THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES /9S-/ CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA BY A. M. SIMONS Editor of The International Socialist Review THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED, WITH NOTES AND REFERENCES CHICAGO CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 1907 Copyright, 1'JU3, By Charles H. Kerr & Company Copyright, 1900, By Charles II. Kerr & Company 80 I'fin.ss OF JOilN P. UIGGINS CHICAGO PREFACE Whether consciously or not every writer upon historical topics adopts some philosophy of social development and writes from the standpoint of some social class. He must do so if his work is to be anything more than a mere chronology, and even then a selection of events to be chron- icled will be influenced by his attitude of mind and theory of society. Therefore I make no apology for having consciously written from the point of view of the working class, or for my belief that the socialist philosophy of history of- fers the true key to the progress of events. This philosophy is succinctly expressed in the quota- tion upon the opposite page in the statement that all history is the " history of class struggles." Since the appearance of private property some one social class has always owned and controlled the instruments by which wealth was produced and distributed. This class by virtue of its ownership becomes the social rulers and fashions social institutions in its interest. The methods of producing wealth are always 5 1362305 6 PREFACE changing. Chipped stone gave way to poHshed and this in turn to bronze and iron tools, and these were finally displaced by the complex ma- chine. As a result hunting and fishing were followed by agriculture and this in turn by ma- dijnofacture as the basis of social production. I These changes in the method of wealth crea- \ tion constantly rendered the owner of outgrown methods superfluous and brought new classes of owners to the front. The conflicting interests of the outgrown and the coming social classes have given rise to great revolutionary class struggles that accomplished fundamental social transforma- tions. Along w'ith these larger conflicts went minor struggles between classes having more or less divergent economic interests as to details. These formed political parties, factions and divi- sions, the story of which makes up the great mass of history. Each social stage contains as a part of its in- tellectual and institutional fabric much that is in- herited from previous environments. These idealistic influences often play a great part in de- termining the course that society shall take. They are the material upon which each new so- cial stage must work in building up a form of society suited to its needs. If these inherited ideas and institutions are not adapted to social PREFACE 7 progress, in the sense of a better control of en- vironment, then they will either disappear or social evolution will be checked. This view of history imputes no moral con- demnation to the commercial, financial and manufacturing interests, because they violently seized upon social power in different periods of their history. At these times their accession to rulership seems to have been necessary to fur- ther the higher evolution of society which we call progress. If, today the institution of private property and the further rulership of monopolized capi- talistic interests is not in accord with the best development of the social whole ; and if this in- stitution and class are 'retained through the power of ideological impressions inherited from a time when they were socially essential then progress will cease and stagnation, or worse, result. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE. Class Struggles in America ii In the Colonies 14 Causes of the Revolution 16 Condition of the Working Class Under " In- dependence " 21 The Constitutional Convention 24 Rule of Merchant and Trader 29 Conquest of Power by Planter and Pioneer . 32 The March of the Pioneer 35 The Industrial Revolution 38 The First Labor Movement in America . . 41 The Momentary Triumph of the Frontier . 48 Wage vs. Chattel Slavery 49 The Struggle for the Northwest . . . .57 Rise of the Capitalist Class 62 Secession 66 The Civil War 69 Industrial Effects of the War 71 Working Men During the War ^^ Reconstruction 79 The Rise of Plutocracy to Power .... 82 Negro Enfranchisement 86 The Growth of the Great Industry ... 90 The Rise of the Labor Movement 94 9 ZO TABLE OF CONTEXTS PAGE The American Renaissance 98 Panic of 1873 100 The Strike of 1877 102 The Rise of the Knights of Labor .... 106 The Little Capitalists' Final Fight . . . 112 L.\TER Stages in Concentration 114 The Last Class Struggle 118 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA American History begins in Europe. The thread of events connecting the American life of today to the distant past runs through Spain, England, France and Italy back to Greece and Asia and not through Sioux, Iroquois and Pequod back to mound builders, and pre-historic residents of the American continent. It is in Europe that the germs and sometimes the devel- oped forms of the institutions which make up our present society have their roots. At the time of the discovery of America a new social class was struggling into power in Europe. Clergy and nobility with priests, knights and kings had ruled for centuries. They were soon to be overthrown by the rising class of traders. New inventions, bringing about changes in the methods by which men satisfy their wants, were creating this new class and carrying it into power, as they have ever created new classes and borne them on to victory.^ IK. Marx —" Capital," Vol. I, Chap. XV. Lodge —" The Close of the Middle Ages," pp. 518-19. II 12 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA Guni)t)\V(lcr luul destroyed the knight's mon- opoly of military skill ; printinc^ had abolished tlie monopoly of learninj^ hitherto vested in ihc monks and a chosen few of the nobility, while the mariners' compass had broken the narrow circles of trade and released the voyagers from their confinement to land marks. As the trading class gained power it changed its location. The kingdom of trade had long had its capital in the cities of the Mediterranean. The great trade routes of the time ran through the Red Sea or over land to the north to China, India and Japan. Over these routes came spices, silks, rugs, wines and precious jewels for the gratification and adornment of the social rulers of that day.^ These came to Genoa and Venice to be distributed over the remainder of Europe. But the Moslem was cutting one after another of the trade connections along which these Oriental luxuries flowed to the Mediter- ranean cities. -"^ Everywhere the traders were calling for a new route to India. During the 14th and 15th centuries the seats of trade began to move north and west.^ The * Edw. P. Cheney — " European Background of American History," pp. 9—19. Aloys Schulte — " Geschichte des Mit- telalterlichen Handel und V'erkehr," I, pp. 674-5. = Helmholt —" History of the World," VU:8. * Brooks Adams — " Tlie New Empire," Chap. IIL CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA I3 Hanseatic league of powerful cities arose on the shores of the Baltic. Manufacturing, especially, the weaving of woolen, moved across the Eng- lish channel.^ This moving of the commercial centers to the Atlantic had turned the face of Europe westward. The voyage around Gibraltar between these Hanse cities and Italy required the building of larger and more powerful ships, which made ocean navigation possible. Some of these ves- sels under the command of Portuguese navigat- ors were creeping around the coast of Africa seeking for a route to India.^ The rotundity of the earth was generally accepted by navigators, at that time, although most of our school his- tories state the reverse. In the midst of this age of discovery Columbus' voyage was but an inci- dent, but one of a host of adventurous voyages, some one of which was sure to sooner or later land on an American coast.*^ ^ Cunningham — " Growth of English Industry and Com- merce," 1:373-9. ^ Cheney, op. cit., pp. 66-8. ' Cambridge Modern History, 1:7-20. 14 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA IN THE COLONIES During the first few years of settlement man bulked small compared with the untrodden con- tinent, and geographical conditions were of more importance than industrial in determining social institutions. The northern climate, land locked bays, abundant fishing grounds and swift flow- ing rivers decided that New England should be the seat first of a ship building and fishing, and later a manufacturing population. The central states with their deep harbors and abundant min- erals pointed the way first to agriculture, then to manufacturing. The south with its torrid sun, rich soil, and few discovered minerals was es- pecially fitted for cotton, rice, tobacco, planta- tions, and chattel slavery.^ Soon, however, there arose a division into so- cial classes. Along the coast was the manufac- turing, trading, plantation, creditor class ; in the back countrv the toiling small farmer, hunter, j)ioneer, the conqueror oi a continent, always ■ Ellen C. Semple — " American History and Its Geo- graphic Conditions," Chap. I. IN THE COLONIES 15 hopelessly indebted to his economic masters on the ocean's brim.^ The pioneer debtor class desired free land, low taxes, and most of all paper money. The cred- itor coast class insisted on restriction of land sales, taxation and metal currency. Sometimes this struggle between the back country, and the coast took on a violent form, as in " Bacon's Rebellion " in Virginia,^^ Leisler's in New York.^i and the battle of Alamance in North Carolina. ^2 g^^t ^1-,^ powers of the gov- ernment were in the hands of the coast and these early rebellions were soon crushed. The com- mercial and plantation classes of the sea-board reigned supreme. * Shaper — " Sectionalism and Representation in S. C," pp. 245-338. Thwaites — " The Colonies," Chap. I. lojohn Fiske — "Old Virginia and Her Neighbors," 11:95-105. 11^ Fiske —" Dutch and Quaker Colonies," 11:184-207. ^^ Geo. E. Howard — " Preliminaries of the Revolution," pp. 222-5; T. Watson, "Life and Times of Thos. Jefferson," Chap. V; Wm. Edward Fitch, " Some Neglected History of N. Carolina." l6 CLASS STRUGGLLS IN AMERICA CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION Commerce, fishing^ and even manufacturing g"rew rapidly durinj^ the 17th century. Then tlie EngHsh trading and manufacturing class under Cromwell secured control of the British govern- ment and began to interfere with the profit taking of their fellow traders in America. The great majority of American colonial mer- chants were smugglers or slave traders or both. Says Sydney G. Fisher in his True History of the American Revolution : " If we could raise from the mud * * * * any one of our ancestors' curiously rigged ships * * * * we would be tolerably safe in naming her ' Smuggler.' " The following extract from the article on American Merchant Marine in Lalor's Encyclo- pedia tells us some more interesting facts : " The colonists became a nation of lawbreakers. Nine- tenths of their merchants were smugglers. One quarter of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence were bred to commerce, the com- CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION I7 mand of ships and to contraband trade. Han- cock, Trumbull (Brother Jonathan), and Ham- ilton were all known to be cognizant of con- traband transactions, and approved of them. Hancock was the prince of contraband traders, and with John Adams as his counsel was ap- pointed for trial before the admiralty court of Boston, at the exact hour of the shedding of blood at Lexington, in a suit for $500,000 pen- alties alleged to have been incurred by him as a smuggler." By the beginning of the i8th century the Eng- lish were attempting to enforce the laws against smuggling. At the same time they passed laws forbidding the growth of manufacturing in the colonies. Yet on the whole this attempt at en- forcement was not successful enough to prove anything more than an annoyance to the shrewd smugglers of New England. The tariff on tea never bothered the colonists until the English export tax was remitted. This made it possible for the East India Company, a semi-govern- mental institution in which the king and most of the court favorites were closely interested, to de- liver tea in Boston harbor, tariff and all, cheaper than the American smugglers could sell it. This abolished the profit and when the profit disap- peared, smuggling was most effectually prohibi- l8 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMKKICA ted. Then it was that the oppressed smugglers arose ami held the Boston Tea Party. '^ Here and there were to be found the germs of manufacturing. Settlement was pushing back from the coast. Society was differentiating and production had progressed to the point where the colonies were to a large degree industrially independent of England. At still another point the interests of the rul- ing class in America were interfered with by the British government. Parliament and the crown sought to limit settlement to the sea coast, since so long as the colonies were confined to a nar- row strip along the Atlantic sea-board they must be dependent on the mother country. More- over, settlement interfered with the fur trade in which English capitalists were heavily interested. But a large portion of the " Fathers of Our Country " were interested in western land specu- lation. Washington had used his position as Royal surveyor to illegally survey lands outside the royal grant; while Benjamin Franklin, Alex- ander Hamilton and Robert INIorris were land speculators on a large scale. ^^ " S. G. Fisher — " The True History of the American Revo- lution," p. 105; Thos. Hutchinson, "History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay," 111:132-3. '* Herbert B. Adams, " Maryland's Influence upon Land Ces- sions," in Johns Hopkins' University Studies in History and CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION I9 In spite of these causes for dissatisfaction among the ruhng class it was difficult to arouse the great masses of the people who, indeed, had no particular reason for rebellion since their con- dition was about the same whether King or President ruled over the country. Indeed it is agreed by the best authorities that at the out- break of the Revolution only a minority were in favor of rebellion, and that at no time save at the very close of the war was there a majority which really cared about independence. The fact is that the Revolution was to a large extent a civil and not a national war.^^ Over 25,000 Americans enlisted in the British army, a considerably larger number than ever served un- der Washington. 1*^ Nor did England offer a united opposition. Political Science, Vol. Ill; Windsor, "Westward Movement," pp. 43-61 ; Sumner, " The Financier and Finances of the American Revolution," Vol. II, Chap. XXXIII; "Old South Leaflets," No's. 16, 27, 163; Hunt, "Life of Madison," pp. 46-50; T. Watson, "Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson," p. 151; Schouler, "History of the U. S.," 1:216-218. See also Robben's " American Commercial Policy," pp. 176-79, on general land policy of early years of U. S. government. " Justin Winsor, " Narrative and Critical History of Amer- ica," Vol. VII, Chap , by George E. Ellis, " The Loy- alists and the'ir Fortunes;" M. C. Tyler, "The Loyalists in the American Revolution," in Am. Hist. Rev., Vol. I; A. C. Flick, " Loyalism in New York," Columbia Univ. Studies, Vol. XIV, No. I. " S. G. Fisher, " The True History of the American Revo- lution," 229-237. JO CLASS STRrCr.LES IN AMERICA Lord Howe, who was j^ivcn command of the r.riiish trottps in the early part of the war, was a Wliij^. an ardent advocate of the American cause. Most impartial students of his campaign in New ^'ork in the early years of the war conclude that he was really figluini^- in the interests of the colonists, and that it is to his efforts fully as much as to W'^ashington's that we owe our in- dependence.'" One of the most striking facts about the whole affair, however, is that nearly all writers agree in describing the revolutionists as much more energetic, coherent, and consequently, effective in their efforts. These are all the marks of a class which incarnates social progress, and is at least partially aware of its mission, and this was the case with the revolutionists. " Ibid, 206-366, passim. INDEPENDENCE 21 CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS UNDER "INDEPENDENCE" When the war came on, however, it was the laborers who did the fighting, as they have in all the wars before or since the Revolution. When they had at last gained the victory, after having shed their blood and suffered untold miseries from Lexington and Valley Forge to Yorktown, they found, as the fighters of all other wars have found that the triumphs gained were not to be shared by their class. " One-half the community was totally bankrupt, the other half plunged in the depths of poverty. The year which had elapsed since the affair at Yorktown had not brought all the blessings that had been foretold ****** j^- ^vas then the fashion in New Hampshire, as indeed it was everywhere, to lock men up in jail as soon as they were so unfortunate as to owe a fellow a sixpence or shilling. Had this law been rigorously enforced in 1785 it is probable that two- thirds of the community would have been in prison. ^^ "McMaster, "History of the People of the U. S.," 1:343—; 348, passim. 22 CLASS STRL'GC.LIiS IN AMERICA Throup^Iiout the war the fip;htcrs and the workers had hcen compelled to borrow from the commercial and financial classes of the seaports. These debts had been contracted in prices fixed l)y continental currency. Now it was proposed to collect them in gold. State debts and na- tional debts were added to private indebtedness until for once in the world " the lawyers were overwhelmed with cases. The courts could not try half that came before them." To collect these debts, to lay a tarifif for the benefit of the manufacturers that had sprung up during the war,^^ to give bounties to the fisheries, ^o and to make commercial treaties with other countries,^! the ruling class needed a strong national govern- ment. Perhaps the principal cause of the formation of the national government was to prevent the capture of power by the debtor class. In many '° Memorial History of Boston (Justin W'insor, Editor), IV:74— 5; Annals of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of N. Y., 1:12; J. L. Bishop, "History of Ameri- can Manufactures," 11:14. ^' American State Papers, " Commerce and Navigation," 1:6-21. -■^History of Suffolk Co., Mass., p. 84; W. G. Sumner, "The Financier and Finances of the Revolution," 11:193-204; J. G. Rluntschli, " Die Grundung der Am. Union von 1787," p. 10; W. J. Abbot, "American Ships and Sailors," p. 16; Wm. C. Webster, "General History of Commerce," p. 341; Memorial History of N. Y., 111:30-35. INDEPENDENCE 23 of the states the farmers and wage-workers v.-ere showing great reluctance to pay the debts which had been forced upon them by the sea-coast mer- chants and planters during the war. In Massa- chusetts they had even risen in rebellion under Daniel Shays in support of the idea that " The property of the United States has been protected from confiscation by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be the common property of alL"^^ In Rhode Island^^ a- similar spirit was prevailing. Under these conditions it was time for the budding capitalist class to assert itself, or its prey might escape. -^Irving, "Life of Washington," IV:451. See also Geo. Richards Minot, " The History of the Insurrection in Massa- chusetts in the year 1786," p. 34, and passim; " Shays* Re- bellion," in Harper's Magasine, XXIV:656; McMaster, "His- tory of the people of the U. S," 1:318-20, 391; George Rivers, " A Populist of 1786," a novel. ^ Samuel Greene Arnold, " History of the State of Rhode Island," p. 524; McMaster, op. cit., 1:337. 