U8RARY CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO presented to the UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO by Tom Ham The Storj of a Millennial Realm, and Its Law. By FRANK ROSEWATER. "They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat." ISAIAH, LXV., 22. "Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crith; and the cries of them that have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth." JAMES, V., 4. GENTRY PUBLISHING CO. OMAHA, NKBR. COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY FRANK ROSEWATER. " * * * would to Heaven I could persuade you of this world-old fact * * That Truth and Justice alone are capable of being 'conserved' and preserved! The thing which is unjust, which is not according to God's Law, will you, in a God's Universe, try to conserve that? It is old, say you? Yes, and the hotter haste ought you, of all others, to be in to let it grow no older! * * hasten for the sake of conservatism itself, to probe it vigorously, to cast it forth at once and forever if guilty." Thomas Carlyle. "We shall never win for our Master the allegiance of the strong men of this world until we show them that he has the power and the purpose to rule the shop and the factory and the counting room as well as the church and the home." Rev. Washington Gladden. " * * You are not true soldiers, if you only mean to stand at a shop door, to protect shopboys who are cheating inside. A soldier's vow to his country is that he will die for the guardianship of her domestic virtue, of her righteous laws, and of her anyway challenged or endangered honor. A state with- out virtue, without laws, and without honor, he is bound not to defend; nay, bound to redress by his own right hand that which he sees to be base in her." John Ruskin. THE ROBERTS PTG. CO., OMAHA, NEBR. PREFACE. While identical in purpose with Socialism, the system on which this story is founded is nevertheless so much at variance with it in diagnosis as well as in the remedy to be applied, that a separate name was regarded appropriate, and adopted. Attrib- uting capitalism to the fact that under the division of labor at- tending all advanced states of industry, the consumer and pro- ducer are helplessly severed, and in consequence subjected to repellent and predatory influences, the proposed system, called Centrisin, mends this unfortunate breach by supplying a medium through which to unite them. This. medium is a currency re- quired to be given in acknowledgment of patronage to all con- sumers, and constituting orders on trade or jobs, all of which are thus conserved exclusively for the consumer, as the sole creator and owner of them. The exclusion of the non-consumer from all industrial opportunities, as well as from the competi- tion for them, at one and the same time establishes a true ratio of supply and demand, correct values, and a just distribution of wealth. Instead of eradicating private property, Centrism thus extends its sphere so as to include property in jobs, the ex- posure of which to predatory rapine being the well spring of capitalism. To the great truths brought to light by socialistic doctrines, as well as to lessons derived from the American protective sys- tem, the author is especially indebted, as stepping stones leading to the ideas embodied in Centrism. In picturing Temploria as an ideal realm, there was no in- tention of dogmatic insistence upon this particular form of con- struction, the aim being merely to display some of the possibil- ities of Centrism in contrast with prevailing industrial condi- tions. F. R. Omaha, Neb., December, 1907. CONTENTS. Chapter Page I. The Millennial Secret 9 II. The Quest of Labor's Knighthood 34 III. The City of Red Cross - 43 IV. A Youthful Wage Earner - 55 V. Everybody's Sabbath 70 VI. A Career of Forgeries 80 VII. Spectacular Coloria 96 VIII. Prior to Centrism - 105 IX. The Great Transition Era 123 X. To Edenize the Outworld 140 XL Where Art Thou, Adam - 154 XII. Homeward Bound - - 166 The Modern Prometheus. CHAPTER I. The Millennial Secret. " * * foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes." Shakespeare. "Property in jobs as well as in products is the corner stone of our millennium," declared Grandpa Zeke. "Upon this rock of justice is planted the temple of our industrial state. This crowning glory, property in jobs, sheds upon our hearths the light of peace, the spirit of progress and the joys of pros- perity. Our millennium is indeed so wonderful, I can only hint the fullness of its blessings; but if you'll bring your chairs nearer, I'll tell you more about it. ' ' The few hours transpired since our arrival in this realm had been one round of great surprises and amazing visions; the reader may therefore imagine the eagerness with which we responded to the patriarch's request. "Our blissful state of prosperity," the vener- able speaker resumed, "is due entirely to the fact that we recognize the consumer as the sole creator, and therefore the sole owner of jobs. We not only conserve his jobs for him, but by excluding the non- consumer from the competition fOr jobs, we enable him to secure the freeman's wage the full product. ' ' "A capital idea!" exclaimed Joseph Carson, formerly a steel magnate, from Philadelphia. " It 10 The Making of a Millennium. is certainly a striking departure, differing from any- thing I ever heard of. But how in the world do you parcel out your jobs so as to distinguish the con- sumer from the non-consumer? ' 11 We make the consumer prove his claim, " was the response, " through the payment of centry. Oh, I forgot to say, centry is a currency we use in acknowledging the receipt of patronage. It is given to the buyer one centret for every dollar he parts with." I UNITED TEMPLES o/TEMPLORIA. %6> 'Deafer is entiZfedJapcLfronageJa T/ie Amount of DM DOLLAR, upon surrender offfushitt t A Templorian Centret. "The centret is an order on jobs an order in fact, on any trade or patronage," explained our host, Robert Manoah, a son of Grandpa Zeke, "just as a dollar is an order on commodities or services. Under Centrism, you see, we never part with one dollar without receiving a handle to the next. We don't regard a doJlar as honest, if it fails to fulfill this obligation to the consumer. We consider the cycle of trade too sacred to be violated; for trade must go on; it must keep pace with the ceaseless hunger of human want a perpetual cycle of need, The Millennial Secret. 