I THE I [BRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CAL [FORNIA GIFT OF Dr. Gordon S. Watkins (Uartom & Walking THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YOWC BOSTON CHICAGO I > DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LnnrKD LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OP CANADA. LID. TORONTO ID 2 THE LARGER SOCIALISM THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1921 All right, reserved COPTBIQHT, 1921 , BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and printed. Published May, 1921 Press of J. J. Little A Ires Company Nw York, U. B. A. A My Mother i " \ My Fattier TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGl INTRODUCTION SOCIALISM AND MATERIAL WEL- FARE 1 CHAPTER I. SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION . . 9 II. SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION . . 82 III. SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 67 IV. SOCIALISM AND THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 95 V. THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 127 VI. SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL . . . 161 v VII. SOME CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING SOCIALIST / POLICY 188 VIII. THE LARGER SOCIALISM .... 217 t THE LARGER SOCIALISM THE LARGER SOCIALISM INTRODUCTION SOCIALISM AND MATERIAL WELFARE THE Socialist remedy for the ills which con- front society is, of course, the public ownership and the democratic management of all industry of social value. On the whole, the answer is defi- nite and positive. True, the Socialist ranks har- hor various opinions as to what constitutes demo- cratic management. One camp maintains that the socially-valuable industries, after becoming pub- licly-owned, should bo operated by the Govern- ment. Another camp, feeling more impellingly the call of syndicalism and guild socialism, would have the publicly-owned industries operated pri- marily by their workers. The sudden apparition on the horizon of an actually-functioning Soviet system has caused within the Socialist citadel dis- agreement also as to whether the political state should be organized geographically or occupa- tionally, and as to the method by which Socialism 1 2 THE LAEGEB SOCIALISM can be or should be achieved. Finally, there is room for legitimate Socialist disagreement as to the gauge or gauges by which an industry shall be considered socially-valuable. Nevertheless, in all fairness it must be admitted that these points lie in the periphery and not at the hub of the Socialist wheel. Concerning the central conception of Socialism, there is sub- stantial agreement. As at present the national Government owns and operates the mails, the Panama Canal, the Alaskan Railroad, the army and navy, the postal savings banks, the parcel post, the Government Printing Office, the Light- house and Coast Guard Services, the national parks; as local Governments own and operate public schools, libraries, the police and fire depart- ments, the water supply, streets and bridges, roads, street illumination, parks, so in a Social- ist state 4fce national Government and the local Governments would own and be responsible for the operation of the mines, the railroads, the iron and steel mills, the steamship lines, the express systems, the oil wells, the power plants, the cloth- ing factories, the meat-packing plants, the shoe factories, the shipping, the laundries, the commer- cial automobile plants, the cotton and woolen mills, the forests, the non-agricultural land, the com- mercial and savings banks, the apartment houses, the grain elevators, the gas plants, the street rail- ways, the insurance companies, the bakeries, the INTRODUCTION > 3 telephone and telegraph systems, the cold stor- age plants, the department stores, the ice plants, the agricultural implements factories, the fertili- zer plants, the sugar refineries, the paper mills, the fish-packing plants, the lumber mills, the flour mills, and all other agencies of production and distribution which cannot cease functioning, or cannot function badly, without inflicting injury upon the great majority of the people. As the present national and local Governments furnish mail service, education, water, and fire and police protection to the people free or at cost, and in the amounts necessary for the people's welfare, Socialist national and local Governments would furnish to the people free or at cost, and in the amounts necessary for the people's welfare, coal, oil, bread, meat, milk, ice, clothing, shoes, transportation, housing, sewing machines, calico, blankets, lumber, gas and electricity and "insur- ance policies. Side by side with this collective ownership iand operation of all necessary industry, a Socialist state would enforce extensive welfare legislation. True, most of this legislation can be achieved by a purification instead of by the abolition of the present capitalist system, and much of it is advo- cated by ardent opponents of a Socialist system. But the consummation of most of these welfare proposals must be advocated by every Socialist, for even to those Socialists who would have the 4 THE LARGER SOCIALISM Government intrude but lightly into the actual processes of production, much of this protective legislation will appear the sine qua non of a suc- cessful cooperative commonwealth. Among other things, it would include maternity insurance, for a period before and after childbirth ; pensions for dependent mothers; abolition of child labor, ex- cept possibly in abnormal cases, below the age of eighteen ; higher schooling for all showing mental promise, even by the aid of scholarships for the support of the students preparing for the more advanced professions, such as medicine ; extensive vocational guidance; generally available medical examinations ; the guaranty to each worker of at least the minimum wage necessary for him or for his family to maintain a socially-useful stand- ard of living ; a maximum wage for even the most responsible administrators of the Socialist state and of the Socialist state's industries, dependent upon the total wealth productivity of the state and upon the margin remaining after all had been guaranteed the minimum wage ; health insurance ; liberal laws for workmen's compensation in all industries ; regulation, preferably variable, of the hours of labor permissible per day, per week, per year; liberal sanitary and safety regulations for all work, especially for the more unhealthful and the more dangerous; high, if not confiscatory, taxes on the wealth descending from the previous capitalist system, on inheritances, on the unearned INTRODUCTION 5 increment in land values; segregation of the feeble-minded; insurance against whatever unem- ployment might persist in spite of wide regulari- zation of industry, against invalidity, against old age. The outstanding virtue which most Socialists claim for this program is the abolition of the un~ happiness due to the present inequitable distri- bution of material welfare. Concerning the vir- tues of any possible rearrangement of society's wealth looking toward such an end, there can be little dispute. At one end of our social scale, the few roll in wealth well-nigh beyond even their most extravagant desires, while at the other end the many stoop under poverty incapable of satis- fying even their scantiest demands for a happy existence. At the top, many are enabled to enjoy life without performing irksome labor, or by per- forming labor of little value to the community ; and at the bottom, by far the larger proportion of mankind is compelled to toil, whether on farm or in workshop, far beyond the point at which toil is satisfying, or self -developing, or even socially valuable. Until the more recent decades, it may have been true that production was insufficient for an equitable system of distribution of the world's material goods to meet the need of all; but current figures for the total national income of the United States show that the super-efficient machine production of the twentieth century 6 THE LARGER SOCIALISM would more than suffice fully to pass material wel- fare around in this country. It is difficult to do justice to the strength and validity of this indictment of our present system foR permitting some to eat cake while others have not bread. Man may not live by bread alone, but he lives by bread first; and no civilization oan be wholesome until to everyone living under it there is available a sufficiency of the goods which satisfy man's basic material needs. But my purpose is to insist that this program can only lay the foun- dation. Unless there is much building upon it, the full promise of Socialism will not be redeemed. A Socialist civilization in which the predominant human type will be the type of fairly prosperous skilled trade unionist most in evidence at an an- nual convention of the American Federation of Labor, for instance, will hardly repay the hopes, the idealism, the enthusiasm and the abiding sac- rifices which have gone into the Socialist move- ment. The average skilled A. F. of L. trade union- ist has by this time so increased his wages and so decreased his labor that economically he has become no longer a proletarian, but a bourgeois ; but in the process he has become also intellec- tually, socially, ethically and emotionally a bour- geois. A society composed of nouveaux riches may be a more wholesome organism than a society composed of even the deserving poor; but the pos- sibilities of the Cooperative Commonwealth far INTRODUCTION 7 exceed these of the mere creation of nouvelle richesse. Freedom from material want is the ir- reducible minimum for a healthy civilization, but it must be conceived as the means, not the end. The thesis herein presented is that if Socialism is to benefit humanity to the full extent of which it is capable, it must become a broader and a deeper theory and political movement than at present It must think and talk less in terms of giving the worker the full product of his labor, and more in terms of building a richer culture upon the foundation of material welfare. It must establish a working mental agreement with other theories and movements which will arrive at fruition after Socialism, if the Socialist state is to be rich instead of poor in the immaterial and finer products of the human mind. It must have an eye, for example, to the rights of the individ- ual conscience, as against the custom of the herd ; to the development of individual and collective mental independence and self-assertiveness ; to the biological improvement of the race; to the negro problem ; above all, to the feminist movement. It must become the creation of the most exact- ing empirical, contemporaneous and inductive thought, rather than of deductive and dogmatic dialectics based on thought-systems deriving from .formulas wrought by past generations. It must be more deeply concerned with the quality than with, the quantity of the enjoyments of life under 8 THE LAEGEB SOCIALISM Socialism, even though it may never lose sight of the dependence of their quality upon their quan- tity. It must ceaselessly consider the nature of the ideals which will drive men forward in a So- cialist commonwealth, with the concepts which will underlie the daily rounds of their existence, with the power of Socialism to encourage the few and weak social impulses and to discourage the many and strong anti-social impulses of which man is the combination. It must become less Socialistic and more socialistic. In a word, a Socialist state must ask, "What kind of man is Jones?" far more anxiously than it will have previously asked, >'How much does Jones earn?" CHAPTER I. SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PBODTJOTION. THE first and unavoidable responsibility of a Socialist state thus would be the improvement of the material fortunes of the great bulk of its sub- jects. To consummate such an improvement, there is naturally and inexorably demanded an ad- equate production of those goods on which the populace's material well-being depends. The first issue at stake between the capitalist system and a socialist system hence becomes the issue of com- parative efficiency in producing essentials. One would therefore naturally expect a respect- able proportion of Socialist propaganda, both written and spoken, to concern itself with the productive efficiency of a Socialist commonwealth. True, it might be objected that in so far as the Socialist movement holds hard and fast to the Marxian analyses, any such concern would, be largely superfluous, if not inappropriate. For Marxism teaches that the replacement of the capitalist system by the Socialist system is as in- evitable as the replacement of the tadpole by the frog; so that discussion of the advantages of 9 10 THE LARGER SOCIALISM Socialism over Capitalism, because of the former's greater productive efficiency, might be considered as much beside the point as discussion of the ad- vantages of frogs over tadpoles. The prime duty of a Marxian Socialist movement from this point of view would accordingly seem to consist merely in educating the proletariat to a realization of this inevitability of Socialism, in preparing the workers against the day when they are destined to take over the reins of government and industry, and thus in hastening the dawn of, rather than in evolving, the Cooperative Commonwealth. And yet even in so far as the Socialist movement holds to the Marxian analyses, it is glaringly neglectful of its opportunities if it does not stress the greater efficiency of Socialism over Capitalism in material production. It is thus neglectful in both its tactics and its thought, both as a