JC UC-NRLF SB 13fl VHHKft Studies in Social Science No. 2- Edited by WILLIAM I. THOMAS The Rise and Progress of Democracy By FERDINAND SCHEVILL, PH. D. Professor of Modern History in the University of Chicago Published by THE ZALAZ CORPORATION CHICAGO Organized for the Diffusion of General Knowledge and Culture I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. THOMAS JEFFERSON, Correspondence, II. 45. Culture of civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. -EDWARD B. TYLOR, Primitive Culture, I. 1. BRIEF CATALOGING REQ. OFSSR3 GIFT Copyright 1915 by THE ZALAZ CORPORATION, CHICAGO All rights reserved THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY There is no complete agreement about the use of the word democracy. Most citizens of the United States, for example, are prepared to affirm that they are mem- bers of the greatest democracy on earth and that the European countries, although involved in a varying de- gree of democratic transformation, lag far behind them- selves. Many Europeans, however, deny that the United States is anything but superficially democratic and con- fidently assert that more truly democratic conditions pre- vail in certain regions of the old continent. The di- vergence of opinion is explained by the different meaning attached to the word and idea in question. Americans are inclined to think of democracy as an exclusively political creed, while Europeans, at least of a certain advanced type, think of democracy in a more purely social sense. In this paper we shall interpret the word, in order to meet all exigencies, as broadly as possible and consider it as signifying the movement on the part of the people of the civilized world to take the control of their political, social, economic and all other interests whatsoever out of the hands of a class or group of classes in order to assume the control themselves. Our purpose will be to trace the movement from its rise in the eighteenth century down to our own day. M775742 4 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE To begin the evolution of democracy with the eight- eenth century is decidedly arbitrary, for democratic tend- encies may be noticed in the earliest times and sporadic societies of a more or less democratic cast have existed in many a land and epoch. Athens, for instance, boasted a democracy as Rome did afterwards; we may scoff at the variety but we can not treat it as non-existent. Again, in the Middle Ages there were democratically governed cities everywhere amidst the feudally governed states of Europe. But all these democratic experiments ended in fiasco and have as good as nothing to do with the great movement that set in in the eighteenth century and, con- stantly adding new strength, has poured in an unbroken, irresistible stream into the century which has just be- gun. The eighteenth century movement was amply pre- pared by the general conditions matured in Europe since the Reformation, but it saw the light of day in France and owed the first form of its program to the particular situation in that country. A swift review of eighteenth century France is therefore an indispensable preliminary to our story. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. France before the year 1789 was an absolute monarchy, that is, the political power was exercised by an hereditary monarch and his appointed officials. Such a monarchy need not leave the welfare of the people out of considera- tion, but the danger that it will do so is always great and in France the danger had become an overwhelming real- ity: the French monarchy existed only for itself. But it did consent to share the exploitation of the people with two classes which stood particularly close to the throne THE RISE AJSTD PROGRESS OP DEMOCRACY 5 and had accumulated a vast number of special privileges, the clergy and the nobility. These were therefore called the privileged orders, and quite naturally, after the law of selfish flesh, came to look upon themselves as divinely selected to be an ornament to society and to feed upon their fellows. But meanwhile a new class had arisen in- clined to challenge that convenient view. The new class was made up of those whom the French call the bour- geoisie, that is, the merchants, bankers, manufacturers, lawyers, and physicians, who congregated in towns and owed their existence to production and exchange and to professional service. The trade opportunities opened by the New World had increased their wealth and numbers and, conscious of their growing strength, they became more and more exasperated with the financially oppres- sive government of the king and his numerous ornamental parasites. Out of their discontent, doubtless economic in its origin, there developed a general and sweeping criticism which strove more and more to get at funda- mental principles and ended with an investigation of the nature of the state and the rights and duties of its cit- izens. Voltaire and Rousseau to mention only the best known leaders of the bourgeoisie magnificently illustrate the trend of the new ideas. Voltaire declared in denunciatory pamphlet or keenly satirical squib that every institution inherited from the past, the monarchy, the church, the feudal privileges, and the law-courts would have to be reformed in order to bring them into harmony with the interests of the bourgeoisie; and Rous- seau went even further and declared in fanatic, unequiv- ocal terms that the slate would have to be wiped 6 STUDIES IN SOCIALr SCIENCE clean and a brand-new society erected on the ruins of the old in accordance with the eternal principles of liberty, equality, and brotherhood. These ringing preach- ments supplemented by the pipings of a hundred lesser voices brought the sense of conditions unworthy of the dignity of man to the attention of the general public and prepared an irresistible movement of protest. It was in the year 1789 that the accumulated criticism reached its flood-point and, bursting the dykes, in a surprisingly short time swept the institutional landmarks of France into oblivion. With the victory won over king and privileged classes the French people took up the work of reconstruction. The bourgeoisie or, as we would say in America, the middle classes, first tried their hand at the game, but the patch- work which they had in mind was not to the liking of the masses and was swiftly sent overboard to- gether with its sponsors. The confused period which followed and during which the liberated masses took fierce vengeance on their former leaders is usually called the Reign of Terror. The Reign of Terror, in spite of its sinister name, was not merely or even primarily a mas- sacre; it was an honest attempt to realize the republic of freedom and equality, though it led to as overwhelm- ing a failure as has ever been recorded. For one reason or another the leaders, instead of building up a new society, succeeded only in spreading fear and undermining con- fidence with the result that every gracious hope of an earthly paradise yielded presently to the iron necessity of re-establishing order. The country, tired of chaos, clamored for its man of destiny, its savior on horseback, THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 7 and in the year 1799 this miraculous being appeared in the person of the brilliant and successful young general, Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte, as the world knows, followed a personal, not a revolutionary course. What cared he for the bourgeoisie and its program of political control? What cared he for the people and their con- fused dream of liberty and equality? He satisfied the prevailing clamor for security of life and property so much must readily be conceded but having popularized himself with this achievement he turned his attention to the engrossing and titanic program of conquering Europe by armed force. We all know his military triumps; we also know his failure and his overthrow. When in 1815 victorious Europe sat in judgment on the fallen conqueror, it not only condemned him to perpetual exile on the island of St. Helena but it also seized the occasion to declare that the whole democratic idealism with which the French revolution began was a delusion and a snare and that safety lay only with the old-fash- ioned, pre-revolutionary system of monarchy. Thus the first great experiment undertaken in Europe to realize a democracy ended or seemed to end in total failure. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. An attempt made at the same time to establish a democracy in distant America was crowned with suc- cess. Essentially the reason for the happier outcome in the west is to be found in the simpler living condi- tions which prevailed in the new continent. The rebels of the thirteen colonies may be looked upon as prac- tically a community of free and independent farmers and when in 1776 they renounced the government of the 8 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE king of England they became without more ado and cer- tainly without the accompaniment of a vast body of re- form legislation a free, self-governing republic. The slavery of the southern states was, it is true, a dangerous anomaly in a community professing to be free, but for a time at least the slavery difficulty, being localized, could be overlooked. Owing to the boundless, unoccupied wilderness to the west and the attendant opportunity offered to every man, woman, and child to earn a com- petency with the labor of his hands an economic condition was created that came as near to guaranteeing human freedom as has ever been the case in the history of the world. The United States have therefore from the start been in a different situation from Europe in the matter of democracy. Having begun their existence with a basic economic and political equality, they have been chiefly concerned with safe-guarding their precious heritage against infringement, while Europe, characterized by enormous inequalities among individuals and classes in- herited from the feudal age, has striven toward demo- cracy as toward a distant and invisible goal. Our story of the rise of modern democracy is therefore chiefly laid in Europe and only from time to time shall we turn to America in order to define its place in the recent develop- ments of the movement. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. The failure of the first great democratic experiment, although announced by the allied victors over Napoleon to be complete, was more apparent than real. Small groups of enthusiasts continued to nurse the revolutionary ideas and the middle classes, on whose economic and intellectual THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 9 emergence the whole movement depended, remained as prominent as ever. Nay, they steadily became more prom- inent, for after 1815 the economic movement set in with increasing energy and by piling up the resources of the middle classes has ended by giving them the unquestioned control of society. That economic movement is usually called the Industrial Revolution and it deserves the clos- est attention as the most basic fact of nineteenth century history and as the real explanation of the persistence and vigor of the democratic program. The Industrial Revolution is the most recent stage of the ancient struggle of man with nature for the purpose of reducing the world and its forces to his service. It is therefore an integral part of a story as old as life but it had its immediate origin in the scientific advances of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By discoveries in the realm of physics and chemistry new forces and their laws were revealed and led to the idea of utilizing them for the practical purposes of industry. Experiments and inventions followed that concerned themselves in the first place chiefly with the spinning and weaving of cloth. Improved appliances like Hargreaves's spinning jenny and Cartwright's power loom made possible a greatly in- creased production of both cotton and woolen goods. As the new machinery was largely of iron and very heavy the idea occurred of working it not by hand but by steam, the expansive energy of which had been the subject of much recent experimentation. The result was the steam engine of James Watt. Of course the first models of looms, engines, boilers and so forth were all primitive and full of flaws, but the initiative once taken, man in his 10 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE tireless way never rested until he had carried his handi- work from improvement to improvement to the perfected and innumerable machines and engines of today. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. It was in eighteenth century England that the Age of Machinery based on discovery and invention saw the light of day and it was naturally in England that the good and evil of the new system first revealed themselves. To begin with there took place an immediate conquest by England of the markets of the world. With her improved ma- chinery worked by steam power she was enabled to turn out more articles at a smaller cost and thereby success- fully to undersell every other nation at home and abroad. As the movement crystallized just as the continent was being engulfed in the turmoil of the French Revolution a policy of vigorous imitation was out of the question and England got off to a flying start which carried her so far ahead of her competitors that she has never been over- taken. The profits of the new industry were largely mo- nopolized by the middle classes whose numbers waxed from year to year and whose influence in the nation be- came steadily more decisive. Inevitably this growing wealth would lead before long to the demand for a larger political role than had thus far been conceded by the gentleman class in control of the government. The industrial ascendancy of England was no sooner established than a score and more of forces appeared so disruptive of all that the past had handed down and so quick to mould new conditions that the country was taken by surprise and in effect has failed to this day to THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 11 bring its thought-processes abreast with the rapid and radical transformation of its life. Let me attempt to enumerate some of the elements of social change. The machines with their engines required a huge initial cost which could not be met by the individual craftsmen who had thus far earned their living, each with his small kit of personally owned tools. Moreover, the ma- chines had to be installed in spacious factories to which the workmen who had hitherto lived scattered over the town and countryside were invited to resort. All these preliminary expenses had to be met by men with considerable fluid means, with liquid capital, and these men naturally became masters of the situation paying what wages they pleased and exacting as many hours of labor as they could. An economic oppression, which in this first phase was terrible and unlimited, was the natural result. The dazed workmen harnessed to their unfamiliar machines vaguely felt that there was something wrong but were too scattered, lowly, and unschooled to devise an immediate remedy. In addition to a cruel wage- slavery the factory carried in its wake a horde of other evils. Factory employes had to give up their pleasant little cottages in the suburbs and outskirts and at the bidding of a clanking and puffing monster to uproot them- selves in order to take up their residence in its black shadow. Tenements sprang up like poisonous toadstools and swarmed with unkempt and famished women and children. Small towns and even agricultural villages suddenly found themselves inundated with immigrants come to seek employment and their population grew so fast that it got quite out of hand. Men were not pre- 12 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE pared for the new development and either from thought- lessness or despair for a long time let matters go as they would. We in America are perfectly familiar with all the heaped-up consequences and problems of the movement for they overwhelmed us in our turn when toward the middle of the nineteenth century we inaugurated our own indus- trial revolution. Dirty, malodorous, and ill-lighted streets, imperfect sewage, frequent illness due to insufficient nu- trition, epidemics with their huge death-toll, drunken- ness, unemployment, and crime such were some of the social and civic effects of the new system in England and in every other country which, when the hour struck, followed in England's footsteps. MIDDLE CLASS HUMANITARIANISM. It is perhaps excusable that society at first did as good as nothing to remedy the appalling conditions in the man- ufacturing towns among the working masses. But even the employers, piously praising God for their waxing profits, could not forever shut their eyes to the curse wrought by themselves and their inventions. In the first place they were threatened in their own health and se- curity by the disease-and-murder-breeding slums in their midst. Street-lighting, sanitation, in a word, a general municipal amelioration policy got slowly under way, and at the same time some of the well-to-do, bursting their class-bounds, developed a social sense and gave their at- tention to the redemption of their crushed and unfortu- nate fellow-citizens. This humanitarian sentiment by castigating the egotism of the middle classes and arousing them to a perception of their own risks from an underfed THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 13 and desperate proletariat has been chiefly responsible for the gradual enactment by the rulers themselves of legis- lative measures looking forward to the removal of at least some of the most flagrant evils resulting from the slums and tenements. WORKING CLASS TRADE UNIONS. Middle class writers, responding to a natural tendency to extoll the virtues of the group to which they belong, also ascribe an enormous role to the humanitarian senti- ment of their class in effecting a rise of wages and a re- duction of the hours of labor. Doubtless they exaggerate; at any rate that is what most workingmen declare who proudly boast that they owe every improvement, not purely municipal and social, to their own initiative and to that alone. In the opinion of these men it was because, taken by surprise by the Industrial Revolution, the laborers played an entirely passive role that the enslavement, which wage-earning in its first stage meant, was imposed on them. And the liberation, they unanimously declare, dates from the day when casting about for means to cur- tail the oppression, they made up their minds to organize. Without belittling the humanitarian sentiment and the social improvement which it undoubtedly helped effect, it must be clear in the mind of every objective student that the first substantial check sustained by the capitalist in his economic mastery of the situation came on the day when he dealt not with individual workingmen, but with a marshalled army under leaders. And if proof be needed it is supplied by the resistance of the middle classes to the associations or trade-unions of the workers. They 14 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE indignantly denounced this natural and honorable move- ment of self-help as something wicked and even revolu- tionary and brought the machinery of the law into action in order to stigmatize it as illegal and to break it up by force. It took a generation of stubborn fighting before the resistance of the British Parliament was even partially overcome and the trade-unions legalized by a general statute. From that moment, however, that is, from the first quarter of the nineteenth century, capital and labor began to wage their historic battle on somewhat more equal terms and the next one hundred years were destined to see a very important improvement in the position of the wage-earners without, however, shaking the effective domination of the capitalists. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. Such was the Industrial Revolution and such were some of its problems when it first established itself in the land of its birth, in England. The great victory it won for English goods in the markets of the world would have precipitated an immediate imitation on the continent, if, as already pointed out, Europe had not just then been economicaly paralyzed by the wars of the French Revo- lution. Not till the overthrow of Napoleon in 1815 was a condition established that enabled the harrassed countries to look about and undertake measures calculated to equal- ize the contest with England for the possession of the industrial profits. And even then it was only France that had advanced sufficiently to install the English ma- chines and embark on the capitalist system. Accordingly, in the course of the first half of the nineteenth century THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 15 France went through the same transformation as had just been effected in England and was confronted in its turn with all the developments and problems which we have just sketched. Needless, therefore, to review the eco- nomic situation under the restored Bourbon monarchy of Louis XVIII (1815-24), Charles X (1824-30), and Louis Philip (1830-48). The one thing to note is a very original intellectual contribution made by France to the solution of the war of capital and labor. In the face of the hardships and sufferings of the working classes France, in close imitation of England, experienced a growth of the philanthropic sense among the middle classes, together with the self-assertion of the workers expressed in the creation of trade-unions. But some- thing radical and thorough-going in the French genius obliged the native thinkers to pry beneath superficial phenomena, and to aim at not remedial measures merely but at a genuine and complete cure of the evils at- tending the reign of the machine. Reflection along these lines gradually led some advanced philosophers to de- clare the private ownership of capital to be the root of the trouble and to advocate a nationalization of the means of production in order to insure an equal distribution of material benefits among the whole citizen body. Naturally a good deal of this thinking was very crude but as in- augurating the radical and genuinely revolutionary move- ment of the nineteenth century uncompromisingly opposed to the continued domination of the middle classes it can not be ignored. St. Simon is perhaps the most important pioneer in this field. He was, however, a closet-philoso- pher and never reached any but a narrow drawing-room 16 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE audience. It was Louis Blanc (chiefly active before 1848) who first carried the new radicalism into public life. He held that the only way to effect the overthrow of capital was by the direct action and revolt of the workingmen and for this reason he carried his agitation down into their circles. Blessed with grandiloquent speech and a not in- considerable organizing talent he brought about the first union of workingmen with the avowed object of a social revolution to be conducted in the name of equality and justice and to be crowned with the confiscation of private capital for the benefit of the community at large. Of course the doctrine was so new and startling that not many of the workingmen were converted to it and the rest, in so far as they leaned to the democratic faith at all, preferred to remain loyal to the notion of a purely political republic inherited from the French Revolution. Nonetheless Louis Blanc started a movement in French life that has continued with ups and downs to our own day and that as early as the year 1848 was already strong enough to play a considerable role in the uprising which buried the monarchy of the Bourbons and inaugurated the socalled Second Republic (1848-51). THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN GERMANY. With the industrial current in the ascendancy in Eng- land and France it was certain that the other European countries would yield to it as soon as the conditions with- in their borders permitted. To take the case of Ger- many the German people were morally and education- ally sufficiently advanced to fall in behind their western neighbors, but unfortunately their political disorganiza- tion was such that a strong and general industrial move- THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 17 ment was out of the question. Prussia, the soundest of the states composing the German body, busied itself with clearing the ground and between 1815 and 1840 suc- ceeded in forming a German customs-union or Zollverein, which converted Germany into a single area for economic purposes. By this wise measure the evils of political dis- union were partially overcome and the ground cleared for the entrance of Germany into the industrial race. How- ever, the German movement did not pass out of its swaddling-clothes till well after the middle of the century. THE POLITICAL VICTORY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS IN ENGLAND, FRANCE AND GERMANY. While this vast economic transformation of Europe was under way, not particularly noticed by the world and de- cidedly not estimated at its proper value, certain move- ments occurred in the noisy realm of politics -which were probably overestimated at the time but which nonetheless hold a sufficiently important place in the evolution of de- mocracy to cause us at this point to give them our attention. Starting with 1815, when the old monarchies beat down Napoleon and the Revolution, a consistent reign of con- servatism reestablished itself in Europe. An hereditary king pretty much everywhere maintained a more or less autocratic government and looked for support to the two feudal classes, the clergy and nobility. True, the rise of a trading class had modified this system so far as England was concerned, as early as the seventeenth century (Crom- well and the Puritan revolution) and had secured a place in parliament and the administration to the great city merchants. In France this same class was largely instru- 18 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE mental in staging the French Revolution. Therefore, it will hardly do to affirm catagorically that the middle class did not bestir itself in politics before the nineteenth century. Nonetheless an overwhelming accession of strength came to it only with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, and thus it follows that the capitalist group could not step into the political arena with the plan of con- quering the government until the expansion of manu- factures had supplied a certain prospect of success. Now from the economic evolution