11 to supply which Nature has amply provided for. There is a God-made union of wants and means, which only man's ignorance and avarice sever ; and it is against the severance, of this sacred bond that Centrism aims." " Indeed, I have heard it said," interposed Mrs. Robert Manoah, "that outside of Temploria the con- sumer is given no claim on opportunities, and he is even told that, coming as a consumer, he must have previously had his opportunity. Such stupid- ity ! It was like telling a starving man that since he was still alive, he must have had food last week, and therefore should now go without food. With such idiocy dominating the fundamental laws of their system, what wonder their lofty ideals so often proved to be a mere mask of villainy. ' ' ' ' The freedom with which the circle of outworld trade could be broken,", resumed Grandpa Zeke, "was a caution! If a cloud of mistrust passed over the land, everybody at once became a non-consumer, thus cutting the cables of trade at all points and wrecking its mechanism, till starvation and riot filled the land with horror. The license permitted in cutting the life chords of trade formed a terrible weapon in the hands of the selfish and unscrupulous. It was a power to exile men from industry to starve, to kill, and between such vile alternatives to plunder men a piratic power, placing at the helm of state the skull and cross bones of unrestrained vandalism. Thanks to Centrism, such horrors are unknown in Temploria. Here the circle of trade is never broken, and no man must ever remain idle.'' "Begging your pardon, my dear sir," ejacu- lated the former steel magnate, "I realty fail to see 12 The Making of a Millennium. it in that light. In my country any one can get work, whether he has centry or no. ' ' ' 'Quite true, quite true;" responded the aged Templorian, "but of a kind, that slaves get such a plenty of on mere subsistence terms. They get slave work, but not freeman's work afc the full- product wage. What you referred to as getting wqrk without centry was in reality being kept out of one 's job out of the freeman's full-product work dis- employed and only allowed the alternative of either starving or slaving. In reality you had to work two days without pay as the price paid for each day al- lowed to work wholly for yourselves. Was that any- thing less than slavery?" "I see how it works," exclaimed Doctor Rem- ington, who had been an eager listener. "When jobs are given exclusively to consumers, the jobs never run short the consumer always creating a labor demand proportional to that he supplies with his labor. The non-consumer, on the other hand, creates no demand merely exhausting the supply of jobs and trade, and depriving the consumers of jobs rightfully belonging to them. Not only this, but by their unwarranted participation in the com- petition, they cause a spurious disparity between supply and demand, and a short valuation of labor, that both robs and enslaves the consumer. As I see it, the intrusion of the non-consumer is in effect a bur- glary of the consumer's opportunities and a concur- rent plunder of his wage. One might equally as well break into the consumer's house and carry off his valuables. ' ' "The situation, "said Robert Manoah, "sug- gests to me a bound Prometheus a helpless Titan, The Millennial Secret. 13 whom the blade of abstinence has exposed to the devouring greed of innumerable parasites from within and vultures from without. The wide gap it has ripped between consumer and producer has drawn between them the breed of multitudinous grafts that leech industry and against whose greed the employer himself is helpless. What is the em- ployer? A mere puppet in the fierce whirlpool of trade. Is it not clear that the employer is taxed with grafts in the hire of capital, in rents, in the carrying of credits, in the cost of materials, in the cost of se- curing trade, and in a thousand lesser forms for all of which he, as a middleman, is obliged to either tax the consumer and reimburse himself, or else get out of business ? ' ' "I trust no one will misconstrue Centrism," ex- plained Grandpa Zeke, "as opposing the accumula- tion of wealth. Far from it. It aims not to check savings for future use, but rather to encourage them by the removal of all unjust impediments and all ex- traneous influences tending to dispossess men of their wealth. A man may save without becoming a non-consumer, provided he keep within the limits of his own present or future use of things, acquiring his own home and his own share of operative wealth. Such wealth is not capital, nor does it abridge the privilege to accumulate on the part of. others. But when men place no limit to their accumulations, forestalling the opportunities of others and either indirectly, in the guise of investment, lending their surplus to the depleted multitude, or making direct loans of money, for the sake of profits, they are cap- italists, and to that extent also non-consumers economic vandals and robbers." 