political movement and as a system of economic and politi- cal philosophy. With respect to its tactics, it ac- cepts as its duty and responsibility the education of the proletariat to the virtues of the Cooper- ative Commonwealth. It refuses to abandon the workers to the mercies of whatever education they might passively derive from the mere flow of events inevitably toward the Socialist state. But nothing could educate the still uneducated prole- tariat better than proof of the greater material productivity of Socialism over Capitalism. The Marxian believes that man acts predominantly SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION 11 from economic motives, so that the most effective method of enlisting the workers under the red flag would be to persuade them that under Social- ism there would be a greater abundance of ma- terial goods available to them than under Capital- ism. If the Marxian insists that the workers will and must be educated only through the scarcity of the material goods falling to their lot as the capitalist system develops, the answer is that the workers can best be made to realize that scarcity by contrasting it with the comparative material abundance to be expected as a Socialist system de- velops. Even for a Marxian Socialist movement, insistence upon the advantages of Socialism over> Capitalism for purposes of production thus woulcf be tactics as effective as justifiable. And in thought and philosophy, as well as in tactics and action, the compleat Marxian, of all persons, should be eager to prove that there would be greater abundance of material goods under Socialism than under Capitalism. For the key- stone of the Marxian arch is the economic inter- pretation of history. True, the Marxian interpre- tation of history is not to be described as a mere assertion of the predominance of economic or materialistic motives in human life. It asserts rather that each era of human history centers in- exorably around, and takes its cultural tone pri- marily from, the method of economic production and distribution current in that era. But cer- 12 THE LARGER SOCIALISM tainly with such an interpretation of history the predominance of materialistic motives is closely connected. It may not be logically connected as an exact corollary, but it would seem to be at least implied, and implied more than loosely. It would seem difficult to maintain that each era of human history centers around its method of eco- nomic production, and at the same time to deny 1 that each era of human history can serve itself best by adopting the method of economic produc- tion which in that era can most effectively meet the demand for economic or material goods. It is inconceivable that the Socialist commonwealth would supplant the capitalist state by the action of the working-class unless the working-class stood to obtain material improvement by the change. Accordingly, even if the Socialist movement were predominantly under the dictation of the Marxian analyses, its failure to concentrate much, if not most, of its fire upon the comparative in- efficiency of capitalist production would still be serious. But by this day and generation, the political Socialist movement, particularly in the United States, has begun to break with Marxism on one point after another. The 1920 Presidential platform of the Socialist Party of America, both in its statement of principles (program maximum) and in its immediate demands (program mini- mum), like its Congressional platform of 1918, is essentially revisionist. That is to say, it is more SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION 13 representative of "evolutionary" than of revolu- tionary or Marxian Socialism.- Iri the more recent decades since the Communist Manifesto, the Socialist movement, as a whole, has ceased to content itself with the generally negative indict- ment of the present-day structure of society which is involved in Marxism. As a whole, the Socialist movement no longer contents itself with indicting capitalism solely through the Marxian economic interpretation of history, explanation of crises, prophecy of the overwhelmingly accelerated con- centration of capital, forecast of the increasing misery and pauperization of the workers, predic- tion of the ultimate disappearance of the middle class, class struggle doctrine, labor theory of value and surplus value creed. And as reliance upon the all- sufficiency of the Marxian analyses wanes, the importance of considerations of pro- ductivity obviously waxes supreme. Yet despite this increasingly evident unwillingness to accept Marx as the sum and substance of the Law, the delver into the American Socialist movement is met by much material on the iniquities of Capital- ism and the virtues of Socialism in the distribution of wealth, but by an astounding paucity of sound discussion as to their comparative efficiency in the production of wealth. That paucity of dis- cussion is more than astounding; it is illuminat- ing. It irresistibly inclines the observer to con- clude that the Socialist movement in the United 14 THE LARGER SOCIALISM States has not yet thought its problem through, and has not yet fully appreciated the realities of the situation confronting it. For whether the advent of Socialism be con- sidered desirable because inevitable or inevitable because desirable, the Socialist can hurl against the capitalist system an indictment for inefficiency of production which, if emphasized and reiterated as the serious and fundamental nature of the in- dictment deserves and demands, might well prove to be Socialism's trump card. It is initially in the quality of its output that the capitalist system of production is weak and vulnerable. The capitalist system does not pretend to produce in order to satisfy needs; it produces solely to ac- quire profits. Where profits accompany the satis- faction of needs, well and good; where no profits accrue in satisfying needs, very regrettable, no doubt, but irremediable. The world may suffer because it has not sufficient houses and has more than sufficient silk shirts the capitalist system does not produce houses if there be no profit in the production of houses, and it continues to produce silk shirts if there be profit in the production of silk shirts. Or even if there be profit in the pro- duction of houses, houses are not produced if theYe' be greater profit in the production of silk shirts. Similarly, so long as transportation is furnished the nation according to the possibility of profits, so long will certain sections which need railroads SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION 15 be deprived of them just as there would be no Eural Free Delivery if the Postal System were a private profit-making and not a public service-ren- dering enterprise. And there is not only the pro- duction of relatively unessential goods and the lack of production of essential goods there is also the production of goods per se harmful, such as patent medicines, so long as profit accrues to them. Society's resources today are more than sufficient to supply honey to some after all have been supplied with milk ; but capitalism so utilizes those resources as to furnish honey as well as milk for some before it furnishes milk for all. There is not only capitalism's inefficiency in the kinds of commodities produced; there is also its inefficiency in its effect upon most of the human beings producing under it. Unless prevented by welfare legislation or by organization of the work- ers, it utilizes them in hours, kinds and surround- ing circumstances of labor which exhaust their energies prematurely. Where the task is of a nature to undermine the health of a human being engaged on it, although it might be performed also by machinery, the human being is kept at the task whenever it is cheaper to use him than to use a machine. If it be to the material profit of a steel mill to work men twelve hours a day, or in twenty- four hour shifts, or seven days a week, in un- skilled labor where a reduction of hours would produce an increased output from them relatively, 16 THE LARGER SOCIALISM but a decreased output absolutely, they are so worked. If workers can be obtained by paying wages so low as not to provide them with what are generally considered the mere decencies of life, they are so paid. If our present system of production had cared more deeply for the wel- fare of the nation as a whole than for the guaran- ty of profits to our few owners of property, the little children of the South would not have waited so long to be freed from the slavery of the cotton- mills, from which even now some of them have not yet been freed. Likewise, some of the horrors and the danger to our entire national stability from our negro problem would have been obviated by a greater willingness to provide respectable educational facilities for the negroes below the Mason and Dixon Line ; more generously to train them in and to provide them with methods of earn- ing a livelihood better than those now open to them ; and to remove from them many of the politi- cal and trade-union disabilities which make their present economic exploitation possible. Even if the worker be regarded merely as a factor in production and not as a human being, the capitalist system must plead guilty to using him inefficiently. As a mere machine, the worker would run more efficiently and in the sum total would produce more if capitalism could plan his years of service. I^ut capitalism cannot. It is organized for profits, for the highest possible SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION 17 profits and usually for profits quickly, not ulti- mately, realized. A few industries employing highly skilled labor may devote themselves to securing the maximum product from their work- men during the latter 's lifetime, secure in the probability that most of the workmen will spend their lifetime of labor in those plants; but such industries are exceptional in the capitalist system. Similarly exceptional, on the whole, are those workmen who are not thrust into industry too early in life and too untrained, who are not worked too long or too hard, who are not sub- jected to wasteful periods of unemployment, and who are not paid too low wages to guarantee that their total actual lifetime product will closely approximate their total potential lifetime product. Aside from the well-organized and skilled work- ers whose number is hardly above the 4,000,000, or 4,500,000 membership of the American Federa- tion of Labor and the few non- American Federa- tion of Labor unions the workers' potential re- sources of a lifetime are burned at both ends, and they are thrown on the scrap-heap years before an efficiently adjusted schedule of labor would dis- pense with their efforts. Especially rapid is the feeding of this human scrap-heap in those enter- prises which are not well regulated by uiiioniza- tiaiL^ unionization is weaker among the women than among the men; and it is the women whose 18 THE LARGER SOCIALISM strength should particularly be conserved for the welfare of the race. True, there is a steadily in* creasing amount of protective legislation for women, and for men in dangerous employments such as mining and match-making; but the fact remains that a systematically and nationally planned schedule of training for work, of voca- tional guidance, of wages, of regularization of industry, of housing, of recreation, for industry as a whole would see most workers produce far more in their allotted span than the capitalist sys- tem permits them to produce. In 1919 and part of 1920, the employers of labor complained aloud from the housetops of a short- age of labor. In 1919 and 1920, however, there were men in their graves who would have been alive, working, had it not been for the havoo wrought on them by the devastation of too long, too hard, too early-begun, too irregular, too poor- ly-paid labor. There were others alive, but unem- ployable, who might have been employable. There were still others employed and at work, whose work in neither quantity nor quality was what it might have been under a more systematic and longer-range direction of industry and of indus- try's labor force than the capitalist system, by its very essence, is able to undertake. There is not only this social inefficiency in capi- talism 's use of human material; there is also the inefficiency involved when many competing busi- SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION 19 ness enterprises perform similar tasks that could be more efficiently performed by the more special- ized processes of fewer non-competing, larger and more highly-monopolized business enterprises. Of course, the waste inherent in competition is most marked in the households of the land, with their thousands of individual adjacent kitchens and re- frigerators and furnaces and washboards. But there is also the inefficiency of parallel railroads with coal-burning locomotives, where a separate system of electrification for each road would be less economical, but where a central system of electrification for several roads would be more economical. There is the inefficiency of hauling coal a thousand miles to a locality which could be served by coal mined five hundred miles away if the coal mines of the land were nationalized into a single producing and distributing system. And there is the costly, inefficiency involved when the separate wagons of competing milk companies traverse the same streets ,of the same city, with the milk of one company transported from that com- pany's milk depot on the west of the city to serve streets in the east, at the same time that the milk of a rival company is being transported