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diff --git a/1187-h/1187-h.htm b/1187-h/1187-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bdb3739 --- /dev/null +++ b/1187-h/1187-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3811 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>War of the Classes</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">War of the Classes, by Jack London</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, War of the Classes, by Jack London + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: War of the Classes + + +Author: Jack London + + + +Release Date: May 6, 2007 [eBook #1187] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR OF THE CLASSES*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1912 Macmillan edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>WAR OF THE CLASSES</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +JACK LONDON<br /> +<span class="smcap">author of “the sea-wolf,” “call of +the wild,” etc.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">THE REGENT PRESS<br /> +NEW YORK</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Copyright, 1905,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Set up and electrotyped. Published +April, 1905. Reprinted June, October, November, 1905; January, 1906; +May, 1907; April, 1908; March, 19010; April, 1912.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Printed and Bound by<br /> +J. J. Little & Ives Company<br /> +New York</p> +<p>Contents:</p> +<p>Preface<br /> +The Class Struggle<br /> +The Tramp<br /> +The Scab<br /> +The Question of the Maximum<br /> +A Review<br /> +Wanted: A New Land of Development<br /> +How I Became a Socialist</p> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> +<p>When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature, +because, forsooth, I was a socialist. Reporters from local papers +interviewed me, and the interviews, when published, were pathological +studies of a strange and abnormal specimen of man. At that time (nine +or ten years ago), because I made a stand in my native town for municipal +ownership of public utilities, I was branded a “red-shirt,” a +“dynamiter,” and an “anarchist”; and really decent +fellows, who liked me very well, drew the line at my appearing in public +with their sisters.</p> +<p>But the times changed. There came a day when I heard, in my native +town, a Republican mayor publicly proclaim that “municipal ownership +was a fixed American policy.” And in that day I found myself +picking up in the world. No longer did the pathologist study me, +while the really decent fellows did not mind in the least the propinquity +of myself and their sisters in the public eye. My political and +sociological ideas were ascribed to the vagaries of youth, and good-natured +elderly men patronized me and told me that I would grow up some day and +become an unusually intelligent member of the community. Also they +told me that my views were biassed by my empty pockets, and that some day, +when I had gathered to me a few dollars, my views would be wholly +different,—in short, that my views would be their views.</p> +<p>And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable,—still a +vagary of youth, it was held, but romantically respectable. Romance, +to the bourgeois mind, was respectable because it was not dangerous. +As a “red-shirt,” with bombs in all his pockets, I was +dangerous. As a youth with nothing more menacing than a few +philosophical ideas, Germanic in their origin, I was an interesting and +pleasing personality.</p> +<p>Through all this experience I noted one thing. It was not I that +changed, but the community. In fact, my socialistic views grew +solider and more pronounced. I repeat, it was the community that +changed, and to my chagrin I discovered that the community changed to such +purpose that it was not above stealing my thunder. The community +branded me a “red-shirt” because I stood for municipal +ownership; a little later it applauded its mayor when he proclaimed +municipal ownership to be a fixed American policy. He stole my +thunder, and the community applauded the theft. And today the +community is able to come around and give me points on municipal +ownership.</p> +<p>What happened to me has been in no wise different from what has happened +to the socialist movement as a whole in the United States. In the +bourgeois mind socialism has changed from a terrible disease to a youthful +vagary, and later on had its thunder stolen by the two old +parties,—socialism, like a meek and thrifty workingman, being +exploited became respectable.</p> +<p>Only dangerous things are abhorrent. The thing that is not +dangerous is always respectable. And so with socialism in the United +States. For several years it has been very respectable,—a sweet +and beautiful Utopian dream, in the bourgeois mind, yet a dream, only a +dream. During this period, which has just ended, socialism was +tolerated because it was impossible and non-menacing. Much of its +thunder had been stolen, and the workingmen had been made happy with full +dinner-pails. There was nothing to fear. The kind old world +spun on, coupons were clipped, and larger profits than ever were extracted +from the toilers. Coupon-clipping and profit-extracting would +continue to the end of time. These were functions divine in origin +and held by divine right. The newspapers, the preachers, and the +college presidents said so, and what they say, of course, is so—to +the bourgeois mind.</p> +<p>Then came the presidential election of 1904. Like a bolt out of a +clear sky was the socialist vote of 435,000,—an increase of nearly +400 per cent in four years, the largest third-party vote, with one +exception, since the Civil War. Socialism had shown that it was a +very live and growing revolutionary force, and all its old menace +revived. I am afraid that neither it nor I are any longer +respectable. The capitalist press of the country confirms me in my +opinion, and herewith I give a few post-election utterances of the +capitalist press:—</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“The Democratic party of the constitution is dead. The +Social-Democratic party of continental Europe, preaching discontent and +class hatred, assailing law, property, and personal rights, and insinuating +confiscation and plunder, is here.”—Chicago Chronicle.</p> +<p>“That over forty thousand votes should have been cast in this city +to make such a person as Eugene V. Debs the President of the United States +is about the worst kind of advertising that Chicago could +receive.”—Chicago Inter-Ocean.</p> +<p>“We cannot blink the fact that socialism is making rapid growth in +this country, where, of all others, there would seem to be less inspiration +for it.”—Brooklyn Daily Eagle.</p> +<p>“Upon the hands of the Republican party an awful responsibility +was placed last Tuesday. . . It knows that reforms—great, +far-sweeping reforms—are necessary, and it has the power to make +them. God help our civilization if it does not! . . . It must repress +the trusts or stand before the world responsible for our system of +government being changed into a social republic. The arbitrary +cutting down of wages must cease, or socialism will seize another lever to +lift itself into power.”—The Chicago New World.</p> +<p>“Scarcely any phase of the election is more sinisterly interesting +than the increase in the socialist vote. Before election we said that +we could not afford to give aid and comfort to the socialists in any +manner. . . It (socialism) must be fought in all its phases, in its every +manifestation.”—San Francisco Argonaut.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And far be it from me to deny that socialism is a menace. It is +its purpose to wipe out, root and branch, all capitalistic institutions of +present-day society. It is distinctly revolutionary, and in scope and +depth is vastly more tremendous than any revolution that has ever occurred +in the history of the world. It presents a new spectacle to the +astonished world,—that of an <i>organized</i>, <i>international</i>, +<i>revolutionary movement</i>. In the bourgeois mind a class struggle +is a terrible and hateful thing, and yet that is precisely what socialism +is,—a world-wide class struggle between the propertyless workers and +the propertied masters of workers. It is the prime preachment of +socialism that the struggle is a class struggle. The working class, +in the process of social evolution, (in the very nature of things), is +bound to revolt from the sway of the capitalist class and to overthrow the +capitalist class. This is the menace of socialism, and in affirming +it and in tallying myself an adherent of it, I accept my own consequent +unrespectability.</p> +<p>As yet, to the average bourgeois mind, socialism is merely a menace, +vague and formless. The average member of the capitalist class, when +he discusses socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own +mouth. He does not know the literature of socialism, its philosophy, +nor its politics. He wags his head sagely and rattles the dry bones +of dead and buried ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, +“Men are not born equal and never can be;” “It is Utopian +and impossible;” “Abstinence should be rewarded;” +“Man will first have to be born again;” “Coöperative +colonies have always failed;” and “What if we do divide up? in +ten years there would be rich and poor men such as there are +today.”</p> +<p>It surely is time that the capitalists knew something about this +socialism that they feel menaces them. And it is the hope of the +writer that the socialistic studies in this volume may in some slight +degree enlighten a few capitalistic minds. The capitalist must learn, +first and for always, that socialism is based, not upon the equality, but +upon the inequality, of men. Next, he must learn that no new birth +into spiritual purity is necessary before socialism becomes possible. +He must learn that socialism deals with what is, not with what ought to be; +and that the material with which it deals is the “clay of the common +road,” the warm human, fallible and frail, sordid and petty, absurd +and contradictory, even grotesque, and yet, withal, shot through with +flashes and glimmerings of something finer and God-like, with here and +there sweetnesses of service and unselfishness, desires for goodness, for +renunciation and sacrifice, and with conscience, stern and awful, at times +blazingly imperious, demanding the right,—the right, nothing more nor +less than the right.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">JACK LONDON.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Oakland</span>, <span +class="smcap">California</span>.<br /> +January 12, 1905.</p> +<h2>THE CLASS STRUGGLE</h2> +<p>Unfortunately or otherwise, people are prone to believe in the reality +of the things they think ought to be so. This comes of the cheery +optimism which is innate with life itself; and, while it may sometimes be +deplored, it must never be censured, for, as a rule, it is productive of +more good than harm, and of about all the achievement there is in the +world. There are cases where this optimism has been disastrous, as +with the people who lived in Pompeii during its last quivering days; or +with the aristocrats of the time of Louis XVI, who confidently expected the +Deluge to overwhelm their children, or their children’s children, but +never themselves. But there is small likelihood that the case of +perverse optimism here to be considered will end in such disaster, while +there is every reason to believe that the great change now manifesting +itself in society will be as peaceful and orderly in its culmination as it +is in its present development.</p> +<p>Out of their constitutional optimism, and because a class struggle is an +abhorred and dangerous thing, the great American people are unanimous in +asserting that there is no class struggle. And by “American +people” is meant the recognized and authoritative mouth-pieces of the +American people, which are the press, the pulpit, and the university. +The journalists, the preachers, and the professors are practically of one +voice in declaring that there is no such thing as a class struggle now +going on, much less that a class struggle will ever go on, in the United +States. And this declaration they continually make in the face of a +multitude of facts which impeach, not so much their sincerity, as affirm, +rather, their optimism.</p> +<p>There are two ways of approaching the subject of the class +struggle. The existence of this struggle can be shown theoretically, +and it can be shown actually. For a class struggle to exist in +society there must be, first, a class inequality, a superior class and an +inferior class (as measured by power); and, second, the outlets must be +closed whereby the strength and ferment of the inferior class have been +permitted to escape.</p> +<p>That there are even classes in the United States is vigorously denied by +many; but it is incontrovertible, when a group of individuals is formed, +wherein the members are bound together by common interests which are +peculiarly their interests and not the interests of individuals outside the +group, that such a group is a class. The owners of capital, with +their dependents, form a class of this nature in the United States; the +working people form a similar class. The interest of the capitalist +class, say, in the matter of income tax, is quite contrary to the interest +of the laboring class; and, <i>vice versa</i>, in the matter of +poll-tax.</p> +<p>If between these two classes there be a clear and vital conflict of +interest, all the factors are present which make a class struggle; but this +struggle will lie dormant if the strong and capable members of the inferior +class be permitted to leave that class and join the ranks of the superior +class. The capitalist class and the working class have existed side +by side and for a long time in the United States; but hitherto all the +strong, energetic members of the working class have been able to rise out +of their class and become owners of capital. They were enabled to do +this because an undeveloped country with an expanding frontier gave +equality of opportunity to all. In the almost lottery-like scramble +for the ownership of vast unowned natural resources, and in the +exploitation of which there was little or no competition of capital, (the +capital itself rising out of the exploitation), the capable, intelligent +member of the working class found a field in which to use his brains to his +own advancement. Instead of being discontented in direct ratio with +his intelligence and ambitions, and of radiating amongst his fellows a +spirit of revolt as capable as he was capable, he left them to their fate +and carved his own way to a place in the superior class.</p> +<p>But the day of an expanding frontier, of a lottery-like scramble for the +ownership of natural resources, and of the upbuilding of new industries, is +past. Farthest West has been reached, and an immense volume of +surplus capital roams for investment and nips in the bud the patient +efforts of the embryo capitalist to rise through slow increment from small +beginnings. The gateway of opportunity after opportunity has been +closed, and closed for all time. Rockefeller has shut the door on +oil, the American Tobacco Company on tobacco, and Carnegie on steel. +After Carnegie came Morgan, who triple-locked the door. These doors +will not open again, and before them pause thousands of ambitious young men +to read the placard: <span class="smcap">No Thorough-fare</span>.</p> +<p>And day by day more doors are shut, while the ambitious young men +continue to be born. It is they, denied the opportunity to rise from +the working class, who preach revolt to the working class. Had he +been born fifty years later, Andrew Carnegie, the poor Scotch boy, might +have risen to be president of his union, or of a federation of unions; but +that he would never have become the builder of Homestead and the founder of +multitudinous libraries, is as certain as it is certain that some other man +would have developed the steel industry had Andrew Carnegie never been +born.</p> +<p>Theoretically, then, there exist in the United States all the factors +which go to make a class struggle. There are the capitalists and +working classes, the interests of which conflict, while the working class +is no longer being emasculated to the extent it was in the past by having +drawn off from it its best blood and brains. Its more capable members +are no longer able to rise out of it and leave the great mass leaderless +and helpless. They remain to be its leaders.</p> +<p>But the optimistic mouthpieces of the great American people, who are +themselves deft theoreticians, are not to be convinced by mere +theoretics. So it remains to demonstrate the existence of the class +struggle by a marshalling of the facts.</p> +<p>When nearly two millions of men, finding themselves knit together by +certain interests peculiarly their own, band together in a strong +organization for the aggressive pursuit of those interests, it is evident +that society has within it a hostile and warring class. But when the +interests which this class aggressively pursues conflict sharply and +vitally with the interests of another class, class antagonism arises and a +class struggle is the inevitable result. One great organization of +labor alone has a membership of 1,700,000 in the United States. This +is the American Federation of Labor, and outside of it are many other large +organizations. All these men are banded together for the frank +purpose of bettering their condition, regardless of the harm worked thereby +upon all other classes. They are in open antagonism with the +capitalist class, while the manifestos of their leaders state that the +struggle is one which can never end until the capitalist class is +exterminated.</p> +<p>Their leaders will largely deny this last statement, but an examination +of their utterances, their actions, and the situation will forestall such +denial. In the first place, the conflict between labor and capital is +over the division of the join product. Capital and labor apply +themselves to raw material and make it into a finished product. The +difference between the value of the raw material and the value of the +finished product is the value they have added to it by their joint +effort. This added value is, therefore, their joint product, and it +is over the division of this joint product that the struggle between labor +and capital takes place. Labor takes its share in wages; capital +takes its share in profits. It is patent, if capital took in profits +the whole joint product, that labor would perish. And it is equally +patent, if labor took in wages the whole joint product, that capital would +perish. Yet this last is the very thing labor aspires to do, and that +it will never be content with anything less than the whole joint product is +evidenced by the words of its leaders.</p> +<p>Mr. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, has +said: “The workers want more wages; more of the comforts of life; +more leisure; more chance for self-improvement as men, as trade-unionists, +as citizens. <i>These were the wants of yesterday</i>; <i>they are +the wants of today</i>; <i>they will be the wants of tomorrow</i>, <i>and +of tomorrow’s morrow</i>. The struggle may assume new forms, +but the issue is the immemorial one,—an effort of the producers to +obtain an increasing measure of the wealth that flows from their +production.”</p> +<p>Mr. Henry White, secretary of the United Garment Workers of America and +a member of the Industrial Committee of the National Civic Federation, +speaking of the National Civic Federation soon after its inception, said: +“To fall into one another’s arms, to avow friendship, to +express regret at the injury which has been done, would not alter the facts +of the situation. Workingmen will continue to demand more pay, and +the employer will naturally oppose them. The readiness and ability of +the workmen to fight will, as usual, largely determine the amount of their +wages or their share in the product. . . But when it comes to dividing the +proceeds, there is the rub. We can also agree that the larger the +product through the employment of labor-saving methods the better, as there +will be more to be divided, but again the question of the division. . . . A +Conciliation Committee, having the confidence of the community, and +composed of men possessing practical knowledge of industrial affairs, can +therefore aid in mitigating this antagonism, in preventing avoidable +conflicts, in bringing about a <i>truce</i>; I use the word +‘truce’ because understandings can only be +temporary.”</p> +<p>Here is a man who might have owned cattle on a thousand hills, been a +lumber baron or a railroad king, had he been born a few years sooner. +As it is, he remains in his class, is secretary of the United Garment +Workers of America, and is so thoroughly saturated with the class struggle +that he speaks of the dispute between capital and labor in terms of +war,—workmen <i>fight</i> with employers; it is possible to avoid +some <i>conflicts</i>; in certain cases <i>truces</i> may be, for the time +being, effected.</p> +<p>Man being man and a great deal short of the angels, the quarrel over the +division of the joint product is irreconcilable. For the last twenty +years in the United States, there has been an average of over a thousand +strikes per year; and year by year these strikes increase in magnitude, and +the front of the labor army grows more imposing. And it is a class +struggle, pure and simple. Labor as a class is fighting with capital +as a class.</p> +<p>Workingmen will continue to demand more pay, and employers will continue +to oppose them. This is the key-note to <i>laissez +faire</i>,—everybody for himself and devil take the hindmost. +It is upon this that the rampant individualist bases his +individualism. It is the let-alone policy, the struggle for +existence, which strengthens the strong, destroys the weak, and makes a +finer and more capable breed of men. But the individual has passed +away and the group has come, for better or worse, and the struggle has +become, not a struggle between individuals, but a struggle between +groups. So the query rises: Has the individualist never speculated +upon the labor group becoming strong enough to destroy the capitalist +group, and take to itself and run for itself the machinery of +industry? And, further, has the individualist never speculated upon +this being still a triumphant expression of individualism,—of group +individualism,—if the confusion of terms may be permitted?</p> +<p>But the facts of the class struggle are deeper and more significant than +have so far been presented. A million or so of workmen may organize +for the pursuit of interests which engender class antagonism and strife, +and at the same time be unconscious of what is engendered. But when a +million or so of workmen show unmistakable signs of being conscious of +their class,—of being, in short, class conscious,—then the +situation grows serious. The uncompromising and terrible hatred of +the trade-unionist for a scab is the hatred of a class for a traitor to +that class,—while the hatred of a trade-unionist for the militia is +the hatred of a class for a weapon wielded by the class with which it is +fighting. No workman can be true to his class and at the same time be +a member of the militia: this is the dictum of the labor leaders.</p> +<p>In the town of the writer, the good citizens, when they get up a Fourth +of July parade and invite the labor unions to participate, are informed by +the unions that they will not march in the parade if the militia +marches. Article 8 of the constitution of the Painters’ and +Decorators’ Union of Schenectady provides that a member must not be a +“militiaman, special police officer, or deputy marshal in the employ +of corporations or individuals during strikes, lockouts, or other labor +difficulties, and any member occupying any of the above positions will be +debarred from membership.” Mr. William Potter was a member of +this union and a member of the National Guard. As a result, because +he obeyed the order of the Governor when his company was ordered out to +suppress rioting, he was expelled from his union. Also his union +demanded his employers, Shafer & Barry, to discharge him from their +service. This they complied with, rather than face the threatened +strike.</p> +<p>Mr. Robert L. Walker, first lieutenant of the Light Guards, a New Haven +militia company, recently resigned. His reason was, that he was a +member of the Car Builders’ Union, and that the two organizations +were antagonistic to each other. During a New Orleans street-car +strike not long ago, a whole company of militia, called out to protect +non-union men, resigned in a body. Mr. John Mulholland, president of +the International Association of Allied Metal Mechanics, has stated that he +does not want the members to join the militia. The Local +Trades’ Assembly of Syracuse, New York, has passed a resolution, by +unanimous vote, requiring union men who are members of the National Guard +to resign, under pain of expulsion, from the unions. The Amalgamated +Sheet Metal Workers’ Association has incorporated in its constitution +an amendment excluding from membership in its organization “any +person a member of the regular army, or of the State militia or naval +reserve.” The Illinois State Federation of Labor, at a recent +convention, passed without a dissenting vote a resolution declaring that +membership in military organizations is a violation of labor union +obligations, and requesting all union men to withdraw from the +militia. The president of the Federation, Mr. Albert Young, declared +that the militia was a menace not only to unions, but to all workers +throughout the country.</p> +<p>These instances may be multiplied a thousand fold. The union +workmen are becoming conscious of their class, and of the struggle their +class is waging with the capitalist class. To be a member of the +militia is to be a traitor to the union, for the militia is a weapon +wielded by the employers to crush the workers in the struggle between the +warring groups.