24 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION Throughout the war there had been a tend- ency toward centraHzation, yet at the close there was nothing which approached a real national government. There was no way in which this could be legally procured. But ruling classes have always been above the law, so a convention which had been called at Annapolis to settle some questions concerning the navigation of the Poto- mac, and which had no more law-making power than any trades union convention which might be called to order tomorrow, proceeded to issue a call for a national constitutional convention. Later this call was endorsed by the now well nigh dead Continental Congress. There is no doubt however but what it would have gone on just the same had this latter formality been lack- ing.24 While only a very small minority were inter- ested in forming a constitution, yet that minority, *♦ Von Hoist, " ConstiUitional History of the U. S., 1:50-51; Schouler, "History of U. S.," 1:32-33; T. Watson, "Life and Times of T. Jefferson," p. 292. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 25 as in the time of the Revolution, formed the class which was essential to social progress if capital- ism in America was to reach the developed form which would alone enable it to give birth to the better society that shall follow.^^ But this should not deceive us into believing that the con- stitution was in any way democratic in its origin, or that it was anything else than a straight busi- ness proposition. The convention was simply a committee representing the commercial and manufacturing classes of the northern and mid- dle states and the southern plantation interests. A quotation from a speech by Madison, after- wards president, and the official reporter of the convention shows the general attitude of the body : — " The delegates to Annapolis and later to Philadel- phia were brought together in response to the demands of the business men of the country, not to form an ideal plan of government, but such a practical plan as would meet the business needs of the people." -^ " The government we mean to erect is in- tended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent ; but in process of time when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of 25 John T. Morse, " Life of A. Hamilton," pp. 177, 197. ^ McMaster, " The Acquisition of the Political, Social and Industrial Rights of Man in America," p. 27. 26 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA Europe ; when the ininiber of landholders shall be comparatively small, =!=*** will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elec- tions, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? * * * * jf tliese observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so consti- tuted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The Senate, therefore ought to be this body ; and answer these pur- poses."2" The northern and the southern capitalists did not entirely agree on details. The main differ- ences in the constitutional convention gradually narrowed down to the question of tariff and the importation of slaves. The bargain as finally struck permitted the importation of slaves until 1808 in exchange for the right to impose a pro- tective tariff. Just how much any humanitarian motives had to do with the northern opposition to slavery is seen from the following quotation from a speech which Mr. Ellsworth of Connecti- " Robert Yates, " Secret Debates of the Convention," p. 183. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 2'] cut made in the constitutional convention : * * * ''^ ''^' " Let us not intermeddle, as population increases poor laborers will be so plenty as to render slaves useless.^s While John Adams de- clared his opinion in a speech in the Continental Congress that, " It is of no consequence by what name you call your people, whether by that of freeman or slave. In some countries the laboring poor men are called freemen, in others they are called slaves, but the difference is im- aginary only. What matters it whether a landlord em- ploying ten laborers on his farm gives them annually as much as will buy the necessaries of life or gives them those necessaries at short hand ? " When the constitution was finally formulated by this little group of wage and chattel slave owners the question of its adoption by the states came up. Many people are under the impres- sion that it was adopted by a majority vote of the population. The fact is that " There were probably not more than one hundred and twenty thousand men who had the right to vote out of all the four million inhabitants."^^ Even these few citizens were not allowed to vote directly, but were only permitted to choose ^ Hart, " American History Told by Contemporaries," III : 218; Elliot, "Debates," V:459-461. 2' Woodrow Wilson's " History of the American People," 111:120. 28 CLASS sTurG(;M:s in amkrica delegates to conventions from districts carefully gerrymandered against the back-country dis- tricts ; so that in the end it was once more a very small minority which ruled. The effect on the country of the adoption of the constitution is described by McMaster as follows: " All who possessed estates, who were engaged in traffic, or held any of the final settlements and deprecia- tion certificates, felt safe. " The multitude, however, were indifferent. That great mass of the community whose lot it was to eat bread in the sweat of their face tliought it a matter of no importance whether there was one republic or three, whether they were ruled by a monarch or governed by a senate. So long as the crops were good, wages high and food cheap, the sum of their happiness was likely to be much the same under one form of government as under another." ^^ The vote on the constitution clearly brought out the lines of the first political class struggle in America. The small farmers, frontiersmen, — debtors, voted solidly against the constitution, while the commercial, financial and plantation classes of the cities and the sea-board settlements voted in favor of its adoption.^^ *'McMaster, "History of the People of the U. S.," 1:299- 400. ^ O. G. Libby, " The Geographical Distribution of the Vote of the Thirteen States on the Federal Constitution," Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin; McFarrand, "Compromises of the Constitution" in Am. Hist., Rev. April, ]904. RULE OF MERCHANT AND TRADER 29 RULE OF MERCHANT AND TRADER. During the early years of American govern- ment Europe was convulsed by the Napoleonic wars. The merchants of the United States had unexcelled opportunities to monopolize the mer- chant marine, and by 1807 American ships were carrying the larger portion of the trade of the world.22 f hg commercial and financial class of New York and New England were therefore able to dominate the government. Under Alexander Hamilton they proceeded to destroy what few traces of democracy had been permitted to enter the constitution. Hamilton declared it to be his object to form an alliance between the government and the capitalist class ^- " The growth of the American mercantile marine from the adoption of the Federal Constitution to 1807 was something amazing. During this period of eighteen years, the registered tonnage of the country was multiplied sevenfold . . . The figures of 1807 were 818,306. While the great powers of Eu- rope had been intent on the destruction of each other's com- merce, the merchants of the United States had seen their op- portunity and had made the most of it." — " Professional and Industrial History of Suffolk County," p. 102; Bishop, "History of Manufactures," pp. 47—8. 30 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA and he succeeded in doing this thoroughly.^^ The doctrine of " implied powers " was used to extend the functions of the central government, — something very much in the interest of the then ruling classes. The national debt was funded, the state debts assumed by the national government, and preparations made to pay both in full. This payment was to be made in cur- rency at par value, although the securities were largely in the hands of speculators, who bought them for some times one-tenth their real value.^* A protective tariff was the first bill passed by the new congress after organization,-^^ and a na- tional bank charter,^** and a measure providing for the survey of the lands held by the speculat- ors previously described followed soon after.^^ An internal revenue tax upon whiskey, the only form in which the western settler could ex- port his corn, served to bring the power of the national government to bear directly upon the citizen without the interposition of the state gov- ^Van Buren, "Political Parties in the U. S.," p. 165; J. T. Morse, "Life of A. Hamilton," 1:393-5. '♦J. S. Bassett, "The Federalist System," pp. 31-34; Mc- Master, "History of the People of the U. S.," 1:574; Von Hoist, "Constitutional History of the U. S.," 1:86. "Annals of Congress, 1:114—115; Jos. M. Swank, "Notes and Comments," p. 71; Bishop, "History of Manufactures," 11:14-16. ^ Dewey, " Financial History of the U. S.," pp. 99-100. " Schouler, " History of the U. S.," 1 :215-218. RULE OF MERCHANT AND TRADER 3! ernments. When this tax was resisted it also offered an excuse for setting in motion 15,000 troops under the national government to sup- press an " insurrection " of less than as many hundred settlers. This established the precedent of the right of the national government to use troops directly against citizens. ^^ 38 Von Hoist, "Constitutional History of U. S.," 1:97; Dewey, " Financial History of the U. S.," p. 106, (also gives bibliography) ; H. M. Brackenridge, " History of the Western Insurrection"; Schouler, "History of the U. S.," 1:290-295. 32 CLASS STKLoL.LL^ IN AMERICA CONQUEST OF POWER BY PLANTER AND PIONEER While the shipping. fishin£2^, and banking in- terests of New England and the central states grew with ever increasing rapidity during the first decade of the 19th century, yet their rivals for power grew even more rapidly. The planta- tion interests of the South, also aiming at control of the national government were aided by one of the most revolutionary of all the mechanical in- ventions that have transformed society during the last century and a half. This was the cotton gin, invented in 1793.^^ This invention multi- plied the productive power of the workers in the southern cotton fields from ten to an hundred fold, and enabled the cotton planters to increase their product from 18 million to 93 million pounds, without any decrease in price, during the years 1801 to 1810.'*^ In spite, however, of the great accession of ^ Katherine Cowan, " Industrial History of the U. S.," p. 148-9; " Eighty Yeais' Progress," pp. 113-114. *»Nilcs, "Weekly Register," 11:146-7. COALITION OF PLANTER AND PIONEER 33 power which accompanied this industrial trans- formation the South could not have defeated the party of Hamilton had it not been for the frontier. The pioneers of Kentucky and Ten- nessee felt a sharp antagonism to the New Eng- land manufacturers and merchants, who had sought to restrict settlement lest wages might rise too high and the fur trade be disturbed.^^ They had also opposed the sale of land in small parcels that the interests of land speculators might be conserved rather than those of actual settlers ; they had laid the tax on moonshine whiskey, and had shown a reluctance to opening up the navigation of the Mississippi. ^^ The southern planter on the other hand was an extensive buyer of the cattle and corn raised on the frontier. A large portion of the settlers had come from Virginia and Carolina and were southern in their sympathies. As a result of this alliance Jefferson, representing the plantation in- terests, went into power. The frontier was democratic and the southern slave owner, having no fear of poUtical opposition from his enslaved workers, was also willing to talk democracy. " Woodrow Wilson, " A History of the American People," 111:184; Von Hoist, "Constitutional History of the U. S.," 1:185-7; Hildreth, "History of the U. S.," V:584; Benton, "Thirty Years' View," 1:131-132. "Schouler, "History of the U, S-," 1:216-18. 34 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA This was a period of expansion, and of internal improvements, when the Cumberland road was laid out. Louisiana purchased, the Lewis and Clark expedition sent to the Pacific, steamboat navigation begun, and when a vast army of settlers invaded the forests of the Mississippi valley. THE MARCH OF THE PIONEER 35 THE MARCH OF THE PIONEER « A continually moving frontier has been the most distinctive characteristic of American his- tory and it is just at this period that it began to stamp its impression upon American social insti- tutions. He, who would tell the story of Greece, Italy or England has but to describe the birth, growth, and sometimes decay, of a definite body of people, living on a Mediterranean peninsula or Atlantic island, but the history of the United States is the description of the march of a gi- gantic army ever moving westward in conquest of forest and prairie. This army moved in successive batallions. The significant thing about these is that each line of the advancing army reproduced in succession the various stages through which society has passed. To borrow terms from biology, Amer- ican society has been an ontogenetic reproduction of social philogeny. The advance guard of the army, composed of hunters, trappers, fishermen *' Frederick J. Turner, " The Significance of the Frontier in American History," International Socialist Review, VI:321. 36 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA and Indian scouts reproduced with remarkable fidelity the stage of savagery. They used the same crude tools, lived in the same rude shelters, followed the same methods of obtaining a liveli- hood, gathered around personal leaders, were often lawless, brutal and quarrelsome. The next batallion on the frontier, and in race evolution, was formed of little groups of settlers along water courses, building semi-communistic neighborhoods, so closely resembling the Ger- manic " tun " and the Anglo Saxon village of the age prior to the Norman conquest as to cause some of the foremost of American historians to attempt to trace direct connection. Next in order came the nomadic stage in his- tory and the cowboy, herder and ranchman on the frontier. Each of these bodies formed a rather large industrial unit nomadic in its char- acter and dependent upon the care of animals for its existence. Crowding close upon the heels of this stage came that of small individualistic farming with the little merchant, householder, manufacturer and all the characteristics of the early stages of capitalism. The progress from this to the pres- ent monopolistic stage belongs in another part of this little work. Such a frontier has always offered an oppor- THE MARCH OF THE PIONEER 37 tunity to Americans to choose in which of the various historical stages they would live. The unemployed, blacklisted workers of capitalism could move into the individualistic stage or into the little semi-communistic group of settlers on the edge of the forest who would assist him in " raising " his log cabin, and clearing his land preparatory to planting his first crop. Finally, not so many years ago, if all else failed he could shoulder his rifle and revert to the savagery of the forest and plain as a trapper and hunter. The frontier took the various people who had fled from European oppression and moulded them into the common type of American. In- deed it is only on the frontier that a distinctly American type has been produced and those whom we are proudest to call Americans and of which Lincoln is the foremost type are pre- eminently the expression of this social stage. The frontier, although it assisted in the elec- tion of Jefferson was really of little importance in national affairs until nearly twenty years later, when, under Jackson, it seized the reins of na- tional power. 38 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Steadily the germs of the factory system came in during the first years of the American govern- ment. Still there was little of it until the war of 1812.-** During the embargo and the other commercial restrictions that accompanied that war the capital that had hitherto been invested in commerce was transferred to manufacturing. The large demands of the war hastened this tendency.'*^ Then came the age of machinery, first in weaving and spinning, then for trans- portation by water, and finally on land. Al- though in 1816 it was still estimated that '" not " U. S. Census, 1900, Vol. VII, Pt. 1, p. 53. ** Woodrow Wilson, " History of the American People," 111:240—241; Report of the House Committee on Commerce and Manufactures, Feb. 13, 1815; Niles "Register," IX:190, 305; Cowan, " Industrial History of the U. S.," 180-193; Bolles' " Financial History of the U. S. from 1789 to 1860," p. 283; "American History told by Contemporaries," 111:430- 33; Benton, "Thirty Years' View," 1:96; Bishop, "History of American Manufactures," 11:178—190; McMaster, "A Century of Social Betterment," Atlantic Monthly, LXXIX:23, "History of the People of the U. S.," IV:324-345, and Chap XLIV of V'ol. V: Rabbeno, " American Commercial Policy," pp. 149- THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 39 a fiftieth, perhaps not a hundredth " of the cloth was manufactured in factories, still the new method was proving its right to survive, and was steadily relegating the hand-loom to the lumber room. Iron and steel manufacturing, as well as the leather industries, grew rapidly during the same period, so that when the panic of 1837 burst upon the country there were all the beginnings of a developed factory system. The rise of manufactures had its immediate political expression. By 1816 this interest had secured sufficient power to carry through a pro- tective tariff.46 The South, under the leader- ship of John C. Calhoun, favored this tariff, be- cause they thought that it would create a " home market " for their cotton, and might build up manufactures in the South,^'^ New England, led by Daniel Webster, opposed this tariff, and the higher one of 1824, because her interests were mainly commercial, and the tariff acted as a *' Edward Stanwood, " American Tariff Controversies of the 19th Century," pp. 123-129; Taussig, " Tariff History of the U. S.," pp. 33—36; Lewis, "History of the American Tariff," p. 71; Niles, "Register," July 17, 1819, p. 351; Rabbeno, " American Commercial Policy," pp. 153-155. *^ Stanwood, op. cit., pp. 106, 160; Babcock, "Rise of Ameri- can Nationality, p. 239; Benton's Abridgment of Debates of Congress, V:642; Calhoun, "Works," 11:163-173. 40 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA restriction on the carrying trade.''^ By 1828 these positions had been reversed. New Eng- land merchants had become manufacturers and Webster was leading them in a demand for a protective tariff.-*'^ The South had discovered that she monopolized cotton growing, and Eu- rope was her best customer, that she must buy much of her supplies abroad, and that manufac- turing was not destined to flourish on her soil. Still led by Calhoun she threatened secession if the tariff policy w^as persisted in.^'^ *s Von Hoist, "Constitutional History of the U. S.," 1:398-9; Lewis, op. cit., p. 71; Webster, "Works," pp. 94-149. " F. J. Turner, " Rise of the New West," p. 321 ; Webster, " Works," 228-247. ^ Ibid., p. 325; H. \V. Elson, "Side Lights on American History," pp. 333-337; Von Hoist, "Life of Calhoun," pp. 74-76. FIRST LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA 4I THE FIRST LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA With the coming of the factory came the wage worker, the modern proletariat and also, as in- evitably as day follows night, came the begin- ning of what we now call the labor movement. In the early days of capitalism in America, as in England, no limit was set to the exploiting greed of the possessing class. The cradle and the home were robbed to secure cheap labor power, while even in those factories that were held up as models, the employes toiled from four- teen to sixteen hours a day.