from the latter 's depot in the east of the city to serve streets in the west. There is not only this inefficiency in the rela- tions between our various business units; there is also the woeful inefficiency within a single busi- 20 THE LAEGER SOCIALISM ness unit in so far as it is engaged in a competitive field. Much of the effort of such a business unit is wasted in the mere process of gaining business from rivals, efforts which from the point of view of the ' maximum social production are doubly spendthrift. For not only might these efforts be utilized in increasing production, but also their expense is shifted to the consumer in the guise of increased cost of the commodities which are pro- duced. From the social point of view, it makes no difference which of a half-dozen brands of clothing or shaving-soap or automobile tires the public consumes. The money and effort spent by the clothing, shaving-soap and rubber companies in persuading the men of the nation to buy one brand of clothing, shaving-soap or automobile tire instead of another are money and effort squan- dered while they might be utilized in producing larger supplies of the same goods or other goods. Similarly, there is the waste of money and effort represented in our extensive corps of travelling salesmen. Outside of whatever truly useful serv- ice they render in making adjustments and in furnishing details and information which cannot well be handled at long distance, their time and upkeep go to the mere juggling of sales to one business unit instead of to another^ juggling which adds not a single cubit to the stature of the coun- try's supply of the goods thereby sold. There are not only these parasitical aspects of SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION 21 business enterprises whose efforts are otherwise socially useful ; there are also business enterprises which are wholly parasitical or even harmful. There are those advertising organizations which merely increase the expense of producing com- modities, by conducting campaigns for the pur- chase of one brand instead of .another. In so far as they relieve their clients from doing their own advertising, these organizations would fall under the category of the above paragraph ; but they do more. By solicitation they bring into existence advertising which without that solicitation would never be born. Much of this artificially-created advertising has the effect of keeping alive busi- ness units which would serve the community better by dying, because they do not produce as cheaply and efficiently as their rivals. Not only would the death of inefficient business units thus kept alive by artificial respiration release the whole market for the goods produced most efficiently and cheaply, but also the very increase in size thereby made possible for the more efficient plants would in many cases enable the latter to increase their size so as to produce even more efficiently, and thus to sell their goods even more cheaply. To an extent these advertising companies may often perform a real sp.rvico. in cringing a useful commodity before the public, ruch as safety razors at the time of their invention; but on the other hanpl they often inflict a real injury by inducing 22 THE LARGER SOCIALISM the purchase of luxuries, such as a new limousine when the old one might we! 1 have served for another year ; or by stimulating for a trip to Palm Beach the expenditure of money which might otherwise go to the relief of Vienna, where there die for the lack of a mere crust of bread thou- sands of children whose labor in the coming decades would be of priceless value in repairing the wreck of European industry and agriculture. Similarly, there are the lawyers who live by en- abling corporations to indulge in practises which injure the body social as much as they enrich the corporations a waste of much of the nation's best brain power; there are the stock-brokers whose chief effort lies in enabling respectable gamblers to buy and sell on margins, rather than in providing a market for necessary securities; there are the book-agents; there are the middle- men and jobbers who perform little or no indis- pensable service in facilitating the marketing of foodstuffs. There is not only this wasteful lack of guidance over the kinds of goods and the quantities of goods which the capitalist system produces ; there'is also the cleavage between the two antagonistic camps in business which the capitalist system accen- tuates. When the relations between Capital and Labor become so strained that they eventuate in a strike or a lockout, that strike or lockout spells far greater inefficiency than all the inefficiency al- SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PEODUCTION 23 leged for Government management or for work- ers' management in industry. An idle factory is the last word in futility, and a system which from time to time renders factories idle is the last word in a futile system. And even where the struggle of Labor to profit at the expense of Capital, and of Capital to profit at the expense of Labor, does not come into the open in the form of strikes and lockouts, it may and constantly does smoulder under the surface in the form of the least effort by Labor allowable (negative sabot- age), wastefulness, carelessness, and unnecessary 11 vacations" fronl work what the defenders of the present order call the refusal to give a full day's work for a full day's wage. Of course, it cannot be argued that the mere substitution of 'public for private capital in production means the complete end of strikes or of bad feeling be- tween employer and employee there is the ex- ample of the great strike on the French Govern- mental railways several years before the World War; and the present unorganized " outlaw" rail- way strike which is convulsing the United States as I write well might have been called several months previously, when the railroads were in the hands of the Government. Nevertheless, much of the recalcitrancy of Labor today is due to the fact that it is arrayed against private instead of public Capital the antagonism is often personal. For when Labor 24 THE LARGER SOCIALISM downs tools in an enterprise pertaining to the Government today, it is apt to feel that it is strik- ing in reality against private Capital. For such a Government enterprise is still the exception rather than the rule while most enterprises under that Government are still privately owned and still directed for private profit. It is another, and by no means the least, of the indictments against the 'capitalist system that under it such private enterprises have much to gain by controlling the political Government; and it is rarely that they are unable to resist the inducement. Where this business control of Government is not direct, it may function indirectly by creating in the Govern- ment, latterly largely through propagandizing of public opinion, a psychology favorable to the fortunes of the profit-makers. Often, of course, the business interests do not succeed in capturing the Government for their point of view, but they succeed often enough to preserve in Government Labor at present the feeling that in reality it is still capitalist Labor. The strikers on the French railways in effect were striking against capitalist employers ; and in the United States, the Govern- ment operation of the railways was so manifestly temporary, and so manifestly on terms favorable to the private owners of the railways, that even if a railway strike had been called, it could hardly have been fairly considered a strike against a truly governmental enterprise. SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION 25 There is not only the inefficiency of our scheme of producing; thore is also the ludicrous ineffi- ciency of the varying rate of speed at which most of our nidastry proceeds. There is little check upon over-production, there is little stimulation against under-production. Each business unit produces as it sees fit ; it naturally produces most lavishly when profits are most lavish ; when profits are most lavish in one eld, they are apt to be most lavish in all fields.; all business units are thus producing their maximum at the same time ; there is no check to prevent that maximum from becoming more than the world in normal times can consume ; hence one more factor works toward a business depression, and it is the country, not merely the worker, who suffers. And a country's economic extravagance in times of over-produc- tion can by no means balance its economic penury in times of under-production, any more than the hundred dollars which a man spends when his in- come is $10,000 yearly can balance the hundred dollars which he spends when his income is $3,000 yearly. , Furthermore, there is inefficient internal ir- regularity within many industries considered as individual industries the investigation of the re- cent soft coal strike proved that most of the miners were employed eight hours a day during certain months of the year and were almost in- variably "laid off" for other months of every 26 THE LARGER SOCIALISM year. In other industries, the working year is composed of periods of hectic overtime, normal hours and dully habitual stagnation a wasteful irregularity possible of mitigation in even the so- called " seasonal" industries. Again, there is nothing to prevent an industry from producing a limited supply of commodities at a large profit per unit instead of an extensive supply at a nominal profit per unit. Our economic proc- esses are as unguided as the appetite of a child who eats all five boxes of his Christmas candy at one sitting and then must spend the next day in bed. As against the inefficiency of this mode of pro- duction, inextricably inherent in the capitalist system, the Socialists would do well to dwell with the utmost insistence upon the cardinal point of efficiency in Socialist production. That point is the regularization of industry regularization of kind of output, of amount of output and of method of output. True, a certain degree of such regu- larization is possible to capitalist industry. The trade union movement will grow apace, and its checks upon the exploitation of the worker will become sterner. Welfare legislation will be ex- tended. Women will be protected more stringently. America may almost catch up to Europe in social insurance. The child labor limits will be raised and doubtless will be made national. Safety and sanitary regulations will be applied more strictly SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION 27 by law and by trade union pressure, and work- men's compensation will be expanded to cover most, if not all, industries. Minimum wages may cease to recognize sex distinctions. Some less rusty and creaking machinery than at present available may reduce the numb'er and extent of strikes and lockouts. The federal reserve bank- ing system and the private bankers, possibly with the cooperation of the leaders of big business, may impose some slight checks upon over-production , and some slight stimulus against under-produc- :ion. Competition conceivably will wane, and will be replaced by greater concentration, with in- creased efficiency, in industry ; and there well may be imposed limits upon the percentage of profits to be gained by private business. But even this highly sanguine program does not meet the main issue in efficiency of production as a Socialist program can meet it. Capitalism can- not compel its producers to move from the field of luxuries to the field of necessities if there be greater profit in luxuries than in necessities ; nor can it drive its producers to enter fields, how- ever essential to the public welfare, where there is no profit; nor can it impose upon its producers a ban on profitable over-production or a demand for unprofitable increase of production in periods of under-production. Under Socialism, on the other hand, production would be guided by the public need, not by profits. 