li 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
1^ 
 
WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 THE REFORM-AGITATOR? 
 
WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REFORM-AGITATOR ? 
 
 BY 
 
 R. S. D. 
 
 j . > . 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 Printed at t&e Etoerstoe $xe** 
 1912 
 
\\1 
 
 .13' 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 191 2, BY RICHARD SYLVESTER DOW 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 THE REFORM-AGITATOR? 
 
 Sensation is the order of the day, and there 
 is keen competition among those who wield the 
 pen, or pose for the public eye. We become ac- 
 customed to the bang of the anarchist and the 
 drivel of the agitator. Occasionally, however, the 
 ordinary citizen, striving to keep his mental 
 equilibrium, meets with views so extreme, and 
 flowing from a source so unexpectedly radical, 
 that he is fairly jostled out of the even tenor of 
 his way. 
 
 This occurred not long ago upon the discov- 
 ery, in a newspaper published in a small New 
 England town, of these editorial views concern- 
 ing the Lawrence strike: 
 
 RUSSIA OUTDONE 
 
 By means of alluring literature and smooth-tongued 
 agents, the ranks of the workers in " the Free land of 
 America" are recruited from the "down-trodden" 
 nations of Europe. Russia is an especially fertile field 
 for the emigration agent. America is pictured as a 
 
t WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 free country where wages are high and the people 
 free from political and official persecution. These 
 agents are employed by an organization of employers 
 of labor in order that there may be a steady supply of 
 low-priced labor coming into the country all the time 
 to combat the growing tendency toward higher wages 
 and better living conditions. It is against the immi- 
 gration laws of the United States to make an alien 
 contract, but there are ways of evading the laws and 
 lawyers to show these ways. 
 
 Just at present these foreigners are being given a 
 taste of what " Freedom " means in America at Law- 
 rence. The Russian outrages of which we have read 
 so much suffer little by comparison. The striking 
 workers have learned that they must either work at 
 starvation wages or starve on no wages at all. They 
 must not gather to talk over their grievances. They 
 must not speak to any working-man not a striker. 
 They must not speak above a whisper. They are sur- 
 rounded by a cordon of soldiers and armed policemen 
 and any act of theirs is likely to be termed a "disturb- 
 ance of the peace" and they are likely to be thrown 
 into jail. Read the record of the Lawrence Police 
 Court: Fines imposed for loitering on the street; for 
 addressing slurring remarks at a soldier; for speaking to 
 a strike breaker ; for making loud noises in public places ; 
 for failure to return home when ordered by a police- 
 man or soldier. These charges are " proved " by the 
 mere assertion of the arresting officer and no denial is 
 believed. In a word, the city of Lawrence is being 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 3 
 
 governed by a military despotism, with the whole power 
 of the State aimed at the breaking of the strike and the 
 forcing of the workers back into the mills, without 
 any change of conditions of labor being effected. 
 
 The strikers have been denied the right to send their 
 children out of the city where they may be safe from 
 the scenes of disorder and where they may cease to be 
 a burden to their parents during the progress of the 
 strike. The Fugitive Slave Law was of no greater as- 
 sistance to the slave-owners than the laws as they are 
 interpreted and enforced in Lawrence. 
 
 A strike leader is charged with murder and is in 
 danger of the electric chair because he is alleged to have 
 counselled violence on the part of the strikers and be- 
 cause a woman was shot by a policeman or a militia- 
 man during a riot. In order that the strikers may 
 be deprived of his assistance in the carrying-on of 
 the strike, he is held in jail without bail awaiting 
 trial. 
 
 Americans have condemned the Russian Govern- 
 ment for its acts of cruelty and official oppression. We 
 have invited the oppressed to come to our free shores 
 and escape tyranny, and when they have gotten here they 
 have found tyranny no less severe than that from 
 which they believed they were escaping. 
 
 Governor Foss has the power to put an end to these 
 conditions at Lawrence, but he seems to be in no 
 mood to do so. His alleged friendship for the people 
 ends with election day and he becomes at once a part- 
 isan of the class to which he belongs the "Cap- 
 
4 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 tains of Industry " who hold dividends more sacred 
 than human life. 
 
 An effect was produced similar, probably, to 
 that which would be experienced if the hands of 
 time were to be suddenly set back several cent- 
 uries ; and our citizen was moved to ask a few 
 questions concerning the exact purport of the 
 article and the attitude in general of the paper. 
 These were his inquiries to the editor : 
 
 I read with much interest and care the editorial en- 
 titled "Russia Outdone" appearing in the " 
 
 " of February 29th ult. 
 
 Is it possible that the little paper which seems to be 
 endeavoring to place itself in the bosom of every fam- 
 ily stands, in matters so serious as this, for conclusions 
 which are based solely upon assumed premises ? 
 
 That they are assumed is best illustrated by the 
 fourth paragraph: 
 
 " A strike leader is ... in danger of the electric 
 chair because he is alleged to have counselled violence 
 on the part of the strikers and because a woman was 
 shot by a policeman or a militiaman, during a riot." 
 
 Have we come to the point where a case properly 
 before the courts is to be tried and decided by our 
 " ," without a hearing? 
 
 The case of Mr. Ettor has not yet been heard. 
 How, then, can the author of this article state as a 
 cold fact that the deceased woman was shot by any- 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 5 
 
 body in particular ? Why does the author distinguish 
 between the allegation as to the counselling of vio- 
 lence by Ettor and the allegation by Ettor that the 
 woman was shot by a policeman or militiaman ? How 
 does the author know ? 
 
 In the second paragraph he makes a series of state- 
 ments which to uninitiated minds are very apt to be 
 taken pro confesso; " They must not gather to talk over 
 their grievances ; they must not speak to any working- 
 man not a striker; they must not speak above a whis- 
 per. In a word, the city of Lawrence is being governed 
 by a military despotism, with the whole power of the 
 State aimed at the breaking of the strike and the forc- 
 ing of the workers back into the mills without any 
 change of conditions of labor being effected." 
 
 Now, every one of those statements is open to con- 
 tradiction ; and I am using the mildest terms possible 
 under the circumstances. There is not and never was 
 a law or rule in Lawrence or any other part of the 
 United States of America to prevent people from 
 gathering to talk over their grievances. There never 
 was a law or a rule to prevent one man speaking to 
 another, unless the speaker is obnoxious. Neither the 
 people who want to work at Lawrence nor the author 
 of this editorial, nor anybody else, is willing to be an- 
 noyed. Every one of us has a right to attend to his 
 own business and to demand that he be not molested. 
 
 There is no such rule of law or of the police board 
 or of the militia as would prevent a man speaking 
 above a whisper. People have no right to raise a pub- 
 
6 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 lie riot ; they have no right to make themselves publicly 
 obnoxious. They have no right to gather for the pur- 
 pose of talking over their grievances in a way which 
 constitutes a public nuisance or which prevents the 
 transaction of business or the performance of labor. 
 
 There is no desire on the part of the city of Law- 
 rence or the militia or the mill-owners, or anybody 
 else, to force the workers back into the mills ; they 
 went out of their own accord and they are at liberty 
 to stay out. 
 
 If this editorial is intended to be an argument in 
 favor of the right of any class of labor to coerce other 
 laborers or other classes into adopting the dogmas and 
 the views entertained by the first-named class, then I 
 
 can see that the " " does not stand for the 
 
 principles that it purports to uphold. 
 
 The article is a diatribe against oppression. It and 
 the " " call for freedom. Is it freedom to labor- 
 ers who want to work to be coerced into idleness ? 
 
 I have watched the progress of this sort of thing for 
 a good many years. I have myself labored, on a farm, 
 in a grain store, in a bank, in a law office on wages 
 and on salary. And I have been laboring ever since I 
 reached a point where I became independent, so-called. 
 To my way of thinking this editorial is absolutely un- 
 fair and unjust. Not alone to the mill-owners and 
 the city of Lawrence and the militia and the State 
 Government, but to every reasoning, honest man in 
 the United States of America. It is based upon prin- 
 ciples absolutely false and unsound. And, while we 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 7 
 
 cannot attack the logic, yet the premises are absolutely 
 preassumed ; and most of the alleged facts, if not pure 
 fiction, are yet to be proven. 
 
 These " poor, down-trodden laborers," about whom 
 this editorial makes such an outcry, are far better 
 off, as a matter of fact, in this country than they were 
 in the countries from which they came. The trouble 
 is that there are in all countries certain people, depen- 
 dent upon others for their means of livelihood, who 
 do not appreciate the fact that the very presence of 
 capital, and accumulation, aggregation and consolida- 
 tion of it, through thrift, enterprise, and ability, is what 
 gives them their employment. This class includes a 
 good many young men who absorb the false doctrines 
 of fanatics and unpractical people. This absorption, 
 combined with just enough education to cause them 
 to be dangerous to themselves as well as the public, 
 and contaminated by a desire to emulate the example \ 
 of many who, through thrift, or otherwise, have the 
 ability to indulge in a little more extravagance in their 
 way of living, is to a great extent responsible for these 
 outbursts in the way of demands for more and more 
 remuneration for work which is not worth any more. 
 A friend of mine recently told me that on his way to 
 and from business he had occasion to pass a boot-black 
 parlor. That invariably, both at noon and at night, the 
 place was filled with boys of sixteen, eighteen, twenty, 
 or twenty-five years old, all of them with cigarettes 
 or cigars in their mouths, waiting to have their shoes 
 polished, at a cost of ten cents. That most of these 
 
8 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 young people are earning perhaps ten, fifteen, or twenty 
 dollars a week. Is it necessary in these days for wage- 
 earners to have their boots blacked by others while 
 they sit and smoke a ten-cent cigar? 
 
 What is the principal object behind most of the de- 
 mands for increased wages ? Look at the moving pic- 
 ture shows, the saloons, the cigar-stores, the boot-black 
 emporiums ; look at the feathers on the hats, the mar- 
 abou and silks on the backs, and you have the answer. 
 
 It is very common to attribute all this trouble, which 
 comes periodically at least in this country, to the capi- 
 talist classes, so-called. From a sense of justice and 
 fairness, and knowing both sides of the question, as 
 I do know it and have known it for thirty-five years 
 past, I have only this to say /that if there is no*^ 
 longer a premium on thrift, and if the principles, which 
 the author of the editorial referred to seems to believe 
 and advocate, are sound, and if this country is reaching 
 a point where one man must not make any more than 
 another, or if, as Mr. Ettor stated in open court, the 
 production by labor belongs all of it to labor, we shall! 
 finish as we began when Plymouth Colony was set- 
 tled, by the resumption of a condition of society 
 where everybody lived on his plot of land and made 
 his own mittens and boots and jumpers ; and where 
 there was no such thing as a laboring class, because, 
 while all were laborers, all were independent, com- 
 mercially independent. 
 
 If the author of that article can name any interme- 
 diate point which can be reached by and through true 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 9 
 
 principles of economics, and where everybody will be 
 satisfied, it would be the basis of the most interesting 
 editorial he ever wrote. 
 
 I have read scores of articles, by Bishop Potter, 
 President Eliot, Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, 
 Morgan, Rabbi Fleischer, Roosevelt, and dozens and 
 dozens of other people, in all walks of life, articles 
 written for the laboring class, so-called ; articles in- 
 tended to assist in the determination of the question 
 constantly before us. I have never yet heard any one 
 state in clear terms where the line is to be drawn ; 
 and there, let me remind you, is where the trouble 
 arises: namely, the uncertainty of it all. You can- 
 not do business with uncertainties surrounding you. 
 There must be fixed quantities, fixed values, some- 
 thing tangible, upon which to construct progressive 
 business. 
 
 I do not wish to enter upon any discussion as to 
 what constitutes a living wage. I would like to say 
 this, however : no one of those workmen has died from 
 hunger and no one of the families of those who wish 
 to and are able to work has gone to a poor-house. 
 Nearly every single one of the foreigners has sent 
 money back to his native country. A Polish laborer 
 said to a friend of mine, " You need never have any 
 fear about the Pole ; after he has been here two years 
 he will have a surplus of cash on hand." Now, what 
 does that statement mean ? Why, it means that he 
 has already become a capitalist. Everybody knows 
 what the Italian is capable of doing ; and it is nobody's 
 
io WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 business what he lives on while he is doing it. I my- 
 self looked over the books of the store on a cotton 
 plantation in the delta of Arkansas, and saw innumer- 
 able cases where Italians working on that plantation 
 had sent and were sending back to banks in Italy, after 
 a few years of labor, drafts amounting to one, two, 
 three, and even four or five thousand dollars. 
 