^^ As an inevitable result of this condition a solidarity of the working class began to make itself apparent Trade-unions sprang up in ev- ery industrial center. Strikes, lock-outs, boy- cotts, and even employers' associations arose. "Michael Chevalier, "The U. S.," p. 137; John MeliSk, " The Necessity of Protecting and Encouraging the Manu- facturers of the U. S." (1818), p. 28; Seth Luther, "Address to the Working People of N. England " (1836) ; M. Carey, "Essay on the Public Charities of Philadelphia" (1829), p. 11; McMaster, "History of the People of the U. S.," V:85-86. 42 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA An extensive labor press, comprising altogether nearly fifty periodicals, flourished. This is a showing by the way that is not so greatly ex- ceeded even at the present time.'^^ por a little while a daily labor paper " The Man " was pub- lished in New York city. It is noteworthy that in many points the trade union movement at this time was in advance of the English movement, from which all of our historians agree that it was copied. Historians sometimes agree on remarkable things. Such an extensive movement as this was cer- tain to enter the political field. We are not therefore surprised to find labor tickets in nomi- nation in several cities, some of which were par- tially successful. It is when we come to study the principles and platforms of these early working-class move- ments that we meet with their most important and also most surprising phrase. The germs of the theory of surplus value, very clear statements " Most of my information on this subject is gained from examination of the original copies of these labor papers which have been preserved in the National Library at Washington, and in other libraries. I have also been permitted to consult the large amount of material gathered by the University of Wisconsin, under the direction of Professors John R. Com- mons and R. T. Ely. As these references are not accessible to the ordinary reader it would be useless to cite them. Second- ary accounts as a general thing are worse than useless. 3 FIRST LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA 43 of the class struggle and its necessary political expression, and especially of the representation of interests by political parties will be found in these writings, a generation before the ap- pearance of the Communist Manifesto. Five industrial classes were at this time strug- gling for the mastery in America. The planta- tion South in alliance with the pioneer West held the reins of power. However, their in- terests were by no means identical and there were many points of disagreement concerning a political program. In the North the commercial class was just giving way to the manufacturing class and arrayed against this latter was arising the new social force of the proletariat. Owing to this diversity of class interests the workmen were able to exert a considerable in- fluence in the moulding of institutions. The pioneer and the South were not particularly averse to some democratic institutions, especially the wider extension of the suffrage. The com- mercial classes of New England, robbed of their function as a ruling class, while still retaining sufficient wealth to maintain them in leisure were dying out in a blaze of intellectual fireworks. The principal manifestation of this was the great transcendental movement, with Emerson, Thor- eau, Hawthorne, Channing and Lowell as its 44 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA most prominent representatives. The social con- fusion produced by the swift changes of the in- dustrial revolution in the midst of these con- tendijig classes led to a corresponding intellec- tual confusion. It was a time of the origin of " isms ", including spiritualism, mesmerism, communism, phrenology and hydropathy, togeth- er with most of the freak philosophies that re- main even till the present day.^^ These were but the efflorescence of the intellectual growth that gave rise to the greatest accession which Amer- ican literature has yet received. A literature springing from such industrial conditions could not fail to be more or less rebellious and tinged with the humanitarian aspect, and it is just these characteristics that most accurately describe the w^ork of the writers mentioned. One who reads Thoreau's " Walden," the editorials of Dana, the essays of Emerson, or the poems of Lowell will be surprised to see how great a contribution to the world's literature of revolt is to be found therein. Into the midst of this storm and stress was born the new labor movement. It demanded uni- versal suffrage, abolition of capital punishment, imprisonment for debt, reform of the existing militia system, election of members of the legis- "Schouler, "History of the U. S.," IV:3lO-311. FIRST LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA 45 lature by districts, exemption of a minimum of property from execution for debt, simplification of legal proceedure, establishment of a mechan- ics' lien law, and perhaps most important of all, the extension of public education. Mass meet- ings of the workers in New York, Boston and Philadelphia placed general education as fore- most among the demands of the working class. Every platform of the workingmen's political parties of that time contained a demand for the formation of a public school system and it is as certain as a causal relation ever can be, that to this early labor movement more than to any one cause we owe the great " educational re- vival " of the thirties and our common school system of today. It is to these early working class rebels that we owe to a larger degree than to any other cause not only our public school system, but abolition of imprisonment for debt, the mechanics' lien law, freedom of association, universal sufifrage, improvement in prison administration, direct election of presidential electors and in fact near- ly everything of a democratic character in our present social and political institutions. Yet so far as I know no historian has ever given them the least credit for securing these measures. On the contrary every effort is made to make it ap- 46 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA l)car that those privileges were handed down as gracious gifts by a benevolent bourgeoisie. For the working class directly they succeeded in shortening hours and improving conditions in many directions. They even brought sufficient pressure to bear upon the national government to compel the enactment of a ten hour law and the abolition of the old legislation against trades unions, which had made labor organizations con- spiracies. The question naturally arises as to why this labor movement disappeared. A variety of causes contributed to this end. On the political side the Loco-Focos, Know Nothings, Free Soil- ers and finally Tammany and the democratic party under Van Buren, took up enough of the working class demands to enable the politicians to swallow the young political movement of la- bor. At the same time the humanitarian ten- dencies of the Transcendentalists coupled with the existence of free land led them into a com- munistic colonist movement which absorbed the energy of some of the workers. This existence of free land to the West offered an outlet during the early days of the Republic for discontented elements and prevented any effective social revo- lution. This labor movement developed while the only connection between the Atlantic coast FIRST LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA 47 and the Mississippi Valley was by almost im- passable wagon roads. But by 1835 railroads had begun to creep across and around the barrier of the Alleghenies. This was like opening a mighty safety valve on the social boiler and un- doubtedly drew off much of the discontent re- sponsible for this labor movement. Most important of all, the titanic battle be- tween wage and chattel slave owners was just beginning. This contest so absorbed the energies of all classes as to bring about a new social alignment. Finally industrial conditions had not yet reached the stage where it was possible for the wage earning proletariat to become the social ruler. Several more generations of the factory system must come and go before com- petition should run its course and grow into monopoly and thereby lay the foundations of a social stage where wage workers should con- front capitalists in a struggle for supremacy. 48 CLAS6 STRLGGLt:S IN AMERICA THE MOMENTARY TRIUMPH OF THE FRONTIER During most of the period that we have just been considering the pioneers who had reached the small farmer stage and were located in Ken- tucky, Tennessee, Ohio and the back country district of New York, Pennsylvania and Vir- ginia were largely in control of the government. Andrew Jackson was the representative of this class and to a large degree carried out their ideas. They attained power only through the assistance of the southern chattel slave owners, by whom they were greatly influenced. In many ways, however, they refused to carry out the measures demanded by their southern allies. This was especially shown in the nullification struggle. WAGE VS. CHATTEL SLAVERY 49 WAGE VS. CHATTEL SLAVERY During colonial times the English capitalists found one of their main sources of income in supplying English colonists with slaves. By the treaty of Utrecht in 171 3 Great Britain secured the monopoly of the slave trade.^^ This monop- oly was controlled by royal favorites and was an important source of income to the crown. In- deed it is not too much to say that the industrial foundations of England and her rapid rise during the i8th century was largely due to this monop- oly.^'^ As soon as the raising of slaves became profit- able the slave-breeding states began to object to further importation. But the slave trade re- ceived support from another quarter. One of the principal industries of Massachusetts and Connecticut was the manufacturing of New Eng- land rum from East Indian molasses. This rum " Du Bois, " Suppression of the African Slave Trade," p. 3, and appendix, pp. 207—8. °' Christy, "Ethiopia, Her Gloom and Glory," pp. 111-13; Wilson, "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America," 1:1; Du Bois, op. cit., p. 15. 50 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA was then taken to Africa and after ample ad- mixture with w'ater was exchanged for negroes, who were then sold to the southern planters."*" The ship proceeding from the southern ports to the West Indies to receive its load of molasses would go on to the New England distilleries and so on. It was from the profits of this trade that the Puritan fathers of our country received a large portion of their income. Peter Fanueil was one of these traders, and Faneuil Hall, the "cradle of liberty," was built from the profits obtained from smuggling rum and capturing slaves.*"*' The first draft of the Declaration of Independence contained the following section : " He has waged war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred Rights of Life and Liberty in the persons of distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in the trans- portation thither. This piratical warfare, the oppro- brium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. " He has prostituted his negative for suppressing "^ Du Bois, op. cit., p. 28; Von Hoist, "Constitutional History of the U. S.," 1:315. " Weeden, " Economic and Social History of N. England." 11:466 et scq.; Du Bois op. cit. Chaps. II, III and IV; Spear "The American Slave Trade, pp. 91-9.5; Phillips, "The Con- stitution a Pro-Slavery Compact," p. CI; Wilson, "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," 1:52. WAGE VS. CHATTEL SLAVERY 5 1 every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain an execrable commerce, determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold." But it was felt that this was treading on some very tender toes and therefore it was dropped out before the Declaration was adopted. So it was that the writers of a document whose open- ing sentence declared all men to be created free and equal feared to include a condemnation of the trade in human beings. In a short time, how- ever, powerful forces began to make for abolition in the North. Slavery was found to be unprofit- able. The long winters, irregular employment and high skill required in manufactures, and the careful personal attention necessary in northern agriculture all contributed to make wage slavery more economical than chattel. In Massachusetts " Negro children were reckoned an incumbrance in a family ; and, when weaned, were given away like puppies. They have been publicly adver- tised in the newspapers to be given away."^^ The invention of the cotton gin, on the other hand, had at once made chattel slavery immense- ly profitable in the South. This was especially true since it came just at a period when the industrial revolution was marvelously increasing '8 Mass. Hist. Coll. IV:20. See also Williams, "History of Negro Race in America," p. 209. 52 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA the powers of production in the spinning and weaving of cotton, thus creating a demand far in excess of the possibility of the old method of production to supply. For these reasons southern society was soon organized on a basis of chattel slavery.^" The following tabic published a few years be- fore the war gives a comprehensive statistical view of slavery and the forces that perpetuated it. The second column includes practically all the products of slave labor, embracing " naval stores, tobacco, rice, sugar and cotton. '"'^'^ With such a steadily increasing mass of sur- plus value as is shown in that last column, on^ need know but little of the nature of an exploit- ing class to be able to predict that a bitter war 5» M. B. Hammond, "The Cotton Industry," pp. 34-66; An American, "Cotton is King," pp. 43—100; Coman, "Industrial History of the U. S.," pp. 258-260. •wThos. P. Kettel, " Industry of the South," in De Bow's Review, Vol. XII, pp. 169- •185. See also Turner, " R ise of the New West," pp. 47—50. Production Per Slave, All Prod- Year. All Products. Cotton. No. Slaves i. ucts. 1800 $14,385,000 $5,250,000 893,041 $16.10 1810 23,255,000 15,108,000 1,191,3164 19.50 1820 37,934,111 26,309,000 1,543,688 24.63 1830 45,225,838 34,084,883 2,009,053 22.00 1840 92,292,200 74,640,307 2,487,255 37.11 1850 130,556,056 101,834,616 3,179,509 41.60 1851 105,304,517 137,315,317 3,200,000 51.90 WAGE VS. CHATTEL SLAVERY 53 would be fought before that value would be surrendered. For the first fifty years of the government it was a generally accepted principle that chattel slavery within state boundaries could not be in- terfered with by the national government. But new states were constantly being formed, and in the territorial stage these were directly subject to the national government. This caused con- tinuous friction. As each new state was admitted the whole subject of slavery had to be thrashed over again.^^ This western movement also had an important effect on the industrial organization of the South. With the opening up of the southwest the raising of cotton became even more profitable than it had been upon the sea-board. The Louisiana sugar industry also became a great user of slave labor.*^2 The profit from these two industries was so large as to cause the price of slaves to rise with great rapidity, until by i860 as high "^Wilson's "History of the American People," IV:101. '2 The growth of the sugar industry and its relation to slavery is shown by a table given by Johnson, " Notes on America," 11:363: — NUMBER OF ESTATES. Horse Year. Power. Steam. Total. Slaves. 1844-5 354 408 762 63,000 1849-50 671 865 1536 126,000 54 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA as $4,000.00 had been paid for ordinary field liands."^ As a consequence of this the south- western states began to demand the revival of the African slave trade, in which they were op- posed by the slave-breeding states of Virginia and Maryland.*'^ This constant rise in the price of slaves tended to absorb the profits of the owner until the point had been reached where the cost of production by chattel slaves was prob- ably much more expensive than that by wage slavery .^^ One traveler noted that in Louisiana " The labor of ditching, trenching, clearing the waste lands, and hewing down the forests, is generally done by Irish laborers who travel about the country under contractors." The plan- tation owners " lamented the high prices for this work " but consoled themselves with the re- " Kettel, "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits"; Ham- mond, "The Cotton Industry," p. 51; De Bow, "Industrial Resources of the South and West," 11:175. "Ingle, "Southern Side Lights," p. 250; Fitzhugh, "The Wealth of the North and South" in De Bo-j/s Review, XXIII: 592, et seq. On slave breeding see, Wilson, " Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," 1:100 et seq.; Johnson, "Notes on N. Amer- ica," 11:354-355. '^ Phillips, " The Economic Cost of Slave-Holding," in Politi- cal Science Quarterly, XX:257-275. This article also contains many references to other authorities comparing wage and chattel slave labor. See also Helper, " The Impending Crisis," p. 363. Many quotations from the less accessible writers are found in the International Socialist Review, for August, 1903, in article on " Economic Aspects of Chattel Slavery." WAGE VS. CHATTEL SLAVERY 55 flection that " It was much better to have the Irish do it, who cost the planter nothing if they died, than to use up good field hands in such severe employment."''^ An excellent statement of the capitalists' argument on this point is af- forded by the following quotation taken from the London Economist which was at that time (1853) the leading organ of international cap- italism : " Slaves are costly instruments of production, and the commodities which they raise must be sold to pro- cure their clothing and subsistence. A slave establish- ment that produces all the commodities it requires, and sends nothing to market, may be independent; but the instant it works for a market, it becomes dependent on that both for its sales and its purchases. As the planter must provide for his population, he must often sell his produce for that purpose. A slave population hampers its owners in more ways than one, and there is some reason to believe that the low price at which slave raised produce is sold, is the consequence of the neces- sity which the slave owner is under to sell in order to maintain his people. The responsibility of the em- ployer of free labor is at an end when he has paid the covenanted wages; and his greater advantages in deal- ing with the general market are exemplified in that there are more fortunes made by the employers of free labor than by slave oitmers. The Astors, the Girards, and the Longworthys, are the millionaires of the States, as the Rothschilds, the Lloyds, and the Barings, are the •« Phillips, op cit., note, p. 271. 56 CLASS STRl'Cr.LF.S IN AMERICA millionaires of the world — not tlie slaveowners, how- ever wealthy, of Carolina, Cuba or Brazil." There was an economy in the large plantation, similar to that in the great capitalist industry. This compelled every planter to grow or be crushed out. So it was commonly said that cot- ton was only raised to buy slaves, and slaves were bought to raise more cotton, with which to get more slaves, and so on ad infinitum. There was thus a lack of flexibility, and freedom of application of the surplus value such as the capitalist possesses. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE NORTHWEST 5/ THE STRUGGLE FOR THE NORTHWEST In the North also power and industry was moving west. The upper Mississippi valley was becoming of great industrial importance. While this section was still in the small farmer stage it found a profitable market for its productions in the South.