28 To each individual would be guaranteed a return from his labor sufficient to supply him with at least the material necessities of life incident upon the maintenance of a socially useful standard of living. The demand for these necessities would then practically coincide with the need for them. ("Practically," and not entirely, because a thor- oughly wise expenditure of its income by the population could not be, as it ought not be, guar- anteed.) The Socialist state would then recog- nize as the first lien upon it the production and distribution of the necessities of life to the ex- tent to satisfy practically all the public needs for them. After having seen to the production and dis- tribution of the necessities of life, the Socialist state would turn to the semi-necessities. For the production of these, the amount of land, labor, capital and promoting and administrative skill left available might well demand consideration. The potential productivity immediately available, of course, would be increased by a number of fac- tors. Thus, the production of goods directly harm- ful, such as patent medicines, might be flatly for- bidden. Again, the land, labor, capital and organ- izing and administrative skill now utilized in com- petition between separate business units and with- in individual business units would largely become available for new positive and direct productivity. At all events, up to whatever point the Socialist SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION 29 state might conceive essentials, semi-essentials and even quasi-essentials to end, and non-essen- tials to begin, the state would be responsible for production. rt (In. practise, of course, it would be impossible ,to draw that line with any degree of dogmatism.) In addition, the producers of non- essentials would find it necessary or desirable to utilize much of the material evolving from Social- ist production of essentials for the printers and binders of de luxe editions, for instance, the leather from the state tanneries, supplied from the state slaughter-houses by hides from the cattle on the state ranches, as well as the paper pro- duced (perhaps on order) from the state paper mills supplied by the state forests, would prob- ably be found more economical than the privately produced leather and paper. On the state's side, the desirability of selling leather and paper to the private producers still existing, and even the per- mission to them to produce and to use leather and paper for and by themselves, would obviously de- pend upon the current plentifulness of, and free- dom from fear of future shortage in, leather and paper. The state industries of the cooperative common- wealth need not necessarily all become more highly centralized than certain of our big indus- tries at present. Thus it might prove more effi- cient to utilize the present more or less separate organizations of the United States Steel Corpora- 30 THE LARGER SOCIALISM tion, the Bethlehem Steel Company and Jones and Laughlin than to combine them. There might be centralization in certain aspects of buying ore and higher specialization in manufacturing cer- tain steel products ; but it might prove beneficial to the efficiency of the state industrial productivity under Socialism to encourage these separate steel organizations to compete with one another com- petition to see which could best serve the public, not best serve itself at the expense of the public. The problem of food distribution would certainly have to be met by machinery almost as decentral- ized as Mr. Hoover's Pood Administration dur- ing the World War, with its separate state food administrations. A similar system would prob- ably have to be followed by the state dry-goods and other retail stores. Probably chiefly in the ordering and purchase of raw materials would complete amalgamation and centralization of the various producing and distributing units in one branch of the largest-scale industry be found the most efficient and economical system. There could be no adamantine rule as to the extent to which higher monopolization and centralization than that at present obtaining under capitalism would be found more economical and the extent to which it would be found more costly. Only, each industry would be guided with an eye to its welfare in the future newsprint paper might be made even scarcer than at present in SOCIALISM AND QUALITY OF PRODUCTION 31 order that it might become more instead of less plentiful in the next generation. Each industry would be managed at that varying rate of pro- duction which in a given season would not glut the market with its products nor fail to satisfy its market's legitimate demands. In addition, there would be correlative guidance between industry and industry a bad corn crop in one year would see more land turned over to corn next year, pos- sibly at the expense of tobacco ; and manufactures would be speeded several months before the great harvest season and depressed during the great need for harvest labor and for freight-cars, so as to ensure for society the maximum agricultural acquisition from the crops available for acquisi- tion. Finally, the state would conduct new enter- prises which would promote the public welfare, even though it would prove impossible for them to meet their material expenses the Eural Free Delivery principle applied, for instance, to the construction of railroads, or of gas and electricity plants, or of sewerage systems, or of hospitals, in sparsely-settled regions. CHAPTER H. SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OP PRODUCTION. To an extent, but only to an extent, the Co- operative Commonwealth can eat its cake and have it, too. To an extent, it can lower the num- ber of its hours of labor without temporarily lowering 1 production and increase wages with- out temporarily heightening the cost of commodi- ties. For example, during the World War a ten- hour day in the British manufacture of munitions gave forth fewer and poorer munitions than the. eight-hour day not only fewer munitions per hour, but fewer in sum total. Great Britain similarly discovered that the munitions output of a seven-day week and a fifty-two-week year proved itself lower and poorer than the output of a six- day week and a fifty-week year, again not only relatively, but absolutely. There was nothing un- precedented in this discovery. Many a private manufacturer has found a decrease, voluntary or involuntary, in his plant's working-hours an aid, not a hindrance, to output. No element of pro- duction wreaks havoc comparable to that wrought by sabotage, and fatigue is a prime saboteur of industry. 32 SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 33 But there are nonetheless limits upon the gains in production, or lack of losses in production, to be realized by the elimination of fatigue. Such limits may seldom be clearly indicated, and they may vary markedly from industry to industry, but they.are still real and potent. We laugh out of court the irate defender of the status quo ante bellum in industry who insists that the chief fac- tor in the present increased cost of living has been the extension of trade unionism, with the conse- quent reduction of the working-hours of Labor. But we should no less insistently laugh out of court the optimistic Socialist who would deny that the reduction of working-hours has constituted one of the factors in the high cost of living. It is not a question of defending that reduction of hours as helpful to the well-being of the community, or of arraigning it as harmful. It is a question of finding other fathers to our thoughts than wishes, and of admitting that only in exceptional indus^ tries today would a radical reduction of hours at once provide increased production absolutely so well as relatively ; or even fail to cause for a time definite decline in absolute (though not in rela- tive) production. x Such exceptional industries for the greater part would fall into two categories. The first would comprise those in which the work is so delicate that the slightest deviation from the norm, such as that caused by the worker's involuntary relax- 34 THE LARGER SOCIALISM ation of his attention, renders the product useless. In this category would be included munitions manufacture and similar undertakings, relatively few in number. Indeed, so few are such under- takings, and so small are their products in com- parison with the total output of an industrial na- tion like the United States, that a Socialist state would probably be little aided by the fact that a reduction of hours would not cause decreased pro- duction in such industries. In the second category would fall such indus- tries as work their employees at so terrific a speed, or still for so abnormally long hours, that the end of the work-day finds them subject, not merely to normal fatigue, but to abnormally intense fa- tigue. For although the elimination of normal fatigue by reduction of hours can usually be re- lied upon to effect an increase in output relatively, the fatigue of the worker must be abnormally in- tense before its elimination will provide an in- crease in his output absolutely so well as rela- tively. And with all due agreement with those who excoriate the effect of our present-day productive processes upon the minds and bodies of those en- gaged in them, it must be admitted that most of our industries today hardly fall within this cate- gory. Large stretches of the iron and steel in- dustry, and probably most of the manufacturing industries of the South, yes; but although the eight-hour day may not yet have become the rule SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 35 in the United States, yet on the whole the twelve- hour day has also become the exception. For instance, the report of the Commissioner of Labor of the state of Michigan for the year 1918 gives the average number of work-hours in the factories and workshops of that state for that year, as found by some 15,600 inspections, as 53.7 per week for men in offices and 54.2 per week for men in all other factory and workshop labor. The average hours worked weekly by women was 49.8. (Michigan limits by law the number of hours worked by women to 54 per week and 10 per day.) In the city of Detroit, where it is true that working conditions would probably be found less onerous than in most other large cities of the country, more than 3,000 inspec- tions showed 49.1 hours per week as the average for men office-workers, 53.2 hours per week for all other male employees in factories and workshops, and 48.9 for the women workers. And, on the whole, the daily hours of labor in most localities probably tended slightly to decrease in 1919 in comparison with 1918. Now, although any generalizations on the rela- tion between length of work-day and quantity of workers' output in industry largely remain mere opinion, yet it will probably be agreed that it is the twelve-hour day from which reductions would effect increased output absolutely j and that reductions f rom the eight-hour day, although ef- 36 THE LARGER SOCIALISM f ecting an increased output per hour, would cause a decreased total output. So that even the most optimistic Socialist must be prepared to discover that if in industry as a whole the Cooperative Commonwealth reduces daily hours from twelve to ten, the output may improve in absolute quan- tity; that from ten to eight, there is at least the possibility that it will decline in absolute quantity; and that if the Cooperative Commonwealth fulfills its "promise of affording its workers less than eight hours of work per day, there is a strong probabil- ity that the total amount of output will decrease. And that decrease would persist until such time as the long-range efficiency of shorter hours upon the total lifetime serviceability of the worker could make its force felt. A- Socialist administration would probably be entitled to felicitations if it discovered that in most industries a 20% reduc- tion in hours below eight per day for the first years resulted in only a 10% reduction in total output. In the case of the farmer, the reduction of out- put due to shortening of hours might even be found more than temporary. Many of the cir- cumstances now lowering the potential lifetime output of the worker in industry do not operate upon the agriculturist. Furthermore, the in- evitable isolation of the farmer renders him, even in a Socialist state, less susceptible to such gen- eral communal factors in raising his total pro- SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 37 ductivity as longer schooling and better health facilities. At least in the immediate future, there seems to be every indication that agriculture will continue to be pursued largely as an individual task, and will not follow the path of highly con- centrated and specialized industrial development. Under such circumstances, the farmer will pro- duce less if he works less. But the farmer's work- day must be materially shortened in a Socialist state. Even if he did not insist, or did not effec- tively insist, on sharing in the general shortening of the work-day resulting from the advent of So- cialism, no Socialist Government could deem itself sincerely solicitous for the entire community's well-being if it did not voluntarily provide for a generous lightening of the lead of the present sunrise-to-sunset work-day of the agricultural population. Otherwise, this loss in productivity, as previous- ly indicated, might in all fairness not be expected to last beyond a generation. Or, at least, in all fairness it might be expected to begin to disappear after a generation. But for a temporary period, a Socialist state would have to reckon with it. For by the essence of Socialism any Socialist ad- ministration is in duty bound, and almost im- mediately upon arriving in power,' to reducd work- ing-hours below those now in force over the broad, general field of industry. Only let such Socialist administration effect such reduction with its eyes 38 THE LARGER SOCIALISM open. Let it appreciate that for a period the re- sulting decrease in the output of essentials will have to be met, and can be met only by utilizing more workmen in the production of them. Such an increase in the labor force should be available for diversion into the essential and quasi- essential industries as a result of the elimination of most of the socially- wasteful activities and en- terprises of the capitalist system. Immediately available should be most of the Labor now en- gaged in the parasitic enterprises which would be discontinued almost at the outset of a Socialist ad- ministration. Connected with this new source of supply of workers would be that released by the discontinuance of the purely competitive and parasitic aspects of enterprises otherwise not to be classed as competitive and parasitic. And so interwoven and ramified is all our industry in the twentieth century that such economy of labor in certain fields has the effect of ensuring economy of labor in almost all fields. For instance, the elimination of our competitive advertising will eliminate a part of the labor used in setting type for advertisements, in plating the type, in making the paper on which such advertisements are printed, in cutting the wood from the pulp of which such paper is manufactured, in painting the sign-boards used to display such advertisements, in manufacturing the