. S., 351 Schurz, Carl, 19, 132 Schuyler, 80 782 PERSONS REFERRED TO AND QUOTED Schiff, Jacob H., 409 Seabury, Judge Samuel, 303, 314, 315 Sergius, Grand Duke, 59 Shadwell, Bertrand, 212, 601 Shearman, Thomas G., 562 Sheppard, W. F., 104 Sherard, Robert H., 504, 692 Shiels, Denis F., 374 Sinclair, Upton, 296, 505, 525, 526, 530, 540, 544 Smart, Prof., 564 Smart, William, 616 Smith, Adam, 626, 627, 730, 738 Smith, General, 229 Smith, Dr. Goldman, 351 Smith-Mayo, Richmond, 640 Spargo, John, 704, 705, 711, 713 Spencer, Herbert, 52, 179, 584, 612 Spooner, Senator. 203, 204 Stead, Alfred, 731, 732, 733 Stead, W. T., 107 Steele, Robert Wilbur, 324, 325 Steffens, Lincoln, 437, 438, 447, 448, 449, 451, 454 Stevens, Judge, 323 Stevenson, Chancellor, 243 Stewart, Senator, 284 Stoddard, John L., 59 Storey, Judge, 152, 157 Storey, Moorfield, 248 Stunenberg, Ex-Gov. Frank, 423, 425 Taft, Secretary, 153 Taney, Chief-Justice, 58 Tarbell, Ida, 575, 664 Taylor, C. F., 279 Taylor, Edmund, 169 Taylor, Howard S., 208 Taylor, Rebecca J., 189 Teller, James H., 329 Thompson, Slason, 473 Thoreau, Henry D., 418, 435 Thrummel, W. F., 130 Tolstoy, Count, 47, 53, 69, 181, 548 Tomilson, Wm., Geo., Thos., Andrew, Abraham, 253 Tourgenieff, 63 Train, George Francis, 466 Traubel, Horace, 750 Turner, John, 181, 182, 183, 297 Turner, J. K., 486, 487 Tyner, James N., 156 Upton, George Putnam, 337 VanderbUt, Wm. K., 663 Van Vorst, Mrs. John, 701, 703 Verestchagin, Vassili, 107, 594 Verner, Samuel Phillips, 95 Walker, Edwin, 306 Walker, Francis A., 637 Waller, Major, 229, 230 Wanamaker, John, 150, 453, 454 Warren, Arthur, 760 Washington, George, 115, 116, 123 Waterman, Nixon, 590 Watson, William, 79 Webster, Daniel, 386 Wentworth, Franklin H., 595 Whitman, Walt, 12 Willard, Frances, 78 Williams, George W., 90, 93 Williams, Oscar F., 198 Winn, Major, 162 Wisby, H. W., 632, 633, 634 Witte, L. M., 42 Wood, C. E. S., 182, 196 Woodruff, Clinton Rogers, 451 Woods, Judge, 304 Worrall, Thos. D., 482 Wright, Carroll D., 176 Wright, Edwin R., 306 Zilliacus, Kouni, 53 783 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. Series 9482