we have traced we have every reason to expect that the middle class in England would be the first among the middle classes of Europe to enter politics; and such indeed is the case. The aristo- cratic landowners had, as already stated, wisely admittted the great merchants to a share in the government as early as the seventeenth century, but the sudden enlargement, before and after the year 1800, of the beneficiaries of the industrial system produced a considerable body of new- comers who represented tremendous and growing interests and would under no circumstances consent any longer to hide their light under a bushel. Their agitation became clamorous from 1815 on, and after resisting it for a generation the privileged rulers suddenly gave way and widened the franchise in such a manner as to grant repre- sentation in parliament to the middle class in the broad industrial sense of that word. It was the Reform Bill of 1832 that carried through the above important modi- fication of the English constitution and government. The nobility, basing their power on land, by no means re- signed their authority but they consented to exercise it henceforth in co-operation with the whole extensive middle THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 19 class, basing its power on trade and industry. With this gaping breach made in the defenses of the aristocratic system the middle class was sure to march from victory to victory until it planted its banner on every bastion. The whole course of English history in the ninteenth century corroborates this view. Contemporaneously with the rise of the English middle class into prominence, the French middle class projected itself into politics. In July, 1830, Charles X., represent- ing the older branch of the house of Bourbon, was driven into exile and the throne offered to his cousin, head of the younger line, Louis Philip. The July revolution was essentially a middle class action and Louis Philip seized the reins with the conscious purpose of sustaining this group among his subjects. The French expressively call him le roi-bourgeols, the king of the bourgeoisie. But Louis Philip interpreted his task a bit too narrowly and ended by arousing considerable discontent among the journalists, shopkeepers and other minor hangers-on of capitalism who by combining with the working people were able to imperil his throne. Finding the self-in- fatuated king set on favoring merely the big money-in- terests his enemies at last rose against him and drove him into flight. The event occured in 1848 and led to the proclamation of a republic. The republic for a time a very short time maintained universal suffrage and seemed ready and eager to inaugurate a government by and for the people, but the hopes it raised were premature and were extinguished like a guttering! candle when in 1851 a nephew of the great Napoleon seized the govern- ment, styling himself Emperor Napoleon III. In 20 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE spite of his autocratic tone, Napoleon III. leaned es- sentially upon the middle classes and enables us to assert that in France as well as in England, regardless of the form of government, the agents of the new industrialism jumped into a position very much akin to control from the moment they insisted on political recognition. The fact that France in the course of the century changed several times from a monarchy to a republic and back again does not in the least modify the assertion; the bourgeoisie, promoters of the new industrial wealth, had regularly, as a preliminary to all else, to be met and "squared," whether the head of the state was a monarch or a president. The economic emergence of the middle class in Ger- many came, as already stated, a little later than in France. Having with the Zollverein solved the problem of a single customs area, Germany had next to effect her political unification. She made a spirited effort to do so in 1848 but failed. She returned to the attack in the sixties under the leadership of Bismarck and scored a brilliant success culminating in the proclamation of the German empire in 1871. But she owed this achievement at best to the co-operation of the middle classes, not to their exclusive initiative. It was Bismarck, after all, that made the German empire Bismarck utilizing the govern- ment and army of Prussia. The result was that when the German constitution was elaborated (1867-71) a large place had to be conceded to traditional forces, to the monarchy and country gentry, and that the urban middle class had to content itself with a seat at the side of the older political authorities. Nonetheless, in Ger- THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 21 many, too, the statement holds that the middle class has proved a steadily growing factor in the public life of the nation. SUMMARY OF MIDDLE CLASS SUCCESS. Pausing a moment to glance back over the path we have traveled, it is forced on our attention that the question of democracy in the period with which we are here con- cerned has been indeed a political issue, but far more con- spicuously, an economic one. It entered upon its present familiar phase with the Industrial Revolution of the second half of the eighteenth century and in consequence appeared first in England, and later in France, Germany, and the other European countries. In every country the rise of factories concentrated the economic power in the hands of the capitalists and their allies, whom together we designate as the middle classes, and in every country it produced a political movement on the part of these classes to possess themselves of the government. Either by concessions wrung from the rulers or by open re- volt against them the ambitious program was realized but with a varying degree of completeness depending on the resistance offered by the older social groups such as the clergy and nobility. In France, where the feudal orders had had the economic props knocked from under them by the revolution of 1789, the victory of the bour- geoisie was doubtless most complete; respectfully en- treated under Louis Philip and Napoleon III, it became absolutely preponderant in the Third Republic founded in 1870, maintaining an unquestioned control of the government down to our own day. In England and Germany, on the other hand, the old orders were strong 22 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE enough to insist on recognition and they have with- out interruption remained important factors in the politi- cal systems of their respective countries. Although the nineteenth century has often been hailed as the age of democracy it might much more properly be called the age of the middle classes, but there is hardly need of saying that the dethroning or partial dethroning of the older orders and the admission of the middle class to political rights was decidedly a movement in a democratic direc- tion. However, democracy in the amplest sense of the word can not be said to have been achieved as long as the political and economic emancipation of the great masses of the working people has not been effected, and to this end an agitation set in as soon as the Industrial Revolution was well under way which gradually produced some im- portant ameliorations in the workingmen's lot. In the first place the middle class itself slowly became reconciled to certain concessions such as the legalization of trade- unions, universal suffrage, freedom * of the press, trial by jury concessions that came the easier in as much as many of them were also demands of the middle class put forward in the course of its struggle against the nobles and the church and second, the growing ranks of organized labor were enabled to wring a vast body of protective legislation from the various bourgeois parliaments. This labor legislation, which has piled statute upon statute, is an important regulative feature in the relations of capital and labor in all modern countries. In the writer's view the latest phase in the develop- ment of democracy is best illustrated first, by examining the most recent phase of the struggle of labor against capital, and second, by attempting to define the current THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 23 political and economic status of the workers in three such leading countries as England, the United States and Germany. THE MOST RECENT PHASE OF THE STRUGGLE OF LABOR AGAINST CAPITAL I have already called attention to the formation of trade-unions in England in the early part of the nine- teenth century. After they had won legal recognition and were no longer persecuted they gave their chief at- tention to effecting wage-agreements with their employers and to putting through legislation reducing the hours of labor, protecting the women and children, introduc- ing safety devices and so forth a mass of often in- finitesimal, but in their bulk, very appreciable, ameliora- tions in the lot of the wage-earner, servant and slave of the machine. In England the course of labor has con- tinued down to our own day to travel this slow upward path characterized by concessions and compromise, though of late years the continued fair-weather prospect has been troubled by the more radical agitation imported from the continent. To this I shall now invite the reader's atten- tion. I have already spoken of St. Simon and Louis Blanc and the rise of a socialist doctrine in France. Its gist was the abolition of private property and the nation- alization of the means of production and although it did not call itself socialism at first, the name of socialism be- came attached to it and has remained attached to all simi- lar philosophies to the present day. The socialism which was destined to gather the greatest number under its banner was born in Germany toward the middle of the nineteenth century and found its first 24 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE utterance in the socalled Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The decisive point about that proclamation (1848) was that it declared the capi- talist system had superseded the older feudal system by virtue of a necessary historical process and that the capi- talist system would in its turn be superseded by the socialist system by virtue of the same ineluctable force. The appeal to history gave to the new propaganda a cold, scientific character and served to establish the con- viction that it was the part of reason to work for the success of Socialism since in doing so one merely took one's stand with Nature and Nature's sacred instrument, the law of Evolution. Of course the Communist Manifesto endorsed all the political rights for which the middle class had been contending and which they had by no means as yet entirely achieved universal suffrage, religious tol- eration, freedom of the press and of association but it insisted that the proletariat would by reason of their num- bers soon swamp the bourgeoisie and that then an eco- nomic revolution would be carried through, by law and not by violence, which would distribute the total harvest of labor in equal shares among all those engaged in the various processes of production. These German founders insisted also from the first that the movement concerned the workers not in their country merely but the world over, and that it must consequently take on an inter- national character. When therefore, after a period of incubation, a Marxist party, calling itself officially the Social-democratic party of Germany, was formed (1875), it Was presently supplemented by Social-demo- cratic parties established in every other country of Europe ; THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 25 and all of them got into touch with one another by means of periodic international congresses and a permanent ex- ecutive bureau located at Brussels. The hope of some enthusiasts that the international organization would prove itself strong enough to dominate the various national gov- ernments has shown itself repeatedly to be a delusion and never more completely so that in the great war-crisis of the summer of 1914 when Internationalism fell over like a house of cards; but the various national organizations have nonetheless vigorously projected themselves into politics, especially during the last quarter of a century, and have confidently asserted that their assumption of the bourgeois heritage and of the governments of the world is not far distant. In turning now to examine the present economic status of the working masses in certain leading countries, I would guard against misunderstanding. It is my belief and I shall give expression to it that the improvements, limited though they be, which characterize the present situation, represent the hard-won triumphs of the working- men themselves and must in a measure at least be ascribed to the Social-democratic propaganda since the social- democratic party has been the stoutest and most consistent champion of the cause of labor. But I am of course quite ready to admit that a large number of other agents have contributed to the result. Many workmen, for instance, although remaining totally indifferent to the social phil- osophy of Marx and Engels, have nevertheless not failed in eager agitation for ameliorative laws, and many middle class groups, especially the intellectual leaders, have been tirelessly active to eliminate evils and to build up a suf- 26 