paint for such sign-boards and so forth. Moreover, there should be the SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 39 saving in labor-supply due to the sharp decrease in the number of strikes and lockouts. Also, there will be the seepage of the leisure class into the ranks of the workers ; for perhaps the least dis- putable act of a Socialist state would be a fairly rigid application of the "no work, no eat" prin- ciple and, Soviet or no Soviet, a quite rigid appli- cation of the "no work, no vote" principle. As a feature of this last consummation will be included the transfer into active industry of a large number of middle-class and upper-class women from their light, and more or less socially dispensable, efforts in the household. True, this problem will be shot through and through with many factors rendering legislation on the sub- ject open to great antagonism, difficult of realiza- tion, and still more difficult of enforcement. But it . is inconceivable that public opinion under Socialism should tolerate to the extent that public opinion now tolerates the economic dependence of woman on man through the mere fact of mar- riage, as it has now in many cases reached the point of refusing to tolerate the economic de- y pendence of man on woman merely through that fact. Even where the married woman performs a modicum of necessary labor in the household, public opinion will become less tolerant than at present of a woman's expenditure of some fifty dollars a week as her share of the family's expen- 40 THE LARGER SOCIALISM s diture while she renders service obtainable from others for some ten or fifteen dollars a week. Moreover, the general impetus toward stand- ardization, centralization and voluntary coopera- tion inherent merely in the predominance of the Socialist philosophy will tend to professionalize and at the same time to lighten the burdens, and thus the hours, of household service. This source of increase in the volume of the available labor force will naturally be checked by the presence of small children in marriage, but such check might prove inconsiderable. In the first place, the in- crease of economic well-being guaranteed by Socialism will tend to make child-bearing occur earlier in marriage, and thus will free women from the care of small children earlier than at present. And in the second place, one of the prj^ie duties and most far-reaching services of a Socialist state would be the extension of education, by means of pre-kindergarten classes and community creches public or privately cooperative to the years preceding those at which the child now leaves the mother's care for the public kindergarten or the first grade of the public elementary school. However, it is at least possible that this new supply of labor available for the production of essentials and quasi-essentials would not be suffi- cient to make up the loss in their total volume due to a considerable shortening of the work-day. This possibility holds particularly in view of the SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 41 . inevitable delay in fitting men trained to one kind of business to function efficiently in another kind. Under such circumstances, an additional supply of workers for the more essential industries may have to be provided at the expense of other fields of endeavor. Those other fields of endeavor V would probably be two in number. The first would be the production of the goods which are less es- sential, but which are hardly to be classed as lux- uries. The second would be the socially remuner- ative but financially unrenaunerative Rural Free Delivery or Free Libraries type of Government activity planned .on so extensive a scale by most Socialists. Logically, there would be little question as to which of these two fields could best be penalized, even temporarily, for the sake of the protection of essentials. Society would thrive better by cutting down its supply, of non-essentials and continuing in operation its social welfare endeavors, if reason were to be followed. But man is far from being a reasoning animal. Even in a Socialist state he is apt to prefer non-essentials which he enjoys to welfare efforts which may be more beneficial to him, but which do not furnish him positive and direct enjoyment. He is apt, more than apt, to "abandon a system which denies him mere pleas- ures in favor of essentials for one which furnishes him mere pleasures at the expense of essentials. Man wants his tobacco and woman wants her 42 THE LAEGER SOCIALISM t candy although in the year of our Lord one thou- sand nine hundred twenty-one it might be more exact to say that both men and women want their tobacco and their candy. There can be no guar- antee that they will not prefer their tobacco and candy to more frequent trains and to cheaper books, if choose they must. There can even be little confidence that they may not prove so illogi- cal as to prefer an eight-hour work-day with to- bacco and candy to a seven-hour work-day with- out tobacco and candy. True, a dictatorship of the proletariat might deny them the right to choose, imposing the logi- cal choice on them ; for, at least in Eussia, the dic- tatorship of the proletariat seems to imply the dictatorship of that portion of the proletariat which understands what is good for the entire pro- letariat. But there is now at hand little evidence to indicate that Socialism is destined to arrive, at least in Anglo-Saxon countries, by the Russian path. Accordingly, a Socialist state of the nature herein under consideration could remain in power only by satisfying, as well as benefiting, the great majority of the community. And the Social- ist state therefore would do well, especially in its earliest period of administration, to swell the ranks of Labor in the essential industries as little as possible at the expense of the industries pro- ducing goods which render enjoyment, if not great service, to the man in the street even SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 43 though thereby the prosecution of some of the new social welfare activities would have to be curtailed or postponed. As it is, much, if not most, of the procedure ab- solutely essential to the efficient administration of the Cooperative Commonwealth will run counter to some of the most trenchant prejudices of the man in the street. Those are the prejudices against interference by the state in the daily rou- tine of the^ individual life. They exist even where such interference manifestly functions for the material and spiritual benefit of the individual. Dispute as to whether such prejudices are helpful or detrimental to the organization of the Great Society is beyond the point here, although he would be indeed a staunch defender of the older paternalistic Socialism who would not find in their existence a sanguine promise of the richer blossoming of the independent hu- man spirit. The point is, they exist. To an ex- tent, they exist innately; to a great extent, they have been assiduously cultivated by what con- tinues to be, in spite of some legislative attacks upon it, our political and economic laissez-faire ideology. Under great emotional stress, the man in the street may be persuaded to acquiesce without much grumbling at the curtailment of the pleas- ures to which he has accustomed himself. He so acquiesced, on the whole, during the World War. 44 THE LARGER SOCIALISM He may so acquiesce in the general burst of fervor which doubtless will environ the advent of a Socialist administration. Certainly, he would so acquiesce, if he were a true proletarian, denied most of the essentials of existence, which would fall to his lot when the state seriously curtailed the production of non-essentials. But in the Marxian denotation and connotation of the word^ the proletarians in the United States distinctly do not comprise the bulk of the population. What there is of our proletariat is composed very large- ly of our foreign-born, and in the United States the foreign-born wield less influence than even that to which their numerical strength entitles them. Our naturalization pVocedure serves to dis- enfranchise some of them; a large proportion of the remainder are swayed by religious affiliations to a somewhat greater degree than are tlje native- born; and all of them are subjected to the an- tagonism of the consciousness-not-of-our-kind which seems to have permeated America so deeply of late, and which hinders. the legitimate exercise of political, social and economic power by the for- eign-born, particularly when they attempt to exer- cise that power through the Socialist movement. The conclusion, then, soems to be clearly indi- cated. They Socialist movement woi(M do well to moderate its ultimate program and its campaign promises to the electorate; regarding the reduc- tion of the work-hours to be anticipated at the SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 45 outset of a Socialist administration. The Social- ist movement will serve itself better by postponing its fruition for a few years through such moder- ation than by proving unable completely to ful- fil promises on which it might probably ^ide more quickly to power. Of course, an attempt" might be made statistically to set a limit to the reduction of working-hours possible to a Socialist state, along ^with other economic limits upon the realization of the Socialist economic program. Such an inter- esting attempt has been recently made by Pro- fessor Boucke. But into such a study there enter so many factors difficult to evaluate that there can be no assurance that it would prove more reliable than the attempts of economists before August 1, 1914, to chart the amount of wealth which Europe would find it possible to expend upon an interna- tional war without becoming bankrupt. A con- servative Socialist writer may hence be forgiven if he hazards a mere guess that for the first years of a Socialist administration it may well prove im- practicable to fix IPSS than seven hours of work per day as the norm; and that ilie chances favor the possibility of fixing them at six per day little more than they favor the necessity of fixing them at eight. In passing, it should not be forgotten that this situation should be but temporary. The necessity for this limitation on the production of the non- essentials, but more particularly on the function- 46 THE LARGER SOCIALISM ing of the Rural Free Delivery and social wel- fare type of state activity under Socialism, should not be long-lived. After a generation, a new sur- plusage of Labor should make itself available. For after a generation, the average worker's pro- ductivity should be enormously increased over that of today by freeing him from abnormal fatigue, over-long hours, too early entrance into industry, lack of vacations necessary for bodily and mental recuperation, inadequate medical treatment, bad housing, ill-nourishing food, scanty and unscientific training for task. After a gen- eration, the Socialist state accordingly should be in a position to shorten working-hours more radi- cally than at its inception, to promote a greater number of wide-spread welfare activities, and to extend to a much greater scale the serviceable but financially unprofitable features of its industries. It should be then that the full richness of the promise of the Socialist ideal might begin to ap- proximate fulfilment. Incidently, the temporary delay in its complete fulfilment which has thus seemed to be inevitable may well prevent the mass of the people during that delay from appreciating all the potential benefits of Socialism. Wisely or foolishly, most persons would probably expect a radical improve- ment in their lot without delay. The electorate in the United States has proved itself notoriously callous to pleas to await the blessing? of the SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 47 \ i future, and unwilling to grant to an innovation a reasonable length of time in which to justify itself. Joined to the other factors, material and imma- terial, sordid and sincere, which will be operative to overthrow the Socialist state almost as soon as it should be born, this factor may well prove ser rious. At all events, it probably furnishes a most cogent, and not infrequently heard, argument for those Socialists who maintain that Socialism can- not be achieved and stabilized, even in Anglo- Saxon countries, without a temporary benevolent despotism in the guise of a dictatorship. Discussion as to the supply of natural and ma- terial resources available for the productivity of a Socialist state would closely parallel the pre- ceding discussion on hours of labor. Here again the Cooperative Commonwealth will discover that beyond a certain limit it cannot eat its cake and have it, 'too. Even the Cooperative Common- wealth cannot produce a greater amount of essen- tial goods without utilizing a greater amount of raw materials. And with the recent squandering of our natural resources, the Commonwealth can-, not utilize a greater amount of raw materials in one field without decreasing the amount available for other fields. Postponement in the full and completely effi- cient use of society's natural and material re- 48 THE LARGER SOCIALISM sources at a Socialist state's advent may thus be demanded no less sternly than postponement in the full and completely efficient use of society's labor-power. For in recent decades the world has paid less heed to the replacement of its natural resources than even the wasteful nature of capital- ist production warranted. It has rendered its shortage of material resources far more crippling than it need have been rendered; and especially spendthrift of nature's wealth were the four