14 The Making of a Millennium. "Capitalism, no doubt, involves grave abuses," Mr. Carson apologetically remarked, "but what sys- tem is faultless? And who will dispute the inestim- able service it has rendered industry ? ' ' "Every brigand delivers an inestimable ser- vice," responded Grandpa Zeke, "whenever an ab- CHILDREN RELEASED SUBJECT TO RETURN DOUB IN NUMBER EVERY S YZARS. An Inestimable Service. ducted child is restored to its mother. The question of liis authority to abduct is nevertheless pertinent. No one questions the service rendered in allowing men to slave in preference to starving; but I fear there are some who will question the authority on which the poor man's opportunities are abducted and withheld for ransom. Yes, and a worse form of ransom than brigands are accustomed to exact; for capital merely lends the abducted child, requiring a The Millennial Secret. 15 return, after a period doubled in number. The wel- comed return of an abducted child should not be con- * strued as a glorification of abduction." ' ' A greater brigandage than capitalism, ' ' added our hostess, "were unimaginable. Extending from the dim ages of the past, its insidious rapine has ever been widening the gulf between rich and poor and injecting into the body of society the most re- pellent and hideous forces wars and rebellions, riot and corruption, in every form all the bitter fruits of hate and malice, of greed and envy. Its brazen abstinence, like the claws of a mighty beast, have rent the industrial world into bleeding fragments and poisoned its blood with festering sores." "In comparison with capitalism," resumed Grandpa Zeke, "Centrism is as the light unto the darkness its very antithesis. Instead of repelling consumer and producer, and in their helpless sep- aration subjecting them to an ever-increasing in- fliction of predatory rapine, Centrism closes the gap between consumer and producer, causing trade to spin in one continuous round of consuming and pro- duction an unbreakable chain of industrial activ- ity, in perfect harmony with the ceaseless and un- bounded hunger of human want. There are no un- certain notes in her trade neither hysterics nor paralytic strokes nor the froth and foam of de- lusive wealth that betray and misapply efforts. Every latent energy is liberated and directed to ef- fective service, through the searching eye of its un- fettered demand." "What a grand engine," exclaimed Robert Manoah, "is the unfettered demand of Centrism. What a power it wields, with every living energy 16 The Making of a Millennium. The Millennial Secret. 17 resurrected and brought under full steam; with all her mechanism in full accord and harmony, and re- lieved of all parasitical impediments and super- fluous burdens all the drags and pullback in- fluences of capitalism. Compare this with the irra- tional crankiness of the engine of capitalism, whose A Sad Predicament. source of power abstinence is repellent, discord- ant, paralyzing a very ripsaw of industrial an- archy. See all its unabsorbed surpluses of redund- ant product injected between the wheels of the in- dustrial mechanism, impeding it everywhere and jarring its every fiber. Look at its vast burdens of idol wealth the gods of mammon dead inutilities that tax the blind worshippers with sacrifices of en- ormous energy. Against all these impediments have 18 The Making of a Millennium. the forces of heart and hand and brain, the spirit of science, art and morality to strive, in pushing onward the train of Progress; and what speed this train has ever made, whatever distance it has con- quered, has been in spite of the retarding influence x)f this backward-pulling engine of capitalism this ditcher of nations and slayer of men. ' ' "It seems to me," declared Richard Burton, a Boston labor leader, "as if opportunity might well be compared with a horse in the hands of the horse- thief, who being now mounted enslaves the dis- mounted owner of the horse through this advantage he holds over him; and afterward he perpetuates his mastery through the whip of short demand, in his hand." "In my mind's eye," remarked Mark Oswald, a St. Louis socialist, "I can see King Capital as an 'Old Man of the Sea,' with his bloated paunch of redundant wealth, and with his iron limbs clutched around the slender-shanked Sinbad of industry. Poor Sinbad ! I can see him staggering and reeling with "his overwhelming burden and his unbalanced supporting limbs. I can see the awkward contor- tions of those uneven limbs the lengthy limb of supply and the abreviated stump of demand, fran- tically lunging in all directions in their difficult task of reciprocating to each other. What a devil's own march they lead our industrial Sinbad now drag- ging heavily and anon floundering madly in spas- modic zeal, and half the time laying him flat on his back in the mires of depression, paralyzed with un- certainty or bathed in the blood of revolution or war. Following- his steps like a haunting shadow stalks the ever-present Ogre of Abstinence, paternal The Millennial Secret. 19 The Industrial Sinbad. 20 The Making of a Millennium. ancestor of the King, hacking with his uplifted axe of non-consuming, slice after slice from the stumpy limb of our staggering Sinbad. What hope that crippled industry will ever be able to walk erect or keep out of the hell-ditch of depression, as long as that one-eyed fiend is permitted to follow, axe in hand, in his wake hacking and hacking at his short- demand limb, depleting his blood, and paralyzing his energies as the years roll by. ' ' "The more I think of it," ejaculated Doctor Remington, "the more I admire the surgery of Centrism. How beautifully it seams the gap be- tween consumer and producer. There is no blind tugging and tearing at the wound. There is no de- lusive shifting of the sphere of disease. It goes right to the source, in the foreign wedges of abstention those malignant tormentors and tyrants that attack the living tissues and pester and distort the growth of the industrial body with their life-sapping and corruption-bred tumors. Centrism, by the expulsion of these venomous intruders from the befouled sys- tem, leaves Nature undisturbed; and the wounds of industry, thoroughly cleansed, simply close and heal themselves." * ' The system impresses me, ' ' added Miss Helen Oswald, Mark's sister, "as an admirable scheme to keep money in circulation. I'm satisfied it must pre- vent hoarding and make the exaction of usury im- possible." "Centrism prevents usury in any form," re- responded the venerable Templorian, "whether as investment profits, as land rents or as plain interest that is, when evasion through capitalistic invest- ment is effectually prohibited." The Millennial Secret. 