 And that leads to the silly distinction between capi- 
 talist and laborer out of which so much material is 
 made by the demagogue and the labor agitator j neither 
 of them taking up the cudgels from a humanitarian 
 standpoint, as a rule. 
 
 t We are all laborers as long as we live. We cannot 
 escape it. We can all become capitalists by and through 
 the means of thrift and industry and self-discipline, but 
 we can never tear ourselves away from being laborers 
 so long as we do any sort of business. I don't mean 
 to include in this sweeping statement the idle rich, of 
 which there are not so many in this world as has been 
 generally supposed, and of which the number is be- 
 coming smaller and smaller each year. Even on that 
 point, if one wished to digress a bit, something could 
 be said in favor of him who chooses to live upon a fixed 
 income without doing any work. He certainly does not 
 take business from the people in any profession which 
 he might enter, nor does he take positions which can 
 be filled by others who have less income. And finally, 
 he settles his own problem because, if he is simply an 
 idle person or what somebody designated as a " gentle- 
 manly vagrant," he will gradually dwindle, mentally, 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR n 
 
 physically, and probably morally, into a non-prolific 
 nonentity. 
 
 I would call the attention of the author of the editorial 
 to a single principle out of many of economics which 
 he either never knew or has not taken into account, 
 and which is this, the man who does the greatest 
 good for the commonwealth, meaning the country as 
 a whole, is not the man who throws his money away, 
 or hoards it in a stocking, or spends it for no profit ; 
 but the man who prudently invests his savings in en- 
 terprises, mills, railroads, factories, or retail business, 
 all of which give employment to others. 
 
 If this editorial had had one saving point it might 
 have been excusable. If the author had chosen to say, 
 " I believe in socialism ; I believe in labor unionism ; 
 I believe in labor standing up for its rights; I believe in 
 laws that will cut down the opportunities for creating 
 aggregations of capital in the hands of very few" and all 
 that sort of thing, it might pass as a mere expres- 
 sion of opinion, and of an opinion in most of which 
 all thinking men of sound judgment may concur. But 
 neither he nor any other can ever hope to gain any- 
 thing of value, for himself or the community, or the 
 commonwealth, by advocating or condoning the de- 
 struction of property or interference with commerce, 
 or business, or the right of men to labor unmolested. 
 I would not raise a finger or interpose a word of ob- 
 jection to the article, if it entertained or admitted, or 
 even alluded to, the real and basic principles of economics 
 governing all relations of employer and employee. 
 
12 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 I believe I am as humane as any person, but there 
 are certain fixed principles which must be observed by 
 everybody if we are to continue to live under any 
 civic contract. I do not say the laws cannot be bet- 
 tered j but while they stand on the books they must 
 be observed, or the civic entity must fall. 
 
 If it falls, does the author of this editorial believe 
 that, with everybody on the same basis, there would 
 be no advancement by certain members of society 
 more rapid than by others ? Does he believe that, if 
 those advances were rendered impossible by law, the 
 progressive element would not fall back and the whole 
 race deteriorate, until a state of things approaching 
 barbarism would be reached ? 
 
 Let the author amend his editorial by the single 
 statement alone, that law and order must be maintained, 
 and he then boils his argument down to the proposi- 
 tion embodied in these questions, Must a mill- 
 owner employ labor whether he wishes to or not ? 
 Must he stand by and see certain people interfere 
 with the employment by him of such labor as he 
 chooses to take in ? 
 
 If these principles are to be established, we shall 
 see business as dead as the renowned "Chelsea"; 
 and if business is dead, who profits ? Does the la- 
 borer ? Does the socialist ? Does the editor of a news- 
 paper ? 
 
 The letter was published in due form and 
 with headlines which doubtless to the editor 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 13 
 
 seemed appropriate, as the following editorial 
 note was appended : 
 
 In spite of the fact that the above communication 
 does not conform to our rules (which require that the 
 name of the writer be signed to communications), we 
 decided to print the above criticism, as it is a criticism 
 of the editor and not of any reader of this paper. It 
 was written by a lawyer of repute and doubtless his 
 initials will identify him sufficiently to the majority 
 of our readers. Not having the privilege of a legal 
 education, the editor is at a disadvantage in answer- 
 ing a criticism of this kind, but we freely admit that 
 the arguments presented above are based upon an en- 
 tirely different point of view than those upon which 
 the editorial was founded, and it is our aim to get 
 both sides of the case before our readers in order that 
 they may form intelligent conclusions. As we have 
 before stated, the purpose of the editor is not to un- 
 duly emphasize his own views, but to encourage dis- 
 cussion of this kind and we welcome criticism as well 
 as commendation of the views expressed. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, the editorial entitled "Russia Outdone" 
 has been praised in many quarters as being well in 
 accordance with the facts as they are generally under- 
 stood, and writers of far greater prominence have 
 expressed the same views. We cannot agree with 
 the writer in condemning the extravagance of the 
 wage-earners in liking good clothes and luxuries, 
 while at the same time ignoring the extravagance of 
 
14 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 those who live upon the product of their labor. This 
 question is too great to be settled by any mere coun- 
 try newspaper editor, or even by any lawyer, no mat- 
 ter how great his prominence, but the fundamental 
 principle, that human rights are of more moment than 
 property rights, must be conceded by all thinking persons. 
 
 In the same issue of the paper appeared a 
 letter from another subscriber, as follows : 
 
 A PLAUSIBLE PLEA FOR HIS CLIENTS 
 
 WRITES FROM 
 
 HIS VIEWS OF ARTICLE 
 
 Editor : 
 
 I read with much interest and care the editorial en- 
 titled " Russia Outdone," and find it voices the senti- 
 ment of all the editors whose expressions have come 
 to my notice, and especially the leading journals of 
 this state. 
 
 " " has made a very plausible but misleading 
 
 plea for his clients. The last paragraph of " Editor's 
 Note " and the statement there made, that " the funda- 
 mental principle that human rights are of more mo- 
 ment than property rights," contains more truth than 
 the entire article by " ." 
 
 In no epoch of the world's history have such im- 
 portant questions presented themselves, or been forced 
 upon us, for solution as those that confront us at the 
 very threshold of this new century. Shall we, in the 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 15 
 
 solution, but repeat history, and see our nation de- 
 stroyed ? No ! A thousand times no ! 
 
 Our government can endure ; our government must 
 endure ; our government shall endure ; but it must be, 
 and early become, a government u of the people, by 
 the people, for the people." 
 
 The fundamental law of such government shall be 
 righteousness, the controlling spirit must be the 
 Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, ex- 
 emplified in substance, not in form. 
 
 Now, if" " is as eloquent with his tongue as 
 
 he is facile with his pen, and honestly desires, or 
 rather desires honestly, to enlighten your readers upon 
 this great question so vital to all, and is willing to 
 publicly discuss the issue, he shall be accommodated, 
 and the public enlightened and entertained. 
 
 And the same sheet contained this editorial : 
 
 TO m " 
 
 There is a wide divergence of opinion in regard to 
 the facts in relation to the Lawrence strike, and our 
 friend who signed himself" " in a communica- 
 tion in these columns last week may be classed among 
 those who deprecate and deplore any attempt on the 
 part of the working class to better wage conditions. 
 The writer takes the editor of this paper to task for 
 having expressed the opinion that the arrest of Ettor 
 was an outrage, and alleges that a criticism of the 
 courts was involved in the editorial, " Russia Out- 
 done." He asks, " Why does the author distinguish 
 
16 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 between the allegations as to the counselling of vio- 
 lence by Ettor and the allegation by Ettor that the 
 woman was shot by a policeman or a militiaman ? " 
 If we have read the records of the case correctly the 
 woman was shot during the progress of a disturbance 
 in which the police and militiamen used their revolv- 
 ers to quell the riot, and there was no evidence to show 
 that any of the strikers used firearms, their weapons 
 being bits of ice and stones. Furthermore, we have 
 always understood that in order to charge any person 
 with being an accessory to a crime, it is first necessary 
 to have a principal who committed the crime, and in 
 this case no such principal is being tried. When the 
 authorities go outside of the law in their efforts to en- 
 force peace, we feel that we are justified in calling the 
 act an outrage. If any one should be made amenable 
 to law, surely it is those who have the enforcement 
 of laws as their duty. The writer ignores entirely the 
 arbitrary act of the chief of police of Lawrence in pre- 
 venting the children of the strikers from leaving the 
 city and the arrest of their mothers and their incarcer- 
 ation in jail. Yet the chief of the Lawrence police, in 
 the hearing at Washington, has stated that he knew of 
 no specific law justifying his act. Again we charge 
 the act as an act of persecution. 
 
 The writer says, " Look at the moving-picture shows, 
 the saloons, the cigar-stores, the boot-black empori- 
 ums ; look at the feathers on the hats, the marabou 
 and silks on the backs, and you have the answer." 
 The answer to what ? To the question, " What is 
 
^THE REFORM-AGITATOR 17 
 
 the principal object behind most of the demands for 
 increased wages ? " Does the writer believe that the 
 workers in the woolen mills of Lawrence spend their 
 hard-earned money in riotous living, following the ex- 
 ample of those who squander easily-obtained fortunes 
 on whims and fancies ? He further states that none of 
 these workmen has died from hunger. Is this a cause 
 for congratulation ? Must a working-man die of hun- 
 ger in order to entitle him to sympathy ? " Nearly 
 every one of the foreigners has sent money back to 
 his native country." Is^this true ? How can they do it 
 on the wages they receive and still have money left to 
 get their shoes shined and clothe themselves with 
 silks and marabou on a weekly wage of from $6 to 
 #9 per week ? 
 
 " I believe I am as humane as any person, but there 
 are certain fixed principles which must be observed by 
 everybody if we are to continue to live under any civic 
 contract . . . while the laws stand on the books they 
 must be observed." To that we say aye. We agree 
 with him in his statement, but we disagree with him 
 in his application of the principles which seem to be 
 applied by him to the laborers alone. We do not up- 
 hold the laborer in his acts of violence ; but we con- 
 demn those who meet violence with violence and law- 
 lessness with lawlessness. 
 
 We have no inclination to follow the example of 
 our correspondent who takes three columns of space 
 to refute the statements made in a half-column edi- 
 torial. We hold no brief for either side of the question 
 
18 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 at issue. We do believe, however, that the mill-owners 
 have created the conditions of which the workers com- 
 plain and that they are pursuing wrong tactics in forc- 
 ing an issue and using the methods which they have 
 used. Before the law the word of a laborer is as good 
 as the word of a millionaire, yet strikers have denied 
 and policemen and militiamen have affirmed, and in 
 every case the word of the policeman and the word 
 of the militiaman have been accepted as truth in the 
 Lawrence court and the arrested person has not been 
 given the benefit of the doubt which the law allows. 
 
 Fairly boiled down to its basic facts, the whole ar- 
 gument of the writer is summed up in these words : 
 " Let the capitalist alone; let him employ such labor 
 as he chooses for such wages as he may choose to 
 pay. If any one objects, let him starve." We hardly 
 feel that the majority of our readers are in accord with 
 these views. Most capitalists will admit that they have 
 certain obligations to society and that society has a 
 right to protect itself. The classing as anarchists and 
 socialists all those who demand that a just rule be 
 made governing those who employ labor as well as 
 those who labor avails nothing, but only serves to fur- 
 ther inflame class prejudice and hastens the day of 
 the inevitable strife between capital and labor, the 
 portent of which is in the sky at the present time and 
 which can only be prevented by wise legislation and 
 the establishment^ sound economic principles which 
 will give capital its due and still be just to the worker 
 who, after all, is the only creator of wealth. 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 19 
 
 It is very gratifying to know that editors of 
 newspapers are willing to give space for outside 
 views on a problem which is perplexing the 
 minds of many people to-day. It is an old say- 
 ing that a child can formulate a question to 
 answer which would require a lifetime. The 
 subjects treated in the foregoing editorials and 
 correspondence have furnished themes for a 
 complete library of literature. The strife between 
 capital and labor has been with us for some time 
 past. It is the reflection, not the portent, which 
 one sees in the sky. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the challenge to 
 debate assumes, without any knowledge or 
 grounds for the assumption, that the inquiries 
 sent to the editor were "plausible and mislead- 
 ing pleas for clients." The writer thereof had 
 no clients which 'needed any such plea. If his 
 communication did not affect the public as a 
 whole, it was not worth reading. The challenge 
 mistakes the nature of the subject-matter, which 
 is neither a campaign issue nor material for a 
 revival meeting. Of all the questions which we 
 in this world must pass upon, those under con- 
 sideration should be treated most calmly and 
 rationally. If either one of the disputants in 
 
20 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 public discussion were not shot or dynamited 
 before he reached his peroration, it would be 
 somewhat remarkable. These are not subjects 
 for public debate. They demand the use of the 
 soundest logic and of terms the least misleading. 
 Not forensics but reason should be brought to 
 bear. 
 
