HX 33 Or IRLF SB flfl? REESE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class Political Socialism,- WOULD IT FAIL IN SUCCESS? A BOOK FOR BUSY MEN SECOND EDITION 'Can the Poor Be Made Rich by Making the Rich Poor?" POLITICAL SOCIALISM, Would It Fafl in Success? A BOOK FOR BUSY MEN BY J. S. CRAWFORD SECOND EDITION "Can the Poor be made rich by making the Tfc/cA poor P" PUBLISHED and SOLD by THE WRITER Price, pott pn paiJ. 25 cent* COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY J. S. CRAWFORD. Query: A system that proposes to overturn securities ; to abolish profit, rent, and interest ; to overthrow credit, bonds. mortgages, life-insurance, corporate titles, and commercial paper;, to support the human family on five hours work a day, five days a week, workers between the ages of seventeen and forty-six only: Should not such a system give some guaranty that it would succeed ? Is the endorsement of sensational news- papers and magazines, opulent in "Screamers" and "Scare- heads" only, a sufficient guaranty ? Sworn official reports of corporations, under the Income Tax sections of the New Tariff law, show dividends less than three per cent. Lest we floun- der. is there not sore need of a Guide, A true Finger pointing? Again .-Gladly admitting that, with a sneer and an epithet, the Socialist can no longer be dismissed as an Anarchist, -as the mere -Echo of poor, proud, disordered, Old Pierre Joseph Proudhon crying Equality! Misery! that the issue must be shifted to solid ground, clearly framed, and, in the light of rea- son, fairly discussed ; that the average Socialist is well read. earnest, aggressive, and ardent in debate ; - that he is less dangerous than the Sensationalist who. responsible for noth- ing, attacks everybody and everything ; all of which admitted the question still comes : - Does the Socialist clearly perceive the difference between witting in a library and -working in an office ? between figuring on a job and getting the order for a job ? between signing a pay-roll and walking the floor at mght to make the payroll good ? between plowing at a desk and plowing in a field ? between confiscation and compensation ? (is the first just or the second possible? 'j-in short, is the Socialist practical? Again: Referring to Competition, Socialists say that, of business men. seven eighths go into bankruptcy because of small profits; while of wage-workers, they say seven-eighths live in poverty because of large profits. Reconcile ? In Men ana Mules, Mr. Ries contends that a wage-worker earns $3500 a year and gets less than $500. Then why not co-operate ? There is no law against. Is it not true that Socialists ignore the fact that true men gratify themselves by gratifying others. and, if in good. conpaijy^ai times, enjoy being alone?- See pjUilpIcs of tl.it tore-did: Individualist, William Godwin. Bit.*by accentuating tfte 'Social-State, do not Socialists pro- ceed upon a principle derogatory fcfthe individual, his primacy 3n$ pnv-icy? a.id in H.erojrat'cn of tlje family. its primacy and , _ ..... "Again: Do not the last message of President Taft. Decem- ber, 1910. and the transactions of the preceding administration confirm what is said in this book, viz.: that public business is done at greater cost than private business? UNITED EVANGBUCAX. PRBSS, HARRISBURG, PA. POLITICAL SOCIALISM, WHY IT WOULD FAIL INDULGENT READER: If these preliminary pages be read without profit, have done with the book, and let it be cast straightway into the waste-basket. You are aware, Noble Sir, that we are confronted with a live question, a growing, forceful question, one, all-embracing, attractive, yea fascinating, and not altogether devoid of mystery. Shall we not proceed to consider it as becomes a citizen, patiently, and wisely? Shall we not seek to define, to discuss, to comprehend, to judge, in the spirit of a Christian gen- tleman? As the question is economic it is thought best to proceed by a method not unfamiliar to the politician : WHEREAS : Certain Finger-Boards, in a figurative sense, point toward the certain failure of a Socialist-State; there- fore, the purpose herein is to indicate: 1. That, State- Socialism would fail because the busi- ness of the country is so widely diversified and the j amount of productive industry so great, that the joint- * volume of this industry and business, centralized under the control of a proprietary government, would be un- wielding and unmanageable. Moreover, some branches of industry are yet formative while others are antagon- istic. 2. That, State-Socialism would fail because to vest this prodigious joint-volume of business and industry, in tht hands of politicians and theorists would multiply the opportunities for graft; the more Official Depart- ments, Bureaus, Divisions, Commissions, Clerkships, and Executive Machinery ; the more supervisors, bosses, sub- bosses, foremen, chiefs, commissioners, directors, detec- tives, secretaries, and other executive officers; the Hi 218553 iv POUTICAI, SOCIALISM, more opportunities for connivance, conspiracy and cor- ruption; 3. That, State-Socialism would fail because its aim is to organize politics and business upon the same basis. This union of politics and business would open the door for extravagance and abuse of patronage. Under such a system it would be difficult to defeat a party in power or to dislodge a party-boss. This is not to say that Socialists are more dishonest than other people. It is to say that a majority of workmen would combine to elect a shop-man to be a shop-boss, by the same methods employed now to elect a ward-politician to be a ward- spoilsman. 4. That, State-Socialism would fail because it as- sumes that all shops, mills, farms, mines, factories, and public utilities, run at a profit, and that, a great profit. But, truth to be tolc!', the n umber ofTnen, who fail in business, equals the number who succeed. Many a Captain of Industry walks the floor at night, contriving to meet his pay-roll. In the Socialist- State, Labor would have this loss to bear. 5. That, State-Socialism would fail because, contrary to fact, it assumes that there would be no antagonisms. Instance the shoemaker, granting that the shoe is a "social product." The man who would do one-sixtieth of the work in producing a shoe, might honestly insist that he would do one-fortieth and demand one-fortieth of the proceeds. Countless disputes and contradictions would thus arise and ramify through the countless com- plications of a State's industry and business. Who could tell the fraction of a shoe belonging to the wood- chopper who would fell the tree to make shoe-pegs? Who could reconcile the interests of both parties to an exchange of commodities? or, of the buyer and the WHY IT WOULD FAIL V seller ? or, of the consumer and the producer ? or, of the home manufacturer and the importer of a like product? Answer : Arbitrary Power only : Despotism ! 6. That, State-Socialism would fail because in the So- cialist-State no man "would own his job." All jobs would belong to the State. Liberty would be a myth and freedom a mockery. 7. That, State- Socialism would fail because it assumes that a general, public interest is stronger than a self- regarding, private interest. . g. take Agriculture: It assumes that the Book-Farmer, theoretical and non-pos- sessing, would be more efficient than the Field-Farmer who, as proprietor and possessor in fee-simple, operates the farm. It assumes that a government-agent would rotate crops; pick out seed-corn; select male-pigs; operate a 4-horse self-binder, and reap a field of grain, down, lodged, or swailed, better than the owner whose first work was doing chores at the barn and whose sole ambition is to succeed, counting success from the farm- er's standpoint. 