21 . . 'I fail to see why such investments should be regarded as evasions," the Philadelphian remon- strated. "Are they not preferable to money hoard- ing I" "That is very true," was the prompt response, "but because one evil is preferable to another is no reason why it should be desired. The mere use of centry will prevent money hoarding; so that evil is out of the question. Capitalistic investments, however, are another form of hoarding property- hoarding and if licensed, it were equivalent to al- lowing the makers of these investments to derive centry on the strength of consuming done by others. It is the occupants of buildings and the users of the products of factories who are the REAL consumers of these properties, and not the investors or owners. The owner is merely the servant and agent of the consumer the consumer both using and paying for the wear of the properties and being debarred from possession for want of the full measure of op- portunity as well as of his rightful earnings. Pro- hibiting capitalistic investments is simply a way of protecting the consumer in the possession of the in- vestment opportunity belonging to him as actual user of of the property. ' ' "Patronage deserves a better reward than smiles and curtesies," concluded Robert Manoah. "It is a sad reflection to note how the outworld workman will content himself with smiles for his patronage while his children starve at-home with frowns and beatings added to their hunger. Thank heaven the industries of Temploria constitute an honest job bank. Here every consumer is regarded as a job depositor and is given centry as his deposit 22 The Making of a Millennium. slip; and through these he can draw at will on the general job supply as one would draw on his own bank account. The jobs are sacredly conserved for the job depositors the consumers no non-con- sumer being permitted to draw on them any more than a non-depositor would be permitted to draw on the deposits of any honest bank. Our industrial sys- Smiles for Patronage. tern is not a mere trick bank like the industries of capitalism always open to receive the trade-creat- ing, job-producing patronage of the consumer, and always closed to drafts on the jobs. The great cap- tains of its industry lack the supreme wit by which to seize the entire job deposits and exploit them un- der a 'free' competition open to every non-con- sumer, to be had only on such terms as ancient pris- oners accepted for the privilege of living slavery bare subsistence. ' ' The Millennial Secret. 23 24 The Making of a Millennium. 1 'It's the old story over again," remarked Mark Oswald, "in which the powers of the people entrusted in the hands of the monarch for purposes of government are feloniously appropriated and the State becomes 'Me.' In the case of capitalism it's the industrial state that is paternalistically swal- lowed and becomes 'Me.' Our hostess here announced a brief intermis- sion for refreshments; and thereupon, flourishing aloft a dainty wand evidently as a signal the room suddenly responded, as if by magic, passing through a wonderful metamorphosis and merging by degrees into a veritable fairyland. The surround- ing objects now appeared to be bathed in the most gorgeous hues, due to a network of radiant wires overhead from which were suspended innumerable prismatic crystals, whose refracted lights frescoed the ceiling in dazzling splendor and draped the more distant walls with weird hangings of flickering shadow tints. In an apparent space back of the shadowy hangings, dim figures seemed to be whirl- ing in a slow waltz to the faint echo of deliciously sweet music. A trio of charming young women, being pre- sented by our hostess, waited upon us with remark- able grace and tact. They were accomplished enter- tainers and deemed it an honor to serve in a capacity requiring so much art; for the service was inter- larded with varied entertainment, embracing songs, recitations, toasts, short addresses, and often orig- inal sallies, sparkling with wit and of surpassing ex- cellence. The following ballad, "The Mermaid's Plight," was one of these: The Millennial Secret. 25 Alas, for my mermaid's necklace! I have lost it in the sea; Its pearls are scattered far and wide They are lost forever, to me! "Your very life is in these gems," Said the sibyl who gave them to me; "There's lasting health in every pearl But death, if they part from thee!" Some wizard hand from far away, Across the trackless sea, Hath cut the cord that bound them; He has severed them from me! L shouldn't have placed the slightest trust In the hollow film of faith, But a fiber of firmest substance Should have sought from some sea wraith! In tears, I now wait by the sea shore, For my pearls to come back to me; But the dreary waste gives no answer, Save the chilling blasts of the sea! A pall of darkness, like a shroud, Comes creeping o'er my soul; I feel the icy hand of death; I hear my death knell toll! O heed my words, ye workmen: Prize not your jobs so slight, Lest some day ye should lose them, And be left in the mermaid's plight ! Your jobs are all precious as pearls, As bread, and water, and breath; They are the doorways to life; They bar the entrance of death. And there's many a wizard waiting, 'Long the byways of the land, To sever the cord that binds them, And snatch them from your hand! Quite long ye may wait by the sea shore; In vain bemoan your loss;. But nary a pearl of a job May e'er return from across! It's only a thread of faith, By which job pearls are bound; It's the merest freak of chance, If ever a lost pearl's found! So seek ye the stout cord of centry A cord no wizard can break And hold fast your necklace of jobs; Upon these your lives are at stake! 