 The inflaming of class prejudice can be 
 brought about no more effectually than by the 
 use of distorted economic principles, and vague 
 and misleading generalities. 
 
 Now, taking up a few of the points involved, 
 let us briefly note that it would seem to be an 
 axiom of the agitator that manual labor is harder 
 than any other form of labor, if we are to judge 
 by their outpourings of sympathy for the labor- 
 ing-man. While independence is to be desired, 
 of course, yet any man, who has been through 
 the mill of manual labor and has subsequently 
 reached the so-called independent stage, knows 
 that the duties of the latter are fully as onerous 
 as those of the former state. His work, like 
 that of woman, is never done. The work of the 
 manual laborer is practically from sun to sun, 
 and a good deal less nowadays. 
 
 It is a cause for congratulation that nobody 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 21 
 
 at Lawrence has suffered for food and housing. 
 Not that the conditions cannot be improved, 
 but that they are far from being distressing, ex- 
 cept in rare and unusual circumstances, and 
 even then the remedy is open to those who 
 desire to better their conditions. The great 
 Western Country offers a vast field. Wages 
 are high and living healthful there. 
 
 Whether the laborer, or the clerk, or the 
 saleswoman can dress and live in extravagant 
 fashion on six dollars, nine dollars, or fifteen 
 dollars per week and wear silks and marabou, is 
 not the question. Many of them do dress and 
 live extravagantly. And they want further lux- 
 ury, to attain which they demand more and 
 more in the way of remuneration for their serv- 
 ices, regardless of the real value of those serv- 
 ices. It may be reiterated, and emphatically, 
 that one of the principal objects of the demands 
 for increased wages is to procure this increased 
 luxury and leisure. Not only do dependents 
 emulate the style of living of more wealthy peo- 
 ple, but they are coming to regard work 
 honest labor that which all of our ancestors 
 went through at some time as beneath them. 
 Within a week a porter in a downtown building, 
 
22 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 a youth of perhaps twenty years of age, was 
 complaining about the nature of his work and 
 the hours and the pay. It was the usual story 
 that we hear on all sides. The porter was la- 
 menting the chances which he had lost ; namely, 
 those of greater education, and expressed the 
 opinion that he could not be employed on any 
 lower scale or grade than at present. Now, if 
 that man had sufficient ambition and ability, he 
 would do what thousands of others have done 
 prepare himself for better work. If he has 
 neither the ambition nor the ability, what can 
 he expect? and ought it not to be made clear 
 to him that, if he will not or cannot raise him- 
 self to a higher scale, he could not have done 
 so earlier in life? "Content is wealth," said 
 Socrates. 
 
 In one of the editorials from which quota- 
 tions have been taken, the thoroughly unjust 
 statement is made that the whole argument of 
 the writer of the communication referred to is 
 summed up in these words: " Let the capital- 
 ist alone ; let him employ such labor as he 
 chooses for such wages as he may choose to 
 pay. If any one objects, let him starve." Per- 
 haps it might be not too much to ask that we 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 23 
 
 let the capitalist and the laborer alone ; let the 
 former employ such labor as he chooses and 
 the latter work as he chooses, for such wages 
 as they may agree upon. The article might 
 support such a construction. But in all fairness, 
 let us have both sides of the question and a 
 clear understanding. 
 
 It is true that no reply was made to the al- 
 legations as to the culpability of the policemen 
 at Lawrence, and as to the innocence of Ettor ; 
 nor did the article take up the subject of the 
 holding-up, by the authorities, of the children 
 who were to be sent to New York and else- 
 where for care. And this was for the reason 
 stated in the first letter to the editor : namely, 
 that it is not for the newspaper editor or any- 
 body else to decide questions which belong to 
 the established tribunals, or other authorities, 
 to determine. If the I. W. W. had control of 
 the government, these questions would be open 
 to just such treatment as the editor seems to 
 desire ; that is, they would be subject to the 
 views of anybody and everybody, without any 
 crystallization of those views and without any 
 means of forcing the conclusion. 
 
 It may be admitted that there is a question 
 
24 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 as to the right of the authorities to prevent the 
 parents from sending their children out of Law- 
 rence. The act was of very doubtful expediency 
 and perhaps absolutely illegal. If so, one has 
 simply to bear in mind that "there is no wrong 
 without a remedy"; and if in the midst of the 
 excitement anybody overstepped the bounds of 
 his authority, the remedy will be open and 
 ample, especially if they can show actual damage. 
 In this connection, under our established prin- 
 ciples of jurisprudence, it may be called to mind 
 that if there was wrong without damage, the 
 remedy is nominal. What damage can the par- 
 ents show in this case, which appears to have 
 been a mere technical overstepping of authority ? 
 It is true that human rights may have been in- 
 terfered with, but who suffered and how much 
 did they suffer, is the question. Adequate rem- 
 edy awaits. 
 
 It would seem a fair contention that if I. W. W. 
 agitators had not stirred up the workmen to 
 the boiling-over point, the shooting would not 
 have occurred. 
 
 Here are some of the extracts from the con- 
 stitution of that association. Do they tend to 
 produce riots, dynamiting, and shooting? As 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 25 
 
 Mr. Ettor and Mr. Giovannitti were disciples of 
 this creed, did they, in all probability, take any 
 part in bringing about the shooting complained 
 of at Lawrence ? Does the reformer subscribe 
 to these tenets ? 
 
 We will take any and all means to attain our ob- 
 ject. Right and wrong does not concern us. We will 
 not obey the laws. We will employ military tactics 
 to the fullest extent. 
 
 It has been stated authentically that tenta- 
 tive overtures were recently made to Mr. Ettor 
 by a well-meaning and unprejudiced party ; one 
 who desired to test all methods of producing 
 peace and harmony in Lawrence and other tex- 
 tile centres. This man suggested that perhaps 
 the mills could be sold by the present owners 
 and purchased by the labor interests, on some 
 basis fair to everybody. The answer is reported 
 to have been, " Buy them ! Why, when we are 
 ready for that, we will walk in and take them ! " 
 Such a position needs very little comment 
 among reasoning men ; but there are many who 
 will not or cannot reason, and to those one is 
 tempted to put this question : Do you realize 
 that the situation would be the same after such 
 possession had been taken as before with the 
 
26 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 parties reversed? What would prevent the 
 masses of deposed capitalists (capitalists of great 
 and of little means) from adopting the same ar- 
 gument and following the same line of action ? 
 The I. W. W. refuses to recognize principles of 
 right and wrong. Would that be their attitude 
 if they should acquire vested interests ? 
 
 Extraordinary arguments are advanced by 
 theorists and unpractical people as to the value 
 of manual labor. For example, it is held by 
 some that no man is entitled to live who does 
 not make something with his hands. Is this 
 possible ? No janitors, no overseers, no police- 
 men, no professional men ? Does the man who 
 fells the trees, or extracts ore from the ground, 
 or manufactures a boot, make anything more 
 important than the man who makes the plans 
 for the timber operation and signs a check or a 
 note for the expenses of the season; or he who 
 takes his chances by investing his savings in a 
 coal-mine, which gives employment to thou- 
 sands of miners ; or he who builds a factory out 
 of the money he has avoided spending, thereby 
 assuring a livelihood to thousands of workmen ? 
 Is no man entitled to retire on the savings of a 
 lifetime? Must he go on working until he 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 27 
 
 drops, and then give up all he has laid by in 
 the way of property, or should he spend all he 
 makes as he goes along through life ? 
 
 If the claim referred to means that no man 
 is entitled to live who does absolutely nothing 
 except to spend more or less of the income of 
 his capital, it might pass without comment. 
 But, on the other hand, as has been stated, such 
 a person certainly does not deprive others of 
 the work which he might do, and his invested 
 capital does furnish employment to others. One 
 does not have great sympathy with the idle 
 rich, but it is not absolutely an unanswerable 
 argument that they are not entitled to live. 
 
 It is further claimed by these theorists that 
 labor is not a commodity. It is a commodity 
 in a sense; even that part of it which is given 
 in exchange for the bare living which the 
 world owes every man. 
 
 The services of the laborer are not different 
 in this respect from those of the professional 
 man; from those of the skilled artisan; from 
 those of the capitalist. These all have com- 
 modities to be bought and sold. If the demand 
 for the services of the capitalist falls off, he 
 must reduce his rates. In times of depression, 
 
28 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 the product of the artificer is reduced in price. 
 If the doctor, lawyer, or architect cannot earn 
 enough' to maintain himself in the way he 
 desires, he must try for more patients or 
 clients by reducing his rates; or he must seek 
 other fields. The product or services rendered 
 are commodities; just as is the service of 
 labor. 
 
 Material contained in newspapers, and edi- 
 torial views, are far-reaching, as everybody 
 knows. They are laid before the thinking and 
 the unthinking alike, those qualified to weigh 
 and sift the subject-matter and those who are 
 apt to take all such literature as indisputable 
 fact. Many people, while able to read and un- 
 derstand the bare statements as expressed, are 
 unable to read between the lines; unable to test 
 their soundness by true principles of politics, 
 religion, economics, or whatever the subject- 
 matter may involve. 
 
 The impression received upon reading the 
 original editorial raised the question: Should 
 such views upon matters so serious be distrib- 
 uted broadcast among readers, seventy-five per 
 cent of whom, at least, have never even in- 
 vestigated the principles of economics? Those 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 29 
 
 readers may qualify themselves and become en- 
 titled to form opinions ; but the question is too 
 important to be used simply as a means of arous- 
 ing prejudice. 
 
 In this connection, these words of the late 
 Charles Eliot Norton are a valuable support: 
 
 We are intrusting the fortunes of the community 
 and of the nation to the common sense of the people of 
 the nation, and that will not always save. The common 
 sense of the man with only a common-school edu- 
 cation will not always be a safe guide. We see that 
 in the many discussions of the currency question, in 
 the vast number of opinions on a question which can 
 be wisely dealt with only by experts. We hear a 
 self-conscious man say that his opinion is as good as 
 that of any one. There is in this country a lack of 
 respect for expert opinion which is likely to bring 
 upon the country great disaster. This view may be 
 pessimistic, but there is much in it to think seriously 
 of, now that we hear the cry, "Let the people rule.' , 
 The words of the old Greek philosopher, when no 
 doubt the demagogue was working overtime, are worth 
 listening to : " Mankind is a gaping monster, seeking 
 to be deceived and seldom disappointed." 
 
 To disseminate ideas which are contrary to 
 the beliefs and experiences of centuries, with- 
 out a word of explanation, is apt to be a dan- 
 gerous method of educating or influencing the 
 
jo WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 masses. Nothing is gained by opposing doc- 
 trines of economics reached after centuries of 
 thought and study, after turmoil and bloodshed 
 and reconstruction. 
 
 A series of speeches by President Butler of 
 Columbia College, which have been recently 
 published in book form, and of which the title 
 essay is " Why Should We Change our Form of 
 Government," elucidates some of the established 
 principles referred to in this review, and com- 
 ments upon some of the modern or progressive 
 notions which, if followed, will, as anybody may 
 see, bring us back to the original starting-point, 
 with the work to be all done over again. As 
 "The Sun" of New York expresses it, "to 
 adopt a favorite figure of speech upon the lips 
 of a recent convert to pure democracy, it is the 
 sad truth that the initiative, referendum, and 
 recall make the flint-lock look like a new and 
 shining weapon." 
 