^^ Indeed had it not been for the cheap corn and bacon that was raised in the Northwest, and with which the slaves of the South were fed, chattel slavery would have been much less profitable and might easily have been impossible. In obedience to the principle that political action follows economic interests the votes of this section went with the locality which afforded them their most profitable market. Consequently throughout the forties and the early fifties the vote of this section was largely dem- ocratic.^^ Once more a series of inventions and economic ®^ Brown, "The Lower South in American History," p. 35; Turner, Rise of the New West," pp. 98-99. »' Brown, " The Lower South," pp. 59-60. 58 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA changes brought about poHtical transformations. The Erie Canal, finished in 1825, turned the flood of production largely towards New York rather than New Orleans. At the same time it brought in a mass of immigrants from the same locality and from Europe ; especially, at a some- what later date, from Germany, Hitherto im- migration to this territory had been largely over the Cumberland road from \'irginia or down the Ohio from Maryland and Pennsylvania. The majority of these earlier settlers being either from slaveholding states or near the border had at least no immediate hostility to chattel slavery. But the new army of immigrants that came over the Erie Canal and the railroads from the North Atlantic States and from Europe were, from the beginning, opposed to chattel slavery. About the same time that the Erie Canal was completed steamboats began to appear upon the western waters enabling produce to go up as well as down the ^Mississippi and by 1856 the steam tonnage of the Mississippi valley was equal to that of the whole empire of Great Britain. The first steamer on the Great Lakes was in 1819 and by 1 85 1 the lake trade was estimated at over $3ii,ooo,(X)0.''^ ** De Bow's Review, XV:359-384; Bolles' "Industrial History of the U. S-," P. 590. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE NORTHWEST 59 With the coming of railroads the advantages of the Northeast over the South was further in- creased. The surplus value of wage slavery was so much greater and in so much more convenient form for use as capital as to give the North an overwhelming advantage in the construction of railroads. The South with a class-consciousness such as has been shown by almost no other in- dustrial section in the history of the world set about endeavoring to overcome this movement. Great conventions were held to devise means to improve communication with this territory and most strenuous efforts were made to retain the commercial connections upon which they realized their political strength depended. '^*^ But in spite of all that could be done the South fell behind, not only in this competition for new territory, but still more strikingly in its own internal de- velopment. Chattel slavery, with its insatiable demand for great investments of capital in the labor itself, and for more land for exploitation, prevented the growth of manufacturing, even if chattel slavery had been otherwise adaptable to the factory system. '" Payne, " Contests for the Trade of the Mississippi Val- ley," in De Bow's Review, 111:98-111; Grant, "Observations on the Western Trade," in Hudson River R. R. Reports; De- Bow, " Struggle Between North and South for Western Trade," De Bow's Review, XIV:423-431; Ibid XV:313. 60 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA" Out of this situation also grew the fight con- cerning tlie tariff."' In a quotation from one of the books published in the South at this time in support of southern interests under the title of Cotton is King we find this position stated as follows : " The close proximity of the provision and cotton growing districts of the United States gave its planters advantages over all other portions of the world. But they could not monopolize the market unless they could obtain a cheap supply of food and clothing for their negroes and raise their cotton at such reduced prices as to undersell their rivals. A manufacturing popula- tion, with its mechanical coadjutors, in the midst of the provision growers, on a scale such as the protective policy contemplated, it was conceived, would create a permanent market for their products and enhance the price, whereas, if their manufacturing could be pre- vented, and a system of free trade adopted, the South would constitute the principal provision market of the country, and the fertile lands of the North supply the cheap food demanded for its slaves. As the tariff policy in the outset, contemplated the encouragement of rice, hemp, whisky, and the establishment of woolen manufactures principally, the South found its interests but slightly identified with the system. " If they (the Southern planters) could establish free trade, it would insure the American market to "* Burgess, "The Middle Period," pp. 110-111; London Econo- mist, April 13, 1861; Kettel, "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits," passim; De Bow's Review for the period; Von Hoist, " Life of Calhoun," 75-76. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE NORTHWEST, 6l foreign manufacturers, secure the foreign markets for their leading staple, repress home manufactures, force a larger number of the Northern men into agriculture, multiply the growth and diminish the price of pro- visions, feed and clothe their slaves at lower rates, pro- duce their cotton for a third or fourth of former prices, and rival all other countries in its cultivation, monopo-' lize the trade in that article throughout the whole of Europe, and build up a commerce and a navy that would make us the rulers of the seas." After the election of Polk in 1844 the south- ern chattel slave owners had absolute control of the national government until the election of Lincoln. '^2 During most of this time the capital- ists were not so vitally interested in dominating the national government. With the rapid de- velopment of the West new markets were furn- ished, amounting to a " foreign market " within national boundaries. Many of the capitalist en- terprises, especially the building of railroads, canals and steamboat lines did not require a tariff. Moreover the interests of the North were too diversified to permit any unity of action. The commercial classes of New England, still of considerable strength, the manufacturers, the small farmers and the frontiersmen had no set of definite interests uniting them stronger than the various ties possessed by some of them to the South. " Helper, " The Impending Crisis," 306-318. 62 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA RISE OF THE CAPITALIST CLASS By 1850 a class beg^an to appear, national in scope, compact in organization, definite in its desires and destined soon to seize the reins of political power. This was the capitalist class ; not to be sure the monopolized solidified pluto- cracy of today, but rather the little competitive bourgeoisie that already had overthrown the feudalism of Europe."^ This class had now reached into the Mississippi valley and turned the currents of trade so that the political and industrial affiliations of that locality began to be with New York and New England. This class found its political expression in the Republican party. This party naturally arose in the upper Mis- sissippi valley w'here the old political ties were w^eakest and the new industrial interests were keenest. The people of this locality felt no such close allegiance to the recently organized states in which they lived, as did the sea-board states. " Coman, "Industrial History of the U. S.," Chap. VII; Wright, " Industrial Evolution of the U. S.," Chap. XI. RISE OF THE CAPITALIST CLASS 63 Whether employers, wage workers, or small farmers they all possessed the small capitalist mind, and all hoped, and with infinitely better reason that ever since, to become capitalists. They saw in the unsettled West the opportunity to carve out new cities, locate new industries, build longer lines of railroad — in short infinite opportunity to " rise " — the highest ideal of the bourgeois mind. The Republican party exactly corresponded to these industrial interests. It exaggerated the im- portance of the national government, opposed further extension of slavery and supported all measures for more rapid settlement and exploit- ation of the West. The first national conven- tion of the Republican party was held at Pitts- burg, February, 1856. In the address calling this convention we find the committee giving as its reasons for existence that : " The representative of freedom on the floors of con- gress have been treated with contumely, if they resist or question the right to supremacy of the slave holding class. The labor and commerce of sections where slavery does not exist obtains tardy and inadequate recognition from the general government Thus is the decision of great questions of public policy touch- ing vast interests and vital rights made to turn, not upon the requirements of justice and honor, but upon its relation to the subject of slavery — upon the effect 64 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA it will have upon the interests of the slave holding class." Here, and tliroug^houl this document which is intended as a justification of the formation of the RepubHcan party.''* the indictment is never of slavery, but always of the South as a ruling section. There is no demand for the abolition of slavery but only for its restriction to existing limits. The fundamental object is to obtain con- trol of government , that capitalist interests may receive "adequate recognition." The platform adopted by the convention added a demand for the Pacific railroad, and an appropriation for rivers and harbors.'^ The vote at this election was small, but it is significant that its greatest strength was directly along the lines of communication running from the upper Mississippi valley to the northeast At- lantic coast.'^^ Four years later, however, the Republican party placed in nomination the man, who, more than any other man, typified the best of the capitalist system, — Abraham Lincoln. The finest fruit of the Golden Age of American capitalism, he stands as the embodiment of all '♦ Hall, " The Republican Party," pp. 448-456. '° Curtis, " The Republican Party," Chap. VI, and pp. 257- 259. "Rhodes, "History of the U. S.," 11:227. RISE OF THE CAPITALIST CLASS 65 that is good in that system. " Rising from the people " by virtue of a fierce " struggle for ex- istence " under frontier conditions, where that struggle was freer and fairer than anywhere else in the entire history of capitalism, he incarnates the best of the best days of capitalism. As such he must stand as the greatest American until some higher social stage shall send forth its rep- resentative. In some respects indeed Lincoln seems to have even transcended the class from which he sprang. There were many times in which he seemed to have a glimpse of the coming conflict between capitalists and laborers and to extend his sym- pathy to the worker. Yet we must not expect too much of him. It has not yet been given to any man to escape from the environment which produced him; had he done so he would have been not a man but a monstrosity — a super- man. 66 CLASS STRLGGLES IN AMERICA SECESSION Once that the capitalist class had wrested the national government from the chattel slave hold- ers there was nothing for them to do but to secede/" The margin of profits in chattel slavery was already too narrow to permit its continuance in competition with wage slavery unless the chattel slave owners controlled the national gov- ernment. The Civil war therefore was simply a contest to secure possession of the " big stick " of the national government. The northern capitalists wanted it to collect tariffs, build rail- roads, shoot down workers, protect trusts, and, in short, to further the interests of plutocracy. The southern chattel slave owner wanted it to secure free trade, to run down fugitive slaves, to conquer new territory for cotton fields, and to maintain the supremacy of King Cotton. To say that the Republican party was organ- " Brown, " Lower South in American History," p. 83. " The struggle for ascendancy was, in fact, a struggle for existence. . . . The lower South was from the beginning under a necessity either to confol the national government or radically to change its own industrial and social system." SECESSION ^^J ized, or the Civil war waged to abolish chattel slavery is but to repeat a tale invented almost a decade after the war was closed, as a means of glorifying the party of plutocracy and maintain- ing its supremacy. So far was the North from wishing the abolition of slavery at the opening of the Civil war that in December, i860, after sev- eral states had already seceded, a joint resolution was passed by both houses of Congress providing for a constitutional amendment that should pro- hibit the adoption of any future amendment inter- fering with slavery within the bounds of any ex- isting statejs Neither did the South secede in Order to maintain slavery. This is proven by the fact that when the fortunes of war became desperate the confederate cabinet proposed to abolish slavery as a means of gaining European sympathy and retaining their independent po- sition.'''^ In the midst of the conflict the negro was changed from a chattel to a wage-slave as an act of war, just as the southern ports were blockaded and southern railroads destroyed. One direct cause of secession whose importance was carefully suppressed, but which undoubtedly played its part, although not a dominant one, is '8 Schouler, "History of the U. S.,"'- -VtSO?. '» Rhodes, "History of the U. S.," V:66-67; Am. Hist. Rev. 1:97. 68 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA to be found in the debts owed by southern traders to the North/" These debts amounted to some- thing between two hundred and four hundred milHon dollars. One of the first acts of the seced- ing states was to promptly repudiate all these debts. This at once brought to the support of the southern confederacy a large number of the little traders who had no direct interest otherwise in the supremacy of the slave holding class. ^ Schwab, " The Confederate States of America," pp. 110— 121; Economist, London, Jan. 12, 1861. THE CIVIL WAR 69 THE CIVIL WAR Once open hostilities had begun the actual fight- ing was carried on as it has been carried on in all wars, at least, since private property began, by those who did the work and had no interest in the outcome. Ilinton Rowan Helper, in liis work on The Impending Crisis which, by the way, had far more to do with bringing on the Civil War than Uncle Tom's Cabin, tells us that there were only about 186,000 actual slave hold- ers out of a white population of over six million, and that of these only a few owned more than five slaves. When the war began, however, these millions of poor whites turned out to fight to help chattel slave owners gain control of the national government in opposition to other mil- lions of wage slaves from the North who were fighting that that same government might be controlled by their capitalist masters. To the student of industrial history the out- come of the Civil war is plain from the begin- ning. In military conflict, wage slavery is in- comparably superior to chattel slavery. The 70 CLASS STlUGGhRS IN AMRRICA wage workers with tiiodern macliiiiory produce sucli enormous quantities of siu-plus value that the expenses of war arc Hitlc iikuc than a spur to industry. The development of the transporta- tion system, and indeed the whole industrial and financial situation of the North was of a higher social type, more complex, more effective, in pro- ducing results of all kinds than that of the South.si In modern wars, banks are of more import- ance than bullets, and bonds out-rank bayonets as weapons of offense and defense, " On comparative strengtli of North and Soutli see Rope, "The Story of the Civil War," 1:98-102; Rliodes, "History of the U. S.," V:384; Schwab, "The Confederate States of Amer- ica," pp. 272-274, and passim; U. S. Census 18G0, Vol. on Man- tifactures, p. VI; for a boastful estimate of Southern strength, in 1S02, see De Bow's Review, XXXI :5. INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS OF THE WAR 7I INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS OF THE WAR In very many senses the Civil war was the father of modern phitocracy. It was fought that the capitaHst class might rule. Its progress laid the foundations and mightily extended the scope of the capitalist system. It is characteristic of war under capitalism that it produces a sort of hot house industrial growth. The tremendous demand for a great number of identical articles built up great industries at the expense of the smaller ones. All industries connected in any way with the manufacture of military supplies grew with leaps and bounds. Of the woolen in- dustries we are told by A. S. Bolles that " the mills soon found themselves overwhelmed with orders.... a great many of the woolen factories which had been shut up during the previous hard times were reopened and set at work. Hundreds of new factories were built. .. .Cotton mill owners resolved to turn a portion of their establishments to the manufacture of woolen. .. .Every machine was run so as to produce the greatest amount of goods and in many cases the mills were run night and day. It was an era of great 72 CLASS STRUCGLRS IN AMERICA prosperity. The woolen machinery of tlic country was more than doubled (luring the war." **- Tlie Civil war made iron the King of the American industrial world. The war tariff, rail- road building^, and new inventions all contributed to this supremacy. The slight rise in wages brought about by the employment of vast num- bers of men in destructive work caused the num- ber of patents granted to rise to nearly double those of any equal number of years previously. ^^ This development was especially evident in agriculture. It has been said that the Civil war was won by the McCormick reaper, and there is more than a grain of truth in the statement. The improved agricultural machines, which could be operated by women and children, made it possible to raise larger crops during the Civil war, when almost a majority of the farmers were in the line of battle, than had ever been raised when all were employed. These great agricul- tural resources formed the backbone of the northern power. 82 " Industrial History of the U. S.," pp. 379-383; First Re- port Mass. Bureau of Labor (1870), p. 111. *^ Report of Commissioner of Patents (1863), p. 47; David A. Wells, " Our Burden and Our btrength," a pamphlet pub- lished in ISCl, gives best general survey of the growth of in- dustry during the war; Rhodes, " History of the U. S.," V:190-200. INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS OF THE WAR 73 But while women and children were toiling at home and men were facing the cannon at the front that capitalists might rule, those capitalists, so far from undergoing any privations, were reaping a golden harvest, such as had never fallen to the lot of their class before. Internal revenue taxes were manipulated and their impo- sition " tipped ofif " in advance so that on the single item of the whiskey tax over $50,000,000 were cleared up by the ring who engineered through this deal. The gigantic contracts brought forth a revelry of financial debauchery that makes even modern " Frenzied Finance " look innocent in comparison. A single investi- gating committee discovered $17,000,000 worth of graft in $50,000,000 worth of contracts and from our knowledge of the work of investigating committees we may be pretty sure that there were many items overlooked.^^ Shoddy uniforms, defective carbines, rotten leather, and adulterated rations were sold to the government at prices far above the market rate for perfect goods. Like a horde of vultures northern capitalists fattened upon the life blood of their fighting slaves. When we remember that it was right here that the foundation v/as laid for perhaps a majority of the great fortunes of today we are once more 8* House Rept, 37th Cong., 2nd Sess., No, 2. 