26 The Making of a Millennium. A comic recital closed the intermission, leaving us in a happy mood the three graces having in the meanwhile vanished, during the transition of the room to its former appearance. It was indeed a land of the millennium into which I had drifted owing to a peculiar chain of circumstances, of which more will be said hereafter. Rescued by the noble efforts of my host, Robert Manoah, I had spent the best portion of my first day in a long nap; and refreshed in the evening, I was agreeable surprised by a visit from a body of rescued shipmates whom I had regarded as lost when the Falcon went down on the night preceding. How glad I was to embrace my kind friend, Doctor Remington, and to meet his companions foremost among whom was Captain Clark the former com- mander of our ship. The remaining members of the party were Mark and Helen Oswald, Richard Burton and Joseph Carson, of whom mention has already been made; Miss Lydia Carson, a daughter of the steel magnate; and Mrs. Jane Luzby, a progressive young club woman hailing from the windy city. The Manoah household comprised three genera- tions, of which Grandpa Zeke, a well-preserved oc- togenarian, was the patriarch; Robert and Mary Manoah, our hosts, were next in lineage, and the two young daughters, Ruth and Ray, the latter away on a brief absence completed its membership. They were all so uniformly genial, and Mrs. Manoah was so pleasant and informal in her manners, that I felt from the start very much as if I had been one of the family returned after a prolonged absence. Even little Ruth, a daughter not yet in her teens, clung to me as to an elder brother. The Millennial Secret. 27 They had so much to tell so many features of their wonderful realm to explain and there was so much they were anxious to learn concerning the latest affairs of the "outworld" as everything out side of Temploria is called, that our tongues were kept busy. without apparent cessation; and it was not long before they elicited from me the story of the strange incidents through which I had been brought into this realm. The entire family, including little Ruth, listened to the narrative with bated breath, while Grandpa Zeke fairly went wild over one incident in which an eloquent young woman had exhorted a body of work- ingmen to lay aside their strifes and jealousies over the available jobs, advising them rather to in- crease the number of these even if they had to compel the capitalist to spend all his surplus wealth. "God bless the good woman," the venerable patri- arch exclaimed, overjoyed that outworld workmen were beginning to have their eyes opened. "It's just those additional jobs that have emancipated labor in Temploria." Then he began telling me all about economic conditions in this realm, picturing a land that was little short of a grander paradise. It was a place where the lion and the lamb could indeed lie side by side with perfect security; where each husband- man could sit as it were under his own fig tree ; and where the sword had been veritably turned into a pruning hook. Here the warp of work and the woof of pleasure were interwoven into a beautiful idyl, and perennial peace reigned in the midst of great activity and progress. There were no vultureg here to snatch the bread from the mouths of little ones. 28 The Making of a Millennium. There was no specter of starvation to haunt, and no cloud of insecurity to darken, the home. The sun of opportunity shed his rays of warmth from the in- dustrial sky and inbued with marvelous energy every faculty and organism of social and individual life. It was a land of prodigious wealth wealth not the disease-infected and .distorted organs of production and shelter held as loans to the enslaved multitudes. It was all owned and controlled by in- dividuals, subordinate to wholesome law, and oper- ated through voluntary co-operative organizations whose elected representatives constituted the gov- ernment. Everybody was free to produce and ac- cumulate all the wealth he pleased, provided he al- lowed the same privilege to others; and it was be- cause no abstainer could rob him of employment, and forbid him to produce, that labor was here in- dustrially as well as in all other respects free. Cap- italism, the parent of a thousand tyrannies, was dead; and freedom breathed a purer atmosphere. The intermission over, it was not long before the conversation again reverted to the doctrine of Centrism; and Captain Clark, who was a staunch advocate of freedom of trade, confessed a difficulty in seeing why the time-honored "supply and de- mand" value scales, without interference, should not be good enough for all the purposes of industry. "Your attitude reminds me ' Grandpa Zeke replied, with a long drawl, as he drew himself up in his chair, ' ' it reminds me of an incident my grand- father often alluded to, occurring in the good old days before he landed in Temploria. The Millennial Secret. 29 "In the little village of Powaska down in old Connecticut, lived a thrifty merchant whose store was the only one within a large radius. Honest John did a thriving business, doing so well in fact, that he finally had to send to Hartford for an extra clerk. Unperjured Testimony. 1 ' The clerk speedily arrived, a young fellow full of business, and ready to manage affairs from the very start. He had scarcely got into harness though, before the two had a fight. It was all on account of Honest John's ideal scales; and from abusing each other over it with hard words they were soon bat- tering each other with hard fists, until the neigh- bors parted them and they were brought up before the village squire. 30 The Making of a Millennium. 