 The address of Miss Vida Scudder, at a 
 meeting in Lawrence, probably not accurately 
 reported, was in several places severely criti- 
 cized. It has, however, been defended and ex- 
 plained in a very just letter to the "Boston 
 Transcript" by John Graham Brooks. From 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 31 
 
 the criticisms, that speech might have been sup- 
 posed to entertain just such sentiments as those 
 to which attention is now being called. Injustice 
 to her, and because it throws some light upon 
 the extent and character of the sympathy which 
 we all feel for any people or class of people who 
 are in the slightest danger of being unfairly 
 treated or down-trodden, I venture to quote 
 from the speech: 
 
 Only, my friends, let us see to it that all our suf- 
 fering be indeed for justice, for righteousness' sake. 
 Riot, even under severest provocation, does not make 
 for justice. See to it, you citizens, that you keep an 
 impartial mind, quick to compassion, free from preju- 
 dice, divorced from all apathy and irresponsibility, for 
 a great trust is yours. 
 
 And see to it, you strikers you who struggle on 
 with the thought of the vast army of all tongues and 
 nations in whose name and for whose sake you are 
 banded together see to it that you hold your task 
 too sacred to be defended by low, dishonorable, or 
 violent means. 
 
 Mr. Brooks writes that, being present, he 
 felt, upon leaving the meeting, that Miss Scud- 
 der's speech " from its first to final word was a 
 kind of passionate beseeching to the audience 
 for ethical self-restraint." 
 
32 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 Mr. Dooley says: 
 
 If the coort rules a law unconstitutional, Tiddy sez 
 to the folks, " all ye ought to do is to vote the coort a 
 liar." It 's the new way fur mindin' the Constitution. 
 
 Suppose the recall on decisions should be given to 
 the bleachers whin the umpire rules against the home 
 team ? 
 
 Hennessey, I 'm thinking of taken' me little savin's 
 and movin' back to the ould land of piece and quiet, 
 fer it 's my opinion the Irish nerves was nivir intinded 
 fer anny sich rows as are broom' over here. 
 
 A well-known Boston paper closes an edi- 
 torial, entitled " Smashing Civilization," as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 The travail of ages has gone to the substitution of 
 peaceful for warlike methods of securing social pro- 
 gress, and unless human societies are to be totally dis- 
 organized they must continue to repress the mistaken 
 zeal call it " mental twist," hysteria, or what you will 
 which at this late day deliberately justifies a return 
 to the methods of savagery. War is unfortunately still 
 possible between the nations, but within them it has 
 been effectually extinguished. The attempt to revive 
 it as an agency of reform is an attack on the interests 
 of the race. The attempt to promote the so-called 
 welfare of a class or of a sex by breaking windows 
 and damaging property is an attempt to smash civil- 
 ization. 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 33 
 
 Another Boston publication, under the title 
 "The Price of Ignorance," states, in part: 
 
 Whether or not such deplorable incidents are the 
 inevitable accompaniment or outgrowth of the rising 
 tide of socialism, the lesson that is forced home is the 
 need of grappling with a social problem, which, ne- 
 glected, involves ultimate revolution. 
 
 Perhaps the mentality standard of our immigration 
 laws, under which the vicious and ignorant may be al- 
 lowed to spread the infection of their degeneracy upon 
 our civilization, is too low. Perhaps there should be 
 less indifference with respect to the principles of com- 
 pulsory education. In any event, it will not be denied 
 that many of our modern-day ills, more particularly 
 those that pertain to the solution of our social and 
 economic questions, have their beginnings in the dis- 
 torted minds of the ignorant. 
 
 The rank and file of the strikers at Lawrence, for 
 instance, have little or no conception of the great 
 economic problems with which their employers are 
 struggling earnestly and conscientiously. They are 
 told in the inflammatory language of the agitator that 
 the heels of the manufacturers are mercilessly grind- 
 ing into their vitals, and in the twinkling of an eye a 
 peaceful community is transformed into a howling, 
 lawless mob. 
 
 The ignorance of the millhand is at the bottom of 
 the trouble. He will not see the other side because in 
 verity he cannot ! 
 
34 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 Such expressions of opinion (and many others 
 could be furnished on the subject) indicate that 
 not all writers of prominence agree with our 
 radical New England editor and his followers. 
 ' It would be interesting to know how small a 
 minority of thinking men belong to that radical 
 class. Some day we may have it put to test, 
 by the ballot, let us hope. 
 
 Here is an interesting retrospect by the de- 
 scendant of a Lowell weaver: 
 
 SOME OF THE THINGS THAT MAKE THE 
 COST OF LIVING HIGH 
 
 To the Editor of The Herald: 
 
 If you were to attend a socialist meeting, or a Ford 
 Hall gathering, you would be told that the working- 
 class of this country do not get enough to live and 
 that times are growing worse all the time, and more 
 especially since the textile strike in Lawrence, do you 
 hear of these calamity speeches. Let 's look at a few 
 facts : It is recorded that 9000 operatives in Lowell 
 received an average of #1.50 a week in 1843. 1 
 1850 my mother was employed as a weaver in the 
 Lowell mills, and she was a good weaver, too. She 
 made an average of $2.50 a week and paid $1.25 a 
 week for board and room in a corporation boarding- 
 house. The hours were long, n to 12 a day. The 
 average wage in Lowell and Lawrence to-day is at 
 least four times as much as it was in 1850-55. 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 35 
 
 The average wage in the manufacturing industry 
 in this country in 1850 was $247 ; in 1880, it was 
 $348; in 1900, it was $437, and in 19 10, it was 
 $539o a d the hours of labor have been reduced from 
 66 and 70 in 1850 to 54 and 60 in 19 10. So much 
 for that. Now let us look at the cost of living. In 
 the city of Lawrence the workers of the so-called 
 " foreign element " sent to Europe last year more 
 than $700,000; they spent a million dollars in the 76 
 saloons, i.e., the working-class of that city spent a 
 million for drink, and another $100,000 in the pic- 
 ture-show houses. For the nation these items of waste 
 foot up : $1,700 ,000,000 spent in the saloons ; $275,- 
 000,000 spent in the moving-picture shows; $135,- 
 000,000 for candy; $500,000,000 for tobacco; and 
 the immigrants sent to Europe $300,000,000. Out 
 of these sums the working-class spent at least $1,300- 
 000,000, or 13 billions in 10 years, yet, we are told 
 by sociologists that unless we have a radical change, 
 the red flag revolution will engulf us. 
 
 The cost of living is high, but it is high mainly 
 because we all want the things which the middle class 
 enjoyed 30 years ago. The working-class live far 
 better than the middle class lived 50 and 75 years 
 ago. Everybody is glad that this is so, and notwith- 
 standing this, we increased our savings bank deposits 
 by $2,000,000,000 during the last 10 years and there 
 have been 900,000 new homes acquired in this pe- 
 riod. Men are rising from the working-class to the 
 middle class and from the middle class to the so-called 
 
36 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 wealthy class more rapidly to-day than ever before in 
 the economic history of this nation, but we must have 
 sensation and muckraking. 
 Haverhill, April 10 
 
 The question is not too large for a news- 
 paper editor, or a lawyer, or any educated man. 
 But the solution is too difficult for anybody, 
 whether educated or not, unless he will take into 
 consideration all of the factors in the problem 
 and give due weight to the teachings of centu- 
 ries and of pragmatic history. These burning 
 questions should be analyzed and discussed 
 economically scientifically and never by 
 naked opinion. 
 
 Nobody in his right senses will claim that the 
 extravagance of workers is the sole reason for the 
 demand for wage increase. Extravagance has 
 very much to do with the matter; because if 
 wage-earners insist upon spending all they make, 
 they will go on forever demanding more, whether 
 the work is worth it or not. Of course there are 
 cases of injustice, but where these are brought 
 to light clearly, they are in almost every case 
 alleviated. 
 
 We do not expect to pay skilled-labor wages 
 to ignorant laborers. Abnormal and artificial 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 37 
 
 conditions seldom produce good results in any- 
 thing. All things are relative and all things are 
 graded, and it will be so no matter what form of 
 government, no matter what system of employ- 
 ment. You cannot maintain everybody on the 
 same level under all conditions, any more than 
 you can make water run uphill. 
 
 The statement that all men are free and equal 
 is true only so far as it applies to the opportunities 
 open to #//,and to their right to enjoy certain priv- 
 ileges guaranteed by the civic contract. In all or 
 nearly all other respects all men are not free and 
 equal. This is demonstrated in every country 
 and under every form of government, from the 
 savage to the highest type. Some men are in- 
 ferior to others, and until they have made them- 
 selves equal they must grade their value as citizens 
 in accordance with their abilities. Nowhere is this 
 difference so clearly shown as in India, where the 
 principle of caste is indigenous. And it is in In- 
 dia that British rule is so strenuously attacked ; 
 not so much, indeed, by the natives of that 
 country as by outside agitators. 
 
 We in the North make a great deal of clamor 
 about the treatment of the negro. A Southerner 
 recently resigned from a certain club in the North 
 
38 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 because he found members of the colored race 
 seated in the same dining-room with him. When 
 a Northern friend was rather inclined to remon- 
 strate with him, the Southerner said, " You, in the 
 North, are hypocrites ; you don't invite negroes 
 to your houses and to your tables, nor do you 
 want them there." 
 
 Nothing in these two paragraphs is intended 
 to decry or underestimate the value and useful- 
 ness and respectability of any man, in any class, 
 in his place. But all men are not free and equal 
 for all purposes, and many men are not entitled 
 to the same recompense, consideration, or lati- 
 tude of action that others receive and enjoy. 
 They would not know how to adapt themselves 
 to conditions which are the natural state of other 
 men. All men are entitled to equal opportuni- 
 ties, so far as they are able to grasp them. It 
 maybe true that all men are born free and equal, 
 though I cannot concede the proposition jn its 
 entirety. But beyond that, certainly the saying 
 is absolutely without merit. If they are born 
 free and equal, it is because equal rights and 
 privileges and protection are open to all ; and 
 not because all are or ever will be qualified to 
 grasp the same opportunities. 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 39 
 
 We cannot hope to continue business so as 
 to benefit all people if we place on the very same 
 basis brains, enterprise, thrift, and industry, on 
 the one side, and pure manual labor without 
 training and skill and influence, on the other. 
 And the laborer would suffer most of all from 
 such an attempt. 
 
 Could any one claim that any business enter- 
 prise would succeed as well without brains and 
 energy to direct it ? The demand of the reformer 
 to-day seems to be that the brains now guiding 
 such enterprises must relinquish all rights in order 
 that certain disgruntled members of the labor- 
 ing-class, so-called, may select other brains. Not 
 only that, but the guidance and control must 
 be relinquished without recompense for former 
 service as founders and guides. Labor wants a 
 change of navigators regardless of what the 
 consequence will be. It must be clear to them 
 that they cannot direct the affairs of enterprise. 
 Therefore, under any new regime they must 
 still be subject to somebody's guidance. Some- 
 body must formulate and execute the policies 
 of business. The ignorant man, he who per- 
 forms and can perform manual labor only, could 
 never satisfactorily control and carry to success 
 
40 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 such policies. Does such a man suppose that the 
 new navigator will produce results which will 
 give such control ? 
 
 Industries are run by brains and to brains is 
 due in a large measure the success of those in- 
 dustries. When retained in tangible form that 
 success is wealth. Labor assists in the accumula- 
 tion of that wealth, but labor is not entitled to 
 all of it. To what extent it should share is not 
 ascertainable by arbitrary rule ; certainly not by 
 the ukase of a socialistic reformer. 
 