and one-half years of international warfare. A Social- ist state, therefore, in order to function produc- tively in accord with the true principles of social collectivism, would have to clamp down on some of its possible immediate use of materials in pro- duction so as to provide nature as long a breath- ing-space as possible in which to recuperate and to replenish our stock of raw materials. Indeed, indications are many that much of our present scarcity of raw materials and of other material resources will continue to weigh heavily upon production for some years to come. If it does, the predicament of a Socialist movement which may have jumped into the saddle during that period mil be a sore one. It will be expected to increase production, to increase it consider- ably and to increase it immediately. But to meet that expectation, it vill be faced by the necessity of increasing production only through continuing to utilize material resources which for the sake SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 49 of increased productivity in the future should be at once conserved. If a Socialist administration should yield to that temptation, its day of reckon- ing might be postponed, but would hang over it as menacingly as the sword of Damocles. Sooner or later the sword would fall, and with it would fall the Socialist hopes. Nothing may succeed like success, but nothing fails like failure. On the other hand, if a Socialist administration should not yield to that temptation, it may grievously dis- appoint the hopes wliieli have been rested in it. If those hopes have been artificially stimulated be- yond warrant, again indications are that the Socialist administration will fall. Every Social- ist who would think his problem through would therefore do well to recognize that again cau,tion in picturing the blessings of Socialism is de- manded. And he would similarly do well to recog- nize that it is by no means beyond the realm of probability that a Socialist state will finally achieve stability only after having been tried and at least once found wanting. Finally, mention of sufficient supply of goods in- volves some mention of wages. Discussion of the relation between wages and cost of commodities also would probably follow the same general lines as discussion of the relation between hours of labor and quantity of output. For, without the presence of other counteracting factors, and un- less previous wages have been abnormally low 50 THE LARGER SOCIALISM far lower than, on the whole, they are, even in purchasing power, in the United States today wages cannot be considerably raised without rais- ing the cost of commodities. It would be as pat- ently illogical to maintain that the wage-increases of the past five years have not constituted one of the causes of the price-increases of that period as to maintain that they have constituted the sole cause. True, the effect of higher wages, as of lower hours, should be ultimately to raise the level of the workers' productivity; but as in the case of the labor-force available to the com- munity, that consummation may have to wait a generation for its large realization. Without the presence of counteracting factors, the Co- operative Commonwealth will discover, in the problem of wages as in the problem of hours and material resources, a limit beyond which it cannot eat its cake and have it, too. But in the matter of wage-increases, such a counteracting factor will be present. It will be the elimination of the almost incredibly high boosts given to the retail^ selling-prices of com- modities today by the capitalist system's method* of transferring them from the first producer to the ultimate consumer. It may seriously be doubted if the profit realized by the actual pro- ducer, even where it is indefensibly high, plays a leading role in the final cost of most commodities. At least, in most production the percentage of SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 51 the actual selling-price chargeable against profits, even including interest on private capital and rental of land, ranks far below the percentage of selling-price chargeable against labor and the cost of raw materials. It is when commodities have once left the hands of their primary producers that in most cases the orgy of profit-taking gets well under way. Investigations and findings of our Federal Trade Commission have familiarized the public with the outrageous percentage of profits recently realized by the retailer in the marketing of shoes, for example. But there are many indications that the retail merchants of most other commodities realize a profit percentage almost as large as, or at least one-half, that of the shoe dealers. There is also much evidence that even in pre-war days there was an un- justifiably high percentage of profit normally realized by our retailers and loaded on to the purchaser in the shape of heightened prices. In addition to the increase of prices from this source, there is that due to the profits realized by the various types of middlemen and jobbers, inso- far as their efforts are dispensable without sub- stantial injury to the processes of marketing goods efficiently. Even where their efforts are hardly thus dispensable without substantial loss of ef- ficiency they often may be replaced in a Socialist system by distributing departments of the state producing industries, operating at cost instead of 52 THE LARGER SOCIALISM at profit. And there are other promising and promised economies possible to tho distribution of goods when it is handled by the state. Among them is the elimination of much rental by the utilization of public buildings vacant for certain portions of the day or at certain times of the year, such as armories, schoolhouses and courthouses. Similarly, there is available for use in state distri- bution of goods from the producer to the consumer much state-owned land, not only parks, but also streets that may without loss be closed to traffic for certain periods of the day, and military camps, -forts and reservations. The consequent savings from all these sources should result in a much closer approximation of the final selling-cost to the original production-cost of most commodities than now obtains. Without attempting to chart these factors statistically, it may safely be claimed that there is at least healthy promise that these tendencies to lower the general price-level of com- modities in a Socialist state may counterbalance the tendency to raise the price-level inherent in a wide-spread and substantial increase of wages. Or, to put the statement in other words, the wage- increases which must bo fulfilled bv a Socialist ad- ministration soon after its accession to power may result without raising the previous money-rate jof wages, but by lowering the cost of commodities to the wage-earner, and thus raising the actual purchasing power of his wages. SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 53 However, lest it be feared that the contemplated increase of production under Socialism may prove to be theoretically demonstrable rather than actually realizable, let us postulate that the factors tending to increase Socialist production will be balanced by factors tending to decrease it, so that the amount of production and hence the total national income will remain the same under Socialism as urder capitalism. For the year 1918, Professor B. M. Anderson, Jr., economist of the Chase National Bank, has estimated the total national income of the United States to be $73,- 400,000,000. Professor Friday's estimate is $72,000,000,000. Another estimate of our national income for 1918 now being carefully made tenta- tively places it at at least $70,000,000,000. By sheer division, that amount would afford to each individual American, adult or child, an annual in- come of about $700 annually; and thus to each mythical average family of man, wife and three children an annual income of $3500 in 1918. Re- membering that about one-half of the people of the United States live in rural districts, where the cost of living is appreciably lower than in the non-rural districts, that sum is equivalent to $3000 annually for rural families and $4000 annually for urban families in 1918.^> But even the strongest Socialist critic of the present inequitable distribution of wealth under capitalism does not anticipate that a Socialist 54 THE LARGER SOCIALISM state would be able to distribute the national income almost equitably. It is generally agreed in most Socialist circles that the different grades of wages in return for different grades of work under Socialism may have to vary considerably. In this connection, it must be remembered that the elimination of our higher incomes would en- tail the elimination of our present most prolific source of payment of income taxes. The tax rate imposed on the lower incomes would then have to be materially raised. It might be objected that by the time of the advent of a Socialist state the tax burden of the country, at present due largely to our participation in the World "War, would be greatly lightened. But on the other hand it would be greatly increased by the cost of the various new social welfare and Rural Free Delivery type of Government enterprises, some of which a Socialist administration, no matter how conservative, would be compelled to undertake. Moreover, all of the national income cannot be used for con- sumption. A share of it must be saved in order to provide for increased capital equipment. However, even allowing for considerable re- ductions from the $3000 annual income for rural families and $4000 annual income for urban fami- lies, it yet seems possible to guarantee a minimum family income sufficient to maintain a wholesome, socially-useful and even happiness-producing standard of living. The purport of these figures SOCIALISM AND QUANTITY OF PRODUCTION 55 for a working-class family will perhaps best be appreciated by comparing them with union scales of wages. In 1918, according to the reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average union scale for bricklayers in the thirty-nine most im- portant industrial centers in the United States was $.80 an hour for a forty-four hour week. For employment without a day off and without over- time, this is at the rate of $1830 annually. And union bricklayers are among the highest-paid of even the skilled workers. As for 1920, the annual income of a union brick- layer working without one day's vacation or one hour's overtime, according to the minimum union scale of May 15, 1920, was about $2600. But the value of the dollar in June, 1918, was from 30 per cent to 40 per cent higher than in June, 1920. Hence $3000 annual income and $4000 annual in- come in 1918 would have equaled in purchasing power incomes of from $3900 to $5600 annually in 1920. The value of the dollar being about 12 per cent higher in June, 1918, than in June, 1919, $4000 annually would have been equivalent to about $4500 in June, 1919. And the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated that the annual budget necessary to maintain a family of five in Washington, D. C., ' ' at a level of health and decency," at the market prices prevailing in Au- gust, 1919, was $2260 annually. Thus it appears 66 THE LARGER SOCIALISM that if through conservatism both in promising and in accomplishing reduction of hours and wages, a Socialist administration should keep production in itslirst years at the same volume as previously, there should be possible a note- worthy improvement in the material fortunes of the great bulk of ihe populace. That even if pro- duction should slightly decrease, general material well-being could still be assured. And that if sooner or later the Socialist mode of production should increase to any marked extent the total national wealth and the total national income, the possibilities of improved material well-being and facilities for leisure for the bulk of the people seem well-nigh limitless. CHAPTER HI. 4 SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM, THE weightiest of the factors playing upon efficiency of production, however, has yet to be considered. That is the attitude of the worker to his work. It is not the staunch Socialist, but the staunch capitalist, who admits, or rather charges, that Labor renders more valuable service in six hours of work performed with a lusty willingness than in eight hours performed reluctantly and surlily. The good-will of the workers affects not only the kind and the extent of the output. It affects also the presence or the absence of econ- omies about the workshop or the store, the strict {abolition of waste, the willingness to consider sug- gestions for improved methods and the invention of new devices. And it is by no means the least serious of the indictments levelled by Socialism against capitalism that und^r the capitalist system this good-will of the workers can seldom operate in industry. So Jong as the workers' role is mere- ly that of selling their labor to the owners and managers of industry, so long will they withhold enthusiasm and willingness trom that labor. The defenders of the capitalist system are prone to 57 68 THE LARGER SOCIALISM insist that untrammeled initiative, attention to de- tails and hostility to administrative inefficiency are not poured forth by the individual business man when he no longer " works for himself" under the inducement of profits. They must then admit that neither will these qualities be poured forth by the workers when the workers, in spite of their strategic importance in the process of production, still occupy a subordinate position in the control of industry. It is more than a matter of sharing in