1 'Squire Jones sat in austere majesty, listening to their successive recriminations; and being un- able to arrive at any conclusion, he ordered the scales to be brought into court. They were placed before him; and thereupon, before the eyes of the entire village, the trick was exposed and John not only rebuked, but ignominiously dragged from the room and hurried to the county jail. "The scales had testified for themselves. They had spoken an unperjured testimony. At a point about one inch from the center was visible the stain of rust, indicating where the beam had rested all these years. Its pounds had been over an ounce short. The silent testimony of the scales had con- victed him. "While his customers had been in the habit of riveting their eyes upon the scale pans, the falsely centered beam had been indiscriminately cheating them all." "I don't see what this scales had to do with the outworld supply and demand value scales," pro- tested the unconvinced free trader, after the speaker had finished. ""It had this to do with it," responded the story teller: "that the adjustment of the supply and de- mand beam in your outworld value scales is subject to tampering and is interfered with by thousands of Honest Johns ; for it rests a great deal further from its center than did John's cheating scales." "I don't see anything wrong in the fact that supply and demand vary," protested the Captain, "what's to determine values if there's to be no fluc- tuation?" The Millennial Secret. 31 " Fluctuations of value," retorted the Tempor- ian, "relate to particular forms of demand or sup- ply, but not to the total supply or total demand, neither of which are subjects of valuation. The total supply, in fact, being a response to and correlative of the total demand, should never exceed it. Like the ends of the beam, the total supply and the total demand should be neutral always balancing. Cen- PEMAND fl BEC suppkL The Templorian Wage Scale. trism, keeps the suppy and demand beam perfectly centered; and from this service it derives its name. Its values denote the relation one service bears to another; whereas the capitalistic scales register merely the minimum share of the product that labor will consent to accept as its wage a result quite re- mote from value. It's like putting a man into a press and measuring his height by seeing into how short a compass he could be squeezed. The fact that the license of abstention permitted indefinite short- ening of the demand or lengthening of the supply arm of the beam, gave it a cheating capacity ten times as great as the scales of our 'Honest John.' 32 The Making of a Millennium. The truth is, it scarcely gave to labor a quarter of its real value." "If it delivered a mere quarter of labor's val- ue," ironically remonstrated the Philadelphian, "what do you suppose became of the other three quarters 1 Did it remain upon the scale pans ? ' ' "One would think something remained on the pans," responded the venerable Templorain, "the way all the agencies of out world commerce scramble and scuffle for control of the weighing. What stays on the pan is the gross profit, the bulk of which is wasted in your scrambling and scuffling to do the weighing. Between what you put into the creation of vastly redundant and superfluous business capital and into the hire of whole armies of men to uselessly fight for trade with grip and sword, and the hazards you have to assume in this tooth and nail struggle, what you find in the pan is after all a gilded delu- sion ! In spite of all your desperate efforts to gath- er trade, you stir up only froth and foam, the bulk of trade remaining latent stifled by your absten- tions. You cannot make the goddess of trade sing by throttling her ; nor can you kill her children and re- vive the corpses with all your armies of trade- patching surgeons." "It's just as we socialists have always contend- ed," remarked young Mr. Oswald. "We have al- ways regarded the outworld supply and demand value scales as a sort of 'Honest John,' although its mechanism has never been so fully exposed as under the lime light of Centrism. Surely, no better cheating device has ever been imposed upon a credu- lous humanity. Take off your hats, all you gamblers with your marked cards, loaded dice, wheels of fortune, green goods and other gold bricks; and all The Millennial Secret. 33 I Told You So. you short-weight grocers and coal men, you long- priced ice men, you short-measure hucksters, and all other petty practicers of larceny; come one and all of you, and make your obeisance to this king of cheats. What are all your pilferings in comparison with a wage scales that pares wages down to a mere quarter of the workingman's production, and makes him feel thankful, to boot, for this rescue from star- vation. ''And all you free voters whose liberties confine you within the necessity of accepting with thanks the thin slices doled out to you, I pray you, paint on your banners of prosperity the image of this historic and world-famed wage scales this badge of your equality, as industrial slaves." CHAPTER II. The Quest of Labor's Knighthood. "Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward." Milton. The startling revelations embodied in the gospel of Centrism clothed with deeper significance an in- cident immediately preceding my advent in this realm, in which this doctrine was vaguely fore- shadowed. Assigned, as a reporter on one of the news- papers of the American metropolis, to investigate certain labor troubles, I happened early one June morning, just before sunrise, to be sauntering in the vicinity of the East River docks, when I fell in with a compact body of workingmen silently forging their way through the darkness. A moment later, accom- panied with derisive shouts, a shower of missiles came whirling by passing fortunately over their heads. With a crowd of incensed union men directly in their path, the sturdy fellows nevertheless kept right on, until a pitched battle seemed imminent. At this critical juncture, as if risen from the very bowels of the earth, the apparition of a seem- ingly tall woman appeared between the opposing forces. The sun had meanwhile come out, piercing the mists with his shimmering rays, and adding no little to the startling effect of the intervention. Quest of Labor's Knighthood. 