 In the first century of the Christian era, I 
 think, the share deemed reasonable by econo- 
 mists, and that which existed, was about twenty- 
 two to twenty-five cents out of every dollar of 
 gross earnings. Without claiming that the fol- 
 lowing is the percentage in all other lines of 
 manufacturing and industry, in a large New 
 England railroad every dollar of gross income 
 from all sources during the year 1 9 1 1 was dis- 
 tributed as follows: 
 
 For Material and Supplies 
 
 $ .10^ fuel for locomotives ; 
 
 .02 ^ rails and ties; 
 
 .18^ other material, supplies and expense; 
 
 04 Yz taxes; 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 41 
 
 .04 interest on debt and sinking-fund ; 
 
 .11^ leases and rentals; 
 
 .02 car expense per diem; 
 
 .01 office salaries ; 
 
 .00^ available for dividends; 
 
 .44^ FOR WAGES. 
 
 It would probably not occur to the editors of 
 radical and agitating newspapers that they are 
 robbing their employees ; that, as labor is en- 
 titled to all it produces, the reporters and the 
 typesetters and the printer's devil should get 
 all the revenue received by the paper. That is 
 the principle which those papers are advocating 
 applied to other industries, of course. 
 
 Thomas Edison works, it is reported, from 
 about six in the morning until midnight, with 
 two or three hours out for necessary recupera- 
 tion, and he is reported as saying, " I never had 
 an idea in my life; I have no imagination. My 
 so-called inventions already existed in the en- 
 vironment I took them out. The drone lets 
 them lie there while he goes off to a baseball 
 game." 
 
 In the February, 191 1, number of the "At- 
 lantic Monthly " appeared a noteworthy essay 
 by Cornelia A. P. Comer, which is addressed to 
 
42 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 all youth of the present day regardless of rank 
 or station. While it should be read in its en- 
 tirety, I have selected a few excerpts as appli- 
 cable to the questions we are considering. She 
 asks : 
 
 Is the quality of the human product really falling 
 off? If the suspicion which runs about the world is 
 true, then youngsters, as you would elegantly phrase 
 it, " It is up to you." . . . 
 
 When the rising generation goes into the militia, it 
 is old officers tell us "soft" and incompetent. 
 Advocates of athletics and manual training are doing 
 their utmost to counteract the tendency to make flabby 
 fastidious bodies which comes from too comfortable 
 living ; but the task is huge. . . . 
 
 Before it occurred to me to analyze your defi- 
 ciencies, I used to look at a good many members of 
 the rising generation and wonder helplessly what ailed 
 them. . . . They talked of themselves as socialists ; 
 but their ideas of socialism were vague. To them, it 
 was just an " ism " that was going to put the world to 
 rights without bothering them very much to help it 
 along. They seemed to feel that salvation would 
 come to them by reading Whitman and G. B. S., or 
 even the mild and uncertain Mr. H. G. Wells. . . . 
 Somebody some day was going to push a button, and, 
 Presto ! life would be soft and comfortable for every- 
 body. 
 
 Of socialism in general, I confess myself incompe- 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 43 
 
 tent to speak. It may, or it may not, be the solution 
 of our acutely pressing social problems. But, if men 
 are too cheap, greedy, and sordid to carry on a Republic 
 honestly, preserving that equality of opportunity which 
 this country was founded to secure, it must be men 
 who need reforming! The more ideal the scheme of 
 government, the less chance it has against the inherent 
 crookedness of human nature. In the last analysis, we 
 are not ruled by a " government," but by our own na- 
 tures objectified, moulded into institutions. . . . 
 
 Life is not, and is not meant to be, a cheap, easy 
 matter. . . . It is a grim, hard, desolate piece of work, 
 shot through with all sorts of exquisite, wonderful 
 compensating experiences. . . . 
 
 The unshapen lump of raw human material that we 
 are cannot take on lines of identity without the ham- 
 mer, the chisel, the drill. . . . 
 
 We are obviously here to be made into something 
 by life. It seizes and shapes us. The process is some- 
 times very pleasant, sometimes very painful. So be 
 it. It is all in the day's work, and only the worthless 
 will try to evade their proper share of either pain or 
 pleasure. 
 
 Everybody in this world is, of course, en- 
 titled to some recreation and luxury, but it must 
 be recreation in proportion to his or her means, 
 having in mind a proper provision for the 
 " rainy day," which is another name for old age 
 and illness. Some people can provide very little 
 
44 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 in this way, and, until succeeding generations 
 have developed to a point where they are of 
 more value to the world, that inability to mate- 
 rially increase their earning power must continue. 
 
 The young man who, on the threshold of life, 
 earning ten or twelve dollars a week, insists upon 
 buying ten- cent cigars and paying an Italian 
 boot-black to have his boots polished, and who 
 feels it incumbent upon him to hire a " livery 
 rig" once a week, is not a desirable kind of de- 
 velopment. "The times are not hard, they are 
 fast," is a common saying. 
 
 In a recent message to the employees of the 
 Rock Island Railroad, President Mudge said 
 that a man who earns $1000 a year represents 
 a capital of $25,000. He compared those em- 
 ployees with a locomotive : 
 
 You may not have as much pull as a locomotive, 
 but you ought to have as much push ; and you can 
 last a lot longer and run a great deal further than the 
 best engine ever built. Most of all, you can make 
 yourself constantly worth more, while the locomotive 
 is never worth a cent more than it was the day it was 
 built. It rests with you to make your $25,000 valua- 
 tion climb to $50,000, to $100,000, to $500,000. 
 Select your food with care. Treat decently the body 
 on which your mind depends for its strength and san- 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 45 
 
 ity. Above all, feed your mind. Like the engine, you 
 can't work unless you stay on the rails and keep where 
 the boss can find you. And remember that no call- 
 boy ever found an engine in a saloon, dive, or other 
 place of that sort. 
 
 There is one important need of the times, 
 and we have been neglecting it, to some extent, 
 on all sides. I refer to Discipline. 
 
 The tendency to iconoclasm, fostered by agi- 
 tators and people who believe they could rule 
 the world better than it is governed by Divine 
 Providence, has put a false and a lower value 
 upon thrift and energy, enterprise and brains. 
 Relations of employment or contract, which of 
 necessity call for guidance by one man or party 
 and obedience by another, are seriously inter- 
 fered with by a growing unwillingness to abide 
 by the true and natural requirements of such 
 conditions. This generally results in a failure to 
 deliver that which should reasonably be expected 
 in the way of service or goods. A domestic serv- 
 ant is frequently found to be wasting good ma- 
 terial. Well-known writers on economics have 
 stated that the amount of waste in New York 
 City, mostly through this source, would feed 
 the whole of Paris. A skilled laborer is not in- 
 
46 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 frequently found who, while agreeing to perform 
 a certain piece of work, deliberately, or through 
 lack of training, leaves it partially undone or 
 done in a shiftless manner. Articles sold by re- 
 tail concerns are not always what they are re- 
 presented to be. The quality of goods produced 
 by factories is often not up to the standard. A 
 similar criticism may be made of the professions. 
 
 Self-restraint, which is simply discipline ap- 
 plied to self, must be cultivated. And this sug- 
 gestion is not intended for any one class. I have 
 always believed and frequently stated that if one 
 cannot rely for the improvement of our condi- 
 tions upon those who, by virtue of their educa- 
 tion, prosperity, and standing, are qualified to 
 set the proper example, we cannot expect very 
 much from hoi polloi. There must be training. 
 Training is discipline. It is applicable as well to 
 self as to others and should apply to all classes 
 alike. 
 
 The universe itself is based upon a system 
 established by the Creator. We are all subject 
 to that system, and we cannot escape it. We 
 can facilitate and assist, but the moment we op- 
 pose its operation, we succumb. The seasons, 
 the days and nights, the laws governing the re- 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 47 
 
 currence and alternation of crops, those govern- 
 ing animal life all are fixed, immutable. 
 
 Discipline is natural, not arbitrary, as many- 
 seem to suppose. The highest type of ruler in 
 this world, she who represents motherhood, 
 commences almost the moment her offspring is 
 born to exercise discipline. Because, first, it is 
 natural; second, it develops character; third, 
 some day that offspring will need to understand 
 how to transmit that training to the succeeding 
 generation. 
 
 If each succeeding generation can be im- 
 proved, even though slightly, over the preced- 
 ing, we have, to say the least, gone a long way 
 toward fulfilling man's destiny here below. If 
 anybody believes that the world is misgoverned, 
 let him take but a square mile and attempt to 
 rule all the people and all the things in that 
 small tract, with their conflicting interests and 
 their constant needs. 
 
 Nobody should fail to respect institutions 
 which have stood the test of time. After years 
 of turmoil, the Anglo-Saxon people, desiring to 
 be freed from the necessity of individually 
 bothering with affairs of state, selected from 
 each of their districts a man who was better 
 
48 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 fitted than the majority to decide such ques- 
 tions, and sent those representatives together 
 to form the WitenaQemofcor council of wise 
 men. 
 
 That institution stands in England to-day. 
 There is no known trade or profession, from 
 the clergy to the brewery, that is not there re- 
 presented. The interests of the country have 
 grown to vast proportions and cumbersome, 
 but the institution still stands. England does 
 not need a change in her form of government. 
 No more does America. We want the best 
 men, and we wanthonest men, in office and in 
 power: a proper selection. 
 
 The fact that there are some in power to-day 
 who are unprincipled (which unfortunately is 
 undeniable) is not due to the system of gov- 
 ernment; it is due to the unwise choice of re- 
 presentatives. This would be true under any 
 other form of government, whether it be mon- 
 archic, oligarchic, socialistic, or anarchistic. 
 
 That which is at fault to-day is not funda- 
 mental law; it is not the institutions reared 
 thereon; it is not representative government; 
 no one of these need be overthrown to bring 
 about certain needed reforms. 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 49 
 
 "The people are not the law and the law is 
 not the people." There never was a truer 
 statement. "The law is the principle of justice 
 governing the people." Law rests far down 
 below all mundane institutions. The principles 
 of law exist regardless of those institutions. 
 They are as inherent and as fixed as the prin- 
 ciples of the physical world, and in every case 
 where an attempt has been made to upset them 
 the result has been turmoil and wreck. 
 
 A method which is applicable for one purpose 
 is not always to be applied for another. As Pre- 
 sident Butler has pointed out, imagine all the 
 people in Chicago convened to determine a de- 
 tail of legislation or for the election of officers, 
 and the picture is simply ridiculous. The old 
 form of town meeting still exists in many places, 
 but as soon as a town has grown into a com- 
 mercial centre the exigencies demand a differ- 
 ent form of government, namely, a representa- 
 tive form. 
 
 We have made long strides in this country 
 toward the amelioration of certain conditions 
 which sprang up like weeds and grew in spite 
 of us. The best authorities believe that the 
 world is improving, and that with the exercise 
 
50 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 of a little self-restraint we shall work the mat- 
 ter out satisfactorily to all. But can anybody 
 believe that the constant and inflammatory ut- 
 terance of doctrines, held by the great majority 
 of students of history and economics to be 
 untenable, will bring this about? 
 
 A work on sociology published in 1892, and 
 entitled "Coming Horrors in America/' de- 
 clared: "There is war in America to-day." Its 
 vituperative attack on the increase of wealth 
 was and is insupportable. Nor are all enter- 
 prises to be placed on one level. Agitators are 
 wont to cry out about the "wrongs done by 
 octopus formations," and then single out some 
 one example as applying to all. Many of the 
 trusts or combinations, and I dare say a great 
 majority, do not come within the class which 
 has wrought injury by unsound, unjust, and 
 unlawful methods. 
 
 Talcott Williams, formerly of the Philadelphia 
 " Press," remarked in 1887, "One third of the 
 labor to-day is the creation of a century of 
 American invention and enterprise under con- 
 stitutional freedom." 
 
 Injustice is not alone to be found on the 
 capitalist side. William Rathbone Greg refers, 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 51 
 
 for instance, to an early movement on the part 
 of labor, having for its object to prevent bricks 
 being used, excepting those made within cer- 
 tain limits. How would this have affected 
 people who made bricks in other localities ? 
 
 Anybody who will take the trouble to read 
 Charles Beard's description of labor conditions 
 in England in 1760, and will then note the 
 changes which have since taken place, there and 
 in America, and who will trace down the gene- 
 alogies of the farmer and the laborer of those 
 days to and through the numerous branches 
 of their descendants, will see what is going on 
 in the world more clearly than by fixing his 
 attention in hypnotic fashion solely upon the 
 toilers of any particular period or locality. 
 Every laborer may, by good work, by carefully 
 husbanding his resources, and by opening to 
 the succeeding generations the door of oppor- 
 tunity, bring posterity up to a higher level. But 
 there is only one way to do it; and that way 
 involves the three elements enumerated: Dili- 
 gent effort, thrift, and the development of the 
 mental and moral faculties. They won't all give 
 good work. Hence their usefulness is cut down, 
 and their earnings correspondingly. They won't 
 
52 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 all save; therefore it cannot be avoided that 
 some will remain dependents. 
 