the gen- eral well-being of the industry, more than a mat- ter of better wages for better work. Of this, the failure of elaborate systems of profit-sharing and welfare work to eradicate the economic class- sullenness of the workers is all the evidence and proof necessary. Even a grudging share in the minor management of individual business units has failed to stir the whole-hearted enthusiasm of Labor for its job. Some of the more advanced trade unions in the United States, such as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, arrived during the War at a position where in practise they shared in the minor management of industry, but it was still only minor management, and the joie de travailler could not thus be promulgated among them. For the answer, one must, of course, turn to human nature and to the newer psychology's analysis of human nature. For good or ill, man is so constituted that he works most unwillingly SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 59 when he is working, not for himself, but for another. Only when Labor can feel that it is not working for Capital, but is its own owner and its own director of its own destiny in its own indus- try, only then will Labor render the best service of which it is capable. True, another of the factors playing upon this problem must be heeded in this connection. Human nature is a complex and tangled skein of motives, and man possesses an instinct of work- manship no less than an instinct of independence. He takes joy in viewing the product of his hands and head, and in pronouncing it good; and under those circumstances he will often perform the best work of which he is capable, even under an alien master and for an alien owner. In many of our highly skilled trades, where specialization cannot well be operative to so high a degree as in industry as a whole, such as fine jewelry and lithographing, the worker often renders his best service through the sheer joy of craftsmanship. But such trades are the exception, rather than the rule. Moreover, they are constantly growing scarcer. Not only is industry for the greater part becoming increasingly specialized, but also handicraft work is yielding more and more to the inroads of new machinery. Retracing the steps we have taken on the road'to specialization and machine industry seems to be impossible, atj; least for the immediate future. The inevitable 60 THE LAEGEB SOCIALISM result of such retrogression would be a sharp de- cline in the amount of output, and such a decline would be fatal to social progress, with society's present needs in the way of material production. Perhaps after several generations of Socialism, production may become so proficient and so pro- lific that a return to a large measure of handi- craft work would be possible. Several genera- tions of Socialism may so cheapen the cost of production, so magnify the quantity of output, and so lower the daily hours of labor that society can afford to absorb a more expensive mode of production, a less plentiful output and an aug- mented work-day in return for the thrill which will possess its workers in a fuller satisfaction of their instinct of workmanship. But in view of the preceding discussion on the problems of produc- tion confronting a Socialist state, profound scep- ticism as to the early practicability of such a pro- gram may not seem unwarranted. Indeed, if the United States has been accurately informed of the later development of the guild socialist movement in England, guild socialism has abandoned much of the emphasis it originally had laid upon a return to the productive processes of the William Morris craftsmen, the eighteenth century domestic workers and the medieval guild master, workmen and apprentices. By the exi- gencies of modern industry, most national guilds- men seem to have been compelled, reluctantly, but SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 61 inexorably, to admit that the days when individ- ual workmen fashioned most, if not all, of their product themselves are for the present irrevoca- ble. They now seem to put their appeal chiefly on a group, rather than on an individual, basis. Most national guildsmen now are understood to maintain that only through the guild socialistic organization of the state will Labor as a class, not the individual laborer except as a member of this class, develop the spirit of good-will and en- thusiasm for its task which spells not only the maximum happiness of Labor, but also the maxi- mum efficiency of production as an entirety. For guild socialism indicts Socialism no less than capitalism. To the national guildsman, the Socialist remedy for capitalism's failure to en- list the full interest of the worker in his job also spells failure. The Socialist remedy, of course, especially before the World War, was the Govern- ment operation as well as ownership of important industry. The Government would be the work- ers, so that Government ownership and operation of industry would be workers' ownership and operation of industry. But, as the guild sin an per- tinently suggests, it is by no means axiomatic "that, even under Socialism, the Government will be the workers. At least, it is not axiomatic that the Government will be the workers to such an extent, and in so readily transfer- able a technique of administration, that a So- 62 THE LARGER SOCIALISM cialist Government will ipso facto constitute workers' control and ownership of industry. If Socialism had remained Marxism, doubtless the guild socialist indictment would have lost much of its pertinence. For the Marxian analyses called for a revolution with proletariat pitted against bourgeoisie. Although eventually all would be proletarians, yet an interval would en- sue in which bourgeois would persist before be- coming completely proletarianized, and in which they would necessarily have to be suppressed. The class alignment would thus also persist for a period, and^he Socialistic Government might thus be trusted to function as a purely proleta- rian Government. But since revisionist Socialism is predominant over Marxism in Anglo-Saxon lands, plans for evolution are predominant over plans for revolu- tion; and a Socialist Government cannot function as a class Government so rigidly as to assure the workers in Government industry that they will be- come overnight the masters of their own industrial destiny. The guildsman points to state capitalism, or state socialism, during the "War as evidence that the state as owner and manager may prove little improvement, if, indeed, not a deterioration, upon the individual capitalist or the capitalist corpora- tion as owner and manager. Accordingly, his solu- tion of a dual state, organized both for consump- tion and for production, presents many allure- SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 63 ments. Under guild socialism, the worker as an individual, that is, as a consumer, would owe al- legiance to political bodies organized for con- sumption. In distribution, as in police power, coinage and foreign relations, the political bodies would reign supreme. 'But the worker as a worker, that is, as a producer, would owe allegiance to the guild or union in that particular industry which claimed him. In that industry, the guild would reign supreme, and the central congress of guilds would reign supreme in industry as a whole. The worker in each industry would thus be subject to the control of only his fellow-work- ers in that industry, instead of to the control of a central political state presumably representing the entire citizenry. Labor as Labor would thus be independent of outside control, and would con- ceivably bring to its task a good-will and en- thusiasm not obtainable when it would be work- ing for the political state, of which it might be only a minor, vaguely-defined and comparatively uninfluential element. (It should be added that the most recent authoritative guild socialist thought tends more and more to limit this sov- ereignty of the guilds, even in industry, in favor of community control; and that one of the most prominent spokesmen of the national guilds idea looks forward to the death, through atrophy, of the political state as at present organized. In- deed, it is difficult to appraise the guild idea un- 64 THE LARGER SOCIALISM derstandingly because of differences of opinion among its exponents on vital issues; frequent change in position ; and confessed lack of definite- ness on many points concerning the organization of a guild socialist state.) ^ Extended analysis of the guild idea as applied to conditions in the United States would doubtless be superfluous, if not impertinent. For not only has guild socialism, in its present form, been evolved primarily in Great Britain to meet Brit- ish conditions it also will probably receive its first application, if it receives any application, in Great Britain long before an application in the United States will be possible. For, industrially, Labor is far more extensively and effectively or- ganized in Great Britain than in the United States, and politically it is ably organized in the British Labor Party. "While in the United States the American Federation of Labor is a non-political body; the Farmer-Labor Party is still an embryo; the Non-Partisan League is more of an agrarian than a Labor movement ; and the Socialist Party of America is infinitely fur- ther removed from the seat of power than the Brit- ish Labor Party. Furthermore, British Labor is far better mentally equipped than American., It has developed greater administrative skill, both in trade union activities and in general Govern- mental endeavor. Again, British political thought and practise have not sanctioned the dominance SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 65 of the entire political state over the rights of in- dividuals and the rights of subsidiary groups to the same pervasive extent as have American thought and practise. Above all, guild socialism should be at present more applicable to industry than to agriculture, especially since industrial Labor is everywhere far more thoroughly organ- ized than agricultural Labor; and Great Britain is more of an^industrial nation than the United States, where almost 40 % of the population is still rural and where tenant farming, the rule in Eng- land, is still, despite its recent rapid growth, the exception. (The 1920 census showed only 52% of the population of the United States living in in- corporated cities or towns of 2,500 inhabitants or more, 9% living in incorporated places of less than 2,500 inhabitants, and 39% living in what the Census Bureau calls rural districts.) Guild social- ism might succeed in Great Britain and later fail in the United States; if it should fail in Great Britain, its failure in the United States could be predicted with almost absolute confidence. Nevertheless, at this point some criticism of the guild socialist idea may not prove irrelevant in considering the general problem of the efficiency of the Socialist program in stimulating production. In the first place, it is obvious that much support given the guildsman 's indictment of the treatment of Labor in Government industry arose from dis- satisfaction at war conditions. Those war condi- 66 THE LARGER SOCIALISM tions presented to the Government the opportu- nity to impose, or possibly the necessity of impos- ing, many restrictions upon its Labor which would be unavailable in peace-time. Even if the politi- cal state were normally as vicious an employer and manager as the national guildsman maintains, nevertheless only in war-times could it forbid its workers to leave one form of employment in order to enter another, or one factory in the same trade for another, for instance. In time of peace, the political state as employer could not enforce arbi- trary decrees upon its workers by threatening them with the trenches as the alternative to im- plicit obedience. Public opinion would not toler- ate arbitrary handling of the workers in peace as it tolerated arbitrary handling of them in war; and the workers, by their organization as workers, would be more prone and better able to resist such arbitrariness than they were prone and able from 1914 to 1919. In the second place, the political state as em- ployer and as manager during the War was still a political state with leaders who were imbued with the capitalist point of view and who followed the capitalist philosophy as their guiding-star. In other words, the great majority of the population had not yet been educated or had not yet educated itself out of the capitalist ideology into the social- ist. But before a Socialist state can be estab- lished, at least by the politically democratic pro- SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 67 cesses which Anglo-Saxon countries seem to im- pose upon their Socialist movements, the great majority of the population, including the over- whelming majority of the workers, will have to be converted to the Socialist program. Thus not only will the leaders of the Socialist state be neces- sarily permeated with the Socialist point of view, as contrasted with leaders of the capitalist state who still grudge to Labor the concessions they are compelled to grant it, and who concentrate upon the problem of the welfare of the workers not one more moment of attention than they are compelled to concentrate. But also the leaders of the Socialist state will have back of their ad- ministration a public opinion which will not toler- ate the moral and material exploitation of the workers characteristic of the British Govern- ment, supported by capitalist public opinion, as employer and manager- during the War. Even the peace-time activities of the state which might be termed state socialism are activities pursued by a capitalist, not by a Socialist, state. A few forms of Socialism within the capitalist system are in no sense fairly representative of Socialism as a whole, and indictments of Socialism drawn only from those forms are inadequate indictments. Similarly, resentment against whatever degree of bureaucracy adheres to state ownership and management of industry may well be lessened as the worker's hours of labor are lessened. 