</p> +<p>Another interesting, and even more pregnant, phase of the class struggle +is the political aspect of it as displayed by the socialists. Five +men, standing together, may perform prodigies; 500 men, marching as marched +the historic Five Hundred of Marseilles, may sack a palace and destroy a +king; while 500,000 men, passionately preaching the propaganda of a class +struggle, waging a class struggle along political lines, and backed by the +moral and intellectual support of 10,000,000 more men of like convictions +throughout the world, may come pretty close to realizing a class struggle +in these United States of ours.</p> +<p>In 1900 these men cast 150,000 votes; two years later, in 1902, they +cast 300,000 votes; and in 1904 they cast 450,000. They have behind +them a most imposing philosophic and scientific literature; they own +illustrated magazines and reviews, high in quality, dignity, and restraint; +they possess countless daily and weekly papers which circulate throughout +the land, and single papers which have subscribers by the hundreds of +thousands; and they literally swamp the working classes in a vast sea of +tracts and pamphlets. No political party in the United States, no +church organization nor mission effort, has as indefatigable workers as has +the socialist party. They multiply themselves, know of no effort nor +sacrifice too great to make for the Cause; and “Cause,” with +them, is spelled out in capitals. They work for it with a religious +zeal, and would die for it with a willingness similar to that of the +Christian martyrs.</p> +<p>These men are preaching an uncompromising and deadly class +struggle. In fact, they are organized upon the basis of a class +struggle. “The history of society,” they say, “is a +history of class struggles. Patrician struggled with plebeian in +early Rome; the king and the burghers, with the nobles in the Middle Ages; +later on, the king and the nobles with the bourgeoisie; and today the +struggle is on between the triumphant bourgeoisie and the rising +proletariat. By ‘proletariat’ is meant the class of +people without capital which sells its labor for a living.</p> +<p>“That the proletariat shall conquer,” (mark the note of +fatalism), “is as certain as the rising sun. Just as the +bourgeoisie of the eighteenth century wanted democracy applied to politics, +so the proletariat of the twentieth century wants democracy applied to +industry. As the bourgeoisie complained against the government being +run by and for the nobles, so the proletariat complains against the +government and industry being run by and for the bourgeoisie; and so, +following in the footsteps of its predecessor, the proletariat will possess +itself of the government, apply democracy to industry, abolish wages, which +are merely legalized robbery, and run the business of the country in its +own interest.”</p> +<p>“Their aim,” they say, “is to organize the working +class, and those in sympathy with it, into a political party, with the +object of conquering the powers of government and of using them for the +purpose of transforming the present system of private ownership of the +means of production and distribution into collective ownership by the +entire people.”</p> +<p>Briefly stated, this is the battle plan of these 450,000 men who call +themselves “socialists.” And, in the face of the +existence of such an aggressive group of men, a class struggle cannot very +well be denied by the optimistic Americans who say: “A class struggle +is monstrous. Sir, there is no class struggle.” The class +struggle is here, and the optimistic American had better gird himself for +the fray and put a stop to it, rather than sit idly declaiming that what +ought not to be is not, and never will be.</p> +<p>But the socialists, fanatics and dreamers though they may well be, +betray a foresight and insight, and a genius for organization, which put to +shame the class with which they are openly at war. Failing of rapid +success in waging a sheer political propaganda, and finding that they were +alienating the most intelligent and most easily organized portion of the +voters, the socialists lessoned from the experience and turned their +energies upon the trade-union movement. To win the trade unions was +well-nigh to win the war, and recent events show that they have done far +more winning in this direction than have the capitalists.</p> +<p>Instead of antagonizing the unions, which had been their previous +policy, the socialists proceeded to conciliate the unions. “Let +every good socialist join the union of his trade,” the edict went +forth. “Bore from within and capture the trade-union +movement.” And this policy, only several years old, has reaped +fruits far beyond their fondest expectations. Today the great labor +unions are honeycombed with socialists, “boring from within,” +as they picturesquely term their undermining labor. At work and at +play, at business meeting and council, their insidious propaganda goes +on. At the shoulder of the trade-unionist is the socialist, +sympathizing with him, aiding him with head and hand, +suggesting—perpetually suggesting—the necessity for political +action. As the <i>Journal</i>, of Lansing, Michigan, a republican +paper, has remarked: “The socialists in the labor unions are tireless +workers. They are sincere, energetic, and self-sacrificing. . . . +They stick to the union and work all the while, thus making a showing +which, reckoned by ordinary standards, is out of all proportion to their +numbers. Their cause is growing among union laborers, and their long +fight, intended to turn the Federation into a political organization, is +likely to win.”</p> +<p>They miss no opportunity of driving home the necessity for political +action, the necessity for capturing the political machinery of society +whereby they may master society. As an instance of this is the +avidity with which the American socialists seized upon the famous Taft-Vale +Decision in England, which was to the effect that an unincorporated union +could be sued and its treasury rifled by process of law. Throughout +the United States, the socialists pointed the moral in similar fashion to +the way it was pointed by the Social-Democratic Herald, which advised the +trade-unionists, in view of the decision, to stop trying to fight capital +with money, which they lacked, and to begin fighting with the ballot, which +was their strongest weapon.</p> +<p>Night and day, tireless and unrelenting, they labor at their +self-imposed task of undermining society. Mr. M. G. Cunniff, who +lately made an intimate study of trade-unionism, says: “All through +the unions socialism filters. Almost every other man is a socialist, +preaching that unionism is but a makeshift.” “Malthus be +damned,” they told him, “for the good time was coming when +every man should be able to rear his family in comfort.” In one +union, with two thousand members, Mr. Cunniff found every man a socialist, +and from his experiences Mr. Cunniff was forced to confess, “I lived +in a world that showed our industrial life a-tremble from beneath with a +never-ceasing ferment.”</p> +<p>The socialists have already captured the Western Federation of Miners, +the Western Hotel and Restaurant Employees’ Union, and the +Patternmakers’ National Association. The Western Federation of +Miners, at a recent convention, declared: “The strike has failed to +secure to the working classes their liberty; we therefore call upon the +workers to strike as one man for their liberties at the ballot box. . . . +We put ourselves on record as committed to the programme of independent +political action. . . . We indorse the platform of the socialist party, and +accept it as the declaration of principles of our organization. We +call upon our members as individuals to commence immediately the +organization of the socialist movement in their respective towns and +states, and to coöperate in every way for the furtherance of the +principles of socialism and of the socialist party. In states where +the socialist party has not perfected its organization, we advise that +every assistance be given by our members to that end. . . . We therefore +call for organizers, capable and well-versed in the whole programme of the +labor movement, to be sent into each state to preach the necessity of +organization on the political as well as on the economic field.”</p> +<p>The capitalist class has a glimmering consciousness of the class +struggle which is shaping itself in the midst of society; but the +capitalists, as a class, seem to lack the ability for organizing, for +coming together, such as is possessed by the working class. No +American capitalist ever aids an English capitalist in the common fight, +while workmen have formed international unions, the socialists a world-wide +international organization, and on all sides space and race are bridged in +the effort to achieve solidarity. Resolutions of sympathy, and, fully +as important, donations of money, pass back and forth across the sea to +wherever labor is fighting its pitched battles.</p> +<p>For divers reasons, the capitalist class lacks this cohesion or +solidarity, chief among which is the optimism bred of past success. +And, again, the capitalist class is divided; it has within itself a class +struggle of no mean proportions, which tends to irritate and harass it and +to confuse the situation. The small capitalist and the large +capitalist are grappled with each other, struggling over what Achille Loria +calls the “bi-partition of the revenues.” Such a +struggle, though not precisely analogous, was waged between the landlords +and manufacturers of England when the one brought about the passage of the +Factory Acts and the other the abolition of the Corn Laws.</p> +<p>Here and there, however, certain members of the capitalist class see +clearly the cleavage in society along which the struggle is beginning to +show itself, while the press and magazines are beginning to raise an +occasional and troubled voice. Two leagues of class-conscious +capitalists have been formed for the purpose of carrying on their side of +the struggle. Like the socialists, they do not mince matters, but +state boldly and plainly that they are fighting to subjugate the opposing +class. It is the barons against the commons. One of these +leagues, the National Association of Manufacturers, is stopping short of +nothing in what it conceives to be a life-and-death struggle. Mr. D. +M. Parry, who is the president of the league, as well as president of the +National Metal Trades’ Association, is leaving no stone unturned in +what he feels to be a desperate effort to organize his class. He has +issued the call to arms in terms everything but ambiguous: “<i>There +is still time in the United States to head off the socialistic +programme</i>, <i>which</i>, <i>unrestrained</i>, <i>is sure to wreck our +country</i>.”</p> +<p>As he says, the work is for “federating employers in order that we +may meet with a united front all issues that affect us. We must come +to this sooner or later. . . . The work immediately before the National +Association of Manufacturers is, first, <i>keep the vicious eight-hour Bill +off the books</i>; second, to <i>destroy the Anti-injunction Bill</i>, +which wrests your business from you and places it in the hands of your +employees; third, to secure the <i>passage of the Department of Commerce +and Industry Bill</i>; the latter would go through with a rush were it not +for the hectoring opposition of Organized Labor.” By this +department, he further says, “business interests would have direct +and sympathetic representation at Washington.”</p> +<p>In a later letter, issued broadcast to the capitalists outside the +League, President Parry points out the success which is already beginning +to attend the efforts of the League at Washington. “We have +contributed more than any other influence to the quick passage of the new +Department of Commerce Bill. It is said that the activities of this +office are numerous and satisfactory; but of that I must not say too +much—or anything. . . . At Washington the Association is not +represented too much, either directly or indirectly. Sometimes it is +known in a most powerful way that it is represented vigorously and +unitedly. Sometimes it is not known that it is represented at +all.”</p> +<p>The second class-conscious capitalist organization is called the +National Economic League. It likewise manifests the frankness of men +who do not dilly-dally with terms, but who say what they mean, and who mean +to settle down to a long, hard fight. Their letter of invitation to +prospective members opens boldly. “We beg to inform you that +the National Economic League will render its services in an impartial +educational movement <i>to oppose socialism and class +hatred</i>.” Among its class-conscious members, men who +recognize that the opening guns of the class struggle have been fired, may +be instanced the following names: Hon. Lyman J. Gage, Ex-Secretary U. S. +Treasury; Hon. Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Ex-Minister to France; Rev. Henry +C. Potter, Bishop New York Diocese; Hon. John D. Long, Ex-Secretary U. S. +Navy; Hon. Levi P. Morton, Ex-Vice President United States; Henry Clews; +John F. Dryden, President Prudential Life Insurance Co.; John A. McCall, +President New York Life Insurance Co.; J. L. Greatsinger, President +Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co.; the shipbuilding firm of William Cramp & +Sons, the Southern Railway system, and the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa +Fé Railway Company.</p> +<p>Instances of the troubled editorial voice have not been rare during the +last several years. There were many cries from the press during the +last days of the anthracite coal strike that the mine owners, by their +stubbornness, were sowing the regrettable seeds of socialism. The +World’s Work for December, 1902, said: “The next significant +fact is the recommendation by the Illinois State Federation of Labor that +all members of labor unions who are also members of the state militia shall +resign from the militia. This proposition has been favorably regarded +by some other labor organizations. It has done more than any other +single recent declaration or action to cause a public distrust of such +unions as favor it. <i>It hints of a class separation that in turn +hints of anarchy</i>.”</p> +<p>The <i>Outlook</i>, February 14, 1903, in reference to the rioting at +Waterbury, remarks, “That all this disorder should have occurred in a +city of the character and intelligence of Waterbury indicates that the +industrial war spirit is by no means confined to the immigrant or ignorant +working classes.”</p> +<p>That President Roosevelt has smelt the smoke from the firing line of the +class struggle is evidenced by his words, “Above all we need to +remember that any kind of <i>class animosity in the political world</i> is, +if possible, even more destructive to national welfare than sectional, +race, or religious animosity.” The chief thing to be noted here +is President Roosevelt’s tacit recognition of class animosity in the +industrial world, and his fear, which language cannot portray stronger, +that this class animosity may spread to the political world. Yet this +is the very policy which the socialists have announced in their declaration +of war against present-day society—to capture the political machinery +of society and by that machinery destroy present-day society.</p> +<p>The New York Independent for February 12, 1903, recognized without +qualification the class struggle. “It is impossible fairly to +pass upon the methods of labor unions, or to devise plans for remedying +their abuses, until it is recognized, to begin with, that unions are based +upon class antagonism and that their policies are dictated by the +necessities of social warfare. A strike is a rebellion against the +owners of property. The rights of property are protected by +government. And a strike, under certain provocation, may extend as +far as did the general strike in Belgium a few years since, when +practically the entire wage-earning population stopped work in order to +force political concessions from the property-owning classes. This is +an extreme case, but it brings out vividly the real nature of labor +organization as a species of warfare whose object is the coercion of one +class by another class.”</p> +<p>It has been shown, theoretically and actually, that there is a class +struggle in the United States. The quarrel over the division of the +joint product is irreconcilable. The working class is no longer +losing its strongest and most capable members. These men, denied room +for their ambition in the capitalist ranks, remain to be the leaders of the +workers, to spur them to discontent, to make them conscious of their class, +to lead them to revolt.</p> +<p>This revolt, appearing spontaneously all over the industrial field in +the form of demands for an increased share of the joint product, is being +carefully and shrewdly shaped for a political assault upon society. +The leaders, with the carelessness of fatalists, do not hesitate for an +instant to publish their intentions to the world. They intend to +direct the labor revolt to the capture of the political machinery of +society. With the political machinery once in their hands, which will +also give them the control of the police, the army, the navy, and the +courts, they will confiscate, with or without remuneration, all the +possessions of the capitalist class which are used in the production and +distribution of the necessaries and luxuries of life. By this, they +mean to apply the law of eminent domain to the land, and to extend the law +of eminent domain till it embraces the mines, the factories, the railroads, +and the ocean carriers. In short, they intend to destroy present-day +society, which they contend is run in the interest of another class, and +from the materials to construct a new society, which will be run in their +interest.</p> +<p>On the other hand, the capitalist class is beginning to grow conscious +of itself and of the struggle which is being waged. It is already +forming offensive and defensive leagues, while some of the most prominent +figures in the nation are preparing to lead it in the attack upon +socialism.</p> +<p>The question to be solved is not one of Malthusianism, “projected +efficiency,” nor ethics. It is a question of might. +Whichever class is to win, will win by virtue of superior strength; for the +workers are beginning to say, as they said to Mr. Cunniff, “Malthus +be damned.” In their own minds they find no sanction for +continuing the individual struggle for the survival of the fittest. +As Mr. Gompers has said, they want more, and more, and more. The +ethical import of Mr. Kidd’s plan of the present generation putting +up with less in order that race efficiency may be projected into a remote +future, has no bearing upon their actions. They refuse to be the +“glad perishers” so glowingly described by Nietzsche.</p> +<p>It remains to be seen how promptly the capitalist class will respond to +the call to arms. Upon its promptness rests its existence, for if it +sits idly by, soothfully proclaiming that what ought not to be cannot be, +it will find the roof beams crashing about its head. The capitalist +class is in the numerical minority, and bids fair to be outvoted if it does +not put a stop to the vast propaganda being waged by its enemy. It is +no longer a question of whether or not there is a class struggle. The +question now is, what will be the outcome of the class struggle?</p> +<h2>THE TRAMP</h2> +<p>Mr. Francis O’Neil, General Superintendent of Police, Chicago, +speaking of the tramp, says: “Despite the most stringent police +regulations, a great city will have a certain number of homeless vagrants +to shelter through the winter.” +“Despite,”—mark the word, a confession of organized +helplessness as against unorganized necessity. If police regulations +are stringent and yet fail, then that which makes them fail, namely, the +tramp, must have still more stringent reasons for succeeding. This +being so, it should be of interest to inquire into these reasons, to +attempt to discover why the nameless and homeless vagrant sets at naught +the right arm of the corporate power of our great cities, why all that is +weak and worthless is stronger than all that is strong and of value.</p> +<p>Mr. O’Neil is a man of wide experience on the subject of +tramps. He may be called a specialist. As he says of himself: +“As an old-time desk sergeant and police captain, I have had almost +unlimited opportunity to study and analyze this class of floating +population, which seeks the city in winter and scatters abroad through the +country in the spring.” He then continues: “This +experience reiterated the lesson that the vast majority of these wanderers +are of the class with whom a life of vagrancy is a chosen means of living +without work.” Not only is it to be inferred from this that +there is a large class in society which lives without work, for Mr. +O’Neil’s testimony further shows that this class is forced to +live without work.</p> +<p>He says: “I have been astonished at the multitude of those who +have unfortunately engaged in occupations which practically force them to +become loafers for at least a third of the year. And it is from this +class that the tramps are largely recruited. I recall a certain +winter when it seemed to me that a large portion of the inhabitants of +Chicago belonged to this army of unfortunates. I was stationed at a +police station not far from where an ice harvest was ready for the +cutters. The ice company advertised for helpers, and the very night +this call appeared in the newspapers our station was packed with homeless +men, who asked shelter in order to be at hand for the morning’s +work. Every foot of floor space was given over to these lodgers and +scores were still unaccommodated.”</p> +<p>And again: “And it must be confessed that the man who is willing +to do honest labor for food and shelter is a rare specimen in this vast +army of shabby and tattered wanderers who seek the warmth of the city with +the coming of the first snow.” Taking into consideration the +crowd of honest laborers that swamped Mr. O’Neil’s +station-house on the way to the ice-cutting, it is patent, if all tramps +were looking for honest labor instead of a small minority, that the honest +laborers would have a far harder task finding something honest to do for +food and shelter. If the opinion of the honest laborers who swamped +Mr. O’Neil’s station-house were asked, one could rest confident +that each and every man would express a preference for fewer honest +laborers on the morrow when he asked the ice foreman for a job.</p> +<p>And, finally, Mr. O’Neil says: “The humane and generous +treatment which this city has accorded the great army of homeless +unfortunates has made it the victim of wholesale imposition, and this +well-intended policy of kindness has resulted in making Chicago the winter +Mecca of a vast and undesirable floating population.” That is +to say, because of her kindness, Chicago had more than her fair share of +tramps; because she was humane and generous she suffered whole-sale +imposition. From this we must conclude that it does not do to be +<i>humane</i> and <i>generous</i> to our fellow-men—when they are +tramps. Mr. O’Neil is right, and that this is no sophism it is +the intention of this article, among other things, to show.</p> +<p>In a general way we may draw the following inferences from the remarks +of Mr. O’Neil: (1) The tramp is stronger than organized society and +cannot be put down; (2) The tramp is “shabby,” +“tattered,” “homeless,” “unfortunate”; +(3) There is a “vast” number of tramps; (4) Very few tramps are +willing to do honest work; (5) Those tramps who are willing to do honest +work have to hunt very hard to find it; (6) The tramp is undesirable.</p> +<p>To this last let the contention be appended that the tramp is only +<i>personally</i> undesirable; that he is <i>negatively</i> desirable; that +the function he performs in society is a negative function; and that he is +the by-product of economic necessity.</p> +<p>It is very easy to demonstrate that there are more men than there is +work for men to do. For instance, what would happen tomorrow if one +hundred thousand tramps should become suddenly inspired with an +overmastering desire for work? It is a fair question. “Go +to work” is preached to the tramp every day of his life. The +judge on the bench, the pedestrian in the street, the housewife at the +kitchen door, all unite in advising him to go to work. So what would +happen tomorrow if one hundred thousand tramps acted upon this advice and +strenuously and indomitably sought work? Why, by the end of the week +one hundred thousand workers, their places taken by the tramps, would +receive their time and be “hitting the road” for a job.</p> +<p>Ella Wheeler Wilcox unwittingly and uncomfortably demonstrated the +disparity between men and work. <a name="citation1"></a><a +href="#footnote1" class="citation">[1]</a> She made a casual +reference, in a newspaper column she conducts, to the difficulty two +business men found in obtaining good employees. The first morning +mail brought her seventy-five applications for the position, and at the end +of two weeks over two hundred people had applied.</p> +<p>Still more strikingly was the same proposition recently demonstrated in +San Francisco. A sympathetic strike called out a whole federation of +trades’ unions. Thousands of men, in many branches of trade, +quit work,—draymen, sand teamsters, porters and packers, +longshoremen, stevedores, warehousemen, stationary engineers, sailors, +marine firemen, stewards, sea-cooks, and so forth,—an interminable +list. It was a strike of large proportions. Every Pacific coast +shipping city was involved, and the entire coasting service, from San Diego +to Puget Sound, was virtually tied up. The time was considered +auspicious. The Philippines and Alaska had drained the Pacific coast +of surplus labor. It was summer-time, when the agricultural demand +for laborers was at its height, and when the cities were bare of their +floating populations. And yet there remained a body of surplus labor +sufficient to take the places of the strikers. No matter what +occupation, sea-cook or stationary engineer, sand teamster or warehouseman, +in every case there was an idle worker ready to do the work. And not +only ready but anxious. They fought for a chance to work. Men +were killed, hundreds of heads were broken, the hospitals were filled with +injured men, and thousands of assaults were committed. And still +surplus laborers, “scabs,” came forward to replace the +strikers.