 It is encouraging, however, to note from the 
 reports of savings banks particularly since 
 the establishment of the postal banks that 
 more money is saved to-day in a large or small 
 way than ever before; and less sent to foreign 
 countries. 
 
 Another common failing is the tendency to 
 believe in luck as a means to success. Ninety- 
 nine out of every hundred of the unfortunates 
 who ignore our universal rules of discipline at- 
 tribute their failure to bad luck. 
 
 Luck is a result, not a chance or a means. 
 In greater or lesser degree good luck, which is 
 success, is sure to follow proper preparation 
 and execution. 
 
 Chance exists in matters not governed by 
 human agencies ; but even that may be prepared 
 for. An earthquake is some part of the plan of 
 the universe. We know not what part. We may 
 perhaps in time foretell its coming, and pre- 
 vent injurious consequences therefrom. A rock 
 falls from an embankment and overturns a train. 
 Human agency should have prevented. Sur- 
 gery will in time prevent many deaths and 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 53 
 
 lengthen many lives, now utterly beyond its 
 control. 
 
 A throw of dice may favor one or another 
 but given a perfect set of dice (which may be 
 effected by human agency) and constant play, 
 and the doctrine of chances will in time equalize 
 the losses and gains. 
 
 Success in this world is not to be acquired 
 through the medium of luck, as the word is 
 commonly used. Some barely succeed after 
 hard study in a particular line. Others succeed 
 in their line with less toil. But it is not due to 
 luck, any more than it was luck which brought 
 a part of the world's population to the pulpit 
 and the forum and the laboratory, and left others 
 in the fields or at the forge. 
 
 Somewhere in the line of our Miltons and 
 our Shakespeares and our Lincolns and our 
 Websters and our Emersons and our Lowells, 
 there was preparation for a successful life. And 
 not in every case was it such a preparation or 
 series of preparations as we are wont to deem 
 necessary for success. 
 
 A training properly assimilated, a wholesome 
 life, with industry and thrift, will at least es- 
 tablish a foundation for posterity. If that de- 
 
54 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 velopment be continued long enough, we shall 
 one day see a man or woman who rises to the 
 top with no more effort than is employed by a 
 companion who never gets beyond the stage of 
 
 "also ran. 
 
 The same opportunity is open to all men to 
 lay the cornerstone on which will sometime be 
 reared that structure known as the successful 
 man. Preparation, consistently followed through 
 generation after generation, will at some time 
 and in some form tell its tale. 
 
 To reach success we must all be amenable to 
 the rule of Discipline. How many men who 
 follow a laborer's life have seen companions 
 strike out into new countries and take up new 
 pursuits ! Some stick and succeed. Others fail. 
 Many return. Why? Because they were either 
 totally unprepared and would not or could not 
 remain long enough to learn ; or, as is so fre- 
 quently the case, would not listen to the de- 
 mands of discipline and work themselves into 
 better conditions. 
 
 Those who succeed] do not reach their aim 
 through luck it is through discipline, and 
 sometimes years of work and repression. But fol- 
 lowed by success in greater or lesser measure. 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 55 
 
 Does anybody doubt that hard work pro- 
 perly applied will result in success ? 
 
 If one does not know how to apply his work, 
 there are always guides, mental and moral, who 
 can assist ; and who will, if the inquiry be made 
 in earnest. There are many, unfortunately, who 
 still believe that they can succeed by and through 
 the medium of luck. 
 
 It is the time for self-restraint. The country 
 has had a long period of depression. We cannot 
 cure unsatisfactory conditions or social maladies 
 by nostrums. We need real and genuine doc- 
 tors not quacks. We need honest men in 
 office; men who, having served and conserved, 
 are qualified to lead. Doubtless, too, we need 
 some supervision of vast interests which affect 
 rich and poor alike. 
 
 It is a time for calm, quiet consideration of 
 fundamental principles. The arguments of 
 would-be reformers in favor of a certain part 
 of socialism, and as to the rights of labor, and 
 for laws to fix a reasonable limit on aggregations 
 of capital, may be to a great extent concurred in 
 by all. We have already many of the best of 
 those principles established and recognized. 
 Our almshouses, our wards' courts, our proba- 
 
56 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 tion officers, our district nursing and settlement 
 work, are all socialistic in their very essence. 
 
 A pure democracy, however, would never suc- 
 ceed. It has been attempted in a small way by 
 men of intellect, with sincerity of purpose ; and 
 abandoned by them. 
 
 The New York " Commercial " comments on 
 socialistic experiment : 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY IN SOCIALISM 
 
 This Milwaukee experiment in socialistic rule was 
 tried under conditions as favorable for the test as could 
 possibly be asked. Mayor Seidel was a man of the 
 highest reputation in private life, and he took office 
 filled with determination to purify the city administra- 
 tion and deal honestly by all men. But conditions were 
 too much for him. He found, to his disgust, that his 
 socialist fellow office-holders and his supporters were 
 as greedy for the spoils of office as the worst machine 
 politicians and ward-heelers of the old parties had ever 
 been. He could not keep down expenses and his spec- 
 ial board of civic economy was the most costly and 
 useless that Milwaukee ever saw or paid. He could get 
 no support from those who had put him in the mayor's 
 chair unlessjie paid them with offices or jobs at the city's 
 expense. Socialistic ideas did not work out in practice. 
 
 If accumulation of capital is objected to, it is 
 only fair to give others a right to believe as they 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 57 
 
 prefer and let those who will work, save and 
 invest, and protect themselves and their families. 
 Indeed, protect every person who will not exer- 
 cise thrift. 
 
 If reasonable accumulations of capital are justi- 
 fiable, let the reformer urge the followers of so- 
 cialism to save some of the millions wasted in 
 strikes and put them into enterprises which can 
 be managed after their own methods. This will 
 free the socialistic adherents from the tram- 
 mels of employment, as nearly as they can be 
 freed. 
 
 I quote again from the New York " Com- 
 mercial": 
 
 If the Industrial Workers of the World wish to ac- 
 quire the tools of manufacture and wholly eliminate 
 capital, they can try the experiment at once without 
 going through all the agony of strikes and semi-starva- 
 tion. The Lawrence strike cost the employees or their 
 trade organization a very large sum, certainly not less 
 than half a million dollars. That sum would buy or 
 build complete a fairly large mill in which the social- 
 ists could test the possibilities of their plan. Their 
 plan of campaign is to keep on striking until capital quits, 
 but they need not waste time over that sort of a fight. 
 
 Some important trades require comparatively little 
 capital for mechanical equipment. The clothing trade 
 is one of these. Let these socialists save up a little 
 
58 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 money to start a business instead of a strike. They can 
 buy all the sewing-machines and other equipment 
 needed for less than what a month of idleness in a 
 strike will cost. They can buy goods almost from hand 
 to mouth, and, when they have finished the clothing, 
 they will know just how much of the selling price be- 
 longs to labor and capital combined, for it will all be 
 theirs. 
 
 If some genius in the band of workers keeps abreast 
 of the fashions and designs patterns that sell well they 
 may be successful. But at this point human nature is 
 almost sure to step in. That gifted designer will real- 
 ize that a large measure of the success of the enter- 
 prise is due to the exercise of his talents. Then, if he 
 is not a superman, he will demand a larger share of the 
 profits than each of the other workers in common gets. 
 He will demand the market price of his work and will 
 go elsewhere if his demands are refused. That is some- 
 thing with which these dreamers do not reckon now, 
 but they will find out that all men are not equal, and 
 that some are worth more than others, just as capital 
 has done, before they have been in the business very 
 long. 
 
 A band of socialists might easily start a silk mill on 
 this plan. One or two good dress patterns that caught 
 the fancy of the women would make them prosperous 
 for the time being. These successful patterns would 
 be the survival of the fittest of a large number. But in 
 the next season if the best selling patterns were again 
 designed by the man whose work had scored a hit be- 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 59 
 
 fore, his opinion of his value would rise and he would 
 cease to be a socialist, so far as consenting to an equal 
 distribution of profits is concerned. 
 
 There are many trades in which the experiment can 
 be tried. Success would be welcome, for the ideal state 
 of society is one in which all work and receive the full 
 fruits of their labor. But the world has never yet got 
 along without the directing mind, and the world has 
 seen few leaders who were content with private's pay 
 for very long. Clarence Darrow, the favored counsel 
 of the Industrial Workers of the World for years, was 
 careful to get his hands on the fifty thousand dollar re- 
 tainer fee before the McNamara trial began. That is 
 why applied socialism is an impossibility. It conflicts 
 with human nature. 
 
 A prominent Boston paper suggests an 
 
 I. W. W. COLONY 
 
 There should not be objection if, as reported, the 
 I. W. W. propose to cross the Mexican line and set- 
 tle in Lower California for the purpose of trying to put 
 in operation their special plans as to industry and gov- 
 ernment. Let them form their own community and 
 achieve, if they can, u an equal division of toil and pro- 
 fits " in accordance with their ideals. 
 
 The community would be a social experiment in- 
 teresting for the instruction of the world. Its opera- 
 tion along social and industrial lines would be given 
 due publicity and an accurate idea could be formed 
 by the public as to the practical value of the plan. 
 
60 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 We might endeavor to convince some wealthy 
 philanthropist that such an experiment would be 
 worth while ; prevailing upon him to provide 
 the funds necessary to establish such a colony. 
 
 Every fair-minded person recognizes a labor 
 union as an institution entirely as justifiable as 
 a partnership or a corporation or an insurance 
 company. A socialistic colony would be granted 
 full consideration by the world. We have rather 
 drastic laws concerning aggregations of capital 
 perhaps not yet applied at just the right 
 turn of the wheel or perhaps not yet applied 
 rigidly enough. We can better the laws and 
 they will be bettered; but in the evolution 
 thereof is it not wiser to leave out irritating 
 remedies and inflammatory utterances ? See how 
 this uprising against discipline is affecting not 
 only the working-man but the growing genera- 
 tions. Here are two boys in California, aged 
 fifteen and thirteen, who murdered their father, 
 took all the money from his pockets, loaded 
 the body on a mud-sled, and hauled it home. 
 Both admitted that their father had been kind 
 to them and that they had no reason to kill him 
 except that he had compelled them to go to 
 school, and " they were tired of being bossed I" 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 61 
 
 What would happen if in any large city the 
 crowds at the street crossings were at the mercy 
 of teamsters and drivers, instead of being pro- 
 tected by the system of discipline, now common 
 enough, which places traffic subject to instant 
 check simply by the raising of a policeman's 
 hand? 
 
 Where everybody is attempting to govern, 
 there is no discipline and no self-restraint, and, 
 naturally, no progress. 
 
 As Mr. Price Collier says, in his admirable 
 book, "The West in the East," at page 395, 
 chapter on China: 
 
 One has only to see something of these vast stretches 
 of territory without railroads, without telegraph offices, 
 and with few post-offices, to learn how much we owe 
 to our own railroads for their efficiency as moral 
 agents. Leaving out of the count any question of 
 commerce, the United States to-day would be a great 
 federal political and moral chaos without its railroads ; 
 and yet I have never heard them alluded to even as 
 having any ethical value. It is right to debate these 
 questions whether in a republic or in China. The 
 value of the debate, however, depends altogether upon 
 the tone and temper of the discussion. I believe in 
 insurgency. Insurgency is the only political or social 
 purgative of any value in a democracy ; but the insur- 
 gent must be neither a fanatic nor a fakir ; he is, alas, 
 
62 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 all too often one or the other ; and America has suf- 
 fered of late from a veritable plague of left-handed 
 Catos. Therefore, I counsel my readers to adopt 
 my method. As an observer, as a traveller, as a stu- 
 dent, I know of no instrument of criticism so helpful 
 as sympathy. You must like a man to get out of 
 him the best he has to give. Mere denunciation is a 
 weapon of the ethical age, of the Eocene lemur, and 
 the calcareous sponge. 
 