8. That, State-Socialism would fail because it seeks to destroy competition. Now, competition attracts, en- livens, stimulates, and develops. It embellishes and ad- vertises. It urges. If competition be eliminated, shop- windows will go undressed. Store-fronts will not be il- luminated. Electric signs will not flash in esthetic rivalry from house-tops, hills and road-ways. Goods will then be stored in long, dull ware-houses and dis- tributed by indifferent state-agents. The State will make the goods, determine the quality, fix the styles, set the fashions, and control distribution. Moreover, it is not necessary to overturn the government in order to do away with competition and its evils if any there be. Voluntary co-operation, the Industrial Democracy, of VI POLITICAL SOCIALISM, Dr. Abbott can do that. There is no law to prevent and no custom to estop. If a voluntary, Co-operative Democracy can manufacture goods and put them on the market cheaper and better than Competition, it is at lib- erty to do so. 9. That, State-Socialism would fail because Material- ism cannot satisfy human nature: My Good Sir, is it not true that the human mind is something more than "a mechanism of meat?" Is it not true that the sentiment of patriotism is some- thing more than "the refuge of a scoundrel ?" Is it not true that the institution of marriage is some- thing more than a "civil contract?" Is it not true that there is something more to educa- tion than instruction, "the pouring-in process?" Con- sider gravely: Would it be well to put the training of children, the printing of books, the publishing of news- papers, solely in the hands of a Socialist-State? In olden time, it was enough to train-up a child in the way he should go. But in these times, there is sore need to strengthen the boy's will that he may restrain his feet from the path in which he, should not go. Is it not true that the law of inheritance is something more than "a property right ?" Does it not promote and protect the integrity of the family? In this book, it is held that property-rights are axio- matic; that the right to buy land, build a house, raise a crop, rear a family, defend established order, and ad- vance by formative methods, is self-evident and self- executing. This right can no more be proven than 2 -f- 3 = 5: attempted proof confuses only. 10. That, State-Socialism would fail because Society cannot be regenerated except as the man is regenerated. Socialism ignores the man and regards the mass. It WHY IT WOULD FAIL Vli ignores causes and regards effects. It condemns and criticizes the whole but excuses the parts. It reverses. Socialism substitutes "Class Consciousness" for class conscience. It substitutes the tyranny of Capital for the tyranny of Truth. It lays blame on Capital and the Mass for crime, misery, weakness, poverty, and stupid- ity. It releases the individual of responsibility. It blames all, acquits each: indicts everybody, convicts no- body. It would fail for : It is better to be true than false ; Better to be wise than foolish ; Better to be brave than a coward. Hath it not been said by that noblest Master of the Human Mind, "Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good?" Yea, verily, "the Lord made this world, not the Devil." There is such a thing as moral force. Note i. There is misapprehension in the public mind as to just what Political Socialism stands for. Many otherwise well-read men think of it as unfriendly to Capital and that it demands an equal division of prop- erty neither of which is true: Something worse. Note 2. It has not escaped attention that but few so- cialist votes are required in the Congress to control the balance of power and thus to force complications, con- cessions, and compromises. In the 5th Wisconsin dis- trict, Victor L. Berger, a Socialist, has already been elected. In a number of legislative districts, notably in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Oregon, and New Jersey, Socialists have been elected. Berks County is one of the strongest agricultural communities in the United States, yet in the Reading district of that county, Mr. Maurer, a Socialist, was elected to a legislative seat, in the conservative old Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ; the reason for this is that self-constituted reformers and so-called Independent Press, with magazine writers and editors, ever alert for the evil and peculiar, have succeeded in un-settling the public mind. These men whose fathers, (perhaps yet living), may have worked Vlii POLITICAL SOCIALISM, thirteen hours a day for thirteen dollars a month, have partially disintegrated the old political parties. These agitators lack composure. They lack faith in self-acting and self-executing principles. They have no patience with formative progress. It must be revolutionary and reformatory. After a time, probably after some mis- chief will have been done, some blood shed, this spirit of disintegration and disquietude will run its course. Note 3. As to whether Socialists, in effect, apologize for crime, the reader is referred to Jno. W. Slayton's recent booklet : Criminology, Crime and Criminals. Mr. Slayton was the recent socialist candidate for governor of Pennsylvania. A discerning man must discriminate between Law without love and Love without law, maud- lin sentiment, it is called. The latter, in opulent ex- travagance, carries roses and poetry to the jail-cell of the most willful, degenerated, and hardened of crimi- nals. It would be diffcult for Mr. Slayton to add an- other to his armful of bouquets. The "All and Singu- lar" of old law-writers is cast aside. Perversion of the "All" and not propensity of the "Singular" accounts for crime. Outward conditions not inward produce the thief this, I call, a dangerous doctrine. Note 4. "But, behold, the post office!" cry our social- ist devotees. Yes: Run at a loss; whereas, by con- tract it could be run at a profit. And, mark you an example: No sooner do French letter-carriers go in from one strike, than French railway clerks go put on another. Besides, who more indolent, indifferent, incom- petent, and inconsequential, than civil-service office-hold- ers living on their uppers, money squandered for cara- mels and limerick, pleading to Congress always for a pension and more pay? Who struck poor Casey out? is past finding out Vain quest of the Socialist. But happily, at the very next chance, Casey made a hit ; he scored, and a Capitalist forthwith put him into a higher league. Poor Casey never bothered his head about how long a visionary man may live on "pigeon's milk." With these Fingers pointing, shall we not, from Casey's standpoint, proceed "to launch out into the deep," sounding Socialism to the very bottom? Cherokee, Iowa, 1911. J. S. CRAWFORD. REMARKS INSPIRED BY THE SOCIALIST VICTORY IN MILWAUKEE PRESIDENT TAFT on the Attack on Private Property : "Of the future I shall say nothing, 1 ecause you would say I was making a political speech. All that I can say is that the issue that is being framed, as it seems to me, is the issue with respect to the institution of private property. There are those who charge to that institu- tion the corporate abuses, the unequal distribution of property, the poverty of some, and the undue wealth of others, and, therefore, say: 'We shall have none of it; we must have a new rule of distribution.' This, for the want of a better name, we shall call SpCIALISM." Speech at Ada, Ohio, June 2, 1910, and iterated, next day, at Jackson, Michigan. When he uttered these prophetic words, no doubt, the President had in mind the results of the recent municipal election in Milwaukee. Hon. WILLIAM SULZER, Democratic Congressman from New York, in a recent speech said: "I am not a Socialist but I am an individualist. I would preserve the identity of the individual at all hazards. I would not have all men on a dead level for that is what Socialism would have. I would have each man stand distinct, forging ahead, one in competion with the other, and all trying to press forward, in the righteous way to the goal of human aspiration." A. M. SIMONS, Socialist-Leader, at the Socialist- Congress, in Chicago, May 14, I9 IO sa ^ : "You