</p> +<p>The question arises: <i>Whence came this second army of workers to +replace the first army</i>? One thing is certain: the trades’ +unions did not scab on one another. Another thing is certain: no +industry on the Pacific slope was crippled in the slightest degree by its +workers being drawn away to fill the places of the strikers. A third +thing is certain: the agricultural workers did not flock to the cities to +replace the strikers. In this last instance it is worth while to note +that the agricultural laborers wailed to High Heaven when a few of the +strikers went into the country to compete with them in unskilled +employments. So there is no accounting for this second army of +workers. It simply was. It was there all this time, a surplus +labor army in the year of our Lord 1901, a year adjudged most prosperous in +the annals of the United States. <a name="citation2"></a><a +href="#footnote2" class="citation">[2]</a></p> +<p>The existence of the surplus labor army being established, there remains +to be established the economic necessity for the surplus labor army. +The simplest and most obvious need is that brought about by the fluctuation +of production. If, when production is at low ebb, all men are at +work, it necessarily follows that when production increases there will be +no men to do the increased work. This may seem almost childish, and, +if not childish, at least easily remedied. At low ebb let the men +work shorter time; at high flood let them work overtime. The main +objection to this is, that it is not done, and that we are considering what +is, not what might be or should be.</p> +<p>Then there are great irregular and periodical demands for labor which +must be met. Under the first head come all the big building and +engineering enterprises. When a canal is to be dug or a railroad put +through, requiring thousands of laborers, it would be hurtful to withdraw +these laborers from the constant industries. And whether it is a +canal to be dug or a cellar, whether five thousand men are required or +five, it is well, in society as at present organized, that they be taken +from the surplus labor army. The surplus labor army is the reserve +fund of social energy, and this is one of the reasons for its +existence.</p> +<p>Under the second head, periodical demands, come the harvests. +Throughout the year, huge labor tides sweep back and forth across the +United States. That which is sown and tended by few men, comes to +sudden ripeness and must be gathered by many men; and it is inevitable that +these many men form floating populations. In the late spring the +berries must be picked, in the summer the grain garnered, in the fall, the +hops gathered, in the winter the ice harvested. In California a man +may pick berries in Siskiyou, peaches in Santa Clara, grapes in the San +Joaquin, and oranges in Los Angeles, going from job to job as the season +advances, and travelling a thousand miles ere the season is done. But +the great demand for agricultural labor is in the summer. In the +winter, work is slack, and these floating populations eddy into the cities +to eke out a precarious existence and harrow the souls of the police +officers until the return of warm weather and work. If there were +constant work at good wages for every man, who would harvest the crops?</p> +<p>But the last and most significant need for the surplus labor army +remains to be stated. This surplus labor acts as a check upon all +employed labor. It is the lash by which the masters hold the workers +to their tasks, or drive them back to their tasks when they have +revolted. It is the goad which forces the workers into the compulsory +“free contracts” against which they now and again rebel. +There is only one reason under the sun that strikes fail, and that is +because there are always plenty of men to take the strikers’ +places.</p> +<p>The strength of the union today, other things remaining equal, is +proportionate to the skill of the trade, or, in other words, proportionate +to the pressure the surplus labor army can put upon it. If a thousand +ditch-diggers strike, it is easy to replace them, wherefore the +ditch-diggers have little or no organized strength. But a thousand +highly skilled machinists are somewhat harder to replace, and in +consequence the machinist unions are strong. The ditch-diggers are +wholly at the mercy of the surplus labor army, the machinists only +partly. To be invincible, a union must be a monopoly. It must +control every man in its particular trade, and regulate apprentices so that +the supply of skilled workmen may remain constant; this is the dream of the +“Labor Trust” on the part of the captains of labor.</p> +<p>Once, in England, after the Great Plague, labor awoke to find there was +more work for men than there were men to work. Instead of workers +competing for favors from employers, employers were competing for favors +from the workers. Wages went up and up, and continued to go up, until +the workers demanded the full product of their toil. Now it is clear +that, when labor receives its full product capital must perish. And +so the pygmy capitalists of that post-Plague day found their existence +threatened by this untoward condition of affairs. To save themselves, +they set a maximum wage, restrained the workers from moving about from +place to place, smashed incipient organization, refused to tolerate idlers, +and by most barbarous legal penalties punished those who disobeyed. +After that, things went on as before.</p> +<p>The point of this, of course, is to demonstrate the need of the surplus +labor army. Without such an army, our present capitalist society +would be powerless. Labor would organize as it never organized +before, and the last least worker would be gathered into the unions. +The full product of toil would be demanded, and capitalist society would +crumble away. Nor could capitalist society save itself as did the +post-Plague capitalist society. The time is past when a handful of +masters, by imprisonment and barbarous punishment, can drive the legions of +the workers to their tasks. Without a surplus labor army, the courts, +police, and military are impotent. In such matters the function of +the courts, police, and military is to preserve order, and to fill the +places of strikers with surplus labor. If there be no surplus labor +to instate, there is no function to perform; for disorder arises only +during the process of instatement, when the striking labor army and the +surplus labor army clash together. That is to say, that which +maintains the integrity of the present industrial society more potently +than the courts, police, and military is the surplus labor army.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>It has been shown that there are more men than there is work for men, +and that the surplus labor army is an economic necessity. To show how +the tramp is a by-product of this economic necessity, it is necessary to +inquire into the composition of the surplus labor army. What men form +it? Why are they there? What do they do?</p> +<p>In the first place, since the workers must compete for employment, it +inevitably follows that it is the fit and efficient who find +employment. The skilled worker holds his place by virtue of his skill +and efficiency. Were he less skilled, or were he unreliable or +erratic, he would be swiftly replaced by a stronger competitor. The +skilled and steady employments are not cumbered with clowns and +idiots. A man finds his place according to his ability and the needs +of the system, and those without ability, or incapable of satisfying the +needs of the system, have no place. Thus, the poor telegrapher may +develop into an excellent wood-chopper. But if the poor telegrapher +cherishes the delusion that he is a good telegrapher, and at the same time +disdains all other employments, he will have no employment at all, or he +will be so poor at all other employments that he will work only now and +again in lieu of better men. He will be among the first let off when +times are dull, and among the last taken on when times are good. Or, +to the point, he will be a member of the surplus labor army.</p> +<p>So the conclusion is reached that the less fit and less efficient, or +the unfit and inefficient, compose the surplus labor army. Here are +to be found the men who have tried and failed, the men who cannot hold +jobs,—the plumber apprentice who could not become a journeyman, and +the plumber journeyman too clumsy and dull to retain employment; switchmen +who wreck trains; clerks who cannot balance books; blacksmiths who lame +horses; lawyers who cannot plead; in short, the failures of every trade and +profession, and failures, many of them, in divers trades and +professions. Failure is writ large, and in their wretchedness they +bear the stamp of social disapprobation. Common work, any kind of +work, wherever or however they can obtain it, is their portion.</p> +<p>But these hereditary inefficients do not alone compose the surplus labor +army. There are the skilled but unsteady and unreliable men; and the +old men, once skilled, but, with dwindling powers, no longer skilled. <a +name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3" class="citation">[3]</a> +And there are good men, too, splendidly skilled and efficient, but thrust +out of the employment of dying or disaster-smitten industries. In +this connection it is not out of place to note the misfortune of the +workers in the British iron trades, who are suffering because of American +inroads. And, last of all, are the unskilled laborers, the hewers of +wood and drawers of water, the ditch-diggers, the men of pick and shovel, +the helpers, lumpers, roustabouts. If trade is slack on a seacoast of +two thousand miles, or the harvests are light in a great interior valley, +myriads of these laborers lie idle, or make life miserable for their +fellows in kindred unskilled employments.</p> +<p>A constant filtration goes on in the working world, and good material is +continually drawn from the surplus labor army. Strikes and industrial +dislocations shake up the workers, bring good men to the surface and sink +men as good or not so good. The hope of the skilled striker is in +that the scabs are less skilled, or less capable of becoming skilled; yet +each strike attests to the efficiency that lurks beneath. After the +Pullman strike, a few thousand railroad men were chagrined to find the work +they had flung down taken up by men as good as themselves.</p> +<p>But one thing must be considered here. Under the present system, +if the weakest and least fit were as strong and fit as the best, and the +best were correspondingly stronger and fitter, the same condition would +obtain. There would be the same army of employed labor, the same army +of surplus labor. The whole thing is relative. There is no +absolute standard of efficiency.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Comes now the tramp. And all conclusions may be anticipated by +saying at once that he is a tramp because some one has to be a tramp. +If he left the “road” and became a <i>very</i> efficient common +laborer, some <i>ordinarily efficient</i> common laborer would have to take +to the “road.” The nooks and crannies are crowded by the +surplus laborers; and when the first snow flies, and the tramps are driven +into the cities, things become overcrowded and stringent police regulations +are necessary.</p> +<p>The tramp is one of two kinds of men: he is either a discouraged worker +or a discouraged criminal. Now a discouraged criminal, on +investigation, proves to be a discouraged worker, or the descendant of +discouraged workers; so that, in the last analysis, the tramp is a +discouraged worker. Since there is not work for all, discouragement +for some is unavoidable. How, then, does this process of +discouragement operate?</p> +<p>The lower the employment in the industrial scale, the harder the +conditions. The finer, the more delicate, the more skilled the trade, +the higher is it lifted above the struggle. There is less pressure, +less sordidness, less savagery. There are fewer glass-blowers +proportionate to the needs of the glass-blowing industry than there are +ditch-diggers proportionate to the needs of the ditch-digging +industry. And not only this, for it requires a glass-blower to take +the place of a striking glass-blower, while any kind of a striker or +out-of-work can take the place of a ditch-digger. So the skilled +trades are more independent, have more individuality and latitude. +They may confer with their masters, make demands, assert themselves. +The unskilled laborers, on the other hand, have no voice in their +affairs. The settlement of terms is none of their business. +“Free contract” is all that remains to them. They may +take what is offered, or leave it. There are plenty more of their +kind. They do not count. They are members of the surplus labor +army, and must be content with a hand-to-mouth existence.</p> +<p>The reward is likewise proportioned. The strong, fit worker in a +skilled trade, where there is little labor pressure, is well +compensated. He is a king compared with his less fortunate brothers +in the unskilled occupations where the labor pressure is great. The +mediocre worker not only is forced to be idle a large portion of the time, +but when employed is forced to accept a pittance. A dollar a day on +some days and nothing on other days will hardly support a man and wife and +send children to school. And not only do the masters bear heavily +upon him, and his own kind struggle for the morsel at his mouth, but all +skilled and organized labor adds to his woe. Union men do not scab on +one another, but in strikes, or when work is slack, it is considered +“fair” for them to descend and take away the work of the common +laborers. And take it away they do; for, as a matter of fact, a +well-fed, ambitious machinist or a core-maker will transiently shovel coal +better than an ill-fed, spiritless laborer.</p> +<p>Thus there is no encouragement for the unfit, inefficient, and +mediocre. Their very inefficiency and mediocrity make them helpless +as cattle and add to their misery. And the whole tendency for such is +downward, until, at the bottom of the social pit, they are wretched, +inarticulate beasts, living like beasts, breeding like beasts, dying like +beasts. And how do they fare, these creatures born mediocre, whose +heritage is neither brains nor brawn nor endurance? They are sweated +in the slums in an atmosphere of discouragement and despair. There is +no strength in weakness, no encouragement in foul air, vile food, and dank +dens. They are there because they are so made that they are not fit +to be higher up; but filth and obscenity do not strengthen the neck, nor +does chronic emptiness of belly stiffen the back.</p> +<p>For the mediocre there is no hope. Mediocrity is a sin. +Poverty is the penalty of failure,—poverty, from whose loins spring +the criminal and the tramp, both failures, both discouraged workers. +Poverty is the inferno where ignorance festers and vice corrodes, and where +the physical, mental, and moral parts of nature are aborted and denied.</p> +<p>That the charge of rashness in splashing the picture be not incurred, +let the following authoritative evidence be considered: first, the work and +wages of mediocrity and inefficiency, and, second, the habitat:</p> +<p>The New York Sun of February 28, 1901, describes the opening of a +factory in New York City by the American Tobacco Company. Cheroots +were to be made in this factory in competition with other factories which +refused to be absorbed by the trust. The trust advertised for +girls. The crowd of men and boys who wanted work was so great in +front of the building that the police were forced with their clubs to clear +them away. The wage paid the girls was $2.50 per week, sixty cents of +which went for car fare. <a name="citation4"></a><a href="#footnote4" +class="citation">[4]</a></p> +<p>Miss Nellie Mason Auten, a graduate student of the department of +sociology at the University of Chicago, recently made a thorough +investigation of the garment trades of Chicago. Her figures were +published in the American Journal of Sociology, and commented upon by the +Literary Digest. She found women working ten hours a day, six days a +week, for forty cents per week (a rate of two-thirds of a cent an +hour). Many women earned less than a dollar a week, and none of them +worked every week. The following table will best summarize Miss +Auten’s investigations among a portion of the garment-workers:</p> +<p></p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p><span class="smcap">Industry</span></p> +</td> +<td> +<p><span class="smcap">Average Individual Weekly Wages</span></p> +</td> +<td> +<p><span class="smcap">Average Number Of Weeks Employed</span></p> +</td> +<td> +<p><span class="smcap">Average Yearly Earnings</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Dressmakers</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>$.90</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>42.</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>$37.00</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Pants-Finishers</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1.31</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>27.58</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>42.41</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Housewives and Pants-Finishers</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1.58</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>30.21</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>47.49</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Seamstresses</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>2.03</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>32.78</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>64.10</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Pants-makers</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>2.13</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>30.77</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>75.61</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Miscellaneous</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>2.77</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>29.</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>81.80</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Tailors</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>6.22</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>31.96</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>211.92</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>General Averages </p> +</td> +<td> +<p>2.48</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>31.18</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>76.74</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p></p> +<p>Walter A. Wyckoff, who is as great an authority upon the worker as +Josiah Flynt is on the tramp, furnishes the following Chicago +experience:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Many of the men were so weakened by the want and hardship of the +winter that they were no longer in condition for effective labor. +Some of the bosses who were in need of added hands were obliged to turn men +away because of physical incapacity. One instance of this I shall not +soon forget. It was when I overheard, early one morning at a factory +gate, an interview between a would-be laborer and the boss. I knew +the applicant for a Russian Jew, who had at home an old mother and a wife +and two young children to support. He had had intermittent employment +throughout the winter in a sweater’s den, <a name="citation5"></a><a +href="#footnote5" class="citation">[5]</a> barely enough to keep them all +alive, and, after the hardships of the cold season, he was again in +desperate straits for work.</p> +<p>“The boss had all but agreed to take him on for some sort of +unskilled labor, when, struck by the cadaverous look of the man, he told +him to bare his arm. Up went the sleeve of his coat and his ragged +flannel shirt, exposing a naked arm with the muscles nearly gone, and the +blue-white transparent skin stretched over sinews and the outlines of the +bones. Pitiful beyond words was his effort to give a semblance of +strength to the biceps which rose faintly to the upward movement of the +forearm. But the boss sent him off with an oath and a contemptuous +laugh; and I watched the fellow as he turned down the street, facing the +fact of his starving family with a despair at his heart which only mortal +man can feel and no mortal tongue can speak.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Concerning habitat, Mr. Jacob Riis has stated that in New York City, in +the block bounded by Stanton, Houston, Attorney, and Ridge streets, the +size of which is 200 by 300, there is a warren of 2244 human beings.</p> +<p>In the block bounded by Sixty-first and Sixty-second streets, and +Amsterdam and West End avenues, are over four thousand human +creatures,—quite a comfortable New England village to crowd into one +city block.</p> +<p>The Rev. Dr. Behrends, speaking of the block bounded by Canal, Hester, +Eldridge, and Forsyth streets, says: “In a room 12 by 8 and 5½ +feet high, it was found that nine persons slept and prepared their food. . +. . In another room, located in a dark cellar, without screens or +partitions, were together two men with their wives and a girl of fourteen, +two single men and a boy of seventeen, two women and four boys,—nine, +ten, eleven, and fifteen years old,—fourteen persons in +all.”</p> +<p>Here humanity rots. Its victims, with grim humor, call it +“tenant-house rot.” Or, as a legislative report puts it: +“Here infantile life unfolds its bud, but perishes before its first +anniversary. Here youth is ugly with loathsome disease, and the +deformities which follow physical degeneration.”</p> +<p>These are the men and women who are what they are because they were not +better born, or because they happened to be unluckily born in time and +space. Gauged by the needs of the system, they are weak and +worthless. The hospital and the pauper’s grave await them, and +they offer no encouragement to the mediocre worker who has failed higher up +in the industrial structure. Such a worker, conscious that he has +failed, conscious from the hard fact that he cannot obtain work in the +higher employments, finds several courses open to him. He may come +down and be a beast in the social pit, for instance; but if he be of a +certain caliber, the effect of the social pit will be to discourage him +from work. In his blood a rebellion will quicken, and he will elect +to become either a felon or a tramp.</p> +<p>If he have fought the hard fight he is not unacquainted with the lure of +the “road.” When out of work and still undiscouraged, he +has been forced to “hit the road” between large cities in his +quest for a job. He has loafed, seen the country and green things, +laughed in joy, lain on his back and listened to the birds singing +overhead, unannoyed by factory whistles and bosses’ harsh commands; +and, most significant of all, <i>he has lived</i>! That is the +point! He has not starved to death. Not only has he been +care-free and happy, but he has lived! And from the knowledge that he +has idled and is still alive, he achieves a new outlook on life; and the +more he experiences the unenviable lot of the poor worker, the more the +blandishments of the “road” take hold of him. And finally +he flings his challenge in the face of society, imposes a valorous boycott +on all work, and joins the far-wanderers of Hoboland, the gypsy folk of +this latter day.</p> +<p>But the tramp does not usually come from the slums. His place of +birth is ordinarily a bit above, and sometimes a very great bit +above. A confessed failure, he yet refuses to accept the punishment, +and swerves aside from the slum to vagabondage. The average beast in +the social pit is either too much of a beast, or too much of a slave to the +bourgeois ethics and ideals of his masters, to manifest this flicker of +rebellion. But the social pit, out of its discouragement and +viciousness, breeds criminals, men who prefer being beasts of prey to being +beasts of work. And the mediocre criminal, in turn, the unfit and +inefficient criminal, is discouraged by the strong arm of the law and goes +over to trampdom.</p> +<p>These men, the discouraged worker and the discouraged criminal, +voluntarily withdraw themselves from the struggle for work. Industry +does not need them. There are no factories shut down through lack of +labor, no projected railroads unbuilt for want of pick-and-shovel +men. Women are still glad to toil for a dollar a week, and men and +boys to clamor and fight for work at the factory gates. No one misses +these discouraged men, and in going away they have made it somewhat easier +for those that remain.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>So the case stands thus: There being more men than there is work for men +to do, a surplus labor army inevitably results. The surplus labor +army is an economic necessity; without it, present society would fall to +pieces. Into the surplus labor army are herded the mediocre, the +inefficient, the unfit, and those incapable of satisfying the industrial +needs of the system. The struggle for work between the members of the +surplus labor army is sordid and savage, and at the bottom of the social +pit the struggle is vicious and beastly. This struggle tends to +discouragement, and the victims of this discouragement are the criminal and +the tramp. The tramp is not an economic necessity such as the surplus +labor army, but he is the by-product of an economic necessity.</p> +<p>The “road” is one of the safety-valves through which the +waste of the social organism is given off. And <i>being given off</i> +constitutes the negative function of the tramp. Society, as at +present organized, makes much waste of human life. This waste must be +eliminated. Chloroform or electrocution would be a simple, merciful +solution of this problem of elimination; but the ruling ethics, while +permitting the human waste, will not permit a humane elimination of that +waste. This paradox demonstrates the irreconcilability of theoretical +ethics and industrial need.