74 CLASS STRLGCLKS IN AMERICA reminded of that striking^ statement of Marx's tliat if usury comes into the world with a con- genital blood stain on each check, then capital " comes dripping: ^vith blood and dirt at every pore." Although it was of great importance from the strategic point of view that the blockade on southern cotton should be eflfective, yet when cotton in the South could be bought for less than 10 cents a pound and sold in New England for $1.00, only a slight knowledge of capitalist eco- nomics and their relation to ethics is necessary to make it certain that the blockade would be broken by the very class who were supposed to be interested in its maintenance. It was stated upon the floor of congress that " We have prolonged the rebellion and strengthened the arms of traders by allowing the very trade, in conse- quence of which not only union men and women, but rebels of the deepest dye, have been 'fed and have had their pockets lined with greenbacks, by means of which they could carry on the rebellion. Under the permis- sion to trade, supplies not only have gone in, but bul- lets and powder, instruments of death,' which our heroic soldiers have been compelled to meet upon almost every field of batttle, upon which they have been engaged..,. I am greatly afraid that in some quarters the move- ments of our armies have been conducted more with a INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS OF THE WAR 75 view to carry on trade than to strike down the rebels." *^ Of equal importance with the mechanical de- velopment in building up a strong plutocratic class was the growth of a financial system, made necessary by by the great transactions of the Civil war. It is estimated that the total expendi- ture of the war was over six billions of dollars. The floating of this debt had not only greatly enriched the little clique of bankers having charge of the national finances,^® but more im- portant still it had trained a large body of men in that " high finance " which was to play so great a part in later industrial developments. It is noteworthy that the present system of national banks was established at the end of February, 1863. A glance at the South during the war but adds further proof to the superiority of wage labor as a means of exploitation. In a short time the rails of the street railroad of Richmond were taken up to make armor for a gunboat, while the worn-out plows, old spades, axes and broken stoves were being gathered up from the planta- 8= Cong. Globe, June 9, 1864, p. 2823; House Rept, 38d Cong., 2nd Sess., No. 24; Rhodes, "History of the U. S., V:275-276, et seq. ** Bolles, "Financial History of the U. S.," 111:20, describes the organization of bankers. "J^ CLASS STRIT.GLES IN AMKRKA lions to be made into weapons of war.'*'^ The railroad system soon ceased to be worthy of the name, while the postal system was forced to charj^e rates which constituted a crushing burden upon communication,**'* The South being a one crop country depended upon foreign trade for its existence. The moment the blockade was made even partially effective its industrial life was paralyzed. The military campaigns were arranged with reference to industrial features. When Grant had occupied the Mississippi valley and had gained control of this great artery of internal communication he had cut off the Confederacy from the great granary state of Texas and par- alyzed one of the principal nerves of its system of communication.-^ Sherman's march to the sea, with its terrible devastation of agricultural resources and what few manufactures existed along his route, completed the process of de- stroying the already backward stage of indus- try which prevailed in the South. «' Rhodes, "History of the U. S.," V:390-391; Fleming, " Industrial Development in Alabama during the Civil War," South Atlantic Quarterly, July, 1904. ** Schwab, "Confederate States of America," p. 247; Re- bellion Records, series I, \'ol. IV., pp. 119-122. *• Brigham, " Geographic Influences in American History," p. 202. WORKING MEN DURING THE WAR ^^ WORKING MEN DURING THE WAR While on the whole the laboring class showed little signs of intelligent consciousness or recog- nition of thtir own interest, but rather acted blindly in obedience to their masters' behests, yet there were a few exceptions. The only labor organization of any importance at this time was the National Labor Union of which William H. Sylvis was the head. In his biography, written by his brother, we learn that, " Among the workirig men a few choice spirits north and south, knowing that all burdens and none of the honors of war, are entailed upon labor, were engaged in an effort to frustrate the plans of those who seemed to desire, and whose fanaticism was calculated to pre- cipitate hostilities." These men held numerous meetings both north and south and had arranged for a great convention to be held at Philadelphia, Feb. 22, 1 86 1, but by that time the war was already on and the convention was insignificant. The only other sigti of working class opposi- 78 Cr.ASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA tion to the war was the uprising ap^ainst the " ex- emption clause " of the draft, which enabled tlie wealthy to escape from military service. This antagonism reached such a stage that during the New York draft riots of 1863 the city was for several days in the hands of a mob."'* It should be noted in this connection, however, that since American industrial society had not yet reached the stage where working class supremacy was possible this blind devotion to their masters' in- terests was really working in accord with social progress. •" A X'olunteer, " The \'olcano Under the City," p. "JO. RECONSTRUCTION 79 RECONSTRUCTION A southern writer described the condition in the South at the close of the Civil war in the following words : ®* " The people were generally impoverished ; the farms had gone to waste, the fences having been destroyed by the armies, or having decayed from neglect ; the fields were covered with weeds and bushes; farm im- plements and tools were gone ; live-stock had disap- peared, so that there was barely enough farm animals to meet the demands of agriculture ; business was at a standstill ; banks and commercial agencies had either suspended or closed on account of insolvency ; the currency was in a wretched condition ; the disbanded Confederate soldiers returned to their homes to find desolation and starvation staring them in the face ; there was no railway or postal system worth speaking of; only here and there was a newspaper running; the labor-system in vogue since the establishment of the colonies was completely overturned,. .. .worse than all " Garner, " Reconstruction in Mississippi," p. 122 et passim. See also Herbert, " Why the Solid South," Pike, " A Prostrate State," articles by various writers on " Reconstruction," in the At. Monthly, Vols. 87 and 88; Wilson, " History of American People," V:47, and 113-114 for bibliography on Reconstruc- tion. 80 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA this was the fact that about onc-tliird of the white bread-winners of the state had either been sacrificed in the contest or were disabled for life, so that they could no longer be considered as factors in the work of economic organization...." Such a situation means that nearly all the physical achievements of a century of progress had been wiped out and that society had returned to a primitive stage accompanied by a mass of handicaps such as never afflicted the early fron- tiersmen of the forest and prairie. Out of this chaos was to come, as the first coherent social stage, that of small farming and manufacturing, — of the small bourgeoisie. If this class was to arise it was necessary that the negro be trans- formed into a wage slave. This, however, could not be accomplished in a moment. Indeed it has scarcely been satisfactorily accomplished in half a century. But if the negro was to yield profits he must somehow be forced to work for a mas- ter. In order to secure this end the southern states enacted the famous " vagrancy laws." These laws provided that any person without regular employment, or " caught loitering " might be arrested, fined and bound out to some- one to work out the fine.^- One of the interest- " Lalor, "Encyclopedia of Political and Social Science," rr- ticle " Reconstruction." RECONSTRUCTION 8l ing features of these laws is that they were copied almost verbatum from the statute books of New England, where, to be sure, they were directed only against poor white wage slaves. Of course, these laws had the obvious intention of reducing the negro to a state closely approxi- mating that of chattel slavery, yet the spasm of " moral indignation " which passed through the North and which resulted in such momentous ac- tion, had far different reasons back of it than that highly tender Puritan conscience which has served as an excuse for so many things in Ameri- can history. In order to understand this we must turn for a moment to the northern states. 82 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA THE RISE OF PLUTOCRACY TO POWER Within the capitalist class of the North an important division had taken place. As the war had gone on the small competitive capitalists of whom Lincoln was the representative had been gradually crowded to the background. A race of plutocratic giants had risen. The kings of iron and steel, of banks and bonds and railroads were now marching toward the national capital over the prostrate forms of their weaker fellow exploiters. During the closing years of the Civil War the beginning of this division of inter- ests had appeared, yet in those stirring times no opportunity had developed for its clear expres- sion. Now that the w-ar was over a new align- ment of political forces became imperative to cor- respond to the industrial alignment. The great corporations, w^hich Lincoln had foreseen would arise as a result of the war, and whose power he feared, now began to make themselves felt. They w^ere still too few in numbers to hope to control national elections if the fight between them and the smaller capitalists became an open one. THE RISE OF PLUTOCRACY TO POWER 83 A little capitalist class was rapidly arising within the South. It would have interests in common with the members of the same class in the northern Mississippi valley. The forma- tion of an alliance between these two forces meant that the control of government would fall once more into the hands of the small profit tak- ers. Such an alliance must be prevented at all hazards. So it was that Thaddeus Stevens, a Pennsylvania iron master, who best incarnated the spirit of plutocracy, arose in his seat in the house and declared that the southern states " ought never to be recognized as valid states, until the constitution shall have been so amended . . . as to secure the perpetual ascendancy of the party of the tinion."^^ It is probably unnec- essary to add that when Thaddeus Stevens said the " party of the union " he always meant the plutocratic wing of the Republican party. The method by which this was done is interest- ing. Remember that a large percentage of the southern states had already been reorganized under the direction of Lincoln, had state govern- ments in active operation, had accepted the Emancipation Proclamation, and the thirteenth amendment, had elected their representatives to Congress, and, in short, in every meaning of the "3 Congressional Globe, Dec. 18, 1805, p. 74. 84 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA' constitution, wore fully equipped states with all the ri.q;lits. privile.y;cs, and duties of any state. This was the situation when Congress met in 1867. Then began a series of violent illegal subversions of fundamental institutions, such as the iMencli designate as coup d'ctats, and which our historians always congratulate us on having avoided. In the first place the house was called to order and the clerk was instructed to disregard the laws providing for the regular method of calling the roll and to omit from his roll all those states whom Thaddeus Stevens and his followers did not desire to be represented, and this not- withstanding the fact that their representatives were on the floor of the house ready to be sworn in. This having been done a joint committee of fifteen was appointed, with Thaddeus Stevens as chairman, to have charge of the work of recon- struction. On March 2, 1867, this committee re- ported a plan to the house, providing for a form of government utterly foreign to our constitu- tion and having no foundation in any legal in- stitution then existing. This act divided the South, without regard to state boundaries, into five military districts and placed them under the command of five general officers of the army. Three weeks later a supplemental act was passed THE RISE OF PLUTOCRACY TO POWER 85 annulling all state governments then in opera- tion, enfranchising the negroes, disfranchising all who had participated in the war against the union, whether pardoned or not, if they had previously held any offices (thus abolishing the President's constitutional power of pardon) and granting to these military officers absolute power over life, liberty and property, with the sole ex- ception that death sentences required the ap- proval of the President before going into ef- fect.9^ Thus we see that the capitalist class first came into power in this country through the bloodiest war of the century and that the present pluto- cratic wing of that class attained its ruling posi- tion through a series of violent revolutionary measures. Yet this is the class which is thrown into a spasm of moral horror at the suggestion of revolutionary action on the part of its wage slaves. ^ Wilson, " The Reconstruction of the Southern States," Atlantic Monthly, LXXXVII:12-13. See also previous refer- ences on Reconstruction. 86 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA NEGRO ENFRANCHISEMENT One of the fundamental planks of this recon- struction act was the granting of the hallot to the negro. For more than two generations the Republican party has lived mainly on the glory of two acts, — negro emancipation and negro enfranchisement. According to the orthodox historian these two blessings were conferred upon the negro by the Republican party in obe- dience to the mandates of its tender conscience. It is rather rough on the conscience theory to note that the solid Republican states of Connecti- cut, Ohio, Kansas and Minnesota in the years between 1865 and 1867 defeated by referendum votes measures granting the suffrage to the ne- groes residing in those states.^' It is also illus- trative of this moral conscience theory to note that the vagrancy laws which were offered as the fundamental reason for enactment have re- cently been re-enacted in the South simultane- ously with the disfranchisement of the negroes and no protest has arisen from those same tender <» Herbert, " Why the Solid South," p. 13. NEGRO ENFRANCHISEMENT 87 consciences. Would it be impertinent to ask if these events are in any way explained by the fact that in 1867 northern plutocracy needed the southern negro vote and that by 1905 its ruling position was so firm that it could afford to for- get his suffering? During the years 1868 to ^'j6 the northern plutocracy had very definite use for the negro vote in order to make certain that the small capitalist and farmer of the South should not join with the same classes in the North and re- capture the government. The control of the negro vote was partly secured through the Freedman's Bureau which was established, os- tensibly for the protection of the negro but which was so manipulated as to make him the political slave of a gang of officials who went down from the North (the notorious " carpet baggers ") and by whom the negroes were trained to use their ballots for the benefit of a new set of mas- ters as they had used their muscles to pile up profits for their former owners.^*^ While this was going on the South was plundered as though by a horde of Goths and Vandals. I take the following account from Woodrow Wilson's " A History of the American ** Ihid., pp. 17-18. For favorable view see Du Bois, " Souls of Black Folk." 88 CLASS STRTGCLRS IN AMERICA People." Since he is a northern historian, rec- ognized as the l)est authority on this special I)erioil, he can not he accused of bias against those who carried out reconstruction : " In Mississippi, before the work of the carpet bag- gers was done, six hundred and forty thousand acres of land had been forfeited for taxes, twenty per cent of the total acreage of the State. The state tax levy for 1871 was four times as great as the levy for 1869 had been, that for 1873 eight times as great ; that for 1874 fourteen times. The impoverished planters could not carry the intolerable burden of taxes, and gave their lands up to be sold by the sheriff. There were few who could bu}'. The lands lay waste and neglected or were parcelled out at nominal rates among the negroes. In South Carolina the taxes of 1871 aggre- gated $2,000,000 as against a total of $400,000 in i860, though the taxable value of the state was but $184,- 000,000 in 1 87 1 and had been $490,000,000 in i860. There were soon lands to be had for the asking wher- ever the tax gatherer of the new government had pressed his claims. The assessed valuation of prop- erty in the city of New Orleans sank, during the eight years of carpet bag rule, from $146,718,790 to $88,- 613,930. Four years and a half of 'reconstruction' cost Louisiana $106,020,337." But the story of the increase of taxation I? but one small side of the case. State debts v^'cre increased to the highest possible amount. In the four years following 1868 the debt of South NEGRO ENFRANCHISEMENT 89 Carolina rose from five to thirty million dollars, and that of Louisiana from six to fifty million. Along with this wholesale plunder went a prac- tical paralysis of governmental institutions. To- wards the close of this period the negroes began to show signs of disregarding their masters and of utilizing the power of plunder which their ballots gave them for their own benefit. This may account to some extent for the fact that no effective opposition was ofifered to the work of the Ku-Klux-Klans, which violently overthrew the reconstruction governments. Another rea- son why less opposition was offered by the plutoc- racy is found in the fact already noticed that by the middle of the seventies the great capitalists were so firmly intrenched that their dislodg- ment was practically impossible and they conse- quently began to be in favor of " law and order," even though this law and order was secured by a violent upsetting of governmental institutions in the South. So it was that as soon as the Ku- Klux-Klan actually became dominant and its controlling elements were recognized as believ- ing faithfully in the sacred god of profits, then President Hayes withdrew the troops from the South and reconstruction was completed. 