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE ferable and human atmosphere around the factory. Civil- ized society, as the socialists aver, may be an affair of rival classes and the history of civilization a perpetual struggle among them, but a given national group is also a homogeneous sum of many social integers and an improve- ment in the position of one class as soon as made is likely to be woven into the general national consciousness. This is worth emphasizing in order that we do not fall into the error of making so much of class strife and class di- visions that we forget the remarkable cohesion of states and nations secured by a common language, institutions, man- ners, and ideas. THE PRESENT SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES. Our own country represents in many respects a special case and the evolutionary formula of Europe is not ap- plicable to it. The reason lies in the particular economic situation in the United States. We have here a land of vast area, magnificant resources, and sparse population. We began our life as a full-fledged democracy, not as foolish flatterers would have us think because of the in- herently noble disposition of our ancestors, but because of the favorable ratio between population and free land. Our young democracy of 1776 and of the following gen- erations demanded only freedom, that is, the right for each individual to appropriate as much of the unclaimed wilderness as his hands could tame to his use. This pro- duced the pioneer spirit, the greatest moral asset in our history. American democracy was not in the least con- cerned with equality in any economic sense, although a sort of rough equality was for a long time secured by THE RISE AND PROGRESS OP DEMOCRACY 27 the mere fact that the unclaimed lands were endless and were guaranteed by the government in limited, fixed quantity to any one who chose to acquire a title by settling on them. Until 1850 we were substantially a democracy of farmers cultivating a healthy out-of-doors individualism and blessed with an approximate equality of possessions and income. About 1850 the Industrial Revolution struck us, start- ing in the east and north and moving gradually west. For the next few decades the glorious American pioneer spirit celebrated greater triumphs than ever before in ap- propriating coal and iron deposits, building mills and factories, crisscrossing the land with railroads, and in importing a proletariat of wage-earners from the over- crowded countries of Europe. Of course, following an irresistible law, the political control passed into the hands of the new capitalist or middle class, but such considerable numbers shared in the returns and the wages paid the workers remained so ample that the country, fairly wal- lowing in prosperity, was for a long time absolutely blind to its transformation. The political guarantees of the bal- lot, free speech, and free association were except in spor- adic instances not withdrawn and helped maintain the illusion that the government was by and for the people. Not till the end of the century did the truth begin to dawn upon the public. The country was visibly run by bosses who were known to be corrupt and who, in spite of protest, could not be shaken off. Why? An even superficial investigation 1 sufficed to show that these bosses were only the agents of the capitalists who pre- ferred not to appear but who were set on managing the 28 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE country in their class interest. The connection of "crooked politics and crooked business" stood suddenly revealed and a vigorous agitation set in which has lasted to our own day and which fixed as its object the termina- tion, as it was called, of "this unholy partnership." As I am writing this article (April, 1915) there is going on in Syracuse, New York, a libel suit of Mr. Barnes, a Republican boss, against ex-President Roose- velt, the Progressive leader, which has brought to light such illuminative material on class control that I am tempted to quote from it. It was in 1898, after the Spanish war, that Mr. Roosevelt began his national career by coming forward as candidate for governor of the state of New York. As a necessary preliminary he opened up round-about negotiations with Platt, the Republican boss and agent of the money-kings of Wall street, and present- ly received this letter from Platt's secretary: "I told him (Platt) that you would like to be nominated; that you understood perfectly that if you were nominated it would be as a result of his support; that you were not the sort of a man who would accept a nomination direct- ly out of the hands of the organization without realizing the obligation thereby assumed I said that you would adopt no line of policy and agree to no important matter or nomination without previous con- sultation." Mr. Roosevelt accepted these terms (with certain mental reservations) and entered upon his famous career as the personally honest agent of a corrupt boss and soon, in measure as his reach expanded, of a whole bench of bosses. In the following years he made the hair- raising discovery that the wicked bosses were the tools of THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 29 the still more wicked manipulators of "big business" and on this discovery based his clamorous preachment of reform founding at last the Progressive party for the express purpose of overthrowing the enemies of the public weal. The Progressive party marks an interesting awakening of the American people to capitalist control but it is, his- torically speaking, a party rather of reactionary than of forward-looking tendencies, for it upholds a program in- spired by the old American freedom of the days of un- limited material resources and naively believes that "ideas" and "morality," if made sufficiently common coin, will secure the elections and the government to the people and drive the shamed capitalists into a modest, philo- sophic, and self-erasive obscurity. Everything considered, the most notable thing about the Progressive party is that it ignores the fact that democracy (with which nonethe- less it boasts to be wed in Siamese inseparableness) is primarily an economic issue, and from this strange blind- ness it follows that, though fervidly denouncing capital as the source of political corruption, it proposes to con- serve the capitalist system after effecting the "reform" of the individual capitalist through the descent of the Holy Ghost. A small group of social-democratic critics laughs at such "reform" and upholds the faith of its European fel- low-workers to the effect that democracy is primarily an economic issue and that it will be realized only by the total overthrow of the middle class regime. But these critics are as yet no considerable factor in the realm of practical politics. The average American continues to disport himself as a convinced individualist but the rea- 30 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE son for his stand, though he does not admit it, is mainly economic. In spite of the trusts with their cumulative appropriation of our natural resources for the benefit of a limited group, in spite of our growing proletariat and its increasing misery and restlessness, we are not yet at the end of our unrivalled wealth and consequently a majority of our people prefers the system of free competition with its prospect of a luxurious return for every expended effort to a restrictive and cooperative system with its meager ideal of rations for everybody. America for many years to come will in all likelihood continue to be democratic in the generous sense of its traditions, that is, it will be content with political and legal equality coupled with the right of every individual to make as good a liv- ing as he can. The fly in the ointment will be the grow- ing knowledge that the vaunted political rights are set at naught by secret class rule and that the shrinkage of economic opportunity goes on apace through the octopus activity of capital. Till the day of realization we shall go.on boasting of the democracy we've got, a magnificent democracy in the light of its achievements but already undermined on its economic and moral sides. Above all, we should guard against judging and condemning Europe by the standards of our free competitive system. For crowded Europe neither was nor is comparable with us in the matter of material possibilities and under pressure of necessity has ante-dated us in interpreting democracy economically. In one sense at least Europe, in such ad- vanced societies as Great Britain and Germany, is there- fore more democratic than we are, but that need not hinder us from being proud of the democracy we have, THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 31 provided we recognize its virtues and its drawbacks and modestly remain aware that our chief advantage over the little trans-Atlantic continent lies in the more bounteous reward which the generous mother-heart of our country pours out to the individual as a return for his exertions. THE PRESENT SITUATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. I have already pointed out that till the Reform Bill of 1832 Great Britain was politically in the hands of its land-holding gentry and great merchants. The age of machinery won a first victory for its middle class bene- ficiaries by virtue of the act just named and inspired this group to try for nothing less than complete political con- trol. Its program constituting the great creed of nine- teenth century Liberalism included all the well-known liberties, such as religious toleration, freedom of speech, of the press and of association, and a wider and wider extension of the suffrage. An enormous legislation has accumulated along these lines in the eighty years since 1832 and the liberal program has been so completely real- ized that only a few details remain to be added, for in- stance, in the matter of the suffrage. The suffrage in Great Britain was twice extended after 1832, in the Re- form Bills of 1867 and 1884, but a residence and prop- erty qualification persists and the radical demand of uni- versal suffrage still remains to be realized. Such tiny imperfections, however, can not disguise the fact that Great Britain has achieved middle class rule, achieved it in fact with a completeness that leaves every other country, with the possible exception of France, in the shade and puts the British government hors concours as an ex- pression of middle class ideals. It is noteworthy that this 32 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE success was won against the landed gentry but not at the price of its destruction. The gentry, not without terrible heart-burnings to be sure, has gradually adjusted itself to the situation and in return for its submission has been left in possession of its enormous social prestige and been ad- mitted to a share in the money-profits of capitalism. The continued existence of the English aristocracy and its tenure of most of the high administrative posts in the army, navy, diplomatic and colonial services, has blinded us to the important fact that, economically speaking, this ancient order has been absorbed by the middle class, for although it still lives upon the land and maintains mag- nificent estates for ornamental purposes, it no longer lives by the land like the farmers of the United States or the peasants and gentry of Germany. The British gentry's interest-earning investments have been gradually trans- ferred to industry and commerce, and therefore in spite of the social contempt it may feel and express for "people in trade," it is bound to those same people by the wire- cables of an absolutely identical economic interest. Oc- cassional revolts of the nobility caused by the unforgotten dream of power have been speedily suppressed. The last action, still in everybody's mind, befell in the first decade of the twentieth century and ended in the partial destruc- tion of the house of Lords by the cancellation of its veto power. The more we look into the situation the more we are obliged to agree that in the British parliamentary system the middle class has perfected a tool admirably responsive to the mental, moral, and economic purposes of the group. THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 33 However, unlimited as middle class control came to be, the novi homines had to face the grave question which kept exact pace with their own development, the question of the working masses. I have previously pointed out that their first attitude was one of sharp hostility ex- pressing itself in a refusal to grant the barest legal rec- ognition to the trade-unions. When these had won an acknowledged standing, British liberalism with the aid of them, and in the fond hope of winning their political sup- port, undertook to formulate its labor program, which bore a humanitarian character and took account of the need of protecting the wage-earners against the too ruth- less exploitation of the employers. The British factory legislation, involving hours of labor, sanitation, protection against dangerous machines and a score of other matters, has grown to the size of many folio volumes and without any question has made the position of the worker of the twentieth century very much more secure than that of his ancestor a hundred years earlier. But neither the hu- manitarian legislation nor the various liberties of creed, press, and meeting conceded by the liberal regime have altered the fact that the middle class is in the saddle while the industrial masses go or crawl afoot. The insularity of Britain may serve to explain why the British workers were slow to awaken to the shortcomings of the situa- tion. Nonetheless they did awaken, and toward the end of the nineteenth century, refusing further to commit their interests to political parties identified with the middle class, they formed their own party, called the Labor Party, and more or less bound up with the Social-demo- cratic movement of the continent. 