</p> +<p>And so the tramp becomes self-eliminating. And not only +self! Since he is manifestly unfit for things as they are, and since +kind is prone to beget kind, it is necessary that his kind cease with him, +that his progeny shall not be, that he play the eunuch’s part in this +twentieth century after Christ. And he plays it. He does not +breed. Sterility is his portion, as it is the portion of the woman on +the street. They might have been mates, but society has decreed +otherwise.</p> +<p>And, while it is not nice that these men should die, it is ordained that +they must die, and we should not quarrel with them if they cumber our +highways and kitchen stoops with their perambulating carcasses. This +is a form of elimination we not only countenance but compel. +Therefore let us be cheerful and honest about it. Let us be as +stringent as we please with our police regulations, but for goodness’ +sake let us refrain from telling the tramp to go to work. Not only is +it unkind, but it is untrue and hypocritical. We know there is no +work for him. As the scapegoat to our economic and industrial +sinning, or to the plan of things, if you will, we should give him +credit. Let us be just. He is so made. Society made +him. He did not make himself.</p> +<h2>THE SCAB</h2> +<p>In a competitive society, where men struggle with one another for food +and shelter, what is more natural than that generosity, when it diminishes +the food and shelter of men other than he who is generous, should be held +an accursed thing? Wise old saws to the contrary, he who takes from a +man’s purse takes from his existence. To strike at a +man’s food and shelter is to strike at his life; and in a society +organized on a tooth-and-nail basis, such an act, performed though it may +be under the guise of generosity, is none the less menacing and +terrible.</p> +<p>It is for this reason that a laborer is so fiercely hostile to another +laborer who offers to work for less pay or longer hours. To hold his +place, (which is to live), he must offset this offer by another equally +liberal, which is equivalent to giving away somewhat from the food and +shelter he enjoys. To sell his day’s work for $2, instead of +$2.50, means that he, his wife, and his children will not have so good a +roof over their heads, so warm clothes on their backs, so substantial food +in their stomachs. Meat will be bought less frequently and it will be +tougher and less nutritious, stout new shoes will go less often on the +children’s feet, and disease and death will be more imminent in a +cheaper house and neighborhood.</p> +<p>Thus the generous laborer, giving more of a day’s work for less +return, (measured in terms of food and shelter), threatens the life of his +less generous brother laborer, and at the best, if he does not destroy that +life, he diminishes it. Whereupon the less generous laborer looks +upon him as an enemy, and, as men are inclined to do in a tooth-and-nail +society, he tries to kill the man who is trying to kill him.</p> +<p>When a striker kills with a brick the man who has taken his place, he +has no sense of wrong-doing. In the deepest holds of his being, +though he does not reason the impulse, he has an ethical sanction. He +feels dimly that he has justification, just as the home-defending Boer +felt, though more sharply, with each bullet he fired at the invading +English. Behind every brick thrown by a striker is the selfish will +“to live” of himself, and the slightly altruistic will +“to live” of his family. The family group came into the +world before the State group, and society, being still on the primitive +basis of tooth and nail, the will “to live” of the State is not +so compelling to the striker as is the will “to live” of his +family and himself.</p> +<p>In addition to the use of bricks, clubs, and bullets, the selfish +laborer finds it necessary to express his feelings in speech. Just as +the peaceful country-dweller calls the sea-rover a “pirate,” +and the stout burgher calls the man who breaks into his strong-box a +“robber,” so the selfish laborer applies the opprobrious +epithet a “scab” to the laborer who takes from him food and +shelter by being more generous in the disposal of his labor power. +The sentimental connotation of “scab” is as terrific as that of +“traitor” or “Judas,” and a sentimental definition +would be as deep and varied as the human heart. It is far easier to +arrive at what may be called a technical definition, worded in commercial +terms, as, for instance, that <i>a scab is one who gives more value for the +same price than another</i>.</p> +<p>The laborer who gives more time or strength or skill for the same wage +than another, or equal time or strength or skill for a less wage, is a +scab. This generousness on his part is hurtful to his +fellow-laborers, for it compels them to an equal generousness which is not +to their liking, and which gives them less of food and shelter. But a +word may be said for the scab. Just as his act makes his rivals +compulsorily generous, so do they, by fortune of birth and training, make +compulsory his act of generousness. He does not scab because he wants +to scab. No whim of the spirit, no burgeoning of the heart, leads him +to give more of his labor power than they for a certain sum.</p> +<p>It is because he cannot get work on the same terms as they that he is a +scab. There is less work than there are men to do work. This is +patent, else the scab would not loom so large on the labor-market +horizon. Because they are stronger than he, or more skilled, or more +energetic, it is impossible for him to take their places at the same +wage. To take their places he must give more value, must work longer +hours or receive a smaller wage. He does so, and he cannot help it, +for his will “to live” is driving him on as well as they are +being driven on by their will “to live”; and to live he must +win food and shelter, which he can do only by receiving permission to work +from some man who owns a bit of land or a piece of machinery. And to +receive permission from this man, he must make the transaction profitable +for him.</p> +<p>Viewed in this light, the scab, who gives more labor power for a certain +price than his fellows, is not so generous after all. He is no more +generous with his energy than the chattel slave and the convict laborer, +who, by the way, are the almost perfect scabs. They give their labor +power for about the minimum possible price. But, within limits, they +may loaf and malinger, and, as scabs, are exceeded by the machine, which +never loafs and malingers and which is the ideally perfect scab.</p> +<p>It is not nice to be a scab. Not only is it not in good social +taste and comradeship, but, from the standpoint of food and shelter, it is +bad business policy. Nobody desires to scab, to give most for +least. The ambition of every individual is quite the opposite, to +give least for most; and, as a result, living in a tooth-and-nail society, +battle royal is waged by the ambitious individuals. But in its most +salient aspect, that of the struggle over the division of the joint +product, it is no longer a battle between individuals, but between groups +of individuals. Capital and labor apply themselves to raw material, +make something useful out of it, add to its value, and then proceed to +quarrel over the division of the added value. Neither cares to give +most for least. Each is intent on giving less than the other and on +receiving more.</p> +<p>Labor combines into its unions, capital into partnerships, associations, +corporations, and trusts. A group-struggle is the result, in which +the individuals, as individuals, play no part. The Brotherhood of +Carpenters and Joiners, for instance, serves notice on the Master +Builders’ Association that it demands an increase of the wage of its +members from $3.50 a day to $4, and a Saturday half-holiday without +pay. This means that the carpenters are trying to give less for +more. Where they received $21 for six full days, they are endeavoring +to get $22 for five days and a half,—that is, they will work half a +day less each week and receive a dollar more.</p> +<p>Also, they expect the Saturday half-holiday to give work to one +additional man for each eleven previously employed. This last affords +a splendid example of the development of the group idea. In this +particular struggle the individual has no chance at all for life. The +individual carpenter would be crushed like a mote by the Master +Builders’ Association, and like a mote the individual master builder +would be crushed by the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.</p> +<p>In the group-struggle over the division of the joint product, labor +utilizes the union with its two great weapons, the strike and the boycott; +while capital utilizes the trust and the association, the weapons of which +are the black-list, the lockout, and the scab. The scab is by far the +most formidable weapon of the three. He is the man who breaks strikes +and causes all the trouble. Without him there would be no trouble, +for the strikers are willing to remain out peacefully and indefinitely so +long as other men are not in their places, and so long as the particular +aggregation of capital with which they are fighting is eating its head off +in enforced idleness.</p> +<p>But both warring groups have reserve weapons. Were it not for the +scab, these weapons would not be brought into play. But the scab +takes the place of the striker, who begins at once to wield a most powerful +weapon, terrorism. The will “to live” of the scab recoils +from the menace of broken bones and violent death. With all due +respect to the labor leaders, who are not to be blamed for volubly +asseverating otherwise, terrorism is a well-defined and eminently +successful policy of the labor unions. It has probably won them more +strikes than all the rest of the weapons in their arsenal. This +terrorism, however, must be clearly understood. It is directed solely +against the scab, placing him in such fear for life and limb as to drive +him out of the contest. But when terrorism gets out of hand and +inoffensive non-combatants are injured, law and order threatened, and +property destroyed, it becomes an edged tool that cuts both ways. +This sort of terrorism is sincerely deplored by the labor leaders, for it +has probably lost them as many strikes as have been lost by any other +single cause.</p> +<p>The scab is powerless under terrorism. As a rule, he is not so +good nor gritty a man as the men he is displacing, and he lacks their +fighting organization. He stands in dire need of stiffening and +backing. His employers, the capitalists, draw their two remaining +weapons, the ownership of which is debatable, but which they for the time +being happen to control. These two weapons may be called the +political and judicial machinery of society. When the scab crumples +up and is ready to go down before the fists, bricks, and bullets of the +labor group, the capitalist group puts the police and soldiers into the +field, and begins a general bombardment of injunctions. Victory +usually follows, for the labor group cannot withstand the combined assault +of gatling guns and injunctions.</p> +<p>But it has been noted that the ownership of the political and judicial +machinery of society is debatable. In the Titanic struggle over the +division of the joint product, each group reaches out for every available +weapon. Nor are they blinded by the smoke of conflict. They +fight their battles as coolly and collectedly as ever battles were fought +on paper. The capitalist group has long since realized the immense +importance of controlling the political and judicial machinery of +society.</p> +<p>Taught by gatlings and injunctions, which have smashed many an otherwise +successful strike, the labor group is beginning to realize that it all +depends upon who is behind and who is before the gatlings and the +injunctions. And he who knows the labor movement knows that there is +slowly growing up and being formulated a clear and definite policy for the +capture of the political and judicial machinery.</p> +<p>This is the terrible spectre which Mr. John Graham Brooks sees looming +portentously over the twentieth century world. No man may boast a +more intimate knowledge of the labor movement than he; and he reiterates +again and again the dangerous likelihood of the whole labor group capturing +the political machinery of society. As he says in his recent book: <a +name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6" class="citation">[6]</a> +“It is not probable that employers can destroy unionism in the United +States. Adroit and desperate attempts will, however, be made, if we +mean by unionism the undisciplined and aggressive fact of vigorous and +determined organizations. If capital should prove too strong in this +struggle, the result is easy to predict. The employers have only to +convince organized labor that it cannot hold its own against the capitalist +manager, and the whole energy that now goes to the union will turn to an +aggressive political socialism. It will not be the harmless sympathy +with increased city and state functions which trade unions already feel; it +will become a turbulent political force bent upon using every weapon of +taxation against the rich.”</p> +<p>This struggle not to be a scab, to avoid giving more for less and to +succeed in giving less for more, is more vital than it would appear on the +surface. The capitalist and labor groups are locked together in +desperate battle, and neither side is swayed by moral considerations more +than skin-deep. The labor group hires business agents, lawyers, and +organizers, and is beginning to intimidate legislators by the strength of +its solid vote; and more directly, in the near future, it will attempt to +control legislation by capturing it bodily through the ballot-box. On +the other hand, the capitalist group, numerically weaker, hires newspapers, +universities, and legislatures, and strives to bend to its need all the +forces which go to mould public opinion.</p> +<p>The only honest morality displayed by either side is white-hot +indignation at the iniquities of the other side. The striking +teamster complacently takes a scab driver into an alley, and with an iron +bar breaks his arms, so that he can drive no more, but cries out to high +Heaven for justice when the capitalist breaks his skull by means of a club +in the hands of a policeman. Nay, the members of a union will declaim +in impassioned rhetoric for the God-given right of an eight-hour day, and +at the time be working their own business agent seventeen hours out of the +twenty-four.</p> +<p>A capitalist such as Collis P. Huntington, and his name is Legion, after +a long life spent in buying the aid of countless legislatures, will wax +virtuously wrathful, and condemn in unmeasured terms “the dangerous +tendency of crying out to the Government for aid” in the way of labor +legislation. Without a quiver, a member of the capitalist group will +run tens of thousands of pitiful child-laborers through his life-destroying +cotton factories, and weep maudlin and constitutional tears over one scab +hit in the back with a brick. He will drive a +“compulsory” free contract with an unorganized laborer on the +basis of a starvation wage, saying, “Take it or leave it,” +knowing that to leave it means to die of hunger, and in the next breath, +when the organizer entices that laborer into a union, will storm +patriotically about the inalienable right of all men to work. In +short, the chief moral concern of either side is with the morals of the +other side. They are not in the business for their moral welfare, but +to achieve the enviable position of the non-scab who gets more than he +gives.</p> +<p>But there is more to the question than has yet been discussed. The +labor scab is no more detestable to his brother laborers than is the +capitalist scab to his brother capitalists. A capitalist may get most +for least in dealing with his laborers, and in so far be a non-scab; but at +the same time, in his dealings with his fellow-capitalists, he may give +most for least and be the very worst kind of scab. The most heinous +crime an employer of labor can commit is to scab on his fellow-employers of +labor. Just as the individual laborers have organized into groups to +protect themselves from the peril of the scab laborer, so have the +employers organized into groups to protect themselves from the peril of the +scab employer. The employers’ federations, associations, and +trusts are nothing more nor less than unions. They are organized to +destroy scabbing amongst themselves and to encourage scabbing amongst +others. For this reason they pool interests, determine prices, and +present an unbroken and aggressive front to the labor group.</p> +<p>As has been said before, nobody likes to play the compulsorily generous +role of scab. It is a bad business proposition on the face of +it. And it is patent that there would be no capitalist scabs if there +were not more capital than there is work for capital to do. When +there are enough factories in existence to supply, with occasional +stoppages, a certain commodity, the building of new factories by a rival +concern, for the production of that commodity, is plain advertisement that +that capital is out of a job. The first act of this new aggregation +of capital will be to cut prices, to give more for less,—in short to +scab, to strike at the very existence of the less generous aggregation of +capital the work of which it is trying to do.</p> +<p>No scab capitalist strives to give more for less for any other reason +than that he hopes, by undercutting a competitor and driving that +competitor out of the market, to get that market and its profits for +himself. His ambition is to achieve the day when he shall stand alone +in the field both as buyer and seller,—when he will be the royal +non-scab, buying most for least, selling least for most, and reducing all +about him, the small buyers and sellers, (the consumers and the laborers), +to a general condition of scabdom. This, for example, has been the +history of Mr. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company. Through all +the sordid villanies of scabdom he has passed, until today he is a most +regal non-scab. However, to continue in this enviable position, he +must be prepared at a moment’s notice to go scabbing again. And +he is prepared. Whenever a competitor arises, Mr. Rockefeller changes +about from giving least for most and gives most for least with such a +vengeance as to drive the competitor out of existence.</p> +<p>The banded capitalists discriminate against a scab capitalist by +refusing him trade advantages, and by combining against him in most +relentless fashion. The banded laborers, discriminating against a +scab laborer in more primitive fashion, with a club, are no more merciless +than the banded capitalists.</p> +<p>Mr. Casson tells of a New York capitalist who withdrew from the Sugar +Union several years ago and became a scab. He was worth something +like twenty millions of dollars. But the Sugar Union, standing +shoulder to shoulder with the Railroad Union and several other unions, beat +him to his knees till he cried, “Enough.” So frightfully +did they beat him that he was obliged to turn over to his creditors his +home, his chickens, and his gold watch. In point of fact, he was as +thoroughly bludgeoned by the Federation of Capitalist Unions as ever scab +workman was bludgeoned by a labor union. The intent in either case is +the same,—to destroy the scab’s producing power. The +labor scab with concussion of the brain is put out of business, and so is +the capitalist scab who has lost all his dollars down to his chickens and +his watch.</p> +<p>But the rôle of scab passes beyond the individual. Just as +individuals scab on other individuals, so do groups scab on other +groups. And the principle involved is precisely the same as in the +case of the simple labor scab. A group, in the nature of its +organization, is often compelled to give most for least, and, so doing, to +strike at the life of another group. At the present moment all Europe +is appalled by that colossal scab, the United States. And Europe is +clamorous with agitation for a Federation of National Unions to protect her +from the United States. It may be remarked, in passing, that in its +prime essentials this agitation in no wise differs from the trade-union +agitation among workmen in any industry. The trouble is caused by the +scab who is giving most for least. The result of the American +scab’s nefarious actions will be to strike at the food and shelter of +Europe. The way for Europe to protect herself is to quit bickering +among her parts and to form a union against the scab. And if the +union is formed, armies and navies may be expected to be brought into play +in fashion similar to the bricks and clubs in ordinary labor struggles.</p> +<p>In this connection, and as one of many walking delegates for the +nations, M. Leroy-Beaulieu, the noted French economist, may well be +quoted. In a letter to the Vienna Tageblatt, he advocates an economic +alliance among the Continental nations for the purpose of barring out +American goods, an economic alliance, in his own language, “<i>which +may possibly and desirably develop into a political +alliance</i>.”</p> +<p>It will be noted, in the utterances of the Continental walking +delegates, that, one and all, they leave England out of the proposed +union. And in England herself the feeling is growing that her days +are numbered if she cannot unite for offence and defence with the great +American scab. As Andrew Carnegie said some time ago, “The only +course for Great Britain seems to be reunion with her grandchild or sure +decline to a secondary place, and then to comparative insignificance in the +future annals of the English-speaking race.”</p> +<p>Cecil Rhodes, speaking of what would have obtained but for the +pig-headedness of George III, and of what will obtain when England and the +United States are united, said, “<i>No cannon would. . . be fired on +either hemisphere but by permission of The English race</i>.” +It would seem that England, fronted by the hostile Continental Union and +flanked by the great American scab, has nothing left but to join with the +scab and play the historic labor rôle of armed Pinkerton. +Granting the words of Cecil Rhodes, the United States would be enabled to +scab without let or hindrance on Europe, while England, as professional +strike-breaker and policeman, destroyed the unions and kept order.</p> +<p>All this may appear fantastic and erroneous, but there is in it a soul +of truth vastly more significant than it may seem. Civilization may +be expressed today in terms of trade-unionism. Individual struggles +have largely passed away, but group-struggles increase prodigiously. +And the things for which the groups struggle are the same as of old. +Shorn of all subtleties and complexities, the chief struggle of men, and of +groups of men, is for food and shelter. And, as of old they struggled +with tooth and nail, so today they struggle with teeth and nails elongated +into armies and navies, machines, and economic advantages.</p> +<p>Under the definition that a scab is <i>one who gives more value for the +same price than another</i>, it would seem that society can be generally +divided into the two classes of the scabs and the non-scabs. But on +closer investigation, however, it will be seen that the non-scab is a +vanishing quantity. In the social jungle, everybody is preying upon +everybody else. As in the case of Mr. Rockefeller, he who was a scab +yesterday is a non-scab today, and tomorrow may be a scab again.</p> +<p>The woman stenographer or book-keeper who receives forty dollars per +month where a man was receiving seventy-five is a scab. So is the +woman who does a man’s work at a weaving-machine, and the child who +goes into the mill or factory. And the father, who is scabbed out of +work by the wives and children of other men, sends his own wife and +children to scab in order to save himself.</p> +<p>When a publisher offers an author better royalties than other publishers +have been paying him, he is scabbing on those other publishers. The +reporter on a newspaper, who feels he should be receiving a larger salary +for his work, says so, and is shown the door, is replaced by a reporter who +is a scab; whereupon, when the belly-need presses, the displaced reporter +goes to another paper and scabs himself. The minister who hardens his +heart to a call, and waits for a certain congregation to offer him say $500 +a year more, often finds himself scabbed upon by another and more +impecunious minister; and the next time it is <i>his</i> turn to scab while +a brother minister is hardening his heart to a call. The scab is +everywhere. The professional strike-breakers, who as a class receive +large wages, will scab on one another, while scab unions are even formed to +prevent scabbing upon scabs.</p> +<p>There are non-scabs, but they are usually born so, and are protected by +the whole might of society in the possession of their food and +shelter. King Edward is such a type, as are all individuals who +receive hereditary food-and-shelter privileges,—such as the present +Duke of Bedford, for instance, who yearly receives $75,000 from the good +people of London because some former king gave some former ancestor of his +the market privileges of Covent Garden. The irresponsible rich are +likewise non-scabs,—and by them is meant that coupon-clipping class +which hires its managers and brains to invest the money usually left it by +its ancestors.</p> +<p>Outside these lucky creatures, all the rest, at one time or another in +their lives, are scabs, at one time or another are engaged in giving more +for a certain price than any one else. The meek professor in some +endowed institution, by his meek suppression of his convictions, is giving +more for his salary than gave the other and more outspoken professor whose +chair he occupies. And when a political party dangles a full +dinner-pail in the eyes of the toiling masses, it is offering more for a +vote than the dubious dollar of the opposing party. Even a +money-lender is not above taking a slightly lower rate of interest and +saying nothing about it.