90 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA THE GROWTH OF THE GREAT IN- DUSTRY^o By tliis time the general features of present society had begun to appear. For twenty years after the Civil War these features were still only in embryo. These years may be designated as the period of the growth of the " great in- dustry " in distinction from the " little business " which preceded the war, and the monopolistic trusts w'hich now dominate the industrial situa- tion. The Civil War had brought forth industrial units of tremendous size compared with those of a generation before. Yet these industries were still competitive ; indeed they were even more fiercely competitive than the smaller ones from amid which they had sprung. The field of battle over which they struggled had now become national. This extension of the market was indeed one of the most striking phenomena of this period. Over 30,000 miles of railroad were laid in the United States between i <" Wright, " Industrial Evolution of the U. S.," Chap. XII. GROWTH OF THE GREAT INDUSTRY 9I 1865 and 1873. These reached from the At- lantic to the Pacific and gridironed every por- tion of the country with means of quick efifective communication. This meant the existence of a national market for all but the most bulky and perishable pf products. There were many firms which had grown up during the Civil War which were capable of supplying such a national market. In every line of industry these firms now began a fierce struggle for survival. Three great industries leaped into dominant positions during this period. These were iron and steel, coal and the packing industry. The invention of Bessemer steel and the refrigerator car were largely responsible for the rise of two of these. During all this time moreover the government was absolutely in the hands of the Republican party and of the plutocratic wing of that party. The Democratic party was too weak to offer even effective criticism, to say nothing of oppo- sition, consequently the government was used for the benefit of the ruling class in a most shameless manner. The " Whiskey Ring " and Credit Mobilier were but incidents, not by any means the worst among a host of notorious and barefaced steals on a national scale which took place at this time. 92 CLASS STRL'GGLF.S IN AMERICA' Rut such petty direct grafting is never the fundamental purpose of capitahstic control of government. It is rather to use the government for the direct furtherance of the interests of the capitalist class as such. The tariff was there- fore raised for purposes of protection even above the point where the exigencies of war taxation had placed it. To extend the national market by the great system of railroads described above, an empire of land larger by five times than the entire state of Ohio was presented to the men who owned the stock in these proposed lines.^^ To make these railroads even more profitable and to still further extend the market, every effort was made to hasten the settlement of the western states. All this expansion, however much of profit it brought to the large capitalists, could not avoid raising up a new army of small middle class property owners and these soon began to show signs of class-conscious solidarity, and to express this on the political field. During the years immediately following the Civil War the small capitalist interests attempted to crystallize around Andrew Johnson, who was in the highest degree representative of their class interest. Al- though it is now universally agreed that he was •* Donaldson, " The Public Domain," pp. 262, et seq. GROWTH OF THE GREAT INDUSTRY 93 carrying- out President Lincoln's plan for recon- struction, though to be sure with none of Lin- coln's tact and ability, yet the corporate control of the press and the other organs of public opin- ion succeeded in arousing indignation against him until he came to be generally considered as a traitor. This movement reached its height in the at- tempt to remove him by impeachment. There is probably not a constitutional lawyer to-day who will claim that the process had the slightest justi- fication on constitutional grounds. His oppo- nents did, however, succeed in so completely dis- gracing him in the public mind that his follow- ing disintegrated. By 1872 the interests which he represented had begun once more to crystallize and in that year the Horace Greeley ticket was thoroughly representative of the little capitalistic interests, but the disfranchisement of the South enabled the plutocracy to re-elect Grant and maintain their domination. 94 CLASS STKUGGLliS IN AMERICA THE RISE OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT The Civil War marked the close of struggles between anything like equal divisions of the exploiting class in the United States. While for the next generation or two there were spasmodic attempts on the part of different divisions of the exploiters to grasp the reins, yet the position of the capitalistic class as a whole was never threatened. Indeed we might go further and say that never since the days of Reconstruction was the plutocratic wing of that class in any serious danger of losing its dominant position. But now a new force appears upon the scene. Chattel slavery had disappeared and wage slavery was here. A national market began to exist, not only for iron and steel and pork, but for labor power, that strange peculiarly capital- istic commodity, whose very existence is so preg- nant with revolutionary power. It was no longer necessary to invest several thousand dol- lars of capital in the bodies of laborers in order to establish a great industry. The buyer of la- bor power did not need to visit a slave auction. RISE OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT 95 or employ skilled buyers to search the markets of the slave breeding states in order to secure the muscle and brain he needed in the production of profits. If a thousand or five thousand, or a hundred thousand men were wanted to build and operate a trans-continental railroad, found a packing industry, build a city, or dig a canal, it was only necessary to let the fact be known through the columns of the daily press and the possessors of this new labor power commodity hastened to the designated spot over the high- ways or clinging to the brake bars of freight trains, carrying with them the strength of their muscles and the skill of their brains. When they arrived at the spot where they were wanted they found no long line of masters to bid for their bodies, but on the other hand the workers themselves engaged in a sort of " Dutch auction " where the lowest bidder took the job. Such a condition bringing thousands of men together to work for the same master was sure to arouse within the ranks of the workers a feel- ing of common interest, the germs of class con- sciousness. This feeling was to grow and de- velop until a new and more far reaching class struggle than any the world had ever known before was to take place on this continent. In the beginning this class consciousness ex- 96 CLASS STUICGLES IN AMKRICA pressed itself only in the form of organizations to secure a little higher i)ricc for the labor power to be sold. So it was that the four years im- mediately following the Civil War were years of the beginning of the present labor unions.^® Thousands of such organizations were formed in every part of the country and these finally joined together in 1866 in the National Labor Union. This organization grew in membership and in- fluence until in 1869 it reported a membership of 168,000. Aside from a few rather small strikes its activity was largely devoted to agita- tion for a national eight hour day. In this it was assisted by many humanitarians and reform- ers. As a result Congress passed a law in 1867 providing for the eight hour day for employes of the national government. This was the first and almost the last important gain ever made by the labor movement through the lobbying method and was only possible because of the confusion of class interests which still prevailed. In 1870 the National Labor Union became a political party with a platform demanding al- most everything from " the maintenance of a protective tariff as long as it should be neces- »° McNeil, "The Labor Movement," p. 128; Ely, "Labor Movement in America," p. 61 ; Report of the Industrial Com- mission, XVII :1; Hillquit, "History of Socialism in the U. S.," pp. 183-184. RISE OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT 97 sary " to " the disenthrallment of labor " and po- litical application of the golden rule. Such a party could not have any long life and indeed it died almost as soon as born. 98 CLASS STULGGLIiS IN AMERICA THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE About the time that America was discovered, as we have already seen, the capitalist class gained control in Europe. During the next cen- tury or two, art, literature and music was " cap- italized." This period, commonly known as the Renaissance, was, we will not say, duplicated, but rather burlesqued by the capitalist class of America. It was to its European counterpart, what the revolution of '48 was to the great French revolution, a comparison which Marx has so excellently developed in his Eighteenth Brumaire. In both cases it marked the reduc- tion of all forms of art to the commodity basis. In America it was the time when the American millionaire first became the laughing stock of the world, the synonym for the parvenu and the up- start. It was the age in which sculpture found expression in bronze dogs on millionaires' lawns, when architecture expressed itself in the " Queen Anne fronts and Mary Ann backs " of the homes of the kings of pork and iron. It was the age when Mary Jane Holmes and the " Duchess " THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE 99 ruled in literature, while the American million- aire's contribution to the pictorial art of the world was the invention and popularization of the chromo. 100 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA PANIC OF 1873 In less than ten years after the Civil War the marvelous new tools that had been invented and the powers of nature that had been conquered showed themselves capable of producing far more than either their owners could waste or their users, with their wage slave remuneration, could buy, and industries broke down in the first really great capitalistic crisis of 1873. As yet the large capitalists had not reached a size suffi- cient to elevate them above the catastrophies of their industrial system, so all went down to- gether in a common smash. When the financial storm had passed the in- dustrial face of society was transformed ; a new method of organization had entered industry, as potent both as a saver of labor and a hastener of the process of production, as the machine in the mechanical world. This was the corporation, which had hitherto been almost entirely confined to the fields of transportation and banking, but which now began to be utilized in all fields of industry. The corporation brings with it, as PANIC OF 1873 lOI does every new invention in the industrial field, important social changes. It marks the disap- pearance of the capitalist as an active partici- pant in the productive process. He no longer directs the process in the shop or in any way ful- fills a function as a captain of industry. He has found, in the corporation, a new machine, a legal creation, having no body to scourge, no soul to damn, no life to lose. This machine, like its mechanical counterpart, he does not himself operate, but simply retains the ownership. Henceforth the manager and director of in- dustry, like the man who handles shovel, ham- mer, loom or lever, is a wage slave, forced to sell himself to the owner of this new industrial and financial tool. The capitalist henceforth be- comes purely a parasitic owner, who may be an idiot, an infant, an insane person, a ward of the court, but who, while the law protects his own- ership of corporation shares, can still levy a tax upon every man working either with hand or with brain. 102 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA THE STRIKE OF 1877 ^^^ The first effect of the panic, as always, was felt in the decline of wages. The few small la- bor unions that had existed were soon swept away. Their members joined the army of un- employed which for the first time appeared in great numbers in the streets of American cities. Those who remained at work found that this army standing idle at the shop gates was a more powerful weapon with which to crush labor than any miltary forces that their masters might have gathered to confront them. Month by month the pittance paid for labor power grew smaller and smaller until when in 1876 the centennial of the Declaration of Inde- pendence was celebrated, it saw the working class of America in a condition of servitude far more pitiable than that ever endured by the col- it* " Report of Committee on R. R. Riots," Pa. State Doc's, 1878; Headley, "Pen and Pencil Sketches of the Great Riots ; Dacus, "Annals of the Great Strikes"; Scott, "The Recent Strikes," in N. Am. Rev., CXX V :351 ; McNeil, " The Labor Movement," p. 351; Adams and Sumner, "The Labor Prob- lem," pp. THE STRIKE OF 1877 IO3 onists beneath the tyranny of King George. As business began to revive the masters saw only the possibiHty of a greater increase of profits and continued to cut wages. Soon an attitude of desperate, bhnd revolt began to prevail among the workers. This reached its climax when Tom Scott, the President of the Pennsylvania Rail- road, announced a ten per cent horizontal cut in the already starvation wages of the employes of that company. As other railroads announced their intention of making a similar cut the de- mand for a strike spread over the entire coun- try. Yet there was no organization able to call a strike ; there was no method by which to ex- press any general revolt. So it was that the day for the reduction came and went and found the workers apparently bending in resignation be- neath this final blow. But on the i6th of July, 1877, a railroad train rolled into Martinsburg, W. Va., and as it stopped the train crew stepped from their places announcing that as for them they had decided it were better to starve in idleness than add to hunger and privation the added pain of labor. As they walked out through the yards they were joined by the other workers and within three days the strike had spread over the entire sys- tem, had reached Pittsburg, New York, and I04 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA Philadelphia, and liad paral\zcil the transporta- tion system of the East. A few days later the wave of revolt swept over the AUeghenies, and extended into other branches of industry until something very like a general strike prevailed throughout the United States. Everywhere the mills, mines, factories and railroads stood still. Then it was that the workers were forced to realize for the first time why the Civil War had been fought and for what purposes their masters desired the powers of government. Then for the first time in the streets of American cities was heard the crack of the militia rifle in civil war between capital and labor. In Pittsburg and Baltimore the battle was for some time by no means one sided. The militia were often overcome and the workers gained momentary mastery. But the laborers had no plan of action, nor any coherent idea of what to do and conse- quently were unable to use their victory when gained. Soon new reinforcements were brought up by the capitalists an I the strike went down in bloody defeat. This struggle, however, showed the need of organization. Everywhere it was felt that had the workers been united, had they acted with intelligence, they might eas- ily have won. We know to-day that the very unripeness which kept them unorganized would THE STRIKE OF 1 8/7 IO5 also have prevented any effective victory, and that success of the workers at this time might indeed well have proved an obstacle to prog- ress. How well they learned their lesson of the need of organization is shown by the events of the next few years. I06 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA THE RISE OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR The meteoric career of this organization has had few. if any parallels in the history of the labor movement of the world. For the first ten years after its founding in 1869 it barely ex- isted, shrouding its proceedings in deepest se- crecy, and concealing even its name from all out- siders. In the later years of this decade, with the increased growth of membership, this secrecy began to be dropped. In iSSq, how ever, the membership had only reached one hundred thou- sand, but with the up-shoot of industry which was at its height during that and the following year, preceding the depression of 1887 and '88, and assisted by the great eight hour agitation of those years, the membership rose to nearly 700,000, during the single year 1886. It was the eight hour agitation which was primarily responsible for this movement. There had grown "ujr something almost like an eight hour religion which had set its Millennial Dawn for -May ist, 1886. This movement reached a height wdiich is hard to understand by those RISE OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR IO7 whose memory does not reach back to that time. PubHc meetings, propaganda pamphlets, news- paper and magazine articles all were preaching the necessity of a great general uprising of la- bor in support of the demand for shorter hours. To be sure the K. of L. officially disavowed any intention of lending support, but in spite of itself it was swept into the general movement. Strikes took place all over the country. Business was well nigh suspended, and once more, as in 1877, the country took on much the aspect of a general strike. In the midst of this excitement some fool, fanatic, or police spy, hurled a bomb on Haymarket Square in Chicago. The bourgeois mind, which had been thrown into something like a panic by the prospect of even the trifling dimunition in their profits which the eight hour movement portended, saw its opportunity. All the forces of public opinion, a prostituted press and a bought judiciary were hurled against the remnants of the eight hour movement, and it died a miserable death on the scaffold of Cook County Jail. The industrial boom, the eight hour craze and the Knights of Labor went down together. Moreover the organization had itself become the prey of that most destructive of all beasts of preyj the labor fakir. lo8 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA The Richmond convention of "86 appropriated nearly half a million of dollars out of the com- mon treasury. It raised the salary of all the officers and in fact tossed out the treasury sur- plus to the crowd of hungry wolves that were crying for plunder. From this time on the story of the Knights is but a story of sickness and death. Their demise was hastened by the fierce fight that was being made upon them by a new organization that had just arisen with the grandiloquent name of " Federation of Organ- ized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada " and which we now know as " The American Federation of Labor." This or- ganization had had a moribund existence since iSSi. While we are told by the official histories of the organization that " 107 delegates repre- senting nearly one-fourth of a million men " met at Pittsburg in that year to form this organiza- tion, the truth is, that all but 43 of these dele- gates lived at Pittsburg, and that only three in- ternational bodies were represented ; while the most liberal estimate based on the financial re- ceipts, which amount to $445.31 during the first year of its existence, show that the actual mem- bership was somewhere between 25,000 and 35,- 000 members. There was very little growth in the organization until 1887 when the K. of L. RISE OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR IO9 having started downward, the new organization rose upon the ruins. In this year its creden- tial committee reports a membership of 600,000, but the financial committee reports dues from only 150,000. The real membership was some- thing above the latter figure, but far below the former. Since then it has steadily grown up to the present time when the unions affiliated with it have a membership of something like one million and a half, or two million. no CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA THE AGRARIAN REVOLT While the forces of labor were being thus drawn closer together on the economic field and the lines were growing sharper in the great bat- tle between exploiter and exploited, a last des- perate attempt was made by the class of small farmers to enter the political arena. Followin g the panic of iSyj ^'e have seen t hat the -Green- back movement ar ose, representing to some de- gree tHe farmin g" and debtor cla ssl Another nTOVCTneilT whicTT'appeared simultaneously with this and which was pregnant with tremendous possibilities was the " Patrons of Husbandry," commonly known as the " Grange. "^*^^ This or- ganization maintained a bare existence from its nominal formation in 1868 until the time of the panic of 1873, when in that single year over eight thousand new organizations were founded to be followed by 11,941 in 