might as well try to change the orbit of the comet as to win without the farmers." CONTENTS POLITICAL SOCIALISM, IS IT GAINING OR LOSING GROUND ? Page 5 FALLING BACK FROM UTOPIA, THE FIRST RETREAT. A MARXIAN CONTRADICTION, THE SECOND RETREAT. VIO- LENCE REPUDIATED, ANOTHER RETREAT. CONCESSION TO PERSONAL LIBERTY AND PRIVATE PROPERTY, THE FOURTH RETREAT. ARE THESE RETREATS A CONCESSION TO ES- TABLISHED ORDER? POLITICAL SOCIALISM, WHAT IS LEFT, A LOSING OR SAVING REMNANT? . Page S3 A RESUME. CARL SCHURZ ON KARL MARX. SOCIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF THE STATE. THE CLASS-WAR. SUR- PLUS VALUE. DOGMA ILLUSTRATED BY INDIANS MAK- ING SUN-DRIED BRICK. MARX STOOD FOR GOLD MONEY. EXTRAVAGANCE OF GOVERNMENT. MAYOR SEIDEL ALDRICH AND SHAW QUOTED. TYRANNY OF SOCIALISM. SHOPS DISMAL. STORES TURNED INTO WAREHOUSES. NO FASHIONS. NO ADVERTISING. THE SAVING REMNANT. POLITICAL SOCIALISM, SHALL IT BE PUT ON THE DEFENSE? HOW? . . . Page 67 THE FARMER, THE HOME-OWNER, THE LABOR-UNIONS, IN PART, AGAINST SOCIALISM. STRONG SENSE OF PRO- PRIETORSHIP. SOCIALISM OF THE CHAIR HAS NO SYM- PATHY FOR THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY AND THE SCHOOL OF HARD-KNOCKS. POLITICAL SOCIALISM, WHAT DO NON- SOCIALISTS SAY OF IT ? . . . . Page 88 A REVIEW OF THE STRENGTH, ORGANIZATION AND INFLU- ENCE OF GERMAN, FRENCH, BRITISH, AND AMERICAN SOCI ALI S M . NO M ENCLATURE REVOLUTION ARY. RED FLAG, THE EMBLEM OF BLOOD. SOCIALISM FLOURISHES ONLY IN RICH COUNTRIES. AMBITION AND APPETITE. PLAYING WITH REVOLUTIONARY FIRE. THE BROKEN WINE CASK. PASSION FOR BLOOD, ONE THOUSAND BURIED IN A SINGLE GRAVE, MEETING OF REVOLUTION- ARY SOCIALISTS DESCRIBED. CONCLUSION. POLITICAL SOCIALISM; A Busy Man's Book. Preliminary Note: Readers not familiar with the literature of Socialism are advised to read the second half of this book first, beginning at page 67; this, because the incidental and descriptive features of the subject are novel and wonderfully attractive. Readers familiar with the ele- mental and organic features of Socialism are advised to follow the order of the book; this, because the first half is critical and controversial, developing the princi- ples in which the last half strikes root. Comments m- vited; Address, Cherokee, Iowa. CHAPTER I. POLITICAL SOCIALISMIS IT GAINING OR LOSING GROUND? PALLING BACK FROM UTOPIA, THE FIRST RETREAT. A MARXIAN CONTRADICTION, THE SECOND RETREAT. VIO- LENCE REPUDIATED, ANOTHER RETREAT. CONCESSION TO PERSONAL LIBERTY AND PRIVATE PROPERTY, THE FOURTH RETREAT. ARE THESE RETREATS A CONCESSION TO ES- TABLISHED ORDER? An English thinker recently quoted with ap- proval these discerning and attractive words: "Social life is to personality what language is O POLITICAL SOCIALISM to thought." * I accept that thesis for the sake of the side-light which it throws upon the treat- ment of my subjects : Is Philosophic and Politi- cal Socialism gaining or losing ground? Statistics give a ready but superficial answer. The vital and persistent force in such a move- ment must be measured by its elemental aspects ; by its mental and moral loyalty to itself; by its persuasive and convincing harmony with facts of human nature ; by its consistent, confident, and spontaneous power of appeal ; by its skill in meet- ing criticism; it is by such as these that the growth or decline of this thing called the New Social Order is to be gauged. A few votes here or there, more or less, signify very little in the developing stages of so revolutionary and so comprehensive a system. It will be seen at once that the inquiry pursued from these subjective standpoints is a very different matter from adducing and arranging comparative tables of statistics, a matter, too, not without difficulty, strongly demanding discernment and discrimina- tion. With open minds, then, we proceed to ascer- tain whether systematic and contemporary Socialism, in principle, is gaining or losing ground. Baldwin Lectures ; Th Crisis in Unbelief by R. M. Wenley, 1909, p. S47. A BUSY MAN S BOOK 7 FORSAKING UTOPIA Let the inquiry first be as to the Ideal State which Socialism proposes. At times for more than two thousand years, there have arisen philosophers and philanthro- pists appealing with noblest purpose, to the imag- inations of man. They have painted rich pictures of social life in a certain, civil State of Perfection attained in islands in the sea, or in cities in the sun, or in grottoes in the earth, or in the future. The plans of Oceana, Atlantis, Icaria, Hulee, Cite du Soleil, Vril-ya, Leviathan, Ideal Repub- lic, Harmony, New Harmony, Merrie England, Modern Utopia, United States of Europe, Ere- whon, Zion City, and many others have not all been purely imaginary like Sir Thomas More's island in the Atlantic, but some have been tried out in actual experience and under the mos favoring circumstances. Robert Owens was a man of affairs. He built up large and successful cotton factories in New Lanark. He spent his fortune upon industrial communities, some in England and some in com- munist colonies in America. Robert Dale Owen, son of Robert Owen, was so able a man that he was sent to Congress several terms and became a strong political factor in Indiana. 8 POLITICAL SOCIALISM The Viscount Henri de Saint-Simon was a man of fortune and a scientist who enjoyed the friend- ship and co-operation of Auguste Compte. This French nobleman founded more than one com- munist society in France. Charles Fourier inherited a fortune and received a good business training; he traveled in all the commercial nations in the world and worked out the plans upon which, soon after his death, sev- eral communist villages were founded; the cele- brated Brook Farm was one of these. From plans advocated by Socialists, Louis Blanc, an officer of the French Republic, estab- lished national work-shops in Paris, in which over a hundred thousand men were employed. This whole Utopian movement, imaginary and experimental, found its climax in Edward Bell- amy's Looking Backward, a book, up to the last half-dozen years, warmly welcomed and defended by Socialists. Now, is the Ideal Republic still a potent influence in Socialism? Has it a place in the socialist programme and propaganda? Socialist writers themselves return the answer. I quote from acknowledged authority : "It cannot be doubted that Socialism rep- resented by Marx and the Modern Socialists' movement is radically different from the earlier Socialism of Fourier, Saint-Simon, Cabet, Owen, and a host of other builders of A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 'cloud-palaces' for an ideal humanity. * * * The need for some word to distinguish be- tween the two is obvious and the only ques- tion is whether the words 'scientific* and 'Utopian' express with reasonably accuracy the nature of the difference." * * * Then Mr. Spargo adds: "Is it not to see the past, present, and future as a whole, a growth, a constant process, so that in- stead of vainly fashioning plans for a millen- nial Utopia, we seek in the facts of to- day the stream of tendencies, and so learn the direction of the immediate course of progress ?" * "As a matter of fact, Morris wrote News from Nowhere as a retort to the machine- like Utopia of Edward Bellamy. Loving labor, he did not want to be free from it, and he could not tolerate the thought of a civilization founded upon bell-buttons and automatic machines, f "Modern Socialists do not pretend to be architects of the New Order. They do not propose to demolish the present order of things, as we tear down an old building, and then compel humanity to build a new edifice according to any plan they have drawn. They have no such absurd idea, just because they know that Society is not an edifice at all, but an organism, and men are not in the habit of planning the development of a dog or of a rose-bush. * * * Utopists were * Socialism by John Spargo, 1 909, page 231 et seq. t Socialists at Workby Robert Hunter, 1908, page 288. IO POLITICAL SOCIALISM