35 "My good friends," the woman began, address- ing the rival forces, "why is it you are here, arrayed one against the other brother against brother, workman against workman? Why are you facing each other in this hostile attitude 1 Is it not because of a scarcity of jobs, and that one set or the other The Peace Maker. of you must be condemned to idleness? Is there any other cause for your hostility?" "Not much." "No!" and "You bet not," were among the numerous replies spontaneously proceeding from a score or more of lusty throats. "Then, my friends," the fair speaker resumed, "if there are only thirty jobs to be had for every hun- dred men, will scrambling for them make a single job more, or net you any better return, than would 36 The Making of a Millennium. an amicable rotation in their apportionment? With each man assured ids share of work would you not stand in a better position to command a just wage tjian ununited to be engulfed in perpetual strife? Eemember it is the lone traveler who has to sur- render his purse. "The mightiest arm, however, to protect you, my friends, is that of a full demand the call of a hundred jobs for every hundred men. "You are all consumers, are you not? And as consumers, are you not also job makers? Are you not day after day creating jobs ? Yet you never ask what becomes of them. Is it not time you asked? Are you so prosperous that you can afford to take thirty jobs in place of a hundred? Can you afford to confine your struggle merely to the thirty jobs, completely losing sight of the other seventy? I tell you, it's the other seventy you want the full demand of a hundred jobs for every hundred men. Secure the full demand, and I warrant, you will be able to command honorable terms as well as the full wage. ' ' ' l Take my advice, brothers, ' ' she resumed after a lengthy pause during which she was cheered to the echo, "consolidate in amicable distribution of the available jobs; and spare no efforts to acquire the other seventy. To secure the other seventy is the real quest of labor's knighthood." I do not recall the exact drift of the words used by this eloquent woman in further expatiating with her auditors, but well I remember the solemn earn- estness of that pale face, and the sweet, sympathetic tone of her appeal to their fellow feeling and their sense of duty. I also remember the nice precision Quest of Labor's Knighthood. 37 with which she reasoned to impress on them the ne- cessity of compelling the capitalist to spend his in- come, regardless of profits even his principal un- til there was work for all. Even granted the cap- italist's principal had been honestly earned, every dollar of it represented an amount of opportunity shared in excess of what had been due him as a con- sumer, and the restitution of this opportunity was asking but mild justice. The quest of labor's knigh- hood was not fulfilled in a blind and bitter strife for the thirty jobs ordinarily available, but in securing the other seventy. It was this call for the other seventy jobs that has ever since impressed me as a genuine forecast of Centrism; and the bitter strife over the ordinary thirty seemed a perfect counterpart to the fatuous contentment of buyers with the fluctuating pans of the capitalistic wage-scales while blindly tolerating the grossest deviations in the position of its beam. Its short-demand, abridged through capital- breeding abstentions, represented the very jobs charged as missing the other seventy. These comprised opportunities non-productively applied in the creation and operation of grossly redundant enterprises, and production of a redundancy of profits all of which was like fruitless pyramid building slave work. The calm earnestness of this woman inspired a reverence and awoke in the breasts of these men a hope that was almost divine. They drank the words from her lips as if they had been sent from heaven; and in their frenzy of admiration they would have kissed the very ground she trod. Both 38 The Making of a Millennium. factions were affected alike the germ of fellowship, like a divine spark, welding their hearts. It was an impressive scene to behold the erst- while foes now mingling in brotherly communion fervidly grasping each other's hands as they buried all past animosities and began proceedures toward sealing a more permanent bond of peace. In the midst of this happy scene, the fair orator mysteriously vanished; and all I could afterwards glean from desultory remarks overheard was the fact that her name was Margaret and that she was a settlement worker residing in the vicinity. So thoroughly had I been absorbed in this dra- matic incident that I had failed to discern the ap- proach of footsteps from behind until, startled by the cry of "scabs." I turned, and behold a second body of union men were almost upon us. In a mo- ment the air was thick with flying stones and clubs, and a heavy blow upon the back of my head was my last recollection of the incident. Upon recovery of consciousness I found myself laid out upon a couch in the quarters of Doctor Rem- ington, aboard the steamer Falcon on its way to the Philippines. My wound had been carefully dressed, and apart from a long gash, consisted of a slight fracture of the outer portion of the bone at the place where I had been struck. I had very fortunately been discovered by the ship's steward, more dead than alive, doubled up in a cask that had evidently been smuggled aboard as an easy way to get rid of an incriminating "corpse." On the day following I was obliged to undergo a slight operation for the removal of a splinter from the battered portion of my skull. I still recall the Quest of Labor's Knighthood. 