</p> +<p>Such is the tangle of conflicting interests in a tooth-and-nail society +that people cannot avoid being scabs, are often made so against their +desires, and are often unconsciously made so. When several trades in +a certain locality demand and receive an advance in wages, they are +unwittingly making scabs of their fellow-laborers in that district who have +received no advance in wages. In San Francisco the barbers, +laundry-workers, and milk-wagon drivers received such an advance in +wages. Their employers promptly added the amount of this advance to +the selling price of their wares. The price of shaves, of washing, +and of milk went up. This reduced the purchasing power of the +unorganized laborers, and, in point of fact, reduced their wages and made +them greater scabs.</p> +<p>Because the British laborer is disinclined to scab,—that is, +because he restricts his output in order to give less for the wage he +receives,—it is to a certain extent made possible for the American +capitalist, who receives a less restricted output from his laborers, to +play the scab on the English capitalist. As a result of this, (of +course combined with other causes), the American capitalist and the +American laborer are striking at the food and shelter of the English +capitalist and laborer.</p> +<p>The English laborer is starving today because, among other things, he is +not a scab. He practises the policy of “ca’ canny,” +which may be defined as “go easy.” In order to get most +for least, in many trades he performs but from one-fourth to one-sixth of +the labor he is well able to perform. An instance of this is found in +the building of the Westinghouse Electric Works at Manchester. The +British limit per man was 400 bricks per day. The Westinghouse +Company imported a “driving” American contractor, aided by half +a dozen “driving” American foremen, and the British bricklayer +swiftly attained an average of 1800 bricks per day, with a maximum of 2500 +bricks for the plainest work.</p> +<p>But, the British laborer’s policy of “ca’ +canny,” which is the very honorable one of giving least for most, and +which is likewise the policy of the English capitalist, is nevertheless +frowned upon by the English capitalist, whose business existence is +threatened by the great American scab. From the rise of the factory +system, the English capitalist gladly embraced the opportunity, wherever he +found it, of giving least for most. He did it all over the world +whenever he enjoyed a market monopoly, and he did it at home with the +laborers employed in his mills, destroying them like flies till prevented, +within limits, by the passage of the Factory Acts. Some of the +proudest fortunes of England today may trace their origin to the giving of +least for most to the miserable slaves of the factory towns. But at +the present time the English capitalist is outraged because his laborers +are employing against him precisely the same policy he employed against +them, and which he would employ again did the chance present itself.</p> +<p>Yet “ca’ canny” is a disastrous thing to the British +laborer. It has driven ship-building from England to Scotland, +bottle-making from Scotland to Belgium, flint-glass-making from England to +Germany, and today is steadily driving industry after industry to other +countries. A correspondent from Northampton wrote not long ago: +“Factories are working half and third time. . . . There is no strike, +there is no real labor trouble, but the masters and men are alike suffering +from sheer lack of employment. Markets which were once theirs are now +American.” It would seem that the unfortunate British laborer +is ’twixt the devil and the deep sea. If he gives most for +least, he faces a frightful slavery such as marked the beginning of the +factory system. If he gives least for most, he drives industry away +to other countries and has no work at all.</p> +<p>But the union laborers of the United States have nothing of which to +boast, while, according to their trade-union ethics, they have a great deal +of which to be ashamed. They passionately preach short hours and big +wages, the shorter the hours and the bigger the wages the better. +Their hatred for a scab is as terrible as the hatred of a patriot for a +traitor, of a Christian for a Judas. And in the face of all this, +they are as colossal scabs as the United States is a colossal scab. +For all of their boasted unions and high labor ideals, they are about the +most thoroughgoing scabs on the planet.</p> +<p>Receiving $4.50 per day, because of his proficiency and immense working +power, the American laborer has been known to scab upon scabs (so called) +who took his place and received only $0.90 per day for a longer day. +In this particular instance, five Chinese coolies, working longer hours, +gave less value for the price received from their employer than did one +American laborer.</p> +<p>It is upon his brother laborers overseas that the American laborer most +outrageously scabs. As Mr. Casson has shown, an English nail-maker +gets $3 per week, while an American nail-maker gets $30. But the +English worker turns out 200 pounds of nails per week, while the American +turns out 5500 pounds. If he were as “fair” as his +English brother, other things being equal, he would be receiving, at the +English worker’s rate of pay, $82.50. As it is, he is scabbing +upon his English brother to the tune of $79.50 per week. Dr. +Schultze-Gaevernitz has shown that a German weaver produces 466 yards of +cotton a week at a cost of .303 per yard, while an American weaver produces +1200 yards at a cost of .02 per yard.</p> +<p>But, it may be objected, a great part of this is due to the more +improved American machinery. Very true, but none the less a great +part is still due to the superior energy, skill, and willingness of the +American laborer. The English laborer is faithful to the policy of +“ca’ canny.” He refuses point-blank to get the work +out of a machine that the New World scab gets out of a machine. Mr. +Maxim, observing a wasteful hand-labor process in his English factory, +invented a machine which he proved capable of displacing several men. +But workman after workman was put at the machine, and without exception +they turned out neither more nor less than a workman turned out by +hand. They obeyed the mandate of the union and went easy, while Mr. +Maxim gave up in despair. Nor will the British workman run machines +at as high speed as the American, nor will he run so many. An +American workman will “give equal attention simultaneously to three, +four, or six machines or tools, while the British workman is compelled by +his trade union to limit his attention to one, so that employment may be +given to half a dozen men.”</p> +<p>But for scabbing, no blame attaches itself anywhere. With rare +exceptions, all the people in the world are scabs. The strong, +capable workman gets a job and holds it because of his strength and +capacity. And he holds it because out of his strength and capacity he +gives a better value for his wage than does the weaker and less capable +workman. Therefore he is scabbing upon his weaker and less capable +brother workman. He is giving more value for the price paid by the +employer.</p> +<p>The superior workman scabs upon the inferior workman because he is so +constituted and cannot help it. The one, by fortune of birth and +upbringing, is strong and capable; the other, by fortune of birth and +upbringing, is not so strong nor capable. It is for the same reason +that one country scabs upon another. That country which has the good +fortune to possess great natural resources, a finer sun and soil, +unhampering institutions, and a deft and intelligent labor class and +capitalist class is bound to scab upon a country less fortunately +situated. It is the good fortune of the United States that is making +her the colossal scab, just as it is the good fortune of one man to be born +with a straight back while his brother is born with a hump.</p> +<p>It is not good to give most for least, not good to be a scab. The +word has gained universal opprobrium. On the other hand, to be a +non-scab, to give least for most, is universally branded as stingy, +selfish, and unchristian-like. So all the world, like the British +workman, is ’twixt the devil and the deep sea. It is treason to +one’s fellows to scab, it is unchristian-like not to scab.</p> +<p>Since to give least for most, and to give most for least, are +universally bad, what remains? Equity remains, which is to give like +for like, the same for the same, neither more nor less. But this +equity, society, as at present constituted, cannot give. It is not in +the nature of present-day society for men to give like for like, the same +for the same. And so long as men continue to live in this competitive +society, struggling tooth and nail with one another for food and shelter, +(which is to struggle tooth and nail with one another for life), that long +will the scab continue to exist. His will “to live” will +force him to exist. He may be flouted and jeered by his brothers, he +may be beaten with bricks and clubs by the men who by superior strength and +capacity scab upon him as he scabs upon them by longer hours and smaller +wages, but through it all he will persist, giving a bit more of most for +least than they are giving.</p> +<h2>THE QUESTION OF THE MAXIMUM</h2> +<p>For any social movement or development there must be a maximum limit +beyond which it cannot proceed. That civilization which does not +advance must decline, and so, when the maximum of development has been +reached in any given direction, society must either retrograde or change +the direction of its advance. There are many families of men that +have failed, in the critical period of their economic evolution, to effect +a change in direction, and were forced to fall back. Vanquished at +the moment of their maximum, they have dropped out of the whirl of the +world. There was no room for them. Stronger competitors have +taken their places, and they have either rotted into oblivion or remain to +be crushed under the iron heel of the dominant races in as remorseless a +struggle as the world has yet witnessed. But in this struggle fair +women and chivalrous men will play no part. Types and ideals have +changed. Helens and Launcelots are anachronisms. Blows will be +given and taken, and men fight and die, but not for faiths and +altars. Shrines will be desecrated, but they will be the shrines, not +of temples, but market-places. Prophets will arise, but they will be +the prophets of prices and products. Battles will be waged, not for +honor and glory, nor for thrones and sceptres, but for dollars and cents +and for marts and exchanges. Brain and not brawn will endure, and the +captains of war will be commanded by the captains of industry. In +short, it will be a contest for the mastery of the world’s commerce +and for industrial supremacy.</p> +<p>It is more significant, this struggle into which we have plunged, for +the fact that it is the first struggle to involve the globe. No +general movement of man has been so wide-spreading, so far-reaching. +Quite local was the supremacy of any ancient people; likewise the rise to +empire of Macedonia and Rome, the waves of Arabian valor and fanaticism, +and the mediæval crusades to the Holy Sepulchre. But since +those times the planet has undergone a unique shrinkage.</p> +<p>The world of Homer, limited by the coast-lines of the Mediterranean and +Black seas, was a far vaster world than ours of today, which we weigh, +measure, and compute as accurately and as easily as if it were a +child’s play-ball. Steam has made its parts accessible and +drawn them closer together. The telegraph annihilates space and +time. Each morning, every part knows what every other part is +thinking, contemplating, or doing. A discovery in a German laboratory +is being demonstrated in San Francisco within twenty-four hours. A +book written in South Africa is published by simultaneous copyright in +every English-speaking country, and on the day following is in the hands of +the translators. The death of an obscure missionary in China, or of a +whiskey-smuggler in the South Seas, is served, the world over, with the +morning toast. The wheat output of Argentine or the gold of Klondike +are known wherever men meet and trade. Shrinkage, or centralization, +has become such that the humblest clerk in any metropolis may place his +hand on the pulse of the world. The planet has indeed grown very +small; and because of this, no vital movement can remain in the clime or +country where it takes its rise.</p> +<p>And so today the economic and industrial impulse is world-wide. It +is a matter of import to every people. None may be careless of +it. To do so is to perish. It is become a battle, the fruits of +which are to the strong, and to none but the strongest of the strong. +As the movement approaches its maximum, centralization accelerates and +competition grows keener and closer. The competitor nations cannot +all succeed. So long as the movement continues its present direction, +not only will there not be room for all, but the room that is will become +less and less; and when the moment of the maximum is at hand, there will be +no room at all. Capitalistic production will have overreached itself, +and a change of direction will then be inevitable.</p> +<p>Divers queries arise: What is the maximum of commercial development the +world can sustain? How far can it be exploited? How much +capital is necessary? Can sufficient capital be accumulated? A +brief résumé of the industrial history of the last one +hundred years or so will be relevant at this stage of the discussion. +Capitalistic production, in its modern significance, was born of the +industrial revolution in England in the latter half of the eighteenth +century. The great inventions of that period were both its father and +its mother, while, as Mr. Brooks Adams has shown, the looted treasure of +India was the potent midwife. Had there not been an unwonted increase +of capital, the impetus would not have been given to invention, while even +steam might have languished for generations instead of at once becoming, as +it did, the most prominent factor in the new method of production. +The improved application of these inventions in the first decades of the +nineteenth century mark the transition from the domestic to the factory +system of manufacture and inaugurated the era of capitalism. The +magnitude of this revolution is manifested by the fact that England alone +had invented the means and equipped herself with the machinery whereby she +could overstock the world’s markets. The home market could not +consume a tithe of the home product. To manufacture this home product +she had sacrificed her agriculture. She must buy her food from +abroad, and to do so she must sell her goods abroad.</p> +<p>But the struggle for commercial supremacy had not yet really +begun. England was without a rival. Her navies controlled the +sea. Her armies and her insular position gave her peace at +home. The world was hers to exploit. For nearly fifty years she +dominated the European, American, and Indian trade, while the great wars +then convulsing society were destroying possible competitive capital and +straining consumption to its utmost. The pioneer of the industrial +nations, she thus received such a start in the new race for wealth that it +is only today the other nations have succeeded in overtaking her. In +1820 the volume of her trade (imports and exports) was +£68,000,000. In 1899 it had increased to +£815,000,000,—an increase of 1200 per cent in the volume of +trade.</p> +<p>For nearly one hundred years England has been producing surplus +value. She has been producing far more than she consumes, and this +excess has swelled the volume of her capital. This capital has been +invested in her enterprises at home and abroad, and in her shipping. +In 1898 the Stock Exchange estimated British capital invested abroad at +£1,900,000,000. But hand in hand with her foreign investments +have grown her adverse balances of trade. For the ten years ending +with 1868, her average yearly adverse balance was £52,000,000; ending +with 1878, £81,000,000; ending with 1888, £101,000,000; and +ending with 1898, £133,000,000. In the single year of 1897 it +reached the portentous sum of £157,000,000.</p> +<p>But England’s adverse balances of trade in themselves are nothing +at which to be frightened. Hitherto they have been paid from out the +earnings of her shipping and the interest on her foreign investments. +But what does cause anxiety, however, is that, relative to the trade +development of other countries, her export trade is falling off, without a +corresponding diminution of her imports, and that her securities and +foreign holdings do not seem able to stand the added strain. These +she is being forced to sell in order to pull even. As the London +Times gloomily remarks, “We are entering the twentieth century on the +down grade, after a prolonged period of business activity, high wages, high +profits, and overflowing revenue.” In other words, the mighty +grasp England held over the resources and capital of the world is being +relaxed. The control of its commerce and banking is slipping through +her fingers. The sale of her foreign holdings advertises the fact +that other nations are capable of buying them, and, further, that these +other nations are busily producing surplus value.</p> +<p>The movement has become general. Today, passing from country to +country, an ever-increasing tide of capital is welling up. Production +is doubling and quadrupling upon itself. It used to be that the +impoverished or undeveloped nations turned to England when it came to +borrowing, but now Germany is competing keenly with her in this +matter. France is not averse to lending great sums to Russia, and +Austria-Hungary has capital and to spare for foreign holdings.</p> +<p>Nor has the United States failed to pass from the side of the debtor to +that of the creditor nations. She, too, has become wise in the way of +producing surplus value. She has been successful in her efforts to +secure economic emancipation. Possessing but 5 per cent of the +world’s population and producing 32 per cent of the world’s +food supply, she has been looked upon as the world’s farmer; but now, +amidst general consternation, she comes forward as the world’s +manufacturer. In 1888 her manufactured exports amounted to +$130,300,087; in 1896, to $253,681,541; in 1897, to $279,652,721; in 1898, +to $307,924,994; in 1899, to $338,667,794; and in 1900, to +$432,000,000. Regarding her growing favorable balances of trade, it +may be noted that not only are her imports not increasing, but they are +actually falling off, while her exports in the last decade have increased +72.4 per cent. In ten years her imports from Europe have been reduced +from $474,000,000 to $439,000,000; while in the same time her exports have +increased from $682,000,000 to $1,111,000,000. Her balance of trade +in her favor in 1895 was $75,000,000; in 1896, over $100,000,000; in 1897, +nearly $300,000,000; in 1898, $615,000,000; in 1899, $530,000,000; and in +1900, $648,000,000.</p> +<p>In the matter of iron, the United States, which in 1840 had not dreamed +of entering the field of international competition, in 1897, as much to her +own surprise as any one else’s, undersold the English in their own +London market. In 1899 there was but one American locomotive in Great +Britain; but, of the five hundred locomotives sold abroad by the United +States in 1902, England bought more than any other country. Russia is +operating a thousand of them on her own roads today. In one instance +the American manufacturers contracted to deliver a locomotive in four and +one-half months for $9250, the English manufacturers requiring twenty-four +months for delivery at $14,000. The Clyde shipbuilders recently +placed orders for 150,000 tons of plates at a saving of $250,000, and the +American steel going into the making of the new London subway is taken as a +matter of course. American tools stand above competition the world +over. Ready-made boots and shoes are beginning to flood +Europe,—the same with machinery, bicycles, agricultural implements, +and all kinds of manufactured goods. A correspondent from Hamburg, +speaking of the invasion of American trade, says: “Incidentally, it +may be remarked that the typewriting machine with which this article is +written, as well as the thousands—nay, hundreds of thousands—of +others that are in use throughout the world, were made in America; that it +stands on an American table, in an office furnished with American desks, +bookcases, and chairs, which cannot be made in Europe of equal quality, so +practical and convenient, for a similar price.”</p> +<p>In 1893 and 1894, because of the distrust of foreign capital, the United +States was forced to buy back American securities held abroad; but in 1897 +and 1898 she bought back American securities held abroad, not because she +had to, but because she chose to. And not only has she bought back +her own securities, but in the last eight years she has become a buyer of +the securities of other countries. In the money markets of London, +Paris, and Berlin she is a lender of money. Carrying the largest +stock of gold in the world, the world, in moments of danger, when crises of +international finance loom large, looks to her vast lending ability for +safety.</p> +<p>Thus, in a few swift years, has the United States drawn up to the van +where the great industrial nations are fighting for commercial and +financial empire. The figures of the race, in which she passed +England, are interesting:</p> +<p></p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Year</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>United States Exports</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>United Kingdom Exports</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>1875</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>$497,263,737</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>$1,087,497,000</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>1885</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>673,593,506</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,037,124,000</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>1895</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>807,742,415</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,100,452,000</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>1896</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>986,830,080</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,168,671,000</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>1897</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,079,834,296</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,139,882,000</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>1898</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,233,564,828</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,135,642,000</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>1899</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,253,466,000</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,287,971,000</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>1900</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,453,013,659</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>1,418,348,000</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p></p> +<p>As Mr. Henry Demarest Lloyd has noted, “When the news reached +Germany of the new steel trust in America, the stocks of the iron and steel +mills listed on the Berlin Bourse fell.” While Europe has been +talking and dreaming of the greatness which was, the United States has been +thinking and planning and doing for the greatness to be. Her captains +of industry and kings of finance have toiled and sweated at organizing and +consolidating production and transportation. But this has been merely +the developmental stage, the tuning-up of the orchestra. With the +twentieth century rises the curtain on the play,—a play which shall +have much in it of comedy and a vast deal of tragedy, and which has been +well named The Capitalistic Conquest of Europe by America. Nations do +not die easily, and one of the first moves of Europe will be the erection +of tariff walls. America, however, will fittingly reply, for already +her manufacturers are establishing works in France and Germany. And +when the German trade journals refused to accept American advertisements, +they found their country flamingly bill-boarded in buccaneer American +fashion.</p> +<p>M. Leroy-Beaulieu, the French economist, is passionately preaching a +commercial combination of the whole Continent against the United +States,—a commercial alliance which, he boldly declares, should +become a political alliance. And in this he is not alone, finding +ready sympathy and ardent support in Austria, Italy, and Germany. +Lord Rosebery said, in a recent speech before the Wolverhampton Chamber of +Commerce: “The Americans, with their vast and almost incalculable +resources, their acuteness and enterprise, and their huge population, which +will probably be 100,000,000 in twenty years, together with the plan they +have adopted for putting accumulated wealth into great coöperative +syndicates or trusts for the purpose of carrying on this great commercial +warfare, are the most formidable . . . rivals to be feared.”</p> +<p>The London Times says: “It is useless to disguise the fact that +Great Britain is being outdistanced. The competition does not come +from the glut caused by miscalculation as to the home demand. Our own +steel-makers know better and are alarmed. The threatened competition +in markets hitherto our own comes from efficiency in production such as +never before has been seen.” Even the British naval supremacy +is in danger, continues the same paper, “for, if we lose our +engineering supremacy, our naval supremacy will follow, unless held on +sufferance by our successful rivals.”