indeed capital critics but as reformers they were miserable failures. They ignored all social and political conditions. They wanted mankind to don their readv-made system as men do ready-made clothes." * In addition to these well-known adherents to and authorities upon Modern Socialism, many others might be quoted affirming what is said above in relation to the ideal Social State. In- deed, not satisfied with baldly and emphatically repudiating Utopia, the recognized leaders are careful to say that they do not pretend to know the form which their movement will finally as- sume, or the method by which it will get itself installed, or when, or where. Even Herr Marx ir. the Communist Manifesto declares Utopia as "fantastic," without "theoretic justification," and a "duodecimo edition of the New Jerusalem." But why have Philosophic Socialists deserted Utopia? For two reasons : First, Utopia in reality, that is in action, failed; second, Utopia in ideality, that is in imagination, also failed. Both failed to respond to the full demands of human nature. Men love struggle and conquest. Literature without a villian fails. A drama without a vil- lain fails. The man who has no set-backs to *77ie Co-operative Commonwealth by Laurence Gronlund, last Lon- don edition, page 101. II overcome, who finally fails to circumvent a vil- lain, is no hero. The most monotonous thing in all the world is a uniformly successful man. A Social State made up of insipid goody-goodies like Dr. Leete attracts nobody. Mr. Bellamy's Looking Backward laid a premium on the weak and the stupid; in effect it made the stupid man the standard; it pro- posed a commerce, national and international, based on card-board pay-checks; it failed to recognize that envy, hatred, malice, cupidity, militant ambition, jealousy, pugnacity, are all be- gotten of justifiable, yea, necessary faculties and passions, are merely the over-emphasis of these same faculties and passions. Swine are satisfied with feed and shelter ; to assume that bread, but- ter, and shelter will satisfy a man is to reduce him to the level of the pig. In his essay on The Formation of Human Character, Robert Owen says: "Any general character, from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the most enlightened, may be given to any com- munity by those who have influence in the affairs of men." But Owen failed. Icaria failed. M. Saint- Simon and his coalescence of prince and pontiff failed. M. Fourier and his palaces in which were to dwell two thousand people cohering by the 12 POLITICAL SOCIALISM polar attraction of their affinities failed. The Brook Farm failed. John Alexander Dowie and his Second Apostles at Zion City failed. The Utopia of Edward Bellamy failed, while the Shakers and Mennonites, richest communities of them all, are announced to be on the point of dis- solution, the great stirring world has attracted the young people and the old have ceased to pro- test. These failures left to rational Socialists just one thing to do, to repudiate the Utopists. This repudiation has gone so far as to mani- fest itself over and over again in socialist litera- ture, even in the title of books. One standard writer has a work which he calls Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. The scientific school ral- lies around the standard raised by Karl Marx so that the line is now closely drawn between the Owenites and the Marxites. Some of the lat- ter go so far as to express a lofty contempt for Utopia and all its works. Nevertheless this retreat from Utopia to phi- losophy must have been very humiliating to sen- timental Socialists: This, because it was pre- cisely in Utopia that the conception of a system- atic Socialism first arose. To desert this ground was like forsaking its very mother. Besides there is something wonderfully attractive to the benevolent but superficial and imaginative mind A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 13 in a human society where there is no such thing as injustice or wrong; where every body is fed, clothed, and sheltered in equality. It is not at first perceived that if all hills were exactly alike, landscapes would lose much of their beauty; if all trees were exactly alike, forests would become monotonous and dreary. It is not at first perceived that the ordinary man is prospered by the extraordinary man. Take an instance: Governor Francis and his co- workers by organizing a World's Fair and set- tling the best products of all nations, tongues, and kindreds upon one square section of land, for the edification and enjoyment of all the peo- ple did this by the exercise of extraordinary ability and its good results were distributed through all classes down to and including a shoveler on the dump as well as a char-woman whose only tool is a scrubbing-brush. It is a mistake to say that the Captain of In- dustry, the extraordinary man, succeeds at the expense of the ordinary man, frequently in- stead of taking an instrument of labor from the hand of the ordinary worker the Captain of In- dustry puts an instrument of labor into the hands of the worker. It is not at first perceived that to reduce the opportunity of such men as Governor Francis 14 POLITICAL SOCIALISM to that of the shovelers, Giuseppe and Giovanna, would be a public loss, as ability widens, oppor- tunity widens. Foresight takes care of that. To pull the Governor down is to push still further down such as Giuseppe and Giovanna. All this is at first un-perceived. It is variety and unex- pected change which give pleasure and zest to human life. No one knows this better than the editor of a yellow newspaper, if sensations do not come out of the world of reality and exag- geration, he produces them out of the world of the imagination. Indeed the very quality of the human mind which created such an interest in Looking Back- ward was ignored in the economy and structure of the society pictured in the book itself. All these great Utopian pictures, sometimes inspired by sensualism; sometimes by pantheism; some- times by materialism ; sometimes by artistic senti- ment; sometimes by sympathy for learning and science ; sometimes by pity for the poor, neglect- ed, and suffering, have the lure and drawing power which ever surround mystery and the secrets of the future. To desert this great and productive field, in which the imagination could embody itself without limit, in poetic power and fancy, must have been a matter of chagrin and disappointment to all reflective Socialists. But human nature is too great a thing, too complex, A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 15 and too subtle, to be standardized by artifice or to be comprehended in rules and measures. Does Socialism understand itself? THE MARXIAN CONTRADICTION In falling back from Utopia, it was necessary for systematic Socialism to rally somewhere. There was need of authority, of the glorifica- tion of great names, of the mystery of great doc- trines, of appeal to mighty passions, of cogency, of coherence. All these were found in the espousal of the Darwinian theory and the evolution of Herbert Spencer, supplemented by the historic specula- tions of Auguste Compte. Scientific justifica- tion was needed. From being a devotee of the Imagination, Socialism suddenly emerged into a devotee of Science, Karl Marx and Karl Rodbertus became its prophets and interpreters. With enthusiasm, it turned to that school of thought in which facts of the mind are regarded as related to, but also subservient to, facts of mat- ter. Man was evolved from matter and directly fell into two classes, the oppressors and the op- pressed, the expropriators and the expropriated, the bourgeoisie and the proletariate. The stages of evolution are marked successively by the patriarch and the servant, the chief and the slave, l6 POLITICAL SOCIALISM the feudal baron and the serf, the patrician and the plebian, the wage-worker and the wage- payor. Society has progressed from the paternal rule of the