 The insurgent must be neither a fanatic nor a fakir! 
 
 The present turmoil in political, sociological 
 and commercial fields is at least partly due to 
 the fanatical reformer. Killing the goose that 
 lays the golden eggs is not the only way to 
 demonstrate short-sightedness ; it is enough 
 if she is chased so hard she will not lay. What 
 should we get if these agitators had full sway ? 
 
 What, for example, of the dogma so often 
 used by them : that human rights must be put 
 above property rights. This means, I presume, 
 that the rights of the men who work by hand 
 are paramount at all times, in all ways, and for 
 all purposes, to the rights of the men who earn 
 their living by their brains. Is this distinction 
 sound? Are the rights of the laborer para- 
 mount to all others ? Are not property rights 
 human rights? 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 63 
 
 Suppose a carpenter, for example, has been 
 energetic and thrifty, and has laid aside enough 
 money to build and provide his family with a 
 home. Now suppose a recent arrival from a 
 foreign shore who has done the manual work 
 for this householder demands as of right to 
 share his house with him. Would the principle 
 hold true that, inasmuch as the recent arrival 
 has done all the work, he is entitled as of right 
 to be taken in and indefinitely housed ? This 
 conclusion would seem to arise from the con- 
 tention that the product of the laborer be- 
 longs, all of it, to him. The householder, I dare 
 say, would contend that the product of his 
 former labor, that which he has saved and in- 
 vested in a home, still belonged to himself. 
 
 If an appeal to charity were at the basis of 
 the demands of these agitators, we should have 
 a slightly different problem, but their demands 
 are based upon presupposed inherent right. Per- 
 haps some one of them will show what the rights 
 and duties are in the case just cited. Should the 
 carpenter share his new house with the laborer 
 or should he give it up to him entirely ? 
 
 Put a wise and thrifty man without capital on 
 virgin soil and he will find the tools to develop 
 
64 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 it. What does he do with his first crop ? Fol- 
 lowing true business instinct, after satisfying the 
 temporary needs of himself and his family, he 
 lays aside the surplus, and founds his capital. 
 The next year he perhaps hires some labor and 
 increases the production, and increases his cap- 
 ital. In time he has enough laid by to last him 
 through life. Does that capital belong to those 
 who may have assisted him for hire ? 
 
 Suppose with those savings the farmer builds 
 a railroad through his farm and to the market 
 town. Leaving out all question of dishonesty 
 and graft, and assuming simply a road a few 
 miles long, enough to enable the people along 
 its line to market their produce, and assuming 
 no municipal aid and no bonds or stocks issued ; 
 does that railroad belong to the men who actu- 
 ally did the laying of the rails, and who took 
 wages therefor because they had not the brains, 
 ability, and perseverance to do as did the pioneer 
 of the country, the founder of the railroad? If 
 to the laborers, do you expect to have many 
 railroads built? If to the investor, then what 
 about the principle of all wealth belonging to 
 the laborer? 
 
 We are told by certain theorists that wealth, 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 65 
 
 the product of certain elements, belongs all of it 
 to labor. These theorists overlook the fact that 
 the factors of production of to-day's wealth may 
 have existed in one person. Take the case of 
 the individual who starts his own factory and by 
 himself builds up a business which results in 
 the employment of thousands of others. Take 
 Edison, who, by means of brains and hard work, 
 has created devices which will benefit the world 
 as long as it lasts. Does the property which 
 represents the investment of the earnings of 
 those two men belong all of it to labor ? It was 
 created by brains and energy combined with 
 hard work, but it was not and never could have 
 been created by labor alone. 
 
 Labor does not create all wealth. It is due 
 to brains and labor ; generally assisted by capi- 
 tal, which is the accumulation of brains and 
 labor previously applied. So the proposition 
 resolves itself into this : brains and labor create 
 wealth ; brains, labor, and wealth combined cre- 
 ate more wealth ; and so on ad infinitum. 
 
 If, when enterprises are commenced, labor 
 should state : "We shall claim the entire result 
 of this combination of brains and labor and 
 capital," does the social reformer or anybody 
 
66 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 else believe that capital and brains would con- 
 tinue hand in hand with labor? The country 
 would go on without those investments ; would 
 be just that much less wealthy ; or at least 
 capital and brains would furnish their own la- 
 bor. 
 
 Agitators are demanding that labor shall be 
 the sole judge of who shall work and how much 
 they shall work, and how much they shall re- 
 ceive as their share of the product. In other 
 words, they say, " Mr. Brains, you continue to 
 conduct this business and we will say how much 
 we will give you as your share." 
 
 As a matter of fact, the link connecting cap- 
 ital and labor is in every way a contractual one. 
 And that means a mutual relation ; an agree- 
 ment between two or more parties. 
 
 Let us have something definite, then, in the 
 way of a plan to reconcile the differences ex- 
 isting between these two parties. Let us be 
 told what are the demands ; what are the limits ; 
 what is a fair division ; what is an unfair accu- 
 mulation. Let us be shown how we can adopt 
 any new system with justice to all. Then, and 
 only then, can anybody determine whether it is 
 desirable to combine his brains with the labor 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 67 
 
 of others, or preferably to combine them with 
 his own labor as was done in old colony times. 
 
 And right here, as has before been observed, 
 arises much of the trouble of the present time. 
 The author has heard of but one man who ex- 
 pressed himself definitely on the point of what 
 would be a reasonable demand by laboring-men. 
 One case came to his attention, quite recently, 
 where a laborer stated that when he should be 
 able to work " five hours a day for five dollars 
 a day, five days in the week," he thought he 
 might be satisfied. And this estimate was made 
 without reference to the age, size, and precari- 
 ousness of the business; or its gross earnings; 
 or the number of employees ; or the fact that 
 the work performed by this particular man was 
 purely manual. 
 
 Mr. John Beattie Crozier, in his Reconstruc- 
 tion of Political Economy, entitled " The Wheel 
 of Wealth," at page 491, says : 
 
 The question of Value, even on its purely product- 
 ive side, is not one of how many units of time you 
 are at work, but of how many units of product you 
 can turn out in a given time quite a different mat- 
 ter. For it is the units of product in a given time which 
 alone the capitalist who is entering on any industrial 
 enterprise has to consider in framing his estimates ; and 
 
68 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 it is precisely what the labourers would themselves 
 have to consider if they abolished the capitalists to- 
 morrow, and owned and worked the land, machinery, 
 railways, and other instruments of production them- 
 selves ; as they would soon discover when they en- 
 tered into competition with other nations for the world's 
 trade, however much they might be content at home 
 to share the product between themselves according to 
 the mere time of labour spent on it. For observe, if 
 the same product could be turned out by a newly in- 
 vented machine in half the time that they would take 
 to make it, by what human device could they sell 
 their product in the open market unless they consented 
 to sell it at half its former price ? And what would 
 this mean but that they would have now to accept 
 half the wages for their labour-time that they were 
 getting before ? They would have been " exploited," in 
 a word, by the new machine which the inventor had 
 sold to a rival nation, as neatly and effectually as if it 
 had been the hated capitalists themselves who had 
 done it. And if they still insisted on having their pound 
 of flesh whatever should befall, and proceeded next 
 to put the thumb-screw on the inventor of the machine 
 to force him to give it over to them instead of to their 
 rivals, on the usual terms of the " labour-time " he 
 had spent on it, and no more, they would now be ex- 
 ploiting the inventor in turn as much as ever the cap- 
 italists had exploited them. But if the inventor, de- 
 frauded of his due, should strike work and refuse to 
 invent, and they should then proceed, like King John, 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 69 
 
 to metaphorically " draw his teeth " for him one by- 
 one until he consented to present them with the con- 
 tents of his brain, how would their tyranny differ from 
 that of the capitalist-masters under whom they now 
 groan and against whom they cry to Heaven for jus- 
 tice ? But let me not be misunderstood. For did they 
 now turn round and give back to the inventors and 
 brain-workers, in honour, authority, prestige, and es- 
 teem, what they had expropriated from them in wealth, 
 they would, in my judgment, have struck on a con- 
 stitution of economic society as nearly perfect as on 
 this side of the millenium we are ever likely to see. 
 They would then have given their really "great men," 
 in Carlyle's sense of the term, the place of honour 
 and initiative. But would they do this ? Not they : on 
 the contrary, they would give the chief seats at their 
 feasts to the " wind-bags " and coiners of phrases, 
 the platitudinarians, and be-puffed mediocrities, 
 especially if they were good " sportsmen," footballers, 
 cricketers, or what-not, as well, and that, too, in 
 the really sincere belief that these were their " great 
 men." For in themselves the miscellaneous masses 
 of men in any nation are nothing, a tail of ciphers 
 merely; they can imagine nothing, invent nothing, do 
 nothing great, however much they may beat their 
 brains for it ; this is the prerogative of individuals 
 alone, who are born in every rank, and can come only 
 by what the theologians call " the Grace of God." 
 Were you to pack all the ordinary chess-players of 
 the world into the Albert Hall, not all their combined 
 
7 o WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 heads put together, with their vote taken on each 
 move before it was made, could get even within sight 
 of a " draw " from one of the great masters of the 
 game. And it is the same with the game of War, of 
 Poetry, of Music, of Art, of Mathematics, of Philo- 
 sophy, of Religion, or of intellectual penetration gen- 
 erally in any department of thought or life ; or even, 
 if you will, down to billiard-players, cricketers, and 
 the really great " sportsmen " in every line. The great 
 players are always individuals, always uniques, with 
 unbridgeable gulfs between them and the rest of the 
 world ; they are the only dynamical forces of the world ; 
 the rest are but mere statical accompaniments and 
 chorus, mere ballast to keep the ship steady, mere 
 critics, like those who surround a cricket or football 
 field, with just ability enough to decide on the merits 
 of the great players, but not able to play themselves, 
 and whose function it is either to hiss or applaud. So 
 that if in this game of Industry any nation were so 
 rash as to turn out the men who discover, invent, or- 
 ganize, and legislate for its future, or to rob them of 
 their just rewards, and to put a miscellaneous herd 
 of navvies, coal-heavers, and ordinary workmen in 
 their place, it would speedily find itself overrun, routed, 
 and reduced to a tributary and dependent position by 
 the first great nation that came along, which, like Ja- 
 pan, gave to its great men a free hand. And this 
 brings us at once to the crux of the Marxian Social- 
 ism, both as to its truth and its falsity. Its falsity con- 
 sists in its not seeing that while the workmen are 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 71 
 
 exploited directly by the capitalists who own the pis- 
 tols and pull the triggers, they are really made to stand 
 and deliver by the pistols, that is to say, by the 
 machinery, which can do the work of thousands 
 of men in a given unit of time ; and that this is the 
 work of the great scientists, inventors, and organizers, 
 and not of the capitalists or of the workmen them- 
 selves ; and that if you are going to raise the question 
 of justice, according to the ordinarily accepted stand- 
 ards, it is to these that the " surplus product" belongs. 
 
 It has been suggested many times that busi- 
 ness and politics should be divorced. The same 
 remedy would facilitate the solution of the ques- 
 tion we are now considering. And we might 
 go further and remove it from the field occupied 
 by that extraordinary class of deep thinkers, the 
 fanatical agitators. 
 
 No one of these critics of the times seems to 
 have provided a practical remedy for that of 
 which they complain, viz., the increasing dis- 
 parity between capital and labor. 
 
 Assuming that their complaint is well founded, 
 and that natural developments and the influence 
 of trade unions are not sufficiently effective, it 
 remains to seek some new method for lessening 
 this breach. 
 
 Human nature cannot be changed greatly, 
 
72 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 except as it is improved. Labor will always exist 
 in some form and to some extent. It seems al- 
 most useless to attempt to bring about the desid- 
 eratum by regulations aimed at the producing 
 end. The only way in which wages can be much 
 further increased, in nearly all cases to-day, is by 
 a higher scale of prices for the production. And 
 that scale will depend upon the demand for that 
 production. When prices soar to a point where 
 demand ceases, the point of absorption is 
 reached. 
 