</p> +<p>And the Edinburgh Evening News says, with editorial gloom: “The +iron and steel trades have gone from us. When the fictitious +prosperity caused by the expenditure of our own Government and that of +European nations on armaments ceases, half of the men employed in these +industries will be turned into the streets. The outlook is +appalling. What suffering will have to be endured before the workers +realize that there is nothing left for them but emigration!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>That there must be a limit to the accumulation of capital is +obvious. The downward course of the rate of interest, notwithstanding +that many new employments have been made possible for capital, indicates +how large is the increase of surplus value. This decline of the +interest rate is in accord with Bohm-Bawerk’s law of +“diminishing returns.” That is, when capital, like +anything else, has become over-plentiful, less lucrative use can only be +found for the excess. This excess, not being able to earn so much as +when capital was less plentiful, competes for safe investments and forces +down the interest rate on all capital. Mr. Charles A. Conant has well +described the keenness of the scramble for safe investments, even at the +prevailing low rates of interest. At the close of the war with +Turkey, the Greek loan, guaranteed by Great Britain, France, and Russia, +was floated with striking ease. Regardless of the small return, the +amount offered at Paris, (41,000,000 francs), was subscribed for +twenty-three times over. Great Britain, France, Germany, Holland, and +the Scandinavian States, of recent years, have all engaged in converting +their securities from 5 per cents to 4 per cents, from 4½ per cents +to 3½ per cents, and the 3½ per cents into 3 per cents.</p> +<p>Great Britain, France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, according to the +calculation taken in 1895 by the International Statistical Institute, hold +forty-six billions of capital invested in negotiable securities +alone. Yet Paris subscribed for her portion of the Greek loan +twenty-three times over! In short, money is cheap. Andrew +Carnegie and his brother bourgeois kings give away millions annually, but +still the tide wells up. These vast accumulations have made possible +“wild-catting,” fraudulent combinations, fake enterprises, +Hooleyism; but such stealings, great though they be, have little or no +effect in reducing the volume. The time is past when startling +inventions, or revolutions in the method of production, can break up the +growing congestion; yet this saved capital demands an outlet, somewhere, +somehow.</p> +<p>When a great nation has equipped itself to produce far more than it can, +under the present division of the product, consume, it seeks other markets +for its surplus products. When a second nation finds itself similarly +circumstanced, competition for these other markets naturally follows. +With the advent of a third, a fourth, a fifth, and of divers other nations, +the question of the disposal of surplus products grows serious. And +with each of these nations possessing, over and beyond its active capital, +great and growing masses of idle capital, and when the very foreign markets +for which they are competing are beginning to produce similar wares for +themselves, the question passes the serious stage and becomes critical.</p> +<p>Never has the struggle for foreign markets been sharper than at the +present. They are the one great outlet for congested +accumulations. Predatory capital wanders the world over, seeking +where it may establish itself. This urgent need for foreign markets +is forcing upon the world-stage an era of great colonial empire. But +this does not stand, as in the past, for the subjugation of peoples and +countries for the sake of gaining their products, but for the privilege of +selling them products. The theory once was, that the colony owed its +existence and prosperity to the mother country; but today it is the mother +country that owes its existence and prosperity to the colony. And in +the future, when that supporting colony becomes wise in the way of +producing surplus value and sends its goods back to sell to the mother +country, what then? Then the world will have been exploited, and +capitalistic production will have attained its maximum development.</p> +<p>Foreign markets and undeveloped countries largely retard that +moment. The favored portions of the earth’s surface are already +occupied, though the resources of many are yet virgin. That they have +not long since been wrested from the hands of the barbarous and decadent +peoples who possess them is due, not to the military prowess of such +peoples, but to the jealous vigilance of the industrial nations. The +powers hold one another back. The Turk lives because the way is not +yet clear to an amicable division of him among the powers. And the +United States, supreme though she is, opposes the partition of China, and +intervenes her huge bulk between the hungry nations and the mongrel Spanish +republics. Capital stands in its own way, welling up and welling up +against the inevitable moment when it shall burst all bonds and sweep +resistlessly across such vast stretches as China and South America. +And then there will be no more worlds to exploit, and capitalism will +either fall back, crushed under its own weight, or a change of direction +will take place which will mark a new era in history.</p> +<p>The Far East affords an illuminating spectacle. While the Western +nations are crowding hungrily in, while the Partition of China is +commingled with the clamor for the Spheres of Influence and the Open Door, +other forces are none the less potently at work. Not only are the +young Western peoples pressing the older ones to the wall, but the East +itself is beginning to awake. American trade is advancing, and +British trade is losing ground, while Japan, China, and India are taking a +hand in the game themselves.</p> +<p>In 1893, 100,000 pieces of American drills were imported into China; in +1897, 349,000. In 1893, 252,000 pieces of American sheetings were +imported against 71,000 British; but in 1897, 566,000 pieces of American +sheetings were imported against only 10,000 British. The cotton goods +and yarn trade (which forms 40 per cent of the whole trade with China) +shows a remarkable advance on the part of the United States. During +the last ten years America has increased her importation of plain goods by +121 per cent in quantity and 59½ per cent in value, while that of +England and India combined has decreased 13¾ per cent in quantity +and 8 per cent in value. Lord Charles Beresford, from whose +“Break-up of China” these figures are taken, states that +English yarn has receded and Indian yarn advanced to the front. In +1897, 140,000 piculs of Indian yarn were imported, 18,000 of Japanese, 4500 +of Shanghai-manufactured, and 700 of English.</p> +<p>Japan, who but yesterday emerged from the mediæval rule of the +Shogunate and seized in one fell swoop the scientific knowledge and culture +of the Occident, is already today showing what wisdom she has acquired in +the production of surplus value, and is preparing herself that she may +tomorrow play the part to Asia that England did to Europe one hundred years +ago. That the difference in the world’s affairs wrought by +those one hundred years will prevent her succeeding is manifest; but it is +equally manifest that they cannot prevent her playing a leading part in the +industrial drama which has commenced on the Eastern stage. Her +imports into the port of Newchang in 1891 amounted to but 22,000 taels; but +in 1897 they had increased to 280,000 taels. In manufactured goods, +from matches, watches, and clocks to the rolling stock of railways, she has +already given stiff shocks to her competitors in the Asiatic markets; and +this while she is virtually yet in the equipment stage of production. +Erelong she, too, will be furnishing her share to the growing mass of the +world’s capital.</p> +<p>As regards Great Britain, the giant trader who has so long overshadowed +Asiatic commerce, Lord Charles Beresford says: “But competition is +telling adversely; the energy of the British merchant is being equalled by +other nationals. . . The competition of the Chinese and the introduction of +steam into the country are also combining to produce changed conditions in +China.” But far more ominous is the plaintive note he sounds +when he says: “New industries must be opened up, and I would +especially direct the attention of the Chambers of Commerce (British) to . +. . the fact that the more the native competes with the British +manufacturer in certain classes of trade, the more machinery he will need, +and the orders for such machinery will come to this country if our +machinery manufacturers are enterprising enough.”</p> +<p>The Orient is beginning to show what an important factor it will become, +under Western supervision, in the creation of surplus value. Even +before the barriers which restrain Western capital are removed, the East +will be in a fair way toward being exploited. An analysis of Lord +Beresford’s message to the Chambers of Commerce discloses, first, +that the East is beginning to manufacture for itself; and, second, that +there is a promise of keen competition in the West for the privilege of +selling the required machinery. The inexorable query arises: <i>What +is the West to do when it has furnished this machinery</i>? And when +not only the East, but all the now undeveloped countries, confront, with +surplus products in their hands, the old industrial nations, capitalistic +production will have attained its maximum development.</p> +<p>But before that time must intervene a period which bids one pause for +breath. A new romance, like unto none in all the past, the economic +romance, will be born. For the dazzling prize of world-empire will +the nations of the earth go up in harness. Powers will rise and fall, +and mighty coalitions shape and dissolve in the swift whirl of +events. Vassal nations and subject territories will be bandied back +and forth like so many articles of trade. And with the inevitable +displacement of economic centres, it is fair to presume that populations +will shift to and fro, as they once did from the South to the North of +England on the rise of the factory towns, or from the Old World to the +New. Colossal enterprises will be projected and carried through, and +combinations of capital and federations of labor be effected on a cyclopean +scale. Concentration and organization will be perfected in ways +hitherto undreamed. The nation which would keep its head above the +tide must accurately adjust supply to demand, and eliminate waste to the +last least particle. Standards of living will most likely descend for +millions of people. With the increase of capital, the competition for +safe investments, and the consequent fall of the interest rate, the +principal which today earns a comfortable income would not then support a +bare existence. Saving toward old age would cease among the working +classes. And as the merchant cities of Italy crashed when trade +slipped from their hands on the discovery of the new route to the Indies by +way of the Cape of Good Hope, so will there come times of trembling for +such nations as have failed to grasp the prize of world-empire. In +that given direction they will have attained their maximum development, +before the whole world, in the same direction, has attained its. +There will no longer be room for them. But if they can survive the +shock of being flung out of the world’s industrial orbit, a change in +direction may then be easily effected. That the decadent and +barbarous peoples will be crushed is a fair presumption; likewise that the +stronger breeds will survive, entering upon the transition stage to which +all the world must ultimately come.</p> +<p>This change of direction must be either toward industrial oligarchies or +socialism. Either the functions of private corporations will increase +till they absorb the central government, or the functions of government +will increase till it absorbs the corporations. Much may be said on +the chance of the oligarchy. Should an old manufacturing nation lose +its foreign trade, it is safe to predict that a strong effort would be made +to build a socialistic government, but it does not follow that this effort +would be successful. With the moneyed class controlling the State and +its revenues and all the means of subsistence, and guarding its own +interests with jealous care, it is not at all impossible that a strong curb +could be put upon the masses till the crisis were past. It has been +done before. There is no reason why it should not be done +again. At the close of the last century, such a movement was crushed +by its own folly and immaturity. In 1871 the soldiers of the economic +rulers stamped out, root and branch, a whole generation of militant +socialists.</p> +<p>Once the crisis were past, the ruling class, still holding the curb in +order to make itself more secure, would proceed to readjust things and to +balance consumption with production. Having a monopoly of the safe +investments, the great masses of unremunerative capital would be directed, +not to the production of more surplus value, but to the making of permanent +improvements, which would give employment to the people, and make them +content with the new order of things. Highways, parks, public +buildings, monuments, could be builded; nor would it be out of place to +give better factories and homes to the workers. Such in itself would +be socialistic, save that it would be done by the oligarchs, a class +apart. With the interest rate down to zero, and no field for the +investment of sporadic capital, savings among the people would utterly +cease, and old-age pensions be granted as a matter of course. It is +also a logical necessity of such a system that, when the population began +to press against the means of subsistence, (expansion being impossible), +the birth rate of the lower classes would be lessened. Whether by +their own initiative, or by the interference of the rulers, it would have +to be done, and it would be done. In other words, the oligarchy would +mean the capitalization of labor and the enslavement of the whole +population. But it would be a fairer, juster form of slavery than any +the world has yet seen. The per capita wage and consumption would be +increased, and, with a stringent control of the birth rate, there is no +reason why such a country should not be so ruled through many +generations.</p> +<p>On the other hand, as the capitalistic exploitation of the planet +approaches its maximum, and countries are crowded out of the field of +foreign exchanges, there is a large likelihood that their change in +direction will be toward socialism. Were the theory of collective +ownership and operation then to arise for the first time, such a movement +would stand small chance of success. But such is not the case. +The doctrine of socialism has flourished and grown throughout the +nineteenth century; its tenets have been preached wherever the interests of +labor and capital have clashed; and it has received exemplification time +and again by the State’s assumption of functions which had always +belonged solely to the individual.</p> +<p>When capitalistic production has attained its maximum development, it +must confront a dividing of the ways; and the strength of capital on the +one hand, and the education and wisdom of the workers on the other, will +determine which path society is to travel. It is possible, +considering the inertia of the masses, that the whole world might in time +come to be dominated by a group of industrial oligarchies, or by one great +oligarchy, but it is not probable. That sporadic oligarchies may +flourish for definite periods of time is highly possible; that they may +continue to do so is as highly improbable. The procession of the ages +has marked not only the rise of man, but the rise of the common man. +From the chattel slave, or the serf chained to the soil, to the highest +seats in modern society, he has risen, rung by rung, amid the crumbling of +the divine right of kings and the crash of falling sceptres. That he +has done this, only in the end to pass into the perpetual slavery of the +industrial oligarch, is something at which his whole past cries in +protest. The common man is worthy of a better future, or else he is +not worthy of his past.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.—The above article was written as +long ago as 1898. The only alteration has been the bringing up to +1900 of a few of its statistics. As a commercial venture of an +author, it has an interesting history. It was promptly accepted by +one of the leading magazines and paid for. The editor confessed that +it was “one of those articles one could not possibly let go of after +it was once in his possession.” Publication was voluntarily +promised to be immediate. Then the editor became afraid of its too +radical nature, forfeited the sum paid for it, and did not publish +it. Nor, offered far and wide, could any other editor of bourgeois +periodicals be found who was rash enough to publish it. Thus, for the +first time, after seven years, it appears in print.</p> +<h2>A REVIEW</h2> +<p>Two remarkable books are Ghent’s “Our Benevolent +Feudalism” <a name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7" +class="citation">[7]</a> and Brooks’s “The Social +Unrest.” <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8" +class="citation">[8]</a> In these two books the opposite sides of the +labor problem are expounded, each writer devoting himself with apprehension +to the side he fears and views with disfavor. It would appear that +they have set themselves the task of collating, as a warning, the phenomena +of two counter social forces. Mr. Ghent, who is sympathetic with the +socialist movement, follows with cynic fear every aggressive act of the +capitalist class. Mr. Brooks, who yearns for the perpetuation of the +capitalist system as long as possible, follows with grave dismay each +aggressive act of the labor and socialist organizations. Mr. Ghent +traces the emasculation of labor by capital, and Mr. Brooks traces the +emasculation of independent competing capital by labor. In short, +each marshals the facts of a side in the two sides which go to make a +struggle so great that even the French Revolution is insignificant beside +it; for this later struggle, for the first time in the history of +struggles, is not confined to any particular portion of the globe, but +involves the whole of it.</p> +<p>Starting on the assumption that society is at present in a state of +flux, Mr. Ghent sees it rapidly crystallizing into a status which can best +be described as something in the nature of a benevolent feudalism. He +laughs to scorn any immediate realization of the Marxian dream, while +Tolstoyan utopias and Kropotkinian communistic unions of shop and farm are +too wild to merit consideration. The coming status which Mr. Ghent +depicts is a class domination by the capitalists. Labor will take its +definite place as a dependent class, living in a condition of machine +servitude fairly analogous to the land servitude of the Middle Ages. +That is to say, labor will be bound to the machine, though less harshly, in +fashion somewhat similar to that in which the earlier serf was bound to the +soil. As he says, “Bondage to the land was the basis of +villeinage in the old regime; bondage to the job will be the basis of +villeinage in the new.”</p> +<p>At the top of the new society will tower the magnate, the new feudal +baron; at the bottom will be found the wastrels and the inefficients. +The new society he grades as follows:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“I. The barons, graded on the basis of possessions.</p> +<p>“II. The court agents and retainers. (This class will +include the editors of ‘respectable’ and ‘safe’ +newspapers, the pastors of ‘conservative’ and +‘wealthy’ churches, the professors and teachers in endowed +colleges and schools, lawyers generally, and most judges and +politicians).</p> +<p>“III. The workers in pure and applied science, artists, and +physicians.</p> +<p>“IV. The entrepreneurs, the managers of the great +industries, transformed into a salaried class.</p> +<p>“V. The foremen and superintendents. This class has +heretofore been recruited largely from the skilled workers, but with the +growth of technical education in schools and colleges, and the development +of fixed caste, it is likely to become entirely differentiated.</p> +<p>“VI. The villeins of the cities and towns, more or less +regularly employed, who do skilled work and are partially protected by +organization.</p> +<p>“VII. The villeins of the cities and towns who do unskilled +work and are unprotected by organization. They will comprise the +laborers, domestics, and clerks.</p> +<p>“VIII. The villeins of the manorial estates, of the great +farms, the mines, and the forests.</p> +<p>“IX. The small-unit farmers (land-owning), the petty +tradesmen, and manufacturers.</p> +<p>“X. The subtenants of the manorial estates and great farms +(corresponding to the class of ‘free tenants’ in the old +Feudalism).</p> +<p>“XI. The cotters.</p> +<p>“XII. The tramps, the occasionally employed, the +unemployed—the wastrels of the city and country.”</p> +<p>“The new Feudalism, like most autocracies, will foster not only +the arts, but also certain kinds of learning—particularly the kinds +which are unlikely to disturb the minds of the multitude. A future +Marsh, or Cope, or Le Comte will be liberally patronized and left free to +discover what he will; and so, too, an Edison or a Marconi. Only they +must not meddle with anything relating to social science.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It must be confessed that Mr. Ghent’s arguments are cunningly +contrived and arrayed. They must be read to be appreciated. As +an example of his style, which at the same time generalizes a portion of +his argument, the following may well be given:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“The new Feudalism will be but an orderly outgrowth of present +tendencies and conditions. All societies evolve naturally out of +their predecessors. In sociology, as in biology, there is no cell +without a parent cell. The society of each generation develops a +multitude of spontaneous and acquired variations, and out of these, by a +blending process of natural and conscious selection, the succeeding society +is evolved. The new order will differ in no important respects from +the present, except in the completer development of its more salient +features. The visitor from another planet who had known the old and +should see the new would note but few changes. Alter et +Idem—another yet the same—he would say. From magnate to +baron, from workman to villein, from publicist to court agent and retainer, +will be changes of state and function so slight as to elude all but the +keenest eyes.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And in conclusion, to show how benevolent and beautiful this new +feudalism of ours will be, Mr. Ghent says: “Peace and stability it +will maintain at all hazards; and the mass, remembering the chaos, the +turmoil, the insecurity of the past, will bless its reign. . . . +Efficiency—the faculty of getting things—is at last rewarded as +it should be, for the efficient have inherited the earth and its +fulness. The lowly, whose happiness is greater and whose welfare is +more thoroughly conserved when governed than when governing, as a +twentieth-century philosopher said of them, are settled and happy in the +state which reason and experience teach is their God-appointed lot. +They are comfortable too; and if the patriarchal ideal of a vine and fig +tree for each is not yet attained, at least each has his rented patch in +the country or his rented cell in a city building. Bread and the +circus are freely given to the deserving, and as for the undeserving, they +are merely reaping the rewards of their contumacy and pride. Order +reigns, each has his justly appointed share, and the state rests, in +security, ‘lapt in universal law.’”</p> +<p>Mr. Brooks, on the other hand, sees rising and dissolving and rising +again in the social flux the ominous forms of a new society which is the +direct antithesis of a benevolent feudalism. He trembles at the rash +intrepidity of the capitalists who fight the labor unions, for by such +rashness he greatly fears that labor will be driven to express its aims and +strength in political terms, which terms will inevitably be socialistic +terms.</p> +<p>To keep down the rising tide of socialism, he preaches greater meekness +and benevolence to the capitalists. No longer may they claim the +right to run their own business, to beat down the laborer’s standard +of living for the sake of increased profits, to dictate terms of employment +to individual workers, to wax righteously indignant when organized labor +takes a hand in their business. No longer may the capitalist say +“my” business, or even think “my” business; he must +say “our” business, and think “our” business as +well, accepting labor as a partner whose voice must be heard. And if +the capitalists do not become more meek and benevolent in their dealings +with labor, labor will be antagonized and will proceed to wreak terrible +political vengeance, and the present social flux will harden into a status +of socialism.</p> +<p>Mr. Brooks dreams of a society at which Mr. Ghent sneers as “a +slightly modified individualism, wherein each unit secures the just reward +of his capacity and service.” To attain this happy state, Mr. +Brooks imposes circumspection upon the capitalists in their relations with +labor. “If the socialistic spirit is to be held in abeyance in +this country, businesses of this character (anthracite coal mining) must be +handled with extraordinary caution.” Which is to say, that to +withstand the advance of socialism, a great and greater measure of Mr. +Ghent’s <i>benevolence</i> will be required.</p> +<p>Again and again, Mr. Brooks reiterates the danger he sees in harshly +treating labor. “It is not probable that employers can destroy +unionism in the United States. Adroit and desperate attempts will, +however, be made, if we mean by unionism the undisciplined and aggressive +fact of vigorous and determined organizations. If capital should +prove too strong in this struggle, the result is easy to predict. The +employers have only to convince organized labor that it cannot hold its own +against the capitalist manager, and the whole energy that now goes to the +union will turn to an aggressive political socialism. It will not be +the harmless sympathy with increased city and state functions which trade +unions already feel; it will become a turbulent political force bent upon +using every weapon of taxation against the rich.”