34 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE The moment this stage had been reached the middle class rulers were obliged to make a very radical con- cession. They had hitherto confidently maintained that they were the heaven-sent furtherers of democracy and that their brand of democracy, a democracy of political rights, would of itself bring about the salvation of the world; they were now forced by the secession of the Labor Party to concede that democracy had also an econo- mic side and that the state would have to modify its in- dividualism in order to secure some positive material bene- fits to the working masses. It was in the first decade of the twentieth century that the Liberal Party announced its conversion to the new views and proceeded to put through its famous Insurance Laws, involving insurance against accident, illness, old age, and unemployment. They were copied in the main from Germany, where they had been enforced some twenty years earlier, and need not be discussed here further than to emphasize that they mark a new era. With them middle class individualism of the old type has been dealt a severe blow and the state has assumed the position that it is wholly within its scope to secure to the workers a portion of their wrongfully withheld wages by means of coercive legislation. As a final result democracy in Great Britain now begins to de- fine itself as an economic issue in more or less exact con- formity with the demand and prophecy of the socialists. THE PRESENT SITUATION IN GERMANY. With regard to Germany, we have noted that the In- dustrial Revolution did not put in an appearance till the middle of the nineteenth century, when industrial en- terprises sprang up like rank weeds and the consequent THE RISE AND PROGRESS OP DEMOCRACY 35 growth of a middle class inevitably produced a capitalist political program. The unification of Germany was largely the work of the new order, but since Bismarck, representing the monarchy and gentry, was the architect of the edifice, these two elements secured to themselves an important place at the side of the middle* class. A comparison of the governments of Germany and Great Britain in recent times is interesting and shows that the political development in Britain has been far more un- compromisingly bourgeois. In the eighteenth century, when the English gentry finally crowded the monarch aside, it took over his whole power, reducing him to a toothless pensioner; and when in the nineteenth century the middle class uprose like a young giant, its first concern was to rob the aging gentry of its natural support by making the land economically worthless. It did this by means of its free trade legislation (Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846), which flooded the country with cheap American wheat, brought about the abandonment of agriculture, and obliged the gentry, if it would live at all, to throw in its lot with the capitalists. Great Britain, as we have seen, became the paradise of the middle class in a degree that certainly does not hold for Germany. In Prussia and Germany the monarch and the gentry have retained their position in the government, the gentry more particularly owing to their stubborn refusal to sacrifice their acres to the bourgeois demand for free trade and cheap bread. The Prussian gentry, as a matter of fact, is not more prominent in public ofHce than the gentry in Great Britain, but it stands for a genuine agricultural interest lacking in Britain and it maintains an economic combat with the middle class 36 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE which in the island-kingdom has long ago come to an end. English middle class writers (and even English aristocrats unmindful of their out-and-out parasitism, the poorest kind of platform for a critic) delight in reproving Germany as reactionary; that is another way of saying that Germany still has land from which it draws wealth and support and that the middle class has not yet succeeded in exclusively directing the government. If Germany still sustains a gentry which is not purely ornamental and parasitic, it also has a monarch who isn't a figurehead in the British fashion. His power originating in Prussia sprang from the military necessi- ties of a small state in the midst of more powerful rivals and has been perpetuated largely through the continuance of these difficult neighborhood conditions to our own day. The main clue to the strong executive in Prussia and Germany, object of much passionate denunciation at the present day, is supplied by an intelligent glance at the map of Europe. But the instinct for public security alone would not have kept the Prusso-German sovereign as the directive head of the state against the aggressive policy of German capital if he had not discovered a source of strength in mediating between the interests of agriculture and industry and in establishing a balance between them. And presently he discovered still another support to his throne in declaring that the state, of which he was the head and emblem, stood for the whole community and, subjected neither to the owners of the soil nor to the pro- prietors of the factories, was profoundly concerned with the welfare of a third great group of citizens, the work- ingmen. The German state was the first to declare that it was not its business to maintain a purely passive role in THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY 37 the conflict between capital and labor, and this construc- tive policy, as constructive attitudes always do, has doubt- less strengthened its authority. Turning now to the German workingmen, we note again that a radical labor agitation championed by Marx and Engels appeared among them from about the middle of the nineteenth century and led them to demand in categorical terms the overthrow of the system of private capital. Their organization, especially from the year 1875, when the So- cial-democratic party was called into being, made rapid headway and obliged both the middle class and the state to concern themselves with its demands. The German middle class acted in the now familiar manner : reluctantly at first, bye and bye with a certain humanitarian eagerness it took up and passed ameliorative legislation, but it shared the political views of the liberal democracy the world over and shied away from radical enonomic measures. This is the point at which the state acted, affirming that economic legislation assuring an existence to every mem- ber of the community was within the proper functions of society. It was Bismarck who inaugurated the important departure with a pronouncement delivered in the year 1881 and in spite of strong opposition from middle class elements, he succeeded in embodying his views in a group of acts known as the Insurance Laws. These were in- tended to give the workingman a reasonable security against some of the worst risks of his position arising from illness, injury through accident, and old age infirmities. They represent an additional wage-return for service rendered, were naturally welcomed by the workingmen, and after an existence of twenty years may be safely de- clared to have proved no inconsiderable factor in raising 38 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE the material level of the German masses. However, they have not in the least decreased the Social-democratic agi- tation. On the contrary, the Social-democrats have preached their doctrine harder than ever and with such success that they are today far and away the largest po- litical party in the empire. They are entirely willing to accept further benefits for themselves and their clients at the hands of the existing state but they declare at the same time that their final end, which continues to be the abolition or rather the absorption of private capital, can never be put through by any group or party except by themselves. They therefore hold fast to their aim of conquering the government a conquest to be effected by the ballot, be it understood, and not by force. Meanwhile the most remarkable thing about contem- porary Germany is a certain balance of interests. The owners of land and capital, carefully set off against each other, are certainly in control, but the recognition on the part of the state of the economic rights of the working- men has gone farther than in any other European com- munity. Thus, in spite of a palpable and passionate class division evidenced in the press, at elections, and on the floor of the Reichstag, Germany possesses an economic energy which in variety, resourcefulness, and delicate interaction of its parts has few if any equals. FINAL SUMMARY. Before closing let us see what we have got as a result of our rapid review of the democratic development of the last one hundred years. We have seen that democ- racy does not mean the same thing at all times and in THE RISE AND PROGRESS OP DEMOCRACY 3 every country. The United States started out with an agri- cultural democracy which was both political and economic and which was entirely acceptable till the Industrial Revolution poured an inordinate wealth into the lap of the bankers, railroad presidents, company managers and their numerous allies. We are at present engaged in combating their control but up to date have been unwill- ing to yield our honored individualist creed, the creed of our pioneers and pathfinders, by which middle class con- trol is in the last analysis secured. Europe having in- herited from the Middle Ages a land-holding gentry (though side by side with a peasantry more or less inde- pendent) started in with an undemocratic system and envisaged democracy as a possible development not till the rise of the commercial and industrial classes, ready and eager to crowd out the gentry. Wherever the In- dustrial Revolution has triumphed the gentry has either wholly or in part been overthrown and a middle class regime established, based on a program of human rights involving equality before the law, in opinion, religion, and the vote. But the middle class, through its wealth, intelligence, and culture, has been able to manipulate its program in its own economic interest and in consequence has been obliged to face the waxing antagonism of the working masses. The new problem was everywhere met, after the first unreasoning opposition had died down, with protective and ameliorative legislation, but two Eu- ropean countries, Germany and Great Britain, have gone farther than palliatives and have taken the theoretic stand that the modern state must entertain an economic ideal. They have already by virtue of their Insurance Laws 40 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE not insubstantially increased the share of the laborer in the total product of industry. That is where the matter rests. It would be absurd to declare categorically what will take place in the future, but it may be asserted that a larger and not a smaller place will be assigned henceforth to the question of the workers and that its solution must be preceded by such a change in the traditional view of the function of the state as is indicated by the newer legislation of Germany and Great Britain. Specifically as to democracy it seems clear that it has been carried about as far as a triumphant middle class can carry it; if we are to have a democracy chiefly concerned with economic equality -and innumerable signs seem to indicate that such is the coming historical movement the rule of the middle class will have to be subjected to a gradual change. By the absorption of the middle class into the masses? By the ascendancy of an all-powerful and di- rective state? By the triumph of the Socialist program? Let a bolder man than the present writer say. In any case uncertain nursery steps looking forward to a modification of middle class rule have already been taken by all the leading industrial countries, and many symptoms proclaim that still greater things are in the wind. SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS MORE'S UTOPIA. THE PLEA OF SIR THOMAS MORE, MADE IN 1516, FOR A COMMONWEALTH BASED ON EQUALITY OF POSSESSIONS. For the wise man did easily foresee, this to be the one and only way to the wealth of a commonalty, if equality of all things should be brought in and stab- lished. Which I think is not possible to be observed, where every man's goods be proper and peculiar to him- self. For where man under certain titles and pretences draweth and plucketh to himself as much as he can, so that a few divide among themselves all the whole riches, be there never so much abundance and store, there to the residue is left lack and poverty. And for the most part it chanceth, that this latter sort is more worthy to enjoy that state of