 Goldwin Smith, in his little treatise on " La- 
 bour and Capital," published in 1907, very aptly 
 remarks : 
 
 The capitalist, it is important to observe, though 
 the organizer, director, and paymaster, is not the real 
 employer. The real employer is the purchaser of the 
 goods, who cannot be forced by any strike or pressure 
 to give more for the goods than he chooses and can 
 afford. Carried beyond a certain point, therefore, pres- 
 sure for an increased wage must either fail or break 
 the trade. 
 
 And he further reminds us, that labor by 
 its constant demands is increasing the cost of 
 living to itself as well as to the rest of the 
 public. 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 73 
 
 You will never succeed in an arbitrary de- 
 mand for higher wages after you reach the nat- 
 ural point of absorption. You can form your own 
 colonies and found your own industries ; and, 
 if you have the good faith and charity which you 
 demand in others, you may succeed. The his- 
 tory of cooperative effort does not show invari- 
 able success. And you must not overlook the 
 stern fact that there are three elements necessary 
 to the creation of wealth : production ; surplus 
 commodities ; and a purchaser for the surplus. 
 You are going too far when you demand that 
 industries already established shall be set back 
 some centuries; and that the earnings of others 
 who have preceded you shall be applied to the 
 founding of your colonies. In all fairness, you 
 cannot walk in and, without due process of law, 
 arbitrarily take possession of property which 
 other citizens have acquired. 
 
 You can, however, tax wealth. You must free 
 wealth-producing property from heavy burdens 
 of taxation and let the weight fall elsewhere. 
 Otherwise, you are stifling enterprise and thrift, 
 just as when you over-regulate the actual ele- 
 ments of production. And it is not enough, in 
 any form of taxation, merely to provide funds 
 
74 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 for government uses. Those funds must be in- 
 telligently devoted to the greatest needs of the 
 people. 
 
 In various parts of the world, provisions such 
 as succession taxes and the meretricious income 
 tax, have provided a means for partially pre- 
 venting great accumulations of wealth. But 
 that alone does not seem fully to answer the 
 demands of the reformer. Because of the fact, 
 probably, that, while one extreme is cut down, 
 the other is not correspondingly or sufficiently 
 uplifted. 
 
 There is no panacea, doubtless, for all of the 
 troubles of the civic body. No one remedy will 
 suffice. Gradually to allay irritation, by methods 
 carefully considered in the full light of reason, 
 is the most we can hope to do in the line of 
 social therapeutics. 
 
 But I venture to ask the Reform-Agitator 
 if there might not be some advantage gained 
 for the cause by changing the point of attack. 
 By partially abandoning the onslaught upon the 
 agents of production, and upon the existing 
 method of distribution of profits, and by taking 
 up the question of the uses of those profits. 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 75 
 
 Both capital and labor to-day contend that 
 they respectively do not receive the share to 
 which they are entitled out of joint earnings. 
 Suppose the question of division of earnings be 
 left to agreement of the parties. Capital freed 
 from unnecessary stigma. Labor represented by 
 the Unions. Both influenced by the natural law 
 of supply and demand ; and both protected at 
 all times by State and Federal Commissions. 
 And suppose we consider the effect of legislation 
 tending to regulate unwarranted and unwise use 
 of the shares received by each. Indeed, the use 
 of wealth in general. 
 
 It can be assumed that no one will disagree 
 as to the disadvantage of property and pecuniary 
 waste, either by government or individual. The 
 elimination, by rational legislative methods, of 
 unnecessary waste, might be made a very strong 
 factor in the improvement and uplifting of labor 
 conditions. I do not for one moment mean to 
 advocate the establishment of sumptuary laws, 
 strictly speaking ; i.e., laws covering all articles 
 of consumption, or all expenses of living. 
 
 For present purposes it may be left to the 
 agitator himself, relying on his clear understand- 
 ing and good faith in the premises, to say to 
 
76 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 what extent labor ought to protect itself and be 
 protected in the line of economy of living. As 
 to capital, while I believe that it does not in all 
 cases receive too great a share of the profits of 
 production, I do not hesitate to claim that it 
 wastes altogether too much of that share. To 
 the maxim, " It is just to tax the wealthy in 
 proportion to their wealth,' , I would add, " And 
 it is just to tax them in accordance with the way 
 in which they use that wealth." 
 
 Can" we save a part of the wealth now wasted 
 and utilize it for the benefit of the people as a 
 whole, and particularly the laboring-class ? We 
 can do it, certainly. A higher rate of taxation 
 on luxuries would diminish the use of that kind 
 of property ; which use destroys just so much 
 of the product of labor and capital just so 
 much wealth. And, at the same time, the in- 
 come received from the tax levied on such lux- 
 uries as might still be used could form a very 
 useful fund. 
 
 Money not spent in that way would naturally 
 drift into investment channels. Many people 
 would be deterred, to some extent, from falling 
 into extravagant ways of living. 
 
 Of course, the taxation of luxuries falls within 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 77 
 
 that class of legislation known as " sumptuary 
 laws." Yet, if restricted to pure luxuries, no 
 real injury perhaps would come to any person 
 by such a measure. Luxury was styled by one 
 of the great English essayists as "artificial 
 poverty." 
 
 There seems to be no valid reason why laws 
 concerning the wasting of property should not 
 be applicable generally as well as specially. We 
 have always had provisions whereby an indi- 
 vidual can be restrained and placed under guar- 
 dianship by a chancery court, upon its being 
 evident that he is squandering his money and 
 is likely to become a charge upon the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Not for precisely the same reason, but for the 
 purpose of preventing waste to the community 
 and preserving the common wealth, pure lux- 
 uries might very legitimately be the object of a 
 carefully considered system of taxation. 
 
 The result of increased taxation on articles 
 which have no particular usefulness such as 
 wines and liquors and pleasure vehicles, or any 
 other commodity which disappears with the use 
 thereof, leaving nothing but the satisfaction of 
 having had it might show an advantage to 
 
78 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 all classes, even to the capitalist; certainly to 
 the State and the people as a whole ; and to the 
 laboring-classes, beyond question, if the funds 
 raised by taxation were properly used after be- 
 ing collected. 
 
 There would be no material, permanent bene- 
 fit to labor from the mere increase in taxes col- 
 lected. It would be of no lasting benefit to pay 
 it out in wages. It might answer the demands 
 of the reformer if the funds could be invested 
 in profitable industries with State and Labor as 
 employer and employee, respectively. And there 
 would be an increase in the general wealth. 
 Those industries might be confined at first to 
 the production of certain actual necessities of 
 life. 
 
 Such an arrangement would create a com- 
 petition between individual and state enter- 
 prises, which might work to the advantage of 
 both, and doubtless to the benefit of the con- 
 sumer. 
 
 It is well known that state ownership, wher- 
 ever it constitutes a monopoly, is thoroughly 
 unsatisfactory. Complaints are frequent enough, 
 nowadays, regarding the quality of commodities 
 and services, made and rendered by individuals. 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 79 
 
 By a system which would put both state and 
 individual producers on their merits, we might 
 eliminate some of the defects of state owner- 
 ship, make costs of production and prices of 
 commodities more stable, and, at the same time, 
 obtain better values. 
 
 It remains to be seen, of course, what the 
 attitude would be of the numerous people af- 
 fected by such an arrangement. Production and 
 consumption would be decreased in the case of 
 wines and liquors and cigars ; automobiles and 
 carriages ; silks and gems. The breeding and 
 sale of horses and dogs and fine grades of cat- 
 tle would fall off. And preserves for game and 
 birds and fish would be neglected. And all the 
 pursuits that appertain to the few illustrations 
 given above would be materially affected. The 
 thousands and thousands of people who derive 
 their living from those various industries ; the 
 grape and tobacco growers and their assistants; 
 workmen in automobile and carriage factories; 
 miners of precious stones; lapidaries; hunters 
 and taxidermists; and retail dealers in all these 
 lines; as well as^transportation companies, which 
 are fed upon those commodities all would 
 be affected. 
 
80 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 Can they be reconciled ? 
 
 You must not forget the interests of those 
 people who use, and those who produce, the 
 articles aimed at in the plan outlined. If a per- 
 son knows that he is not to be allowed to de- 
 rive a certain amount of satisfaction from the 
 results of the expenditure of his energies, he 
 will not apply himself with the same ardor to 
 accomplish and attain those results. 
 
 The existence and development of all life in nature 
 depends upon the persistent activity and energy with 
 which every living thing struggles for life ; and in or- 
 der to stimulate and secure this activity and energy, na- 
 ture guarantees to equal energies or abilities equal re- 
 wards, and to superior ability greater rewards ; and the 
 certainty of these impartial rewards in other words, 
 absolute justice is the great stimulus of nature, with- 
 out which the struggle would cease, and with it all 
 life. In short, Omnipotence itself does not dispense with 
 justice ; neither can man. 
 
 With man the struggle for life is the struggle for 
 wealth, which is the means of life. By wealth, we do 
 not mean exclusively money, but all those acquisitions 
 which serve to clothe, feed, or protect man, for which 
 money is an equivalent. Without wealth man must 
 perish ; with it he lives, and his prosperity, comfort, 
 and happiness are in proportion to the amount of wealth 
 he acquires. Every man, therefore, seeks wealth ; and 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 81 
 
 the more certainly that equal energies, under equal 
 circumstances, secure equal rewards, in otherwords, 
 equal wealth, the greater will be the effort of each 
 individual to acquire, by doubled energy and activity, 
 doubled rewards. The more this effort increases, the 
 more universal it becomes, so much greater is the 
 activity and prosperity of society. (Opening theme in 
 a treatise on taxation by William Minot, Jr., published 
 in 1877.) 
 
 The luxury tax has fallen into desuetude ; 
 but in 1872, under the title, " Die Luxussteuer 
 als Correctiv der Einkommensteuer," Dr. Leon 
 Ritter von Bilinski, of the University of Lem- 
 berg, quite thoroughly reviewed the subject; 
 and seemed to feel that the tax would be heard 
 of again. He regarded its existence in the early 
 period of statehood as unnecessary, but thought 
 it might, at some time in the future, be restored. 
 He observed that there is no subject of finance- 
 craft which should be handled so cautiously and 
 so firmly as the luxury tax. And it was his opin- 
 ion, that, while it is rather mischievous for the 
 State to watch the expenses of its citizens for 
 service, equipages, and the like, yet a tax reform 
 such as seemed necessary in certain countries 
 would be possible by means of a proper luxury 
 tax. That such a method would permit the re- 
 
82 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
 
 moval of various taxes now imposed : among 
 others, " the consumers' tax on articles that we 
 all individually recognize as necessaries." 
 
 He goes on to say, " In order that such a 
 grand reform shall ever be established, people 
 must be convinced that it really would be well 
 to levy a luxury tax " ; and, " it should have 
 not only a financial but a high social-political 
 meaning." He states that the object of his 
 work has been "to give an impetus toward con- 
 vincing people and to show a way of establish- 
 ing financial reform, and to give a scientific 
 financial solution of the social question." 
 
 If it is contended, as it is, that the use of the power 
 of taxation for purposes other than the collection of 
 revenue finds justification in the fact that " the law- 
 maker must look far enough beyond the general pur- 
 pose to satisfy himself how any proposed levy is likely 
 to affect the general good," a sufficient answer to such 
 contention would seem to be that the general good is 
 always best subserved by doing what is exactly right, 
 and not what is expedient. (David Ames Wells, 
 "Theory and Practice of Taxation," at page 256.) 
 
 The prejudice against any form of sumptuary 
 laws is widespread and deep-rooted. And the 
 same prejudice exists against interference with 
 natural laws of trade. The plan suggested is 
 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR 83 
 
 intended to be an inquiry nothing more. It 
 would open the door to " socialism, " and con- 
 siderable doubt arises as to its feasibility. No 
 scheme for state ownership of industries would 
 check the demand for higher wages. A dead- 
 lock might in time be created between even the 
 laborers themselves in their various lines. And 
 the difficulties of to-day, of a practical nature, 
 would still be encountered. 
 
 If the Reforming- Agitator has a plan which 
 will lift the country out of the slough of de- 
 spond in which it has been floundering, he 
 should offer it without further delay. 
 
 What are his demands and where do they 
 lead? 
 
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