</p> +<p>“The most concrete impulse that now favors socialism in this +country is the insane purpose to deprive labor organizations of the full +and complete rights that go with federated unionism.”</p> +<p>“That which teaches a union that it cannot succeed as a union +turns it toward socialism. In long strikes in towns like Marlboro and +Brookfield strong unions are defeated. Hundreds of men leave these +towns for shoe-centres like Brockton, where they are now voting the +socialist ticket. The socialist mayor of this city tells me, +‘The men who come to us now from towns where they have been +thoroughly whipped in a strike are among our most active working +socialists.’ The bitterness engendered by this sense of defeat +is turned to politics, as it will throughout the whole country, if +organization of labor is deprived of its rights.”</p> +<p>“This enmity of capital to the trade union is watched with glee by +every intelligent socialist in our midst. Every union that is beaten +or discouraged in its struggle is ripening fruit for socialism.”</p> +<p>“The real peril which we now face is the threat of a class +conflict. If capitalism insists upon the policy of outraging the +saving aspiration of the American workman to raise his standard of comfort +and leisure, every element of class conflict will strengthen among +us.”</p> +<p>“We have only to humiliate what is best in the trade union, and +then every worst feature of socialism is fastened upon us.”</p> +<p>This strong tendency in the ranks of the workers toward socialism is +what Mr. Brooks characterizes the “social unrest”; and he hopes +to see the Republican, the Cleveland Democrat, and the conservative and +large property interests “band together against this common +foe,” which is socialism. And he is not above feeling grave and +well-contained satisfaction wherever the socialist doctrinaire has been +contradicted by men attempting to practise coöperation in the midst of +the competitive system, as in Belgium.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, he catches fleeting glimpses of an extreme and +tyrannically benevolent feudalism very like to Mr. Ghent’s, as +witness the following:</p> +<p>“I asked one of the largest employers of labor in the South if he +feared the coming of the trade union. ‘No,’ he said, +‘it is one good result of race prejudice, that the negro will enable +us in the long run to weaken the trade union so that it cannot harm +us. We can keep wages down with the negro and we can prevent too much +organization.’</p> +<p>“It is in this spirit that the lower standards are to be +used. If this purpose should succeed, it has but one issue,—the +immense strengthening of a plutocratic administration at the top, served by +an army of high-salaried helpers, with an elite of skilled and well-paid +workmen, but all resting on what would essentially be a serf class of +low-paid labor and this mass kept in order by an increased use of military +force.”</p> +<p>In brief summary of these two notable books, it may be said that Mr. +Ghent is alarmed, (though he does not flatly say so), at the too great +social restfulness in the community, which is permitting the capitalists to +form the new society to their liking; and that Mr. Brooks is alarmed, (and +he flatly says so), at the social unrest which threatens the modified +individualism into which he would like to see society evolve. Mr. +Ghent beholds the capitalist class rising to dominate the state and the +working class; Mr. Brooks beholds the working class rising to dominate the +state and the capitalist class. One fears the paternalism of a class; +the other, the tyranny of the mass.</p> +<h2>WANTED: A NEW LAW OF DEVELOPMENT</h2> +<p>Evolution is no longer a mere tentative hypothesis. One by one, +step by step, each division and subdivision of science has contributed its +evidence, until now the case is complete and the verdict rendered. +While there is still discussion as to the method of evolution, none the +less, as a process sufficient to explain all biological phenomena, all +differentiations of life into widely diverse species, families, and even +kingdoms, evolution is flatly accepted. Likewise has been accepted +its law of development: <i>That</i>, <i>in the struggle for existence</i>, +<i>the strong and fit and the progeny of the strong and fit have a better +opportunity for survival than the weak and less fit and the progeny of the +weak and less fit</i>.</p> +<p>It is in the struggle of the species with other species and against all +other hostile forces in the environment, that this law operates; also in +the struggle between the individuals of the same species. In this +struggle, which is for food and shelter, the weak individuals must +obviously win less food and shelter than the strong. Because of this, +their hold on life relaxes and they are eliminated. And for the same +reason that they may not win for themselves adequate food and shelter, the +weak cannot give to their progeny the chance for survival that the strong +give. And thus, since the weak are prone to beget weakness, the +species is constantly purged of its inefficient members.</p> +<p>Because of this, a premium is placed upon strength, and so long as the +struggle for food and shelter obtains, just so long will the average +strength of each generation increase. On the other hand, should +conditions so change that all, and the progeny of all, the weak as well as +the strong, have an equal chance for survival, then, at once, the average +strength of each generation will begin to diminish. Never yet, +however, in animal life, has there been such a state of affairs. +Natural selection has always obtained. The strong and their progeny, +at the expense of the weak, have always survived. This law of +development has operated down all the past upon all life; it so operates +today, and it is not rash to say that it will continue to operate in the +future—at least upon all life existing in a state of nature.</p> +<p>Man, preëminent though he is in the animal kingdom, capable of +reacting upon and making suitable an unsuitable environment, nevertheless +remains the creature of this same law of development. The social +selection to which he is subject is merely another form of natural +selection. True, within certain narrow limits he modifies the +struggle for existence and renders less precarious the tenure of life for +the weak. The extremely weak, diseased, and inefficient are housed in +hospitals and asylums. The strength of the viciously strong, when +inimical to society, is tempered by penal institutions and by the +gallows. The short-sighted are provided with spectacles, and the +sickly (when they can pay for it) with sanitariums. Pestilential +marshes are drained, plagues are checked, and disasters averted. Yet, +for all that, the strong and the progeny of the strong survive, and the +weak are crushed out. The men strong of brain are masters as of +yore. They dominate society and gather to themselves the wealth of +society. With this wealth they maintain themselves and equip their +progeny for the struggle. They build their homes in healthful places, +purchase the best fruits, meats, and vegetables the market affords, and buy +themselves the ministrations of the most brilliant and learned of the +professional classes. The weak man, as of yore, is the servant, the +doer of things at the master’s call. The weaker and less +efficient he is, the poorer is his reward. The weakest work for a +living wage, (when they can get work), live in unsanitary slums, on vile +and insufficient food, at the lowest depths of human degradation. +Their grasp on life is indeed precarious, their mortality excessive, their +infant death-rate appalling.</p> +<p>That some should be born to preferment and others to ignominy in order +that the race may progress, is cruel and sad; but none the less they are so +born. The weeding out of human souls, some for fatness and smiles, +some for leanness and tears, is surely a heartless selective +process—as heartless as it is natural. And the human family, +for all its wonderful record of adventure and achievement, has not yet +succeeded in avoiding this process. That it is incapable of doing +this is not to be hazarded. Not only is it capable, but the whole +trend of society is in that direction. All the social forces are +driving man on to a time when the old selective law will be annulled. +There is no escaping it, save by the intervention of catastrophes and +cataclysms quite unthinkable. It is inexorable. It is +inexorable because the common man demands it. The twentieth century, +the common man says, is his day; the common man’s day, or, rather, +the dawning of the common man’s day.</p> +<p>Nor can it be denied. The evidence is with him. The previous +centuries, and more notably the nineteenth, have marked the rise of the +common man. From chattel slavery to serfdom, and from serfdom to what +he bitterly terms “wage slavery,” he has risen. Never was +he so strong as he is today, and never so menacing. He does the work +of the world, and he is beginning to know it. The world cannot get +along without him, and this also he is beginning to know. All the +human knowledge of the past, all the scientific discovery, governmental +experiment, and invention of machinery, have tended to his +advancement. His standard of living is higher. His common +school education would shame princes ten centuries past. His civil +and religious liberty makes him a free man, and his ballot the peer of his +betters. And all this has tended to make him conscious, conscious of +himself, conscious of his class. He looks about him and questions +that ancient law of development. It is cruel and wrong, he is +beginning to declare. It is an anachronism. Let it be +abolished. Why should there be one empty belly in all the world, when +the work of ten men can feed a hundred? What if my brother be not so +strong as I? He has not sinned. Wherefore should he +hunger—he and his sinless little ones? Away with the old +law. There is food and shelter for all, therefore let all receive +food and shelter.</p> +<p>As fast as labor has become conscious it has organized. The +ambition of these class-conscious men is that the movement shall become +general, that all labor shall become conscious of itself and its class +interests. And the day that witnesses the solidarity of labor, they +triumphantly affirm, will be a day when labor dominates the world. +This growing consciousness has led to the organization of two movements, +both separate and distinct, but both converging toward a common +goal—one, the labor movement, known as Trade Unionism; the other, the +political movement, known as Socialism. Both are grim and silent +forces, unheralded and virtually unknown to the general public save in +moments of stress. The sleeping labor giant receives little notice +from the capitalistic press, and when he stirs uneasily, a column of +surprise, indignation, and horror suffices.</p> +<p>It is only now and then, after long periods of silence, that the labor +movement puts in its claim for notice. All is quiet. The kind +old world spins on, and the bourgeois masters clip their coupons in smug +complacency. But the grim and silent forces are at work.</p> +<p>Suddenly, like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, comes a disruption of +industry. From ocean to ocean the wheels of a great chain of +railroads cease to run. A quarter of a million miners throw down pick +and shovel and outrage the sun with their pale, bleached faces. The +street railways of a swarming metropolis stand idle, or the rumble of +machinery in vast manufactories dies away to silence. There is alarm +and panic. Arson and homicide stalk forth. There is a cry in +the night, and quick anger and sudden death. Peaceful cities are +affrighted by the crack of rifles and the snarl of machine-guns, and the +hearts of the shuddering are shaken by the roar of dynamite. There is +hurrying and skurrying. The wires are kept hot between the centre of +government and the seat of trouble. The chiefs of state ponder +gravely and advise, and governors of states implore. There is +assembling of militia and massing of troops, and the streets resound to the +tramp of armed men. There are separate and joint conferences between +the captains of industry and the captains of labor. And then, +finally, all is quiet again, and the memory of it is like the memory of a +bad dream.</p> +<p>But these strikes become olympiads, things to date from; and common on +the lips of men become such phrases as “The Great Dock Strike,” +“The Great Coal Strike,” “The Great Railroad +Strike.” Never before did labor do these things. After +the Great Plague in England, labor, finding itself in demand and innocently +obeying the economic law, asked higher wages. But the masters set a +maximum wage, restrained workingmen from moving about from place to place, +refused to tolerate idlers, and by most barbarous legal methods punished +those who disobeyed. But labor is accorded greater respect +today. Such a policy, put into effect in this the first decade of the +twentieth century, would sweep the masters from their seats in one mighty +crash. And the masters know it and are respectful.</p> +<p>A fair instance of the growing solidarity of labor is afforded by an +unimportant recent strike in San Francisco. The restaurant cooks and +waiters were completely unorganized, working at any and all hours for +whatever wages they could get. A representative of the American +Federation of Labor went among them and organized them. Within a few +weeks nearly two thousand men were enrolled, and they had five thousand +dollars on deposit. Then they put in their demand for increased wages +and shorter hours. Forthwith their employers organized. The +demand was denied, and the Cooks’ and Waiters’ Union walked +out.</p> +<p>All organized employers stood back of the restaurant owners, in sympathy +with them and willing to aid them if they dared. And at the back of +the Cooks’ and Waiters’ Union stood the organized labor of the +city, 40,000 strong. If a business man was caught patronizing an +“unfair” restaurant, he was boycotted; if a union man was +caught, he was fined heavily by his union or expelled. The oyster +companies and the slaughter houses made an attempt to refuse to sell +oysters and meat to union restaurants. The Butchers and Meat Cutters, +and the Teamsters, in retaliation, refused to work for or to deliver to +non-union restaurants. Upon this the oyster companies and slaughter +houses acknowledged themselves beaten and peace reigned. But the +Restaurant Bakers in non-union places were ordered out, and the Bakery +Wagon Drivers declined to deliver to unfair houses.</p> +<p>Every American Federation of Labor union in the city was prepared to +strike, and waited only the word. And behind all, a handful of men, +known as the Labor Council, directed the fight. One by one, blow upon +blow, they were able if they deemed it necessary to call out the +unions—the Laundry Workers, who do the washing; the Hackmen, who haul +men to and from restaurants; the Butchers, Meat Cutters, and Teamsters; and +the Milkers, Milk Drivers, and Chicken Pickers; and after that, in pure +sympathy, the Retail Clerks, the Horse Shoers, the Gas and Electrical +Fixture Hangers, the Metal Roofers, the Blacksmiths, the Blacksmiths’ +Helpers, the Stablemen, the Machinists, the Brewers, the Coast Seamen, the +Varnishers and Polishers, the Confectioners, the Upholsterers, the Paper +Hangers and Fresco Painters, the Drug Clerks, the Fitters and Helpers, the +Metal Workers, the Boiler Makers and Iron Ship Builders, the Assistant +Undertakers, the Carriage and Wagon Workers, and so on down the lengthy +list of organizations.</p> +<p>For, over all these trades, over all these thousands of men, is the +Labor Council. When it speaks its voice is heard, and when it orders +it is obeyed. But it, in turn, is dominated by the National Labor +Council, with which it is constantly in touch. In this wholly +unimportant little local strike it is of interest to note the stands taken +by the different sides. The legal representative and official +mouthpiece of the Employers’ Association said: “This +organization is formed for defensive purposes, and it may be driven to take +offensive steps, and if so, will be strong enough to follow them up. +Labor cannot be allowed to dictate to capital and say how business shall be +conducted. There is no objection to the formation of unions and +trades councils, but membership must not be compulsory. It is +repugnant to the American idea of liberty and cannot be +tolerated.”</p> +<p>On the other hand, the president of the Team Drivers’ Union said: +“The employers of labor in this city are generally against the +trade-union movement and there seems to be a concerted effort on their part +to check the progress of organized labor. Such action as has been +taken by them in sympathy with the present labor troubles may, if +continued, lead to a serious conflict, the outcome of which might be most +calamitous for the business and industrial interests of San +Francisco.”</p> +<p>And the secretary of the United Brewery Workmen: “I regard a +sympathetic strike as the last weapon which organized labor should use in +its defence. When, however, associations of employers band together +to defeat organized labor, or one of its branches, then we should not and +will not hesitate ourselves to employ the same instrument in +retaliation.”</p> +<p>Thus, in a little corner of the world, is exemplified the growing +solidarity of labor. The organization of labor has not only kept pace +with the organization of industry, but it has gained upon it. In one +winter, in the anthracite coal region, $160,000,000 in mines and +$600,000,000 in transportation and distribution consolidated its ownership +and control. And at once, arrayed as solidly on the other side, were +the 150,000 anthracite miners. The bituminous mines, however, were +not consolidated; yet the 250,000 men employed therein were already +combined. And not only that, but they were also combined with the +anthracite miners, these 400,000 men being under the control and direction +of one supreme labor council. And in this and the other great +councils are to be found captains of labor of splendid abilities, who, in +understanding of economic and industrial conditions, are undeniably the +equals of their opponents, the captains of industry.</p> +<p>The United States is honeycombed with labor organizations. And the +big federations which these go to compose aggregate millions of members, +and in their various branches handle millions of dollars yearly. And +not only this; for the international brotherhoods and unions are forming, +and moneys for the aid of strikers pass back and forth across the +seas. The Machinists, in their demand for a nine-hour day, affected +500,000 men in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. In England the +membership of working-class organizations is approximated by Keir Hardie at +2,500,000, with reserve funds of $18,000,000. There the +coöperative movement has a membership of 1,500,000, and every year +turns over in distribution more than $100,000,000. In France, +one-eighth of the whole working class is unionized. In Belgium the +unions are very rich and powerful, and so able to defy the masters that +many of the smaller manufacturers, unable to resist, “are removing +their works to other countries where the workmen’s organizations are +not so potential.” And in all other countries, according to the +stage of their economic and political development, like figures +obtain. And Europe, today, confesses that her greatest social problem +is the labor problem, and that it is the one most closely engrossing the +attention of her statesmen.</p> +<p>The organization of labor is one of the chief acknowledged factors in +the retrogression of British trade. The workers have become class +conscious as never before. The wrong of one is the wrong of +all. They have come to realize, in a short-sighted way, that their +masters’ interests are not their interests. The harder they +work, they believe, the more wealth they create for their masters. +Further, the more work they do in one day, the fewer men will be needed to +do the work. So the unions place a day’s stint upon their +members, beyond which they are not permitted to go. In “A Study +of Trade Unionism,” by Benjamin Taylor in the “Nineteenth +Century” of April, 1898, are furnished some interesting +corroborations. The facts here set forth were collected by the +Executive Board of the Employers’ Federation, the documentary proofs +of which are in the hands of the secretaries. In a certain firm the +union workmen made eight ammunition boxes a day. Nor could they be +persuaded into making more. A young Swiss, who could not speak +English, was set to work, and in the first day he made fifty boxes. +In the same firm the skilled union hands filed up the outside handles of +one machine-gun a day. That was their stint. No one was known +ever to do more. A non-union filer came into the shop and did twelve +a day. A Manchester firm found that to plane a large bed-casting took +union workmen one hundred and ninety hours, and non-union workmen one +hundred and thirty-five hours. In another instance a man, resigning +from his union, day by day did double the amount of work he had done +formerly. And to cap it all, an English gentleman, going out to look +at a wall being put up for him by union bricklayers, found one of their +number with his right arm strapped to his body, doing all the work with his +left arm—forsooth, because he was such an energetic fellow that +otherwise he would involuntarily lay more bricks than his union +permitted.</p> +<p>All England resounds to the cry, “Wake up, England!” +But the sulky giant is not stirred. “Let England’s trade +go to pot,” he says; “what have I to lose?” And +England is powerless. The capacity of her workmen is represented by +1, in comparison with the 2¼ capacity of the American workman. +And because of the solidarity of labor and the destructiveness of strikes, +British capitalists dare not even strive to emulate the enterprise of +American capitalists. So England watches trade slipping through her +fingers and wails unavailingly. As a correspondent writes: “The +enormous power of the trade unions hangs, a sullen cloud, over the whole +industrial world here, affecting men and masters alike.”</p> +<p>The political movement known as Socialism is, perhaps, even less +realized by the general public. The great strides it has taken and +the portentous front it today exhibits are not comprehended; and, fastened +though it is in every land, it is given little space by the capitalistic +press. For all its plea and passion and warmth, it wells upward like +a great, cold tidal wave, irresistible, inexorable, ingulfing present-day +society level by level. By its own preachment it is inexorable. +Just as societies have sprung into existence, fulfilled their function, and +passed away, it claims, just as surely is present society hastening on to +its dissolution. This is a transition period—and destined to be +a very short one. Barely a century old, capitalism is ripening so +rapidly that it can never live to see a second birthday. There is no +hope for it, the Socialists say. It is doomed.</p> +<p>The cardinal tenet of Socialism is that forbidding doctrine, the +materialistic conception of history. Men are not the masters of their +souls. They are the puppets of great, blind forces. The lives +they live and the deaths they die are compulsory. All social codes +are but the reflexes of existing economic conditions, plus certain +survivals of past economic conditions. The institutions men build +they are compelled to build. Economic laws determine at any given +time what these institutions shall be, how long they shall operate, and by +what they shall be replaced. And so, through the economic process, +the Socialist preaches the ripening of the capitalistic society and the +coming of the new coöperative society.</p> +<p>The second great tenet of Socialism, itself a phase of the materialistic +conception of history, is the class struggle. In the social struggle +for existence, men are forced into classes. “The history of all +society thus far is the history of class strife.” In existing +society the capitalist class exploits the working class, the +proletariat. The interests of the exploiter are not the interests of +the exploited. “Profits are legitimate,” says the +one. “Profits are unpaid wages,” replies the other, when +he has become conscious of his class, “therefore profits are +robbery.” The capitalist enforces his profits because he is the +legal owner of all the means of production. He is the legal owner +because he controls the political machinery of society. The Socialist +sets to work to capture the political machinery, so that he may make +illegal the capitalist’s ownership of the means of production, and +make legal his own ownership of the means of production. And it is +this struggle, between these two classes, upon which the world has at last +entered.</p> +<p>Scientific Socialism is very young. Only yesterday it was in +swaddling clothes. But today it is a vigorous young giant, well +braced to battle for what it wants, and knowing precisely what it +wants. It holds its international conventions, where world-policies +are formulated by the representatives of millions of Socialists. In +little Belgium there are three-quarters of a million of men who work for +the cause; in Germany, 3,000,000; Austria, between 1895 and 1897, raised +her socialist vote from 90,000 to 750,000. France in 1871 had a whole +generation of Socialists wiped out; yet in 1885 there were 30,000, and in +1898, 1,000,000.