wealth, than the other be: because the rich man be covetous, crafty and unprofitable. On the other part the poor be lowly, simple, and by their daily labour more profitable to the commonwealth than to themselves. Thus I do fully persuade myself, that no equal and just distribution of things can be made, nor that perfect wealth shall ever be among men, unless this propriety be exiled and banished. But so long as it shall continue, so long shall remain among the most and best part of men the heavy and inevitable burden of poverty and wretchedness. Which, as I grant that it may be somewhat eased, so I utterly deny that it can wholly be taken away. For if there were a statute made, that no man should possess above a certain measure of ground, and that no man should have in his stock above a prescript and appointed sum of money: if it were by certain laws decreed, that neither the king should be of too great 42 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE power, neither the people too haughty and wealthy, and that offices should not be obtained by inordinate suit, or by bribes and gifts: that they should neither be bought nor sold, nor that it should be needful for the officers, to be at any cost or charge in their offices: for so occa- sion is given to them by fraud and ravin to gather up their money again, and by reason of gifts and bribes the offices be given to rich men, which should rather have been executed of wise men: by such laws I say, like as sick bodies that be desperate and past cure, be wont with continual good cherishing to be kept and botched up for a time, so these evils also might be lightened and miti- gated. But that they may be perfectly cured, and brought to a good and upright state, it is not to be hoped for, whiles every man is master of his own to himself. Yea, and while you go about to do your cure of one part, you shall make bigger the sore of another part, so the help of one causeth another's harm : forasmuch as nothing can be given to any one, unless it be taken from another. More's Utopia (Camelot Series), pp. 112-13. SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 43 EXTRACTS FROM THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF THE CITIZEN. ISSUED IN THE YEAR 1789, AND EMBODYING THE DE- MANDS OF THE FRENCH BOURGEOISIE. The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neg- lect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the mem- bers of the social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected; and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incon- testable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. There- fore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen: ARTICLE 1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinction may be founded only upon the general good. 2. The aim of all political association is the preserva- tion of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. 44 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE 3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation. 4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the nat- ural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law. 5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not for- bidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law. 6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in, its formation. It must be the same for all whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, be- ing equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents. 9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed in- dispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law. 10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law. 11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 45 freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law. 14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either per- sonally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and duration of the taxes. 15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration. Buchez et Roux, Histoire Parlementaire, 1 1 :404. KARL MARX ON THE INTER-ACTION OF INVENTIONS AND OF INDUSTRIAL GROUPS. A radical change in the mode of production in one sphere of industry involves a similar change in other spheres. This happens at first in such branches of in- dustry as are connected together by being distinct steps in the manufacture of a single article, cloth for instance, and yet are separated by the division of labor in such a way that at each step an independent commodity is pro- duced. Thus spinning by machinery made weaving by machinery a necessity, and both together made impera- tive the mechanical and chemical revolution that took place in bleaching, printing, and dyeing. So too, on the other hand, the revolution in cotton spinning called forth the invention of the gin for separating the seeds from the cotton fiber; it was only by means of this invention that the production of cotton became possible on the enor- mous scale at present required. 46 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE But more especially, the revolution in the modes of production of industry and agriculture made necessary a revolution in the means of communication and of trans- portation. These, in the form in which they have been handed down from the earlier period, became unbearable trammels on modern industry, with its feverish haste of production, its enormous extent, its constant flinging of capital and labor from one sphere of production into another, and its newly established connections with the markets of the whole world. Hence, apart from the radical changes introduced in the construction of sailing vessels, the means of communication and transportation became gradually adapted to the modes of production of mechanical industry by the creation of a system of river steamers, railways, ocean steamers, and telegraphs. But the huge masses of iron that had now to be forged, to be welded, to be cut, to be bored, and to be shaped, de- manded, on their part, monster machines, for the con- struction of which the methods of the manufacturing period were utterly inadequate. Modern industry had therefore itself to take in hand the machine, its characteristic instrument of production, and to construct machines by machines. It was not till it did this, that it built up for itself a fitting technical foundation and stood on its own feet. Machinery, simul- taneously with the increasing use of it, in the first decades of this century, appropriated by degrees the fabrication of machines proper. But it was only during the decade preceding 1866 that the construction of railways and ocean steamers on a stupendous scale called into exist- ence the cyclopean machines now employed in the con- struction of "prime movers," or motors. Thus when we fix our attention on the machinery em- ployed in the construction of machines, we find the man- SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 47 ual implements reappearing, but on a grand scale. For instance, the cutting part of the boring machine is an immense drill driven by a steam engine; without this machine, the cylinders of large steam engines and of hy- draulic presses could not be made. The mechanical lathe is only a gigantic reproduction of the ordinary foot lathe; the planing machine, an iron carpenter, that works on iron with the same tools that the human carpenter employs on wood; the instrument that, on the London wharves, cuts the veneers, is a gigantic razor; the tool of the shearing machine, which shears iron as easily as a tailor's scissors cut cloth, is a monster pair of scissors; and the steam hammer works with an ordinary hammer head, but of such a weight that not even the god Thor himself could wield it. Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, 2 :56 f . 48 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE FROM A PARLIAMENTARY REPORT ON CHILD LABOR. SHOWING THE INHUMAN CONSEQUENCES OF THE IN- DUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. When the Industrial Revolution brought the great fac- tories into England, thousands of little boys and girls, sometimes not more than five or six years old, were em- ployed in tending the machines. Their wages were often merely a pittance, and their hours of work long enough to have worn out even strong adults. Even before the close of the eighteenth century the attention of philan- thropists was drawn to the miserable condition of mill workers, and reformers began to urge upon Parliament the necessity of making special provisions to safeguard the health and welfare of the children. In order to learn the real state of affairs, Parliament from time to time appointed commissioners, whose voluminous reports re- vealed the actual condition of the little workers in the mills. Here are extracts from a report of the year 1842: Charles Harris, a boy working in the carding room of Mr. Oldacress mill for spinning worsted yarn, testified as follows: I am twelve years old. I have been in the mill twelve months. I attend to a drawing machine. We begin at six o'clock and stop at half past seven. We don't stop work for breakfast. We do sometimes. This week we have not. Nothing has been said to me by Mr. Oldacres or the overlooker, or anybody else, about having any questions asked me. I am sure of that. The engine always stops for dinner. It works at tea time in the hot weather; and then we give over at half past seven instead SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 49 of eight, which is the general time. We have generally about twelve hours and a half of it. On Saturday we begin at six and give over at four. I get 2s 6d. a week. I have a father and mother, and give them what I earn. I have worked overhours for two or three weeks to- gether about a fortnight since. All the difference was, we worked breakfast time and tea time, and did not go away till eight. We are paid for such overhours at the rate of 2d. for three hours. I have always that for my- self. What do you do with it? I save it for clothes sometimes. I put it into a money club for clothes. I have worked nine hours over in one week. I got for that sY^d. I gave it my mother, and she made it up to 6d. and put it into the money club. She always puts by 6d. a week from my wages for that. Then your mother gets what you earn by the over- hours, doesn't she? No; I gets it for myself. Do you work overhours or not, just as you like? No; them as works must work. If overhours are put on next week, shall you be glad or sorry? It won't signify. I shall be, neither glad nor sorry. Sometimes mother gives me a halfpenny to spend. What do you do with it ? I saves it to buy shoes. Have never saved above a shilling for that ; mother put more to it, and bought me a pair. Don't you play sometimes after work's over? Yes, sometimes. Well, are you not sorry to lose that? 50 STUDIES IN SOCIAL. SCIENCE No, I don't mind about it. I am quite sure I don't. I am sometimes tired when I have been at work long hours. I am not tired now; I have been at work all day except dinner; it is now five o'clock. I am sure I had rather work as I do than lose any of my wages. I go to school of a Sunday sometimes. I went first about a month ago. I have been every Sunday since. I can only read in the alphabet yet. I mean to go regular. There is no reason why I should not. I wants to be a scholar. The father of two children in a mill at Lenton de- posed as follows: My two sons (the one ten, the other thirteen) work at Milnes's factory at Lenton. They go at half past five in the morning; don't stop at breakfast or tea, time. They stop at dinner half an hour. Come home at a quarter before ten. They used to work till ten, sometimes eleven, sometimes twelve. They earn between them 6s. 2d. per week. One of them, the eldest, worked at Wilson's for two years, at 2s. ^d. per week. He left because the overlooker beat him and loosened a tooth for him. I complained, and they turned him away for it. They have been gone to work sixteen hours now; they will be very tired when they come home at half past nine. I have a deal of trouble to get 'em up in the morning. I have been obliged to beat 'em with a strap in their shirts, and to pinch 'em, in order to get them well awake. It made me cry to be obliged to do it. Did you make them cry? Yes, sometimes. They will be home soon, very tired; and you will see them. 1 (i. e., the government inspector) preferred walking towards the factory to meet them. I saw the youngest SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 61 only, and asked him a few questions. He said, "I'm sure I shan't stop to talk to you; I want to go home and get to bed; I must be up at half past five again to-morrow morning." Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, 2:281 fE. LOUIS BLANC'S LABOR PROGRAM. DEFINING ONE OF THE EARLIEST SOCIALIST PROPOSALS. ARTICLE 1. A ministry of progress should be created, whose business would be to consummate our social revo- lution, and gradually, peaceably, without injury to any one, bring about the abolition of poverty. 