1874, giving the Grange of that year a membership of between 700,000 and 800,000, with an annual income of 101 pierson, " The Rise and Fall of the Granger Movement," Pop. Sci. Monthly, Dec, 1887. THE AGRARIAN REVOLT III almost $350,000.00. This movement soon found its political expression in parties of vari- ous names which succeeded in capturing several states and in enacting legislation restricting rail- road rates, and other wise voicing the demands nf the farmer and small^cajMtali st class. T his legislation, how everTbr ought forth _2iacticalIy no results, and was soon repealed. '|pn ypur' in his work Thr''-^rntJf^AboultyiTe-Tril^^^ de- velopffient sincethat was written would seem to*make_LL evi dent^ttiat'at least thirty billion's of dollars of the wealth of America have passed^but ^ the ^om petitive systetTr4Trto'"TlTe'^ontror"6f a s core or mor e of individuatST ' Some ideaortHe~power wielded by this bod}" of men is gained when we remember that at the outbreak of the Civil War the total assessed value of the United States was but eighteen billion dollars. Had this handful of men now controlling the wealth of America been alive LATER STAGES IN CONCENTRATION 11/ and possessing the same financial resources which they now control they could have bought all that lies between the Atlantic and the Pacific, between the Canadian border and the Gulf of Mexico, — all the farms, and all the cities, all the churches, schools, and universities, all the southern plantations and all the chattel slaves upon them ; and when this was done they would still have had sufficient capital to have gone to Europe and purchased a half dozen European monarchies as toys for their children. J Hhis overwhelmingly powerful plutocracy now Hrmn'nf^teq fvpr y field — nf snrifil — control. The United States government has long ago become, in the words of The Communist Manifesto, a " committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." The United States Sen- ate is little more than a directorate of consoli- dated capital. The press, platform and uni- versity are largely but tools to formulate and maintain the public opinion essential to the per- manence of this plutocracy. Il8 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA THE LAST CLASS STRUGGLE Against this tremendous power but one force is capable of maintaining an effective figbt. This force is, Hke phitocracy, the creation of the great industrial age of to-day. This is the working class. We have seen them slowly gathering strength, solidarity and intelligence, blindly groping for better methods of organization, go- ing down to apparently hopeless defeats before militia rifles and plutocratically dominated judi- ciaries, but like the fabled giant Anteas they are crushed to earth only to receive new strength and new energy for further fighting. Steadily the idea has grown among them that their fight must be transferred from the brute test of physi- cal and financial strength on the economic field, to the political arena. Here the evolution of in- dustry, the development of events that cast their shadows before have written a platform upon which the working class must stand. That plat- form sees in_the _consolidat iari n f n :a^nershjfi. in the organization of indii£trieSj_in_Jh£_jtriists, in the concentration of wealth with its merciless THE LAST CLASS STRUGGLE II9 inevitable onward movement, but a preparation for collective owner^Fiip^and control. It sees~in the ever recurring panics^tHe death pangs oT an old_^ociety, a nd in the ev er growing solidarity of labor and^ ca pital with strikes, boycotts7"lock outs, and iiy unctions^ but_the birth pangs of a new society in which for the first tTme^in~thB worlds J^fljKmSirKIsIialLjcule^ shall be workers, and thereby rulership and slavery shall pass from off the earth. Farmers learning at last the lesso n of their helpfe ssness and "isolation, together_jmth,Jhe in- adequacy of their previous demands, are joining han^s with the wage^orkers where they find the strength tTiat means victory for both ; the program that means freedom lor a ll. In ^tEis~great struggle we are now engaged there can be but one outcome. Previous class struggles in America have ever been waged in the interest of a minority, but that minority in the Revolution, in the formation of the Consti- tution, in the Civil War, in Reconstruction, al- ways represented the forces of social progress. Therefore it was compact, consolidated and was able to secure the support of the workers for their fighting. To-day it is the working class which represents social progress, and which em- braces all that is essential within our industrial 120 CLASS STRUGGLES IN AMERICA process. Moreover it is they who have done the fighting in all other wars, and who must now fight for themselves ; and whereas in previous struggles the class that represented social prog- ress was a minority depending upon the worker for support in its battle, the working class is to-day in an overwhelming majority and has but to make plain the facts of history to its member- ship to be assured of victory. A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS BOOKS ON SOCIALISM MODERN SCIENCE, ETC. STANDARD SOCIALIST SERIES. This series of books, the first volumes of which were issued in 1901^ contains some of the most important works by the ablest socialist writers of Europe and America. The size of page is 6% by 414 inches, making a convenient shape either for the pocket or the library shelf. The books are sub- stantially bound in cloth, stamped witli a uniform design, and are mechanically equal to many of the books sold by other publishers at a dollar a copy. 1. Karl Marx: Biographical Memoirs. By Wilhelm Liebknecht, translated by Ernest Untermann. Cloth, 50 cents'. This personal biography of Marx, by an intimate friend who was himself one of the foremost socialists of Germany, gives a new insight into the beginnings of socialism. Moreover, it is a charming book, as Interesting as a novel, and will make an admirable Introduction to heavier reading on socialism. 2. Collectivism and Industrial Evolution. By Emile Vandervelde, member of the Cham- ber of Deputies, Belgium. Translated by Charles H. Kerr, Cloth, 50 cents. - The author is a socialist member of the Belgian Parliament and is one of the ablest writers in the international socialist movement. This book is, on the whole, the most satisfactory brief summary of the principles of socialism that has yet been written. One distinctive feature of it is that it takes up the difficult questions of how the machinery of production could be acquired and how wages could be adjusted under a socialist administration. 2 BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. 3. The American Farmer: An Economic and Historical Study. Uy A. M. Siuuuis. t'lotli, 50 cents. "Tho American Farmor," in spite of Its small size. Is the larKCSt ci>ntrll)ntion yet >;lven to tho agrarian literature of this country. The author, besides l)elii>; a student of American social conditions, is thoron>;hly conversant with practical farming, and there is little doubt that the farmer who reads the work will have to admit that the conclusions are based on a real understanding of the difficulties of his struggle with the soil, with railroads. tr\ists and foreign comi)et- Itors. — Chicago Tribune. 4. The Last Days of the Ruskin Co-operative Association. By Isaac Broome. Cloth, il- lustrated, 50 cents. Socialism does not mean withdrawing from the class struggle and trying to set up a paradise on a small scale. If there are those who still think such a scheme practicable, they will find interesting facts in this book. 5. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. By Frederick Engels. Trans- lated by Ernest Untermanu. Cloth, 50 cents. Some people Imagine that riches and poverty always have existed and therefore always will exist. Such people need more facts, and this book gives them. Engels has summarized and popularized the informa- tion given more fully in Morgan's "Ancient Society," and has also added many important facts from other sources and outlined some inevitable conclusions from the facts. 6. The Social Revolution. By Karl Kautsky. Translated by A. M. and May Wood Si- mons. Cloth, 50 cents. Kautsky is the editor of the Neiie Zeit, and is tmi- versally recognized as one of the ablest socialist writ- ers and thinkers in Europe. This book is in two parts. Part I., Reform and Revolution, explains the essen- BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. tlal difference between the socialist party and all reform parties. Part II., The Day After the Revolu- tion, gives straightforward answers to the questiona so often asked about what the socialists would do if entrusted with the powers of government. 7. Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. By Fred- erick Engels. Translated by Edward Ave- ling, D. Sc, with a Special Introduction by the Author. Clothj 50 cents. This book ranks next to the Communist Manifesto as one of the best short statements in any language of the fundamental principles of socialism. It is an essential part of every socialist library, however small. 8. Feuerbach: The Roots of the Socialist Phil- osophy, By Frederick Etigels. Translated, with Critical Introduction, by Austin Lewis. Cloth, 50 cents. This book is a criticism on the works of a forgotten philosopher, but it is still of timely interest, since attempts are still being made to reintroduce dualist notions into the philosophy of socialism. In this book Engels shows the importance of explaining his- tory and current events in terms of science rather than of theology. Austin Lewis contributes an in- teresting historical introduction. 9. American Pauperism and the Abolition of Poverty. By Isador Ladoff, with a supple- ment, "Jesus or Mammon," by J. Felix. Cloth, 50 cents. A study of the last United States census, bringing out in bold relief the social contrasts that are pur- posely left obscure in the official documents. An arsenal of facts for socialist writers and speakers. 10. Britain for the British (America for the Americans.) By Robert Blatchford, with American Appendix by A. M. Simons. Cloth, 50 cents. A popular presentation of socialism, in the same charming and simple style as the author's "Merrie England, ' but giving a far more adequate and scien- tific account of the subject. / 4 BOOKS ON SOCIALISM. ETC. 11. Manifesto of the Communist Party. By Karl Marx ami Frodcrick En<,'Pls. Autliorized Enfjlisli translation: Edited and Annotated by Fretlerick Knirol^^. Also iiicliulcd in the same volume, No Compromise: No Politi- cal Trading. By Wilhelin Liebkneeht. Translateir edition Is fully Illustrated with jilctures that aleginners. The Economic Foundations of Society. By Achilla Loria. Cloth, $1.25. Shows how systems of morality, laws and political Institutions are the necessary outcome of economic conditions. BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. 17 OTHER SOCIALIST BOOKS In Cloth Binding. Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalistic Pro- duction. By Karl Marx. Translated from the third German edition, by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, and edited by Fred- erick Engels, First complete American edi- tion, revised by Ernest Untermann, includ- ing the additions made by Frederick Engels to the fourth German edition, with topical index. Cloth, $2.00. "Das Kapital," in the original German, makes three large volumes, containing about 2,500 pages. Only the first volume has ever appeared In the English lan- guage as yet, and it has frequently been advertised in a way to convey the impression that it was the entire work. We have heretofore been supplying the London edition of the first volume. Our new edition, published in November, 1906, contains the same matter as this, with some important additions, includ- ing topical index. We have also in preparation an entirely new translation by Ernest Untermpnn of the second and third German volumes, which will make a complete and uniform edition of the entire work. The second volume will probably be issued in 1907 and the third in 1908. The exact date of publication and the price of each volume will be announced later. Ancient Society: or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress; From Savagery Through Barbarism to Civilization. By Lewis H. Morgan, LL.D. Cloth, $1.50. The first edition of this great work was published in 1877. It has been recognized by the scholars of Europe and America as the highest authority on the subject of which it treats, and its conclusions are of the utmost value to socialists, since it proves that the system of private property, based on some form of chattel or wage slavery, is not eternal but com- paratively recent. The circulation of this book has heretofore been very limited on account of its high price. The copyright has expired and we now offer this popular edition. 18 BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. God's Children. A Modern Allcj^ory. Ky James Allnian. C'lotli, 50 cents. "fiod's Children ; A Modorn Alloprory," Is a sarcastic and almost cynical account of our |)rpsent state of civilization written by an IOhkIIsIi radical, .lames All- man. It relates the experiences of an affable arch- angel In the city of London, the othcial emissary of omnipotence, and contrives to exhibit in small space as many disagreeable things that are crying for cor- rection as can be well imagined.— Chicago Daily News. The author Is a man of more than ordinary literary ability, and his little work, "(^Jod's Children," is a credit to the socialist movement. — Labor, St. Louis. The Rebel at Large. By May Beals. A volume of short stories. Cloth, 50 cents. May Deals' stories are good literature and good socialism. The author has the sympathetic Insight Into human motives and feelings that enables her to give voice to the victims of capitalism who have suf- fered in silence. She has the artist-sense that makes her choose the words that will at once move the un- cultured and satisfy the critical judgment of the cul- tured. And she has a firm grasp of the underlying principles of socialism. She does not preach soicial- ism In these stories; she tells the stories in a way that enables every reader to draw the moral for himself. The International Socialist Review. Volume I., 1900-1901. Cloth, $5.00. The International Socialist Review. Volumes II., III., IV., v., VI. Cloth, each $2.00. The International Socialist Review is a magazine of 64 pages, published on the 15th of each month. These bound volumes constitute the best obtainable history of the international socialist movement and of the socialist thought of the world for the six years ending June, 1000. Only a very few copies of Volume I. are still to be had. The Recording Angel. By Edwin Arnold Bren- holtz. Cloth, 287 pages, $1.00. I have just finished reading Comrade Brenholtz's latest book, "The Recording Angel," published by BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. 19 Charles II. Kerr & Co. It stands alone in a class by Itself as a book heralding the New Time. Brenholtz has a genius that will entitle him later on to be known as the Walt Whitman of the Social Revolution. He is a socialist in whom there Is no guile— a com- rade whose hand it is a pleasure to clasp. His book should be in the library of every Socialist — it can be loaned and reloaned to good advantage among your neighbors. I would suggest that you start a circulat- ing library with "The Recording Angel" as the first volume. — Apjieal to Reason (editorial). The Socialization of Humanity. By Charles Ken- dall Franklin. Cloth, $2.00. The philosophy that we need today is one that can grapple with the live problems of society, and it is such a philosophy that the author here presents. The chapter on "The Supreme Law of Ethics" is a valu- able addition to modern thought. As a philosopher, Mr. Franklin is practical, as a socialist he is philo- sophical. It is the first time that philosophy and socialism have joined hands. — Boston Transcript. The Sale of an Appetite. By Paul Lafargue. Translated by Charles H. Kerr. Cloth, illus- trated, 50 cents. This is a realistic story of gay Paris, and at the same time a striking picture of the contrasts between the life of the working class and the owning class. It embodies a startling allegory, bringing out the fact that the laborer is obliged to sell his various bodily functions in order to live. Three original wash drawings by Dorothy Deene add to the vividness of the story. Walt Whitman. The Poet of the Wider Selfhood. By Mila Tupper Maynard. Cloth, 145 pages, $i.oo. Reverently critical throughout, it passes lightly over the faults, and points out with loving care the beauties in Whitman's poems. — Chicago Tribune. To all lovers of Whitman this little gem of litera- ture from the pen of a Western authoress will prove doubly dear. Not only is it one of the very few analyses of the man and poet, written and published In America, but it is the only one ever attempted by a woman. — Denver Post in half-page review. 20 BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. Poems of Walt Whitman. Clotli, 75 conts, 341 I)a{,'cs. Whltmnn llrod and wrote before Ihero was an Amerloan socialist movement, jet he Is the poet of American socialism. lie grasped the profoundest meanings "f the new truths discovered hy modern .science, and he iii)!>licd them to social relatlon.s emo- tionally while Marx was applylnt; them scientifically. Those who would realize socialism as well as under- stand H should read Whitman. Rebels of the New South. A novel. By Walter Marion llayniond. Cloth, $1.00. "This is a book new in every respect — style ex- pression, subject. It has the boldness of a Uu Mau- rier, the originality of Amelle Rives, the dash of Dixon. • * » The negro dialect is bright and always natural. The expressions used are worthy of a Joel Chandler Harris." — Richmond (Va.) New.s- Leader. "The good people are all southern socialists, while the villains gravitate northward and become repub- licans. The best feature of the book is its negro dialect, which- is artistic in its way." — Chicago I'ost. Modern Socialism. By Charles H. Vail. Cloth, 75 cents. Scarcely any book has yet been presented so copi- ous in valuable quotations, so logical in its deductions or more successful in clearness of expression. It is worthy the perusal of any one interested in the social question, whether the person be a socialist or not. The exhibition of the principles of socialism and their result applied to society is of a character to interest the opposer as well as the supporter of the theory. It comes with the unmistakable evidence of careful and systematic preparation and is full of knowledge for the student and interest for the general reader. It has been unhesitatingly recommended by the lead- ers of socialist thought in America and as its increas- ing sales indicate has in it the true value which is appreciated by all students of sociology. The book Is well printed and is indexed In a convenient manner for easy reference. — The Class Struggle. BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. 21 The Ancient Lowly: A History of the Ancient Working People, from the Earliest Kno\vn Period to the Adoption of Christianity by Constantine. By C. Osborne Ward. Cloth, two large volumes, $4.00. Either volume sold separately at $2.00. The class struggle between those who live by working and those who live by owning is as old as written history. But history has from the first been written by the retainers of the owning class and it is a task of the utmost difficulty to discover the real facts of the class struggle In ancient times. This task has been attempted and has been carried out in a really wonderful manner by C. Osborne Ward. He has made a minute study of the Greek and Latin classics and has edited and arranged all the facts about the life and struggles of the working classes that have slipped into the writings of ancient histori- ans. His study was not coulined to published works but he carefully searched the great libraries of Europe for ancient manuscripts throwing light on his subject. Even this did not satisfy him and he journeyed hun- dreds of miles on foot through southern Europe and •northern Africa and succeeded in finding many half effaced inscriptions which he deciphered, thus bring- ing to light many undiscovered facts to complete his chain of evidence. A fuller description of these vol- umes will be found in "What to Bead on Socialism," mailed on request. The Equilibration of Human Aptitudes and Pow- ers of Adaptation. By C, Osborne Ward. Cloth, 333 pages, $1.50. Contents : Mechanism of Society, dwarfing effect on the individual of competition ; Piracy of Aptitudes ; Plagiaries of Genius; Concord of Faculties; Funda- mental Errors, objection to socialism refuted ; General Averages, how the rewards of individuals will adjust themselves under collectivism ; Comparative Claims, paternalism in behalf of privileged classes contrasted with co-operation by and for the workers. 