</p> +<p>Ere the last Spaniard had evacuated Cuba, Socialist groups were +forming. And from far Japan, in these first days of the twentieth +century, writes one Tomoyoshi Murai: “The interest of our people on +Socialism has been greatly awakened these days, especially among our +laboring people on one hand and young students’ circle on the other, +as much as we can draw an earnest and enthusiastic audience and fill our +hall, which holds two thousand. . . . It is gratifying to say that we have +a number of fine and well-trained public orators among our leaders of +Socialism in Japan. The first speaker tonight is Mr. Kiyoshi +Kawakami, editor of one of our city (Tokyo) dailies, a strong, independent, +and decidedly socialistic paper, circulated far and wide. Mr. +Kawakami is a scholar as well as a popular writer. He is going to +speak tonight on the subject, ‘The Essence of Socialism—the +Fundamental Principles.’ The next speaker is Professor Iso Abe, +president of our association, whose subject of address is, ‘Socialism +and the Existing Social System.’ The third speaker is Mr. Naoe +Kinosita, the editor of another strong journal of the city. He speaks +on the subject, ‘How to Realize the Socialist Ideals and +Plans.’ Next is Mr. Shigeyoshi Sugiyama, a graduate of Hartford +Theological Seminary and an advocate of Social Christianity, who is to +speak on ‘Socialism and Municipal Problems.’ And the last +speaker is the editor of the ‘Labor World,’ the foremost leader +of the labor-union movement in our country, Mr. Sen Katayama, who speaks on +the subject, ‘The Outlook of Socialism in Europe and +America.’ These addresses are going to be published in book +form and to be distributed among our people to enlighten their minds on the +subject.”</p> +<p>And in the struggle for the political machinery of society, Socialism is +no longer confined to mere propaganda. Italy, Austria, Belgium, +England, have Socialist members in their national bodies. Out of the +one hundred and thirty-two members of the London County Council, ninety-one +are denounced by the conservative element as Socialists. The Emperor +of Germany grows anxious and angry at the increasing numbers which are +returned to the Reichstag. In France, many of the large cities, such +as Marseilles, are in the hands of the Socialists. A large body of +them is in the Chamber of Deputies, and Millerand, Socialist, sits in the +cabinet. Of him M. Leroy-Beaulieu says with horror: “M. +Millerand is the open enemy of private property, private capital, the +resolute advocate of the socialization of production . . . a constant +incitement to violence . . . a collectivist, avowed and militant, taking +part in the government, dominating the departments of commerce and +industry, preparing all the laws and presiding at the passage of all +measures which should be submitted to merchants and tradesmen.”</p> +<p>In the United States there are already Socialist mayors of towns and +members of State legislatures, a vast literature, and single Socialist +papers with subscription lists running up into the hundreds of +thousands. In 1896, 36,000 votes were cast for the Socialist +candidate for President; in 1900, nearly 200,000; in 1904, 450,000. +And the United States, young as it is, is ripening rapidly, and the +Socialists claim, according to the materialistic conception of history, +that the United States will be the first country in the world wherein the +toilers will capture the political machinery and expropriate the +bourgeoisie.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>But the Socialist and labor movements have recently entered upon a new +phase. There has been a remarkable change in attitude on both +sides. For a long time the labor unions refrained from going in for +political action. On the other hand, the Socialists claimed that +without political action labor was powerless. And because of this +there was much ill feeling between them, even open hostilities, and no +concerted action. But now the Socialists grant that the labor +movement has held up wages and decreased the hours of labor, and the labor +unions find that political action is necessary. Today both parties +have drawn closely together in the common fight. In the United States +this friendly feeling grows. The Socialist papers espouse the cause +of labor, and the unions have opened their ears once more to the wiles of +the Socialists. They are all leavened with Socialist workmen, +“boring from within,” and many of their leaders have already +succumbed. In England, where class consciousness is more developed, +the name “Unionism” has been replaced by “The New +Unionism,” the main object of which is “to capture existing +social structures in the interests of the wage-earners.” There +the Socialist, the trade-union, and other working-class organizations are +beginning to coöperate in securing the return of representatives to +the House of Commons. And in France, where the city councils and +mayors of Marseilles and Monteaules-Mines are Socialistic, thousands of +francs of municipal money were voted for the aid of the unions in the +recent great strikes.</p> +<p>For centuries the world has been preparing for the coming of the common +man. And the period of preparation virtually past, labor, conscious +of itself and its desires, has begun a definite movement toward +solidarity. It believes the time is not far distant when the +historian will speak not only of the dark ages of feudalism, but of the +dark ages of capitalism. And labor sincerely believes itself +justified in this by the terrible indictment it brings against capitalistic +society. In the face of its enormous wealth, capitalistic society +forfeits its right to existence when it permits widespread, bestial +poverty. The philosophy of the survival of the fittest does not +soothe the class-conscious worker when he learns through his class +literature that among the Italian pants-finishers of Chicago <a +name="citation9"></a><a href="#footnote9" class="citation">[9]</a> the +average weekly wage is $1.31, and the average number of weeks employed in +the year is 27.85. Likewise when he reads: <a +name="citation10"></a><a href="#footnote10" class="citation">[10]</a> +“Every room in these reeking tenements houses a family or two. +In one room a missionary found a man ill with small-pox, his wife just +recovering from her confinement, and the children running about half naked +and covered with dirt. Here are seven people living in one +underground kitchen, and a little dead child lying in the same room. +Here live a widow and her six children, two of whom are ill with scarlet +fever. In another, nine brothers and sisters, from twenty-nine years +of age downward, live, eat, and sleep together.” And likewise, +when he reads: <a name="citation11"></a><a href="#footnote11" +class="citation">[11]</a> “When one man, fifty years old, who has +worked all his life, is compelled to beg a little money to bury his dead +baby, and another man, fifty years old, can give ten million dollars to +enable his daughter to live in luxury and bolster up a decaying foreign +aristocracy, do you see nothing amiss?”</p> +<p>And on the other hand, the class-conscious worker reads the statistics +of the wealthy classes, knows what their incomes are, and how they get +them. True, down all the past he has known his own material misery +and the material comfort of the dominant classes, and often has this +knowledge led him to intemperate acts and unwise rebellion. But +today, and for the first time, because both society and he have evolved, he +is beginning to see a possible way out. His ears are opening to the +propaganda of Socialism, the passionate gospel of the dispossessed. +But it does not inculcate a turning back. The way through is the way +out, he understands, and with this in mind he draws up the programme.</p> +<p>It is quite simple, this programme. Everything is moving in his +direction, toward the day when he will take charge. The trust? +Ah, no. Unlike the trembling middle-class man and the small +capitalist, he sees nothing at which to be frightened. He likes the +trust. He exults in the trust, for it is largely doing the task for +him. It socializes production; this done, there remains nothing for +him to do but socialize distribution, and all is accomplished. The +trust? “It organizes industry on an enormous, labor-saving +scale, and abolishes childish, wasteful competition.” It is a +gigantic object lesson, and it preaches his political economy far more +potently than he can preach it. He points to the trust, laughing +scornfully in the face of the orthodox economists. “You told me +this thing could not be,” <a name="citation12"></a><a +href="#footnote12" class="citation">[12]</a> he thunders. +“Behold, the thing is!”</p> +<p>He sees competition in the realm of production passing away. When +the captains of industry have thoroughly organized production, and got +everything running smoothly, it will be very easy for him to eliminate the +profits by stepping in and having the thing run for himself. And the +captain of industry, if he be good, may be given the privilege of +continuing the management on a fair salary. The sixty millions of +dividends which the Standard Oil Company annually declares will be +distributed among the workers. The same with the great United States +Steel Corporation. The president of that corporation knows his +business. Very good. Let him become Secretary of the Department +of Iron and Steel of the United States. But, since the chief +executive of a nation of seventy-odd millions works for $50,000 a year, the +Secretary of the Department of Iron and Steel must expect to have his +salary cut accordingly. And not only will the workers take to +themselves the profits of national and municipal monopolies, but also the +immense revenues which the dominant classes today draw from rents, and +mines, and factories, and all manner of enterprises.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>All this would seem very like a dream, even to the worker, if it were +not for the fact that like things have been done before. He points +triumphantly to the aristocrat of the eighteenth century, who fought, +legislated, governed, and dominated society, but who was shorn of power and +displaced by the rising bourgeoisie. Ay, the thing was done, he +holds. And it shall be done again, but this time it is the +proletariat who does the shearing. Sociology has taught him that +m-i-g-h-t spells “right.” Every society has been ruled by +classes, and the classes have ruled by sheer strength, and have been +overthrown by sheer strength. The bourgeoisie, because it was the +stronger, dragged down the nobility of the sword; and the proletariat, +because it is the strongest of all, can and will drag down the +bourgeoisie.</p> +<p>And in that day, for better or worse, the common man becomes the +master—for better, he believes. It is his intention to make the +sum of human happiness far greater. No man shall work for a bare +living wage, which is degradation. Every man shall have work to do, +and shall be paid exceedingly well for doing it. There shall be no +slum classes, no beggars. Nor shall there be hundreds of thousands of +men and women condemned, for economic reasons, to lives of celibacy or +sexual infertility. Every man shall be able to marry, to live in +healthy, comfortable quarters, and to have all he wants to eat as many +times a day as he wishes. There shall no longer be a life-and-death +struggle for food and shelter. The old heartless law of development +shall be annulled.</p> +<p>All of which is very good and very fine. And when these things +have come to pass, what then? Of old, by virtue of their weakness and +inefficiency in the struggle for food and shelter, the race was purged of +its weak and inefficient members. But this will no longer +obtain. Under the new order the weak and the progeny of the weak will +have a chance for survival equal to that of the strong and the progeny of +the strong. This being so, the premium upon strength will have been +withdrawn, and on the face of it the average strength of each generation, +instead of continuing to rise, will begin to decline.</p> +<p>When the common man’s day shall have arrived, the new social +institutions of that day will prevent the weeding out of weakness and +inefficiency. All, the weak and the strong, will have an equal chance +for procreation. And the progeny of all, of the weak as well as the +strong, will have an equal chance for survival. This being so, and if +no new effective law of development be put into operation, then progress +must cease. And not only progress, for deterioration would at once +set in. It is a pregnant problem. What will be the nature of +this new and most necessary law of development? Can the common man +pause long enough from his undermining labors to answer? Since he is +bent upon dragging down the bourgeoisie and reconstructing society, can he +so reconstruct that a premium, in some unguessed way or other, will still +be laid upon the strong and efficient so that the human type will continue +to develop? Can the common man, or the uncommon men who are allied +with him, devise such a law? Or have they already devised one? +And if so, what is it?</p> +<h2>HOW I BECAME A SOCIALIST</h2> +<p>It is quite fair to say that I became a Socialist in a fashion somewhat +similar to the way in which the Teutonic pagans became Christians—it +was hammered into me. Not only was I not looking for Socialism at the +time of my conversion, but I was fighting it. I was very young and +callow, did not know much of anything, and though I had never even heard of +a school called “Individualism,” I sang the pæan of the +strong with all my heart.</p> +<p>This was because I was strong myself. By strong I mean that I had +good health and hard muscles, both of which possessions are easily +accounted for. I had lived my childhood on California ranches, my +boyhood hustling newspapers on the streets of a healthy Western city, and +my youth on the ozone-laden waters of San Francisco Bay and the Pacific +Ocean. I loved life in the open, and I toiled in the open, at the +hardest kinds of work. Learning no trade, but drifting along from job +to job, I looked on the world and called it good, every bit of it. +Let me repeat, this optimism was because I was healthy and strong, bothered +with neither aches nor weaknesses, never turned down by the boss because I +did not look fit, able always to get a job at shovelling coal, sailorizing, +or manual labor of some sort.</p> +<p>And because of all this, exulting in my young life, able to hold my own +at work or fight, I was a rampant individualist. It was very +natural. I was a winner. Wherefore I called the game, as I saw +it played, or thought I saw it played, a very proper game for MEN. To +be a MAN was to write man in large capitals on my heart. To adventure +like a man, and fight like a man, and do a man’s work (even for a +boy’s pay)—these were things that reached right in and gripped +hold of me as no other thing could. And I looked ahead into long +vistas of a hazy and interminable future, into which, playing what I +conceived to be MAN’S game, I should continue to travel with +unfailing health, without accidents, and with muscles ever vigorous. +As I say, this future was interminable. I could see myself only +raging through life without end like one of Nietzsche’s +<i>blond-beasts</i>, lustfully roving and conquering by sheer superiority +and strength.</p> +<p>As for the unfortunates, the sick, and ailing, and old, and maimed, I +must confess I hardly thought of them at all, save that I vaguely felt that +they, barring accidents, could be as good as I if they wanted to real hard, +and could work just as well. Accidents? Well, they represented +FATE, also spelled out in capitals, and there was no getting around +FATE. Napoleon had had an accident at Waterloo, but that did not +dampen my desire to be another and later Napoleon. Further, the +optimism bred of a stomach which could digest scrap iron and a body which +flourished on hardships did not permit me to consider accidents as even +remotely related to my glorious personality.</p> +<p>I hope I have made it clear that I was proud to be one of Nature’s +strong-armed noblemen. The dignity of labor was to me the most +impressive thing in the world. Without having read Carlyle, or +Kipling, I formulated a gospel of work which put theirs in the shade. +Work was everything. It was sanctification and salvation. The +pride I took in a hard day’s work well done would be inconceivable to +you. It is almost inconceivable to me as I look back upon it. I +was as faithful a wage slave as ever capitalist exploited. To shirk +or malinger on the man who paid me my wages was a sin, first, against +myself, and second, against him. I considered it a crime second only +to treason and just about as bad.</p> +<p>In short, my joyous individualism was dominated by the orthodox +bourgeois ethics. I read the bourgeois papers, listened to the +bourgeois preachers, and shouted at the sonorous platitudes of the +bourgeois politicians. And I doubt not, if other events had not +changed my career, that I should have evolved into a professional +strike-breaker, (one of President Eliot’s American heroes), and had +my head and my earning power irrevocably smashed by a club in the hands of +some militant trades-unionist.</p> +<p>Just about this time, returning from a seven months’ voyage before +the mast, and just turned eighteen, I took it into my head to go +tramping. On rods and blind baggages I fought my way from the open +West where men bucked big and the job hunted the man, to the congested +labor centres of the East, where men were small potatoes and hunted the job +for all they were worth. And on this new <i>blond-beast</i> adventure +I found myself looking upon life from a new and totally different +angle. I had dropped down from the proletariat into what sociologists +love to call the “submerged tenth,” and I was startled to +discover the way in which that submerged tenth was recruited.</p> +<p>I found there all sorts of men, many of whom had once been as good as +myself and just as <i>blond-beast</i>; sailor-men, soldier-men, labor-men, +all wrenched and distorted and twisted out of shape by toil and hardship +and accident, and cast adrift by their masters like so many old +horses. I battered on the drag and slammed back gates with them, or +shivered with them in box cars and city parks, listening the while to +life-histories which began under auspices as fair as mine, with digestions +and bodies equal to and better than mine, and which ended there before my +eyes in the shambles at the bottom of the Social Pit.</p> +<p>And as I listened my brain began to work. The woman of the streets +and the man of the gutter drew very close to me. I saw the picture of +the Social Pit as vividly as though it were a concrete thing, and at the +bottom of the Pit I saw them, myself above them, not far, and hanging on to +the slippery wall by main strength and sweat. And I confess a terror +seized me. What when my strength failed? when I should be unable to +work shoulder to shoulder with the strong men who were as yet babes +unborn? And there and then I swore a great oath. It ran +something like this: <i>All my days I have worked hard with my body</i>, +<i>and according to the number of days I have worked</i>, <i>by just that +much am I nearer the bottom of the Pit</i>. <i>I shall climb out of +the Pit</i>, <i>but not by the muscles of my body shall I climb +out</i>. <i>I shall do no more hard work</i>, <i>and may God strike +me dead if I do another day’s hard work with my body more than I +absolutely have to do</i>. And I have been busy ever since running +away from hard work.</p> +<p>Incidentally, while tramping some ten thousand miles through the United +States and Canada, I strayed into Niagara Falls, was nabbed by a +fee-hunting constable, denied the right to plead guilty or not guilty, +sentenced out of hand to thirty days’ imprisonment for having no +fixed abode and no visible means of support, handcuffed and chained to a +bunch of men similarly circumstanced, carted down country to Buffalo, +registered at the Erie County Penitentiary, had my head clipped and my +budding mustache shaved, was dressed in convict stripes, compulsorily +vaccinated by a medical student who practised on such as we, made to march +the lock-step, and put to work under the eyes of guards armed with +Winchester rifles—all for adventuring in <i>blond-beastly</i> +fashion. Concerning further details deponent sayeth not, though he +may hint that some of his plethoric national patriotism simmered down and +leaked out of the bottom of his soul somewhere—at least, since that +experience he finds that he cares more for men and women and little +children than for imaginary geographical lines.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>To return to my conversion. I think it is apparent that my rampant +individualism was pretty effectively hammered out of me, and something else +as effectively hammered in. But, just as I had been an individualist +without knowing it, I was now a Socialist without knowing it, withal, an +unscientific one. I had been reborn, but not renamed, and I was +running around to find out what manner of thing I was. I ran back to +California and opened the books. I do not remember which ones I +opened first. It is an unimportant detail anyway. I was already +It, whatever It was, and by aid of the books I discovered that It was a +Socialist. Since that day I have opened many books, but no economic +argument, no lucid demonstration of the logic and inevitableness of +Socialism affects me as profoundly and convincingly as I was affected on +the day when I first saw the walls of the Social Pit rise around me and +felt myself slipping down, down, into the shambles at the bottom.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1" +class="footnote">[1]</a> “From 43 to 52 per cent of all +applicants need work rather than relief.”—Report of the Charity +Organization Society of New York City.</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2" +class="footnote">[2]</a> Mr. Leiter, who owns a coal mine at the town +of Zeigler, Illinois, in an interview printed in the Chicago Record-Herald +of December 6, 1904, said: “When I go into the market to purchase +labor, I propose to retain just as much freedom as does a purchaser in any +other kind of a market. . . . There is no difficulty whatever in obtaining +labor, <i>for the country is full of unemployed men</i>.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3" +class="footnote">[3]</a> “Despondent and weary with vain +attempts to struggle against an unsympathetic world, two old men were +brought before Police Judge McHugh this afternoon to see whether some means +could not be provided for their support, at least until springtime.</p> +<p>“George Westlake was the first one to receive the consideration of +the court. Westlake is seventy-two years old. A charge of +habitual drunkenness was placed against him, and he was sentenced to a term +in the county jail, though it is more than probable that he was never under +the influence of intoxicating liquor in his life. The act on the part +of the authorities was one of kindness for him, as in the county jail he +will be provided with a good place to sleep and plenty to eat.</p> +<p>“Joe Coat, aged sixty-nine years, will serve ninety days in the +county jail for much the same reason as Westlake. He states that, if +given a chance to do so, he will go out to a wood-camp and cut timber +during the winter, but the police authorities realize that he could not +long survive such a task.”—From the Butte (Montana) Miner, +December 7th, 1904.</p> +<p>“‘I end my life because I have reached the age limit, and +there is no place for me in this world. Please notify my wife, No. +222 West 129th Street, New York.’ Having summed up the cause of +his despondency in this final message, James Hollander, fifty-six years +old, shot himself through the left temple, in his room at the Stafford +Hotel today.”—New York Herald.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4" +class="footnote">[4]</a> In the San Francisco Examiner of November +16, 1904, there is an account of the use of fire-hose to drive away three +hundred men who wanted work at unloading a vessel in the harbor. So +anxious were the men to get the two or three hours’ job that they +made a veritable mob and had to be driven off.</p> +<p><a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5" +class="footnote">[5]</a> “It was no uncommon thing in these +sweatshops for men to sit bent over a sewing-machine continuously from +eleven to fifteen hours a day in July weather, operating a sewing-machine +by foot-power, and often so driven that they could not stop for +lunch. The seasonal character of the work meant demoralizing toil for +a few months in the year, and a not less demoralizing idleness for the +remainder of the time. Consumption, the plague of the tenements and +the especial plague of the garment industry, carried off many of these +workers; poor nutrition and exhaustion, many more.”—From +McClure’s Magazine.</p> +<p><a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6" +class="footnote">[6]</a> The Social Unrest. Macmillan +Company.</p> +<p><a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7" +class="footnote">[7]</a> “Our Benevolent +Feudalism.” By W. J. Ghent. The Macmillan Company.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8" +class="footnote">[8]</a> “The Social Unrest.” By +John Graham Brooks. The Macmillan Company.</p> +<p><a name="footnote9"></a><a href="#citation9" +class="footnote">[9]</a> From figures presented by Miss Nellie Mason +Auten in the American Journal of Sociology, and copied extensively by the +trade-union and Socialist press.</p> +<p><a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10" +class="footnote">[10]</a> “The Bitter Cry of Outcast +London.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11" +class="footnote">[11]</a> An item from the Social Democratic +Herald. Hundreds of these items, culled from current happenings, are +published weekly in the papers of the workers.</p> +<p><a name="footnote12"></a><a href="#citation12" +class="footnote">[12]</a> Karl Marx, the great Socialist, worked out +the trust development forty years ago, for which he was laughed at by the +orthodox economists.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR OF THE CLASSES***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1187-h.htm or 1187-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/8/1187 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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