patriarch to the tyranny of the capital- ist. All social movements, political, commercial, industrial, religious, revolutionary, reformatory, reactionary, educational, scientific, philosophic; all manners and customs; all faiths and beliefs are to be referred to actions and reactions of these two classes, industrial oppressors and industri- ally oppressed. This is called the Economic In- terpretation of History, which, (though not al- ways admitted) is another way of stating the Materialistic Conception of History propounded by Auguste Compte and adopted by Karl Marx. According to this economic view, as the work- ing-man evolved from a state of chattel-slavery to that of wage-slavery, so he will go on advanc- ing by a process of evolution until his class greatly outnumbers the capitalistic class, then, by politi- cal force, he will come into his proportional share of all the goods produced in the Social State, this will be inevitable because the process of evolution is inevitable. An important corollary to all this is that the community of goods will vest in the working- man because this class produces the commodities, hence all values. A second corollary is that com- petition will disappear, Socialism is the Nemesis A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 17 of competion. The capitalistic class will either be merged into the working-class or its members become extinct, so there will be one class only. That such is a fair statement of the New Socialism I think will not be disputed by Social- ists themselves. It may be disputed by others, hence I quote a few authorities : "We never get away from the law of economic interpretation. Socialism, accord- ing to Marx, will develop out of capitalistic society, and follow capitalism necessarily and inevitably. It is a plan, not to be adopted, but a stage of social development to be reached." * "Since the work of Lyell, Darwin, Wal- lace, Spencer, Huxley, Youmans, the idea of evolution as a universal law has made rapid and certain progress. Everything: changes. Only the law of change is chang- less. The present is a phase only of a great transition process from what was, through what is, to what will be. The Marx-Engels theory is an exploration of this process of evolution in human relations." f "Thus the existing, local system appears to the Socialist of today, not as it appeared to the Utopians but as the result of an age- long evolutionary process, determined, not wholly indeed, but mainly by certain * Socialism by John Spargo. 1 909, page lit. t Idem, page 77. 1 POLITICAL SOCIALISM methods of producing 1 the necessaries of life, and secondly, of effecting their exchange."* "Two Germans, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, two of the clearest and most cogent thinkers the last century produced, took up this labor where Compte laid it down, or rather where Compte broke down. These two men by their joint labors carried Sociology out of its theoretical infancy and its metaphysical childhood into the full man- hood of science. These men grave us the great social law which makes all theological notions and metaphysical speculations hence- forth as obsolete in sociology as they have long been in astronomy and physics. This law is called the Material Conception of History. It is to sociology what Natural Selection is to biology or the law of gravi- tation to astronomy. By this discoverv Marx becomes the Newton of political economy and historical philosophy, and the Darwin of sociology." f "The history of society in the past is the history of past struggles. Freemen and slaves, patricians and plebians, nobles and serfs, guild-members and journeymen, in short oppressors and oppressed, have always stood in direct opposition to each other." * The question now arises is Socialism any more secure oft what it calls scientific ground than it * Socialism by John pargo. 1909, page 75. t Lecture on Auguste Compte by Arthur M. Lewis, 19Q8. tThe Communist Manifesto paragraph 1. 19 was upon Utopian ground? Organic evolution according to Darwin is by Natural Selection and what somebody else calls a Survival of the Fit- test. Darwin's doctrine establishes the validity of struggle and conquest, this is the Strong- man Theory in history, Competion, the very thing which all schools of Socialism set them- selves up to overthrow and destroy. Mr. Darwin calls one of the most remarkable chapters in the Origin of Species the Struggle for Existence. I extract a few pertinent sentences: (i) "Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life;" (2) "Battle within battle must ever be recurring with varying success; and yet in the long run the forces are so nicely balanced, that the face of nature remains uniform for long periods of time, though assuredly the merest trifle would often give the victory to one organic being or the other;" (3) "But the struggle almost invariably will be the most severe between individuals of the same species;" (4) "Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five years, and at this rate, in a few thousand years, there literally would not be standing room for his progeny;" (5) "When we reflect on this struggle, we may console our- sejves with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the 2O POLITICAL SOCIALISM healthy, and the happy survive and multiply;" (6) "Lyell has largely and philosophically shown that all organic beings are exposed to severe competition." The fact seems to be that if moral force be eliminated from evolution that the ambition of man, even now, would be "to eat and not to be eaten, to kill and not to be killed, to enslave and not to be enslaved." It seems to me that this effort to place Modern Socialism on scientific ground involves itself in a contradiction which for a better term I shall call the Marxian Contra- diction. In face of this contradiction what are Socialists to do? This brings us up squarely to the question: What is it Modern Socialists want? Let Sidney Webb, one of the. brightest Fabian essayists, answer : "The truly socialistic scheme is to make an equal provision for the maintenance of all an incident and indefeasible condition of citi- zenship, without any regard whatever to the relative specific services of different citizens and instead of leaving the rendering of the requisite service to the option of the citizen, to require each citizen to perform the part allotted to him, under one uniform, civic law." In commenting on Mr. Webb's definition of the purpose of Socialism, W. H. Mallock A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 21 observes: "That as the man is talented he is to get less than he produces and in proportion as he is stupid he is to get more than he produces."* But to go back to the Marxian Contradiction : If, as Mr. Spargo says, "Socialism will follow Capitalism necessarily and inevitably, not as a plan adopted but as a development reached," through a Universal Energy operating in Evolu- tion, why this propaganda? Why this bitter assault upon Capitalism admitted to be a neces- sary step in Evolution, hence validated on the same grounds upon which it is sought to validate the coming order of Socialism? If the Fittest is to survive and Socialism is the Fittest, then it will be evolved into power despite all other influences. While the propaganda may not work a denial, does it not tend to create a doubt as to whether Socialism believes in its own prem- ises? understands itself? One other thing remains to be noticed in con- nection with this effort of Philosophic Socialism to bring itself under the wing of Darwinism: The great leaders of Synthetic Evolution have been avowed enemies of this so-called New Order. Herbert Spencer's essay on the Coming Slavery is the most effective blow ever delivered against the. doctrine laid down by Mr. Webb. Johns Hopkins lecture of W. H. Mallock, 1908. 