2. To effect this end, the ministry of progress should be directed: first, to buy up with the public revenues all mines and railways; second, to transform the Bank of France into a national bank ; third, to have but one grand national insurance ofKce, to the great advantage of indi- viduals and of the government; fourth, to establish, under the direction of responsible officers, large public ware- houses, where producers and manufacturers could deposit their merchandise and provisions, for which they would have negotiable receipts of an estimated and determinate value, which should serve the purpose of paper money and be guaranteed to the full amount by the merchan- dise thus deposited; fifth, to open shops which would supply the place of our retail dealers, just as the public warehouses or magazines would take the place of the present system of wholesale business. 3. The ministry of progress would make out their special budget, the "labor budget," comprising the profits 52 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE arising from the warehouse dues, railways, mines, insur- ance, and the bank; all of which are now employed in private speculation, but would, in . the new system, be appropriated by the government. 4. The interest and the gradual repayments on the sums borrowed for the above-mentioned operations hav- ing been deducted from the labor budget, the rest would be employed: first, in establishing associations of work- men ; second, in founding agricultural colonies. 5. In order to be entitled to the assistance of the gov- ernment, every association must be established on the principles of community of interests, so as to be able to acquire in its progressive development an inalienable, ever-increasing, common capital, which is the only means of destroying all kinds of usury, and of preventing capital from continuing an instrument of tyranny, the possession of the implements of labor a privilege, money dealing a trade, happiness an exception, and idleness a right. 6. Consequently every association that would desire gov- ernment aid must embody the following regulations in its constitution. After deducting wages, interest of cap- ital, and expenses of management, the profits should be this, divided into four parts: (1) one-quarter to pay off the capital borrowed by the government for the associa- tion; (2) one-quarter to be appropriated as a fund for the assistance of the aged, the sick, the disabled, etc.; (3) one-quarter to be divided as profits among the mem- bers in a manner to be stated below; (4) the remaining quarter to form a reserve fund, the object of which will be explained further on. Such would be the constitution of a single association. Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, 2:76. SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 53 EXTRACTS FROM THE COMMUNIST MANI- FESTO OF MARX AND ENGELS (1848). BASIS OF ALL LATER SOCIALISM. The history of all hitherto existing society is the his- tory of class struggles. In the earlier epochs we find almost everywhere a complicated organization of society into various orders. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs. The modern bourgeois society, which has sprung from the ruins of feudal society, has not done away with class antagonism. It has only established new classes, new con- ditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the burgeois, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has sim- plified the class antagonism. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other, Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh fields for the rising bouregoisie. The East Indian and Chinese markets, the colonization of America, gave to commerce, navigation, and industry an impulse never before known. The feudal system of industry, under which industrial production was monopo- lized by close guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing demands of the new markets. The manufac- turing system (on a small scale) took its place. The guild masters were pushed to one side by the manufac- turing middle class; division of labor between the differ- 54 STUDIES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE ent corporate guilds vanished in the face of the division of labor in each single workshop. Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever increasing. Production by hand no longer sufficed. Thereupon steam and machinery revolutionized indus- trial production. The place of handwork was taken by that giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class, by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeoisie. We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange. The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic rela- tions. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left no other tie between man and man than naked self- interest, callous "cash payment." It has drowned the heavenly ecstasies of religion, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of selfish business calculation. The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncer- tainty and agitation, distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier periods. All fixed relations, with their ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away; all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can solidify. All that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with clear vision and without illusion SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 55 his real conditions of life and his relations with his fellow-men. The bourgeoisie, by the rapid spread of all instru- ments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws even the most barbarous peoples into civilization. The low prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it softens the barbarians' intensely obsti- nate hatred of foreigners. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of produc- tion; it forces them to introduce what it calls "civiliza- tion" into their midst, i. e., to become bourgeois them- selves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the popula- tion from the stupidity of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made bar- barian and semibarbarian countries dependent on the civ- ilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeoisie, the East on the West. The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature's forces to man, machinery, the application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing 1 of whole continents for cultivation, what earlier century has even a presenti- ment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor? The arms with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie 5 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE itself. It has not only forged the weapons for self- destruction ; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons, the modern working class, the proletarians. In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i. e. capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the prole- tariat, i. e. the modern working class, developed, a class of laborers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases cap- ital. These laborers, who must sell themselves, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competi- tion, to all the fluctuations of the market. Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to divi- sion of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack that is required of him. Modern industry hasy converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the in- dustrial capitalist. Masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overseer, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manu- facturer himself. The less skill and exertion of strength is implied in manual labor, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labor of men superseded by that of women. The essential condition for the existence and sway of the bourgeois class is the creation and increase of cap- ital; the condition for capital is wage labor. Wage SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 87 labor rests exclusively on competition between the labor- ers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary pro- moter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by their revolutionary com- bination, due to association. The development of mod- ern industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation of capitalist production and distribution of wealth. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are inevitable. Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, New York, 1901, 10 if. A FRENCHMAN'S ATTEMPT TO ANALYZE THE LEADING POLITICAL PARTIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY EUROPE. 1. The Absolutist Conservative party, formed by the high officials and landed aristocracy, desired to maintain absolute government, the authority of the Church, and the censorship of the press; it controlled all the central, eastern, and southern States of Europe. It no longer ex- isted in England, for the former Absolutist party, the Jacobites, had not survived the century of political lib- erty. 2. The Liberal Conservative, or Constitutional party, sometimes called the Tory, or Right Center, composed of the upper middle class and the liberal officeholders, demanded that the parliament should control the admin- istration of the government, particularly in financial mat- ters. Its ideal was personal government by sovereign, 68 STUDIES IN SOCIAL. SCIENCE with a parliament of two houses, one aristocratic, the other elective. It believed that the electoral body should be limited by a considerable property qualification, and that the parliament should vote the annual budget and leave the prince free in the choice of his ministers and in the direction of general policy. There should be no censorship of the press, but liberty should be restricted to the wealthy classes; the nation's right should be guar- anteed by a constitution. /This party was in power in the States which had constitutions; in the absolute mon- archies it demanded a constitution, a representative assem- bly, and the abolition of censorship. 3. The Parliamentary Liberal party, sometimes 1 called the Whig, or Left Center, recruited from the middle class, demanded not only control by the elective assem- bly but its supremacy over the sovereign, his ministers, and the aristocratic chamber. Its ideal was the parlia- mentary system, a ministry chosen from the party in majority in the lower house, governing in the prince's name, but according to the will of the elected representa- tives of the nation. It demanded a constitution which recognized the superior rights or sovereignty of the peo- ple, political liberties (such as liberty of the press, hold- ing public meetings, and forming associations), and ab- solute religious liberty ... It would admit only property owners to vote, but tended to lower the quali- fications for the franchise in order to include in the voting body of the lower middle class. 4. The Democratic, or Radical party, formed by stu- dents, workingmen, writers, and lawyers, demanded, ac- cording to the motto of the French Revolution, the sovereignty and political equality of the people. It added to the demands of the Parliamentary party universal suf- SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 69 frage, remuneration of representatives, abolition of all po- litical privileges of the wealthy classes, and separation of Church and State. Its ideal was a purely representative, democratic, and preferably republican government like that of the French Convention, or even a direct govern- ment by the people, in which they should themselves make the constitution. In 1815 this party, so far from being in power in any country, had not even the right to formulate its programme publicly, except in England, Sweden, and Norway. The two extreme parties, Absolutist and Democratic, held diametrically opposite conceptions of government and society. The Absolutists wanted a society based on hered- itary inequality. . . . They also demanded an es- tablished religion. The Democrats admitted neither po- litical, hereditary nor ecclesiastical authority. Seignobos, A Political History of Europe, Holt & Co., New York, p. 856 ff. A DESCRIPTION OF THE GERMAN INSUR- ANCE LAWS, PASSED BETWEEN 1883 AND 1890. The minimum of relief in case of sickness entitles the beneficiary to free medical treatment and medicine for 26 weeks; and in case of incapacity for work, financial as- sistance to the extent of one-half of the average daily wage, or to free hospital nursing, besides one-half of the allowance for those dependent on the sick person. Fur- ther, it entitles sick women to relief for six months after their confinement; and in case of death, burial money amounting to twenty times their average daily wage. 60 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE The necessary means are raised by weekly contribu- tions (not higher than four per cent of the average wage), two-thirds of which is borne by the insured and one-third by the employer. The administration is carried out through sickness clubs organized according to trades or localities, whose presiding officers are chosen from the insured and the employers according to the ratio of the contributions. The insurance against sickness embraces (inclusive of the miners' clubs) about ten million per- sons in more than twenty thousand clubs, and involves an annual expenditure of about 200 million marks. Insurance against accidents replaces the old law of Em- ployers' Liability (its many defects being equally harmful to employer and employed) by a legal provision, which also insures the