22 HOOKS ox SOCIALISM, KTC. A Labor Catechism of Political Economy. A Study for the People. Hy V. Osborne Ward. Clotli, :U)t pa-,'cs. $1.00. This book Is writton in tho form of question and answer, and discusses In ample detail a great number of the problems Incident to the transition from capi- talism to the co-operative commonwealth. The first edition appeared In 1.S77, long before the existence of an American socialist movement, and it reflects to some extent the economic conditions of the time and place of its production, but the atithor was a careful student of the writings of European socialists, and most of what he has written malies excellent propa- ganda today. BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. 23 MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS. God and My Neighbor. By Robert Blatchford. Cloth'ii $1.00. (Also published in paper at 50 cents.) To those unfamiliar with the writings of the old and present day critics of the Bible and Orthodox Christian faith, this book would come almost as a revelation. It is hard to classify it ; whether to describe it as the utterance of the resentment of a soul which has realized tlie shams of theology, or the expressions of a mind that has become convinced that Orthodox theology is and always has been inimical to the welfare of the worker ; or whether it Is the deliverance of one who has outgrown religion of any sort and who sees only the suffering of his fellows, and is passionately desirous of doing something to alleviate their woes. Indeed, the latter must be the truer note running through these pages which arraign the relation of the Christian churches to the common people, and show that ecclesiasticism is, as of old, the opponent of right and justice when they concern the slaves of the Industrial world. — Boston Banner of Light. Thoughts of a Fool. By Evelyn Gladys. Cloth, $1.00. Tliis is a series of reflections on life's problems, discursive, as tliought is discursive, effervescent with wit, often pregnant with profound philosophy. The author imagines that she is not a socialist. There is a passage in which she sets up a straw man, called socialism, and causes it to cut but a sorry figure. Eliminate this passage, however, and you have the most brilliant defense of the ideals of the co- operative commonwealth which American literature contains. — Lilian Hiller Udell. Gracia, a Social Tragedy. By Frank Everett Plum- mer. Cloth, Illustrated, gilt top, $1.25. This book, now in its fourth edition, is a story in blank verse of the ever-new tragedy by which a girl's sweetest and healthiest instincts may lead to her "ruin" under the social institutions built up by capi- talism. The story is vivid, intense and dramatic, and the pictures are photographic art studies posed from life, 'Which add distinctly to the impression produced by the story. The social questions involved are dis- cussed in a booklet entitled "Was It Gracia's Fault," which will be mailed to any address for a two cent stamp. '21 IH)<)KS ON SOCIALISM. ETC. SOCIALIST BOOKS In Paper Covers. A Study in Government. By Henry E. Allen. r.iIxT, 5 cents. This booklet is described on tlie title page ns a l>i>(k('t niimiiiil for use in Ilii' public scliocls and liuincs of AuiiM-liu, trcatiiiK of ijiosciu political Issues and their l)cnrlnK on i)ulillc welfare. It is especially adapted to i)ropaj;auda use in the country or in a small town. Merrie England (Letters to John Smith, Work- ingman). J'>y IJuborl Blatchford. Paper, 190 pages, 10* cents. This l)ool{. written aljont ten years ap;o, has had a circulation in lOngland and America of over two mil- lion copies. No other booli, socialist or non-socialist, ims even found so many readers in so brief a space of time, and the reason is that this booic tallcs in a style every one can enjoy on a subject in which every one is interested. Scarcely any other book is so good as this to "start people thinking" on socialism. Socialist Songs, Dialogues and Recitations, Com- piled by Josephine R. Cole. Paper, 55 pages, 25 cents. This book has been prepared in answer to a long- continued demand for a collection of "pieces" suitable for evening entertainments, and of a' style not too diflBcult to be learned and recited by children. The book will be found indispensable to any socialist local or group of comrades who wish to arrange a meeting to combine entertainment with propa;;anda. F^very selection teaches socialism in an indirect way, so as to interest the casual listener without arousing prejudice at the start. It will also be found useful for children from social- ist families who have to recite "pieces" at the public schools. Crime and Criminals, By Clarence S. Darrow, Paper, 10 cents. This is an address delivered to the prisoners at the county jail in Chicago. It shows the real cause of what "is called crime and the real way to put an end to It. BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. 25 Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. By Frederick Engels. Paper, 10 cents. This is printed from the same plates as the cloth library edition which we sell at oO cents, but is on thin paper with narrow margins, and is offered in this style for the benefit of those who wish copies to give away. It is one of the few books which are simply indispensable to any one wishing to under- stand modern socialism. The Day of Judgment. By George D. Herron. Paper, 10 cents. This book treats of the impending collapse of capi- talism and the crisis with which the working class will be confronted when that collapse comes. He shows that it is of the utmost importance for the life of the future that socialists of the world be ready to act strongly and wisely when the crisis comes. Life of Frederick Engels. By Karl Kautsky. Trans- lated by May Wood Simons. Paper, 10 cents. Engels was the close associate of Marx in the early days when socialism was just taking shape as a world movement, and this sketch of his life contains many facts which help in understanding what the socialist movement is today. Socialism and Human Nature, Do They Conflict? By Murray E. King. Paper, 10 cents. This is one of the most satisfactory answers ever written to the oft-repeated objection that we should have to change human nature before socialism would be possible. The Republic of Plato. Translated in English by Alexander Kerr, Professor of Greek in the University of Wisconsin. Paper, 75 cents. Professor Kerr has given the English language an adequate and excellent translation of "The Republic," that sketch of the ideal slate outlined by the great philosopher. "The Republic" is interesting to stu- dents of sociology in that it is, perhaps, the first in that series of books including Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" and Bellamy's "Looking Backward."— Indianapolis Sentinel. 26 BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. It Is a real boon to students to have the "Ropubllc" made arofssiblo In Knglish In this incxponsive form. -The Dial. "The Iti'pnblic of I'lato" in tlio original rii-cck con- sists of ten books. Of thi'so. fivo iiro now ready, each making a handsomely printed brochure of about slxt.v pages more or less, with dainty paper cover. I'rlce of each book, 15. cents, postpaid. Socialist Songs vnth Music. Compiled by Charles II. Korr. Paper, 44 pages, 20 cents. This song book contains thirty-six songs, thirty- three of which are printed with music, including piano accompaniment. It is the only American col- lection of songs breathing the spirit of International Socialism. Socialist locals have found that through the moans of this little book their meetings have been bright- ened, long waits have been relieved and a definite program is much more easily carried out. Socialism, What It Is and What It Seeks to Ac- complish. By Wilhelm Liebknecht. Trans- lated by May Wood Simons. Paper, G4 pages, 10 cents. This little book is an exposition of the socialist philosophy v.ritten in a clear and concise manner and gives a historical sketch of the growtli of social- ism in Gernikny. It is easy reading and well adapted to propaganda purposes. No Compromise, No Political Trading. By Wilhelm Liebknecht. Translated by A. M. Simons and :\Iarcus Hitch. Paper, 64 pages, 10 cents. A most important work for the socialist movement at its present stage of development in this country. It shows the necessity for keeping clear of all en- tangling alliances with capitalistic parties. Capital and Labor. By a Black-Listed Machinist. Paper, 203 pages, 25 cents. This book contains no new ideas as to the social- ist philosophy, but it docs state that philosophy in a way that will attract and not repel the average trade unionist. We know of no other book on social- BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. 27 ism that tbe average workman would be quite so liliely to buy if put in front of liim, or to read after buying it, or to act on after reading it. Manifesto of the Communist Party. By Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Paper, 10 cents. (Also in cloth, bound in one volume with Liebkneeht's "No Compromise." 50 cents. ) At present it is undoubtedly the most widespread, the most international production of all Socialist Literature, the common platform acknowledged by millions of workingmen from Siberia to California." —Extract from Engels' Preface. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Commencing -nnth this postulate, the Manifesto of the Communist Party proceeds in a masterly manner to proclaim to the world the principles of that party, now known as the International Socialist Party. Katharine Breshkovsky — "For Russia's Freedom." By Ernest Poole. Paper, 10 cents. This is the true story of a Russian woman revolu- tionist who has been addressing immense crowds in American cities. "Daughter of a nobleman and earn- est philanthropist; then revolutionist, hard-labor convict, and exile for twenty-three years in Siberia; and now a heroic old woman of sixty-one, she has plunged again into the dangerous struggle for free- dom." The Economic Foundation of Art. By A. M. Si- mons. Paper, handsomely printed, uncut edges, 5 cents. This book, which is reprinted from "The Crafts- man," a monthly periodical devoted to the interests of art allied to labor, published by the United Crafts, Eastwood, N. Y., is an excellent treatise. It deals better than most au.v other work on similar lines with the subject of the joy of working under proper conditions, and furnishes a fitting answer to the man who believes that people will stop working under socialism. 28 BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. Class Struggles in America. By A. M. Simons. Sei'ond edition, ri'viscd and enlarged, 04 pages, paper, 10 cents. In this book, as in tbe American Farmer, Com- rade Simons lias entered tlie almost iinljrolieu field of American Economic history. Facts are shown here wliicli prove witli greatly added force tiie doctrine of liistorical materialism. To tliose who learned tlieir history of America out of tlie standard school boolcs this boolc will be a great surprise. Many idols are destroyed, but tlie vast amount of authori- ties quoted will convince any one of the theory which this book is intended to teach. Socialism vs. Single Tax: A Verbatim Report of a Debate Held at Twelftli Street Turner Hall, Chicago, December 20, lOO."]. For Socialism: Ernest Untermann, Sejanour Stedman, A. M. Simons. For Single Tax: Louis F. Post, Henry H. Hardinge, John Z. White. Paper, 25 cents. This debate covers practically the whole field of difference between two schools of thought, — the social- ist and single tax,— and socialists who have read it declare it to bo one of tbe most complete refutations of the single tax position ever set forth. An interest- ing feature of the booic is portraits of all of the debaters, and also of Karl Marx and Henry George. Wherever there are any remnants of single tax left, copies of this book should be on hand for sale by the socialist locals and every socialist should be familiar with its arguments in order to meet any phase of single tax which may arise. The Socialist Campaign Book. Edited under the supervision of the National Campaign Com- mittee of the Socialist Party. Price, 25 cents. This book was prepared some years ago, but con- tains in convenient form a large amount of valuable information regarding industrial conditions and the distrlljution of wealth in the United States, which is not obtainable elsewliere. Only a few copies remain on hand, and as the book was not electrotyped it will be Impossible for us to fill orders when these are exhausted. BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. 29 Underfed School Children — The Problem and the Remedy. By John Spargo. Paper, 10 cents. Statistics are given of the pitiable condition of many school children in the great cities of this country, and the degenerating effect of this wholesale, continuous starvation of the children is most vividly portrayed. This is followed with a description of the work done by the socialists in France, Italy, Norway and other countries in meeting this problem. Every school teacher and parent should read this pamphlet, and wherever socialists are engaged in municipal campaign it will be found extremely effective for both propaganda and educational purposes. Forces that Make for Socialism in America. By John Spargo. Paper, 10 cents. This recent pamphlet is one of the most effective pieces of propaganda that has yet been published. Its literary style is something out of the ordinary, and it deals in a concrete way with American problems, applying the principles of socialism to facts near at hand. The trust problem, the poverty problem and the growing intensity of the class war between capi- talists and laborers are among the topics treated. The Socialist Movement. By Rev. Charles H. Vail. Paper, 32 pages, with portrait, 10 cents. This is an excellent book for the beginner in social- ism as it gives thoroughly, in a simple manner, a treatise on the class struggle, the law of surplus value, economic determination, and shows that under socialism only will the golden rule become workable. It is a good book and has had a large sale. Modern Socialism. By Rev. Charles H. Vail. Paper, 179 pages, 75 cents. (Also pub- lished in cloth, 75 cents.) Principles of Scientific Socialism. By Rev. Charles H. Vail. Paper, 237 pages, 35 cents. (Also published in cloth at $1.00.) These two books, described more fully elsewhere in this catalogue, are at once simple and scientific, and are well adapted to put into the hands of inquirers who have as yet read nothing on socialism. 30 BOOKS ON SOC'IAMSM, ETC. The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand. By C. W. WooUlriil^'c, ]\[. I). PapiM-, fit paf>;('s, 10 cents. This Is nn pxrellont book for Kivin>: to n minister or n cliurch niembpr. It shows how tho toachln;;s of Jpsiis lead iliroctly to soclalistn, niid It inoroovcr j^lves a strouff arRurnont for the couimou ownershii) of the moans of production. The Root of All Kinds of Evil. By Rev. Stewart Sheldon, Paper, 10 cents. This hook is by a prominent ConKrejiational minis- ter, who has never been actively identified with the socialist movement, and whose studies have been alonK wholly different lines from those usually fol- lowed by socialists. It i.s noteworthy for the fact that from tliese different premises he lias arrived in his own way at the socialist position, and holds that "evil" actions are the result of unfavorable economic conditions, and that the way to modify people's character for the better is to modify these conditions. It is thus one of the l>est books to put into the hands of relisious people as an introduction to our more scientific literature. A Socialist View of Mr. Rockefeller. By John Sparge. Paper, 5 cents. Rockefeller is a picturesque figure which in the pop- ular mind stands for modern capitalism. Spargo, in his usual vigorous and charming style, has here writ- ten of the millionaire in a dispassionate and con- vincing way which will appeal to many who have as yet given no serious tliought to socialist ideas. The pamphlet is handsomely printed, and carries a unique picture of Rockefeller on the front page. BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. 31 POCKET ZiIBRAHV OT SOCIAI.ISM. (Booklets of 32 pagres, envelope size, 5 cents each.) .^1. Woman and the Social Problem. By May Wood Simons. 2. The Evolution of the Class Strugrgfle. By Wm. H. Noyes. .--3. Imprudent Marriag^es. By Robert Blatchford. 4. Packingtown. By A. M. Simons. 5. Realism in literature and Art. By Clarence S. Darrow. 6. Sing-le Tax vs. Socialism. By A. M. Simons. 7. "Wagre-Lataor and Capital. By Karl Marx. S. The Man Under the Machine. By A. M. Si- mons. 9. The Mission of the Workingf Class. By Rev. Charles H. Vail. 10. Morals and Socialism. By Cliarles H. Kerr. 11. Socialist Song's. By William Morris and Others. 12. After Capitalism, What? By Rev. William T. Brown. 13. Rational Prohibition. By Walter L. Young. 14. Socialism and Parmers. By A. M. Simons. 15. How I Acquired My Millions. By W. A. Corey. <^16. Socialists in Prench Municipalities. A com- pilation from official reports. ,17. Socialism and Trade TTnionism. By Daniel Lynch and Max S. Hayes. 18. Plutocracy or Nationalism, Which? By Ed- ward Bellamy. 19. The Real Religion of To-Day. By Rev. W^il- liam T. Brown. 20. Why 1 Am a Socialist. By Prof. George D. Herron. 21. The Trust Question. By Rev. Charles H. Vail. 22. How to Work for Socialism. By Walter Thomas Mills. 23. The Axe at the Root.. By Rev. William T. Brown. 24. What the Socialists Would Do If They Won in This City. By A. M. Simons. 25. The Folly of Being "Good." By Charles H. Kerr. 26. Intemperance and Poverty. By T. Twining. 27. The Relation of Religion to Social Ethics. By Rev. William T. Brown. . 28. Socialism and the Rome. By May Walden. 32 BOOKS ON SOCIALISM, ETC. 29. Trasts and Imperialism. By II. Gaylord Wilsliiro. 30. A Sketch of Social Zlvolntion. By H. W. lioyd Miuk.TV. 31. Socialism vs. Anarchy. By A. M. Simons. 3-. Indastrial Democracy. P.y .T. W. Kdloy. 33. The Socialist Party — Flatform, Constitution, Etc. 34. The Pride of Intellect. By Franklin H. Went- worth. 35. The Philosophy of Socialiam. By A. M. Sl- inon.s. 36. An Appeal to the Voung-. By Peter Kropot- kin. 37. The Kingrdom of God and Socialism. By Rev. Robert M. W^'bster. 38. Easy Lessons in Socialism. By William H. T.ffRiiK-woli. 39. Socialism and the Organized Xiabor Moveiuont. By May Wood Simons. 40. The Capitalists' Union, or Iiahor Unions, Which? 41. The Socialist Catechism.. By Charles E. Cline. 42. Civic Evils. By C. IT. Reed. 43. Our Bourgeois Iiiterature, the Season and the Remedy. By Upton Sinclair. 44. The Scab. By Jack London. .-45. Confessions of a Drone. By Joseph Medill Patter-s^on. These forty-five books will all be mailed to one address on receipt of $1.25. The books described in this catalogue are not to be found in most bookstores. The g.uickeBt and safest way to get them is to write to the address on the first page. Prices include postage, and any book in the list will be mailed promptly on receipt of price. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. UBL DEC 07 19*5 NOV WAnB7l9W * ' i9m 3 1158 00297 7345 HN 6k S6l2c 1907 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 177 658