22 POLITICAL SOCIALISM John Stuart Mill's Essay on Liberty and his other writings are powerful attacks on the groundwork of the system. Professor Huxley says in a criti- cism on the Religion of Humanity that "it is Catholicism minus Christianity." It is evident, then, that when the Marxites fell back from the Owenites they not only reached the dilemma of a constructional denial and a contradiction but they took refuge in the house of their enemies. This dilemma necessitated a second retreat. Under the Darwinian theory, the Fittest only shall survive: Under the Webb theory, the Un- fittest also shall survive. Notwithstanding Mr. Darwin's prediction that the race would reach by- and-bye a point where it would not have stand- ing-room, Prince Kropotkin, said to be an An- archist and a Russian scholar of distinction, comes forward with a reconciliation: This by way of a new definition of the Fittest. The Fit- test are those who can co-operate and then defend themselves against the prowess of what Lord Tennyson denominates the "red tooth and claw." The Prince says that sparrows, pelicans, bees, ants, crows, quails, wild-pigeons, and some kinds of fish preserve themselves by this co-operation which he calls the instinct of "Mutual Aid." Here is found in nature the justification of co- operative Socialism, leaving Darwin's question of over-population still to be met and here So- A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 23 cialism finds a cover for its second retreat, the defense of a partridge against a wild-cat. REPUDIATING VIOLENCE Times without number, Socialism has defined itself in platforms and programmes to mean: "The social ownership and control of all the means of production, distribution and exchange." In the first section of the Communist Manifesto, Herr Marx says : "We have followed the more or less con- cealed civil war pervading in modern society up to that point, where it must break forth in open revolution, and then the Proletariate will arrive at supremacy through the forci- ble downfall of the Bourgeoisie." The Communist Manifesto, according to Mr. Spargo, is regarded as the birth-cry of Modern Socialism. It was written by Marx and Engels arid adopted by the Communist League at the London meeting in 1847. It is the fundamental canon and doctrine of the present-day movement, so regarded by all "who speak with any authority whatever" in the councils of socialist propa- ganda. But what has become of the imperative edict for Proletarians to attain supremacy by forcible downfall of Capitalism? 24 POLITICAL SOCIALISM G. Derwent Smith, an English writer on the New Socialism and a student who has worked out a very ingenious indictment against what he calls "artificial monopoly," says: "There is no danger in hords of accumu- lated wealth in the hands of individuals so long as a decent and comfortable subsistence is within the reach of everybody, * * * The advance to Socialism may very likely be by way of palliatives, but it will only be reached when its main idea, the public own- ership of the means of production and dis- tribution, safe-guarded by complete democ- racy, has been fully realized." * In the socialist book entitled Merrie England, Robert Blatchford says: "Socialism will not come by means of sudden coup. It will grow up naturally out of our surroundings and will develop gradually and by degrees." f The same spirit runs through the scholastic and socialistic writings of H. G. Wells and the Fabian school of Socialism. American propa- gandists are even more pronounced than the English that the New Order will be inaugurated in a pacific manner. For instance Mr. Hunter says in a chapter entitled Socialism in the Parlia- ments: *N*tural Monopolies by C. Derwent Smith, London, 1 909, pages 133 tAferr/e EnglAndby Robert Blatchford, American edition, page 86- A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 25 "Socialists have no desire to pursue the desperate methods of inciting workers to in- surrection. They realize that violence is a sign of weakness. Increasing influence, and a growing assurance that Socialism will eventually attain complete powei, have en- couraged them to work with confidence to- ward the end of converting a majority of the nation to their views." * Mr. Spargo says in a chapter on the Means of Realisation: "True there is still a good deal of alk about the Social Revolution, and there may be a few Socialists, here and there, who be- lieve that Capitalism will come to a great crisis ; that there will be a rising of millions in wrath, a night of fury, and agony, and then the sunrise of Brotherhood above the bloodstained valley and the corps-strewn plain. But most of us think only of the change that must come over society, transfer- ing the control of its life from the few to the many. * * * No considerable body of Socialists anywhere in the world to-day, and no Socialist whose words have any influence in the movement, believes that there will be a sudden, violent change from Capitalism to Socialism." f President Woolsey says that the life of the In- ternational Workingmen's Association went out *Socia/;sfs At Work. tSocialism. 26 POLITICAL SOCIALISM in the violence of the Paris Commune of 1871. The failure of this Commune and the ensuing death of the International may have had some- thing to do with modifying the programme of organized and official Socialism. This changed attitude from a programme of aggressive violence to one of democratic, parlia- mentary method is made all the more significant by the fact that European Socialists are divided into two branches and neither branch advocates the "open revolution," the "forcible downfall" of all existing social conditions as announced by Herr Marx. Both branches claim to be constitu- tional and parliamentary : One, the Marxite, pro- posing to promote its programme, as a whole; the other, the Revisionists or Opportunists, are piecemeal reformers: One proposes to overturn, the other to uplift, but up-lifters and over-turners alike agree in the end aimed at. Both branches are political, the first maintaining a party of its own and insisting on the dogma of Class-con- sciousness ; the other seeks to accomplish its ends through existing political parties. Characteristic leaders of the first are Kautsky in Germany, Guesde in France, Ferri in Italy, and Hyndman in England; leaders of the second are Bernstein, Miller, and Turati, and the Fabianists. The point is that neither party advocates the militant violence announced to come in the Com- A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 27 munist Manifesto. Political Socialism has fallen back from the vital principle, the violent pro- gramme, of its founder. CONCESSION TO ESTABLISHED ORDER In my endeavor to answer the question: Is Political Socialism gaining or losing ground? is it still aggressive or gradually falling into a de- fensive position? I adduce one more particular and then content myself with a few minor but relevant observations. The question now comes on the attitude of Socialism toward the individual, that is the opportunity which the proposed New Order offers for self-realization, personal liberty, and private property. In the communes of that "gentle, mystic dreamer," M. Saint-Simon, the entire popula- tion, all humanity, was to be organized into one family and the whole earth was to be made into one farm, the fruits apportioned in the family according to merit, the relative merits to be as- certained by scientific standards, "From every man according to his ability, to every man ac- cording to his needs." Members of this uni- versal family were to be divided into three classes; workers, artists, savants. Science was to be apotheosized. The functions of pope and 25 POLITICAL SOCIALISM emperor, spiritual and temporal power, were to coalesce. The sexes were to be equal. One man only was to marry one woman only. Religion, filial relations, property, were all to be recog- nized but there was to be no right of bequest or inheritance. M. Saint-Simon had been in this country serving as a soldier with Lafayette and was present at the final surrender