person injured, or his survivors, in cases of casual accidents, or such as have occurred through the fault of his co-workers, or through his own carelessness. The personal liability of the employer is thus changed into an economical charge upon the entire trade con- cerned, which is apportioned to single establishments ac- cording to the measure of their risk. The minimum indemnity against accidents comprises: (1) in the case of wounded persons (from the com- mencement of the fourteenth week after the accident, that is to say, as a supplement to the sickness insurance) the expenses of medical treatment, and a payment during the period of incapacity for work up to two-thirds of the annual earnings, or free nursing in an institute until medical treatment is no longer necessary, and the same allowance to those dependent on the injured person as in case of death; (2) in case of death, funeral money to the amount of the fifteenth part of annual salary, but in any case not less than fifty marks, and for those depend- SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 61 ent on the deceased an allowance amounting to 60 per cent of the annual wage for widow and children, and to 20 per cent of same for necessitous parents. Up to the end of 1903 more than 1,000,000,000 marks were paid in indemnities for accidents. Insurance against disablement and old age^ which was introduced on the first of January, 1891, by an imperial law (revised in 1899), completes the system of work- men's insurance. The administrators of the insurance which' includes all branches of trade, are territorial in- surance institutions, guaranteed by the State, whose self- administration is shared equally by the employer and em- ployees. The insurance entitles those incapable of work to pensions without regard to age, and gives old-age pen- sions to septuagenarians regardless of working ability. Further it assures return of subscriptions paid by insured women who marry before receiving a pension, to widows or orphans of those insured persons who die before re- ceiving an allowance, and to those insured who are dis- abled through accidents, but who do not receive a dis- ablement allowance because of their higher accident- insurance allowance. The funds necessary for this insurance are raised through a yearly contribution from the government of fifty marks for each pension, together with weekly con- tributions to an equal amount from employer and em- ployed. The amount of the same for a definite period is so estimated in advance that the capital value of the pen- sions which the insurance institution must bear is cov- ered, as well as the reimbursements of contributions and the other expenses of insurance. The disablement-insurance scheme comprises about 13.5 million persons insured, or almost the whole of the work- ing classes. 62 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE To the initiative of imperial social policy the blessing is therefore due that in Germany nearly all workmen are insured in case of sickness, accident, and disablement. Every day 1,250,000 marks are spent for this branch of workman's protection alone. In countries without com- pulsory insurance scarcely one-tenth of the workmen en- joy a similar protection, and this, moreover, falls con- siderably short of the German workman's insurance in certainty and scope. In one year over five million persons in need of help received about 370,000,000 marks; during the whole pe- riod of seventeen years (1885-1901) 50,000,000 persons in round numbers (sick and injured persons, the incapaci- tated and their families) received indemnities amounting to 3,000,000,000 marks is a result of the legislation for the insurance of workmen, although the most far-reaching clauses of the law (insurance against disablement) only came into force on January 1, 1891. The workmen have only paid the smaller part of the contribution, and have already received about 1,000,000,000 marks more in compensation than their contributions amount to. The significance of this insurance for German work- men extends far beyond a simple financial one, for it has become a social-political school for the whole nation. The importance of German workmen's insurance towers far above its financial aspect. Through the mutual partici- pation of the employer and employee in the administra- tion and payment of contributions, the workman is him- self daily reminded of the moral duty of making provision for the future from his own resources, the employers of their social duties to their employees, and both parties of their common interest in their calling. Thereby social reconciliation is effected where otherwise special organi- zations would array themselves against each other as an- SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 63 tagonists. It is of great importance, moreover, that the cure of sick and disabled workmen is more rapidly ef- fected through the erection of special institutions. Owing to the success reached through these measures, public sanitation has been directed into entirely new channels. Above everything else, the co-operation of these organiza- tions with those of voluntary chanty, especially with the Red Cross Society and the National Woman's Club, has made it possible for even the smallest and poorest coun- try parish to systematically cure the sick, and to under- take an organized campaign against that frightful na- tional pestilence, tuberculosis of the lungs. Instead of smothering the free initiative of self-helping bodies, as many had feared workmen's insurance would do, it has, on the contrary, enabled them to develop to their highest powers. The reserve capital of 1,500,000,000 marks has fur- nished the means for solving the most important social economical questions. Up to the end of 1902 over 400,000,000 marks had been expended from the funds of disablement-insurance institutions for the construction of workmen's dwellings, sick and convalescent houses, sanatoriums, public hos- pitals, homes for traveling workmen, public baths, blind asylums, kindergartens, slaughterhouses, systems of water- works, sewerage and draining plants, street paving, sav- ings banks, co-operative stores, and similar institutions for public welfare, as well as for the payment of agricul- tural loans (mortgages, light railroads, land and road im- provement, development of cattle breeding, etc. ) , all measures the final aim of which is to cause the masses of the people to participate to an ever-increasing degree in the advance of civilization. 64 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE The advantages of German workmen's insurance, in distinction to other systems, is that : 1. It guarantees the support required by necessitous persons immediately, and as a well-earned right: 2. It gives both employer and employee common in- terests in their duties, and thereby acts in a way as an instrument of social reconciliation; 3. It awakens a feeling of social duty throughout the nation; and 4. It strengthens the working and defensive power of the nation. Robinson and Beard, Readings in European History, 2:189 ff. AN ARGUMENT AGAINST SOCIALISM. BASED ON POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS. The pursuit of wealth now furnishes the outlet for the overmastering ambition of many persons. In the new socialistic state the desire to rise in the world would have only one main outlet, namely politics. The work of gov- erning the country, and that of managing its industries, would be merged in one great official body. The con- trast between rulers and ruled would be enormously heightened by this concentration of power in the hands of the rulers, and by the further fact that the ruled would never be able, by means of wealth, to acquire an offset for the advantages of officeholding. The desire for pub- lic position would therefore be intensified in a socialistic state. SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 65 There would, it is true, be some prizes to be gained, in a worthy way, by other kinds of service, such as au- thorship, invention, and discovery; but the prizes which would appeal to most men would be those of officehold- ing. Is it in reason to suppose that the method of secur- ing the offices would then be better than it is at present. Would a man, under the new regime, work quietly at his task in the shoe shop, the bakery, or the mine, waiting for the office to which he aspires to seek him out, or would he try to make terms with other men for mutual assistance in the quest of office? Would "rings" be less general than they are now? Could there fail to be bosses and political machines? Would the Tammanys of the new order, then, be an improvement on the Tam- manys of the old order? Without making any dogmatic assertions, we may say that there would certainly have to be machines of some sort for pushing men into public offices, and that these would have very sinister possibili- ties. They would be opposed by counter machines, made up of men out of office and anxious to get in. Furthermore, very nice adjustments would have to be made between agriculture, on the one hand, and manu- facturers and commerce on the other; and further adjust- ments would have to be made between the different branches of each form of business. All this would be done, not automatically as at present, by the action of de- mand and supply in a market, but by the voluntary acts of officials. Here is the field in which the wisdom of officials would be overtaxed. They might manage the mills of the steel trust, but it would trouble them to say how many men should be employed in that business and how many in every other, and, of the men in that par- ticular branch, how many should work in Pittsburg and how many in the mines of Michigan and Minnesota. 66 STUDIES IN SOCIAL, SCIENCE Another grave objection to socialism is the check that it might impose on technical progress. At present we see a bewildering succession of inventions transforming the industries of the world. Machine after machine appears in rapid succession, each displacing its predecessor, work- ing for a time and giving way to still better devices. The power of man over nature increases with amazing rapid- ity. Even in the relatively simple operations of agricul- ture, the reaper, the thresher, the seeder and the gang plow enable a man to-day to do as much work as could a score of men ini the colonial period of American history. In manufacturing the gain is greater; and in transporta- tion it is indefinitely greater. The progress goes on with- out cessation, since the thing which guarantees it is the impulse of self-preservation. An employer must improve his mechanism if his rivals do so. He must now and then get ahead of his rivals if he is to make any profit. Con- servatism which adheres to the old is self-destruction, and a certain audacity affords the nearest approach to safety. From this it comes about, first, that forward movements are made daily and hourly in some part of the field ; and, secondly that with every forward movement the whole procession must move on to catch up with its new leader. Now, it is possible to suppose that under socialism an altruistic motive may lead men to make inventions and discoveries. They may work for the good of humanity. The desire for distinction may also impel them to such labors, and nonpecuniary rewards offered by the State may second this desire. The inventive impulse may act even where no reward is in view. Men will differ greatly in their estimates of the amount of progress that can be gained in this way; but the thing that may be affirmed without danger of denial is, that the competitive race ab- solutely compels progress at a rate that is inspiringly SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 67 rapid, and that there is much uncertainty as to the amount of progress that would be secured where other motives are relied on. Officialdom is generally unfavor- able to the adoption of improved devices, even when they are presented; its boards have frequently been the grave- yards of inventions, and there is no blinking the uncer- tainty as to whether a satisfactory rate of improvement could be obtained where the methods of production should be at the mercy of such boards. Professor Clark, quoted by Robinson and Beard, Read- ings in Modern European History, 2 :497 &. Bibliography. Cheyney, E. P., Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England, 1901. Macmillan, 1913. $1.40 net. Hobson, J. A., The Evolution of Modern Capital- ism, 1904. W. Scott and Scribner's, new and rev. ed., 1913. $1.50. Levasseur, E., Histoire des classes ouvrieres et de Industrie en France de 1789 a 1870, 2 vols., 1903-4. A. Rousseau, 1903-04. $4.80. Robinson, J. H., and Beard, C. A., Readings in Modern European History. Ginn & Co., 1908-09, IV. $1.50. Spencer, Herbert, The Man Versus the State, 1894. (Puts the case for individualism.) Appleton, 1891. $0.30. Walling, W. E., Socialism As It Is. Macmillan, New York, 1912. $2.00. Walling, W. E., The Larger Aspects of Socialism. Macmillan, New York, 1913. $1.50. Wells, H. G., New Worlds For Old, 1908. (Re- view of objections to socialism.) Macmillan, 1913. $0.50. Webb, S. and B., The History of Trade Unionism, 1901. Longmans, Green & Co., 1894. $4.00. Ely, Richard T., Socialism ; an examination of its Nature, its Strength and its Weakness, 1894. T. Y. Crowell & Co., 1894. $1.50.