39 peculiar anesthetic used and the heavy drowsiness it occasioned conjuring up strange visions in which I was carried through the region along the East Kiver wharves, where I again beheld the hostile labor for- ces prepared to spring at each other like enraged lions. The scene changed, and a great parade swept SHORT IN JOBS-- 5HORT \NWAGES. COMPEL CAPITAL { COMPETE A Great Parade. by, composed of squads of workingmen bearing ban- ners inscribed, "A Hundred Jobs for Every Hun- dred Men." "Give Us the Other Seventy Jobs," "Compel Capital to Compete," and "Short in Jobs, Short in Wages." Many of these bodies were sing- ing as they marched along their songs all appeal- ing for the other seventy jobs. One began in this way: 40 The Making of a Millennium. "With thirty jobs to a hundred men The bogey men have got us A lot of slaves, to work for them On terms as if they'd bought us. Then the chorus chimed in : "Oh the bogey men, the bogey men, The bogey men have, got us A flock of geese, to feed and pluck, To deceive, and to besot us." Another jingle frequently repeated ran : Only thirty jobs, Only thirty cents, On every hundred! That will never do: Someone has blundered; We 'want what's due, Full measure true, We want the hundred!" Many days must have elapsed before I was suffi- ciently recovered to receive visitors, and already I was congratulating myself upon the prospect of soon being permitted to go at large about the vessel, when I was one night suddenly aroused by a violent jar that pitched me out of my bunk. The way the vessel groaned and creaked, I looked every moment to see her timbers part. . Surely, something dreadful had happened. Our ship must have struck a reef. Not a moment was there to lose. In less than a jiffy I was dressed and had burst through the cabin door, to be greeted by a weird and uncanny spec- tacle. Was I awake or only dreaming? Upon the deck, wherever I chanced to gaze, ghastly corpses lay their glassy eyes staring vacantly at the ob- scured skies. The sight filled me with terror. Scarcely had I regained self-possession after this shock, than a peculiar odor assailed my nostrils, Quest of Labor's Knighthood. 41 and my attention was also drawn to a sort of lustrous mist hovering over the vessel. The extraordinary appearance of the mist, coupled with a vague sense of stupor I felt coming over me, aroused my suspicion; and thereupon it flashed upon my mind that this shroud of mist was in reality a poisonous gas. What else could have produced all these ghastly corpses? Thanks to my close confinement, my life had thus far been spared. No wonder the vessel had run upon a reef ! I realized at once it would never do to remain aboard. The open sea was a more welcome spot than this sepulcher. Hurriedly donning a life pre- server, I rushed to the vessel's side, and without a moment's pause, I leaped into the foaming depths. It proved a lucky move, for I had scarcely col- lected my senses, after the plunge, than the ship started to list sternward. Then followed a vicious lurch, and she sank before I could as much as catch my breath. For the first time now, floating helplessly upon the billows of an unknown sea, the awfulness of the calamity dawned upon me ; and with no help in sight, my heart sank within me. Far off upon the horizon I soon after discerned the dim outlines of a great city; and this vision, faint as it was, kindled new hope in my breast. It had an invigorating influence, neutralizing much of the numbing effect of the immersion. My hopes were further heightened when a pale streak of light in the east signaled the approach of day. Short lived, however, were all my hopes; for no sooner had the momentary excitement subsided 42 The Making of a Millennium. than the deadly vapor was again in evidence. There was no escape from its tightening clutch. Steadily, steadily in spite of all resistance my senses were becoming numbed and my faculties absorbed in a sweeping vision that raked over the pettiest details of my past career, from childhood up. I seemed to be sinking into a dark abyss, which I fancied the ap- proach of death, but from whose yawning depths I was fortunately extricated, as the reader is already aware, to awaken under the generous care of the Manoahs. CHAPTER III. The City of Bed Cross. "Come, bright improvement! on the car of Time, And rule the spacious world from clime to clime! Thy handmaid Art, shall every wild explore, Trace every wave, and culture every shore." Campbell. As in a dream, my first week in Temploria flitted away one swift succession of astonishing revela- tions. It seemed as if, held in a spell of witchery and woilder, the whole world had .been completely transformed all former criterions shattered and the new, with bold audacity, defying every sense and challenging all preconceived ideas. Eye, ear and soul were ravished with its endless charm of novelty and wonder. With what fond delight I still look back upon the halcyon days of those wanderings, accompanied by the Manoahs, among the novel institutions and delightful rendezvous of this wonderful city of Bed Cross. Above all shone the buoyant spirits of the lithe Templorians, in whose radiant light the cloudy moodiness of my outworld soul was revealed to me as never before and almost obliterated from the first consciousness of this contrast. Aside from the remarkable charm of these peo- ple, I was at every step and turn delighted and amazed by strange devices, wonderful appointments, miraculous tricks and numberless inventions many revealing secrets in Nature seemingly incredible. The tracings of art in a thousand and one forms, and 44 The Making of a Millennium. n a n a a n n a n a n n a a a a a n a n n a a a a n n n n a n a n n n n n n a a a n a n a n D n a n a' n a n a a n a a a n n n n a a a a- a a a n D a n a a n a a n a n n n n n n t n a n S 2 a n n s rrl SHOPWAY < ^ \ 3 SHOPWAY ~ W*~* LLt >, & n n a H a a n I n n a n a a n a H n a a a n a n a n n a a n n n a n n a a a n n a 1 ngn o n ran a n a n n