of Yorktown. This incident in his life made him popular in the United States but so far as I can learn no effort was made to try out his social theories in America. In the system proposed by M. Fourier, a group of five or six persons was to correspond to the cell in a living organism. Three or four of these groups were to form a phalanx ; three or four of these phalanxes were to form a union; three or four of these unions were to form a district ; and so on through the provinces, nations, empires, caliphates, regions, and continents, until the whole world became a unity. Two thousand peo- ple in regimentation were to live in palaces called phalansteries. Free love was to prevail. The family was to be abolished. This great industrial army was to be commanded by line officers, un- archs, diarchs, triarchs, and finally an omniarch whose empire was the world. Labor was to be regarded as a pleasure; the products to go five parts to the workingman, four parts to capital, A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 29 three parts to talent. Under the system great im- provements in production were to be made, so great that Great Britain was to pay her national debt in six months by the sale of hens' eggs. Sea- water was to be made palatable as lemonade and the North Pole was to be habitable. Man's men- tal and moral well-being was to be improved as well as his physical. New faculties were to de- velop. New senses were to make an appearance and an eye was to grow in the back of the head. Fourierism was tried and failed. In Mr. Bellamy's Looking Backward, the working forces of the State were organized into an industrial army. In this army were four classes of workers, all paid the same wages, not money but time-checks. The worker whom Mr. Mallock describes as the man of "exceptional ability" received no more than the least pro- ductive worker in the army, that is to say Governor Francis as executive officer of a World's Fair and Giuseppe who dug ditches on the World's Fair grounds were to receive time- checks for exactly the same amounts propor- tioned to the time put in. In this army were captains of tens and captains of hundreds and captains of thousands, that is to say there were lieutenants, captains, colonels and even generals. One man said to another go and he goeth, to another come and he cometh. 30 POLITICAL SOCIALISM In a socialist book which makes itself espe- cially serviceable by setting out official pro- grammes, documents, writings, and speeches I find that Herr Marx himself contended for com- pulsory labor and an industrial army.* Curiously enough late editions of the Communist Manifesto have elided this article. It appeared in the second section of the document and was embodied in the earlier writings of the Marx propaganda. The question recurs : What is the present atti- tude of Political Socialism toward personal liberty and private property? Does it still ad- here to the doctrine of "social ownership and control of all the means of production, distribu- tion, and exchange?" In vain you search the programmes last issued by German, Austrian, English, Italian, American socialist parties for the doctrine. The Belgian programme is admirable in its arrangement and succinct in statement but nothing is said about an industrial army. The French Socialists have issued the mildest programme of all and of course no allusion is made to this plan. Nothing is said in these vari- ous national programmes about expropriating or appropriating private property. In an article printed in the June, 1909, North American Review, Mr. Spargo cleverly and * Modern Socialism by R. C. K. Ensor, New York. 1904. page 36. A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 3\ vigorously defends his party against the charge that it seeks to socialize all private property, or circumscribe personal rights or circumvent per- sonal liberty. "Socialism," says Spargo, "has given up the old notion of the regimentation of labor under the direction of the State." In the 1900 platform of the National Socialist Labor party is a declaration favoring the aboli- tion of private property without qualification. The 1904 National Socialist platform declared: "The Socialist is the only party which stands for principles by which the liberty of the individual may become indeed a fact." * * * "Socialism comes so to organize industry and society that every individual shall be secure in that private property is the means of life upon which his liberty of being, thought and action depend." Except as to trust properties the 1908 platform is silent on the question of private property and personal liberty. To conclude, then, does not this brief, citing the very best socialist authorities, clearly estab- lish the fact that in at least four fundamental particulars Political Socialism has receded? Of course it may be said that these changes are ad- vances and not retreats, progress and not re- gress. But the changes have been every time away from the ancient land-marks and toward established order. These recessions amount to 32 POLITICAL SOCIALISM concessions. The question now comes: What is left of Political and Philosophic Social- ism ? Is there a saving or a losing remnant ? The answer will be found in the spirit of the words quoted by Mr. Wenley: "Social life is to personality what language is to thought." What is called Immediate Demands is a re- statement, for the most part, of the old populite platform. Populism failed. Socialism will fail. Both strike root in the same soil. A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 33 CHAPTER II. POLITICAL SOCIALISM, WHAT IS LEFT. A LOSING OR A SAVING REMNANT? A RESUME. CARL SCHURZ ON KARL MARX. SOCIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF THE STATE. THE CLASS-WAR. SURPLUS- VALUE. SOCIALIST CONCEPTION OF SURPLUS-VALUE COR- RECT, APPLICATION WRONG. DOGMA ILLUSTRATED BY INDIANS MAKING SUN-DRIED BRICK. MARX STOOD FOR GOLD MONEY. ECONOMY OF TRUSTS, EXTRAVAGANCE OF GOVERNMENT. MAYOR SEIDEL QUOTED. ALDRICH AND SHAW QUOTED. TYRANNY OF LAW. TYRANNY OF THE STATE. SHOPS DISMAL. STORES TURNED INTO WARE- HOUSES. NO FASHIONS. NO ADVERTISING. THE SAV- ING REMNANT. There have been two distinct schools of systematic Socialism; one speculative the other political, one persuasive the other compulsory, one passive the other dynamic, one Owenite the other Marxite; both schools have sought the same ends by exactly opposite methods. The Owenites developed into Utopia, tried out their methods in practice, and culminated their propa- ganda in Mr. Bellamy's Looking Backward, a book which is now condemned more bitterly by Socialists than by anybody else. Both practice and propaganda failed. So that the Owenites may be dismissed from other than incidental con- sideration. 34 POLITICAL SOCIALISM CARL SCHURZ AND KARL MARX Political Socialism is an off-shoot developed out of Utopian Socialism and for fifty years was concurrent with it; indeed the recruits of the former were mostly Utopians. The plan has not been tried out in concrete form since 1848, (the year in which the Communistic Manifesto was issued). In that year, Louis Blanc, an officer of the French government, under stress of So- cialism, managed to induce the Republic to es- tablish public workshops in Paris, in which the workmen elected their own foremen and all re- ceived the same wages. In these ateliers na- tionaux more than a hundred thousand men were employed and more than fifty thousand dollars were paid out daily in wages. In a short time there was an outbreak and a strike in which the workmen engaged. After much loss the experi- ment was declared to be a failure and abandoned. M. Blanc fled to England where he wrote an exhaustive history of the French Revolution. Robert Hunter, a well-known Socialist and American writer, says that Herr Marx was much indebted to M. Blanc and other French Socialists, for his philosophical and political conception of economic society, but that he looked with lofty contempt upon Utopians and their methods. No doubt that Hunter is right for Marx was an ar- A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 35 bitrary man. Speaking of a political club meet- ing at Cologne, a very distinguished American publicist says: "Among others, the leader of the Com- munists, Karl Marx was there. He could not have been much more than thirty years old at the time, but already was the recognized head of the advanced socialist school. The somewhat thick-set man, with his broad forehead, his very black hair and beard *nd his dark sparkling eyes at once attracted general attention. He enjoyed the reputa- tion of having acquired great learning, and as I knew very little of his discoveries and theories, I was all the more eager to gather words of wisdom from the lips of that fam- ous man. This expectation w s disappointed in a peculiar way. Marx's utterances were full of meaning, logical and clear, but I have never seen a man whose bearing was so pro- voking and intolerable. To no opinion, which differed from his, he accorded the honor of even a condescending consideration. Everyone who contradicted him he treated with abject contempt; every argument which he did not like he answered with biting scorn at the unfathomable ignorance that had prompted it, or with opprobrious aspersions upon the motive of him who had advanced it. * * * Of course the proposition ad- vanced or advocated by Marx at that meeting was voted down." * *C&rl Schurz, Reminiscences, Vol. I, page 139. 36 POLITICAL SOCIALISM The writer then goes on to tell how he took home the important lesson, that he who would be the leader and teacher of men must treat the opinions of others with respect. It might be in- teresting to inquire whether the time did not come when Mr. Schurz forgot this "important lesson." As I sat in the gallery at the National Socialist convention in Brands's Hall, Chicago, May 10, 1908, and saw the demeanor of the delegates to- ward each other, and heard the debates, Schurz's words forced themselves upon me. Identically the same spirit and disposition manifest in Col- ogne, in 1848, was manifest in Chicago, in 1908, no less in the female than in the male delegates. But coming back to our main theme: It is singularly worthy of notice that the very year, save one, in which State Socialism was declared to be a practical failure in Paris, it was declared to be a theoretical success in London. In its escape from Utopia, political Socialism fell back to the theory of evolution where for a time it made great headway under the assumed sanction of that mighty philosophy; but in time, it here encountered the Marxian Contradiction involved in the Struggle for Existence, the Survival of the Fittest, a principle directly contrary to co-opera- tion; it then fell back to the "Mutual Aid" theory of Prince Kropotkin ; next it encountered A BUSY MAN'S BOOK 37 the overwhelming sentiment against a com- pulsory, industrial army and the charge that it forestalled personal liberty and circumvented the rights of personal property; it has now fallen back from this position and its leaders declare that neither personal liberty nor private property is repugnant to its spirit and policy, indeed the wisest of these leaders proclaim themselves to be champions of both personal liberty and private property. Notwithstanding the writings of Herron, Patterson, Sinclair, Garland, and Wells, Socialism has greatly modified its attitude to- wards the institution of marriage, the family, the sentiment of patriotism, and religious worship. SOCIALIST CONCEPTION OF THE STATE Before inquiring into what is left of Philo- sophic and Political Socialism, it may be well to investigate the underlying principle, the ultimate sanction, upon which it claims to rest and by which it seeks to justify itself. After the manner of Auguste Compte, to whom, as before remarked, it does not alway give credit, Philosophic Socialism conceives that the Man is made for the State and not the State for the Man. Humanity in the abstract becomes an entity. This entity is idealized. Not, perhaps, in concrete form as the spirit of the 38 POLITICAL SOCIALISM United States is idealized in the figure of Uncle Sam or as British character is represented in pictures of John Bull: Nevertheless an entity. I am not aware that Socialists go as far as M. Compte in making Humanity an object of wor- ship wherein the mother represents the past, the wife the present, the daughter the future. But as a fundamental proposition of Political Social- ism, social relations are everything. An acknowl- edged authority has worked this out beautifully, in these words : "We insist, therefore, that the State is a living organism, differing from other organ- isms in no essential respect." "Socialists repudiate the theory of 'natural rights' and insist that the lesson taught by Rousseau and repeated (why not say it out- right?) in the American Declaration of In- dependence must be unlearned before any firm foundation can be reached." "It is Society, organized Society, that gives us all the rights we have. To the State we owe our freedom. To it we owe our living and property, for, outside of organized Society, man's needs far surpass his means. The humble beggar owes much to the State, but the haughty millionaire far more, for, outside of it, they would both be worse off than the beggar is now. To it we owe all that we are and all that we have. To it we owe our civilization. The State is the organic 39 union of us wherein we wage war against Nature to subdue it, to redress natural de- fects and inequalities. The State, therefore, so far from being a burden to the 'good/ a 'necessary evil/ is man's greatest good." "The State may to-morrow, if it judges expedient, take all the capital of the country from its present owners, without any com- pensation whatever and convert it into social capital." "As against the State even labor does not give us a particle of title to what our hands and brains produce. The axe you use is not yours though your hands have made it, instead of buying it in the market. The idea of the axe, its potentiality, which enables it to prevail over nature, does not belong to you. This is the result of long generations of development, from the rudest stone-tool to the elegant steel-blade which rings through the pine woods of Maine. This belongs to Society. Neither the laborer nor the capital- ist owns the principle. So everywhere. Neither labor nor capital employs the other. It is Society which employs both. To whom does the telegraph belong? To Society. Neither Professor Morse nor any other inventor can lay claim to it. It grew little by little." "Since the State is an organism it is more than all of us collectively. It rightly in- cludes the dead, the living, and the coming generations." 40 POLITICAL SOCIALISM "Children do not belong to their parents ; they belong to Society." * A writer, Georgia Kotsch, in the June 1910 International Socialist Review, speaking of mothers says: "That baby which you call yours is not wholly yours. She has individual rights and Society has a claim upon her. The kindergarten is fitted as you are not to care for her. You surrender her to one after another of the trained educators provided by Society. Other mothers surrender the feeding of their children to cooks provided by Society." Such is the thesis which constructive, aggres- sive, philosophic, critical, Political Socialism postulates and defends. Mr. Gronlund has long been regarded as one of its foremost exponents in this country. A casual examination will at once reveal its close identity with the doctrine of Humanity expounded by the great author of the Positive Philosophy. Here, then, is the conception of the State, the sanction of the New Order. The individual is an incident; the State everything. It is a bold doctrine boldly avowed. But we have seen as a matter of practice and as a policy of expediency, recession after recession has been made until an *Go-opera