68 THE LARGER SOCIALISM Procedure which appears intolerable in a nine- hour work-day may be viewed much more tolerant- ly in a seven-hour work-day. Much of the work- ~er's resentment is generated in the last two hours of his day's work, and may well disappear when those two hours are released from the necessity of laboring, and are devoted to leisure or recreation which will tend to banish the remembrance of his it job if one admit that even under guild socialism much work must still be irksome or most work must still be irksome" to a degree. In the third place, the present organization of the workers as workers will carry over into the Socialist state. Indeed, it may safely be assumed that if mojst.of the workers should become suffi- ciently imbued with the political doctrines of Socialism to vote the Socialist ticket, they will have become sufficiently indoctrinated with the principles of trade unionism to increase the num- ber, the sizer and the strength of their unions. There is nothing in the Socialist conception and program to inhibit trade unions under Socialism indeed, many of the most far-visioned Socialists welcome the activities of trade unions under So- cialism, even though the unions may conceivably on occasion find it necessary to oppose the politi- cal Socialist state. So far from trying to forbid strikes, by injunction or by other methods, a wise Socialist state would assume that the threat of a strike could be taken as demanding an inquiry SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 69 into possibly unjust conditions, and that the pres- ence of unions would be a wholesome corrective against state exploitation of Labor. Against the Socialist state as employer, the strike would become a more potent weapon than even against a private employer under the capitalist system; and it is thus difficult to appreciate why many of the evils of state control of industry of which the national guildsman complains could not be reme- died by the industrial action of the workers against the political state, without gping so far as to limit the supremacy of the state in the entire structure of society. In the fourth place, much f of the autocracy now charged against the politicaj state as owner and manager is due, not to the inherent nature of the political state, but to its present geographical or- ganization. At present, the delegate chosen from each of the state's geographical subdivisions is ex- pected to represent all the constituents of that division, whatever the economic classes to which they belong. If the constituency be composed of many economic classes, as are most of our urban constituencies, in practise- the delegate is usually found to represent the most powerfully-organized class in it. With still only the minority of the workers in the United States so organized as to make their political influence effective, the dele- gate in most cases today thus represents the' eco- ' nomic interests of the bourgeoisie. Even in the 70 THE LARGER SOCIALISM rural districts, except in the newly-awakened Northwest, where the economic class lines are apt to be homogeneous, the bourgeoisie, by social pres- sure, by control of the sources from which pub- lic opinion derives, and by the indirect rather than the direct influence of its economic position, usual- ly manages to have the selected delegate represent the bourgeois point of view. Nothing could dem- onstrate the inadequacy of the geographical or- ganization of the state more tellingly than the fact that even our rural districts in most cases choose lawyers to represent them at Washington. Not seldom lias it been suggested that the Senate of the. United States, even as it fills page after page of the Congressional Record with denunciations of Soviet Russia, in itself constitutes a lawyers* soviet. It is unnecessary here to analyze the reasons for this supremacy of the upper and the middle class points of view in our legislative halls, however patent and demonstrable the reasons may be. It is sufficient merely to glance at our elected Repre- sentatives in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of our Government in order to* realize that the economic strata they represent do not square with the economic strata of the people who elect them. There is room for argument as to whether the middle economic class or the working- class is more numerous in the United States, but' certainly there is no disputing that the upper class SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 71 is not the most numerous. Yet just as certainly there can be little disputing that the most numer- ous class in Congress is the upper class, upper class whether in economic position or in intellec- tual and emotional avenue of approach to the problems confronting the nation. Whatever the causes, geography as the structural basis for the political state has been found lamentably favor- able to the upper classes. One need not be a Marxian to realize that the economic alignment is a more accurate, more truly representative and more effective basis for organ- izing the political state than the geographical alignment. Even the most opportunist evolution- ary or revisionist Socialist must recognize that the individual's economic status furnishes the key to the explanation of his conduct, even though he may not assign to economic status the well-nigh omnipotent influence tat the Marxian assigns to it. Indeed, for the recognition of that fact, one need not be a Socialist at all, Marxian and revo- lutionary, or non-Marxian and evolutionary. The man in the street, if the problem were placed be- fore him, not in Marxian, nor in economic, nor in political philosophic phraseology, but in the phraseology of the street, would agree that the economic line-up is the fundamental line-up. If the political state is to be truly representative of the life of the community over which it is sover- 72 eign, it must alter its geographic structure in favor of an occupational one;. It may then be seriously questioned if much of the fear inspired in the national guildsman at the prospect of the political state as the owner and manager of industry would not vanish if the political state should be organized along occupa- tional lines. For instance, no class of workers is more mercilessly exploited in private industry in the United States today than the workers in our postal system, a socialistic enterprise in a capi- talistic state. But even if their lot should not be lightened under a Socialistic state, and even if their exploitation should persist after they had become industrially so well organized as the rail- road locomotive engineers or the anthracite min- ers as well they might be even then they might not without reason look for relief to an occupa- tionally-chosen Government. Such a Government would be organized from a Congress or from an electoral college in which the proportion of work- ers' representatives would be as high as the pro- portion of workers in the entire population. Un- der a Government thus organized, there is little likelihood that even political expediency or ad- ministrative shortsightedness could subject the postal employees to the prejudices of a Southern Bourbon mind, to which, in all fairness, much of their present plight is due. Even if an occupa- tional census should show the workers not in an 73 absolute majority, yet it would also show the upper-class, which at present is the majority mind of our Government, in a distinct minority. From a Government including, say, only thirty per. cent workers, twenty per cent farmers and ten per cent farm tenants and agricultural laborers, the postal employees might be expected to receive fairer treatment. At all events, it may perhaps not ir- relevantly be suggested to the national guilds- men' tha they might well give a fair trial to the sovereign political state organized occupationally before insisting on so altogether a revolutionary upset of our present political conceptions as a dual sovereignty of producer and consumer within the nation. In the fifth place, if guild socialism is to become effective, it must become effective in all industry at practically the same time. It is difficult to conceive of a guild state functioning successfully where one section of its Labor would be yield- ing allegiance partly to the guild and the cen- tral guild congress, while another section would ^etill be existing under a single allegiance, both for production and for consumption, to the political state. Now, the difficulty here arising is that of varying degrees of administra- tive ability among the various workers in the various trades. Let it be granted that the Amal- gamated Clothing Workers could quite satisfac- torily handle all the problems of the clothing in- 74 THE LARGER SOCIALISM dustry, the coal miners the coal industry, the rail- road brotherhoods the railroads. Yet the work- ers in other trades, in all frankness, are far from having attained the sheer intelligence required completely to administer those trades. By and large, the more intelligent workers tend to gravi- tate to the more highly- skilled trades. Where they might be successful in taking over the control of their trades, their less intelligent and more un- skilled fellows might well be unsuccessful. To sacrifice delicacy to definiteness, can the impartial observer rest assured that our iron and steel workers can be as successfully entrusted with our steel mills as our railroad workers with our rail- roads ? The guildsman may object that the worker will develop with responsibility indeed, can develop only by responsibility. But one has only to look at the decisions of our political electorate to ap- preciate how slowly most of us grow up to our civic responsibilities. Even the most orthodox worshipper at the shrine of political democracy" must regretfully confess that many of the earlier ardent hopes reposed in the practise of political democracy have proved fictitious. Democracy may remain the most satisfactory method of at- taining the political decisions of the state, but it is by no means as free from error and mischief as our, forefathers were prone to imagine. It did not need the War to demonstrate that the political decisions 75 of the electorate in the first decade of the twentieth century seem not much wiser than those of the first decade of the nineteenth. True, it may be insisted that the act of voting on political matters is not fairly to be compared with the act of voting on in- dustrial matters. As will be suggested later, de- cisions of the electorate in the political field are far less important than decisions in the industrial field. The mistakes are less serious, affect the voters less intimately, and are less clearly recog- nizable. The influence of the state's political ac-r tivities upon the daily life and welfare of the in- dividual voter is usually indirect and secondary; the influence of the state's industrial activities upon the voter's welfare is graphically brought home to him in almost every hour of his work- ing day. Economic conditions are all-important, but are guided only slightly by political conditions, and four years of an inept Presidential adminis- tration are four years of an inept Presidential administration. But there is another distinction between demo- cratic control of political life and democratic con- trol of industrial life. Just because decisions in the political field are relatively insignificant, the mistakes of the electorate in those decisions are of relatively little moment. If it is from their politi- cal mistakes that the voters learn, in most cases little harm will have been wrought. But mistakes in control of industry are by no means to be taken 76 THE LARGER SOCIALISM so lightly. Four years of an inept administra- tion of a keynote industry are much more than merely four years of an inept administration. Po- litical administration is a thick-skinned organism which is not easily injured, and which can usually afford to get ahead somehow by the process of muddling through; but industry today is a high- ly delicate and vulnerable mechanism sharp blunders in its management may result in wide- spread and long-spread injuries which will en- gr.ave deep and painful scars, if not crippling mutilations, on the entire community. An unre- liable electorate in industry cannot enjoy the same lengthy opportunity to become reliable through -. its many mistakes as can an unreliable electorate in politics. Similarly, it might be objected that the voters' political decisions have not seemed to wax wiser with the generations because the political problems with which they have been confronted have waxed more complicated with the generations. But the retort is obvious the problems confronting indus- try are likewise constantly becoming more com- plicated with the generations, and will increasingly require greater intelligence from an industrial electorate. Finally, Guild Socialism may easily develop dangers direr than those which it seeks to remedy. In meeting one demand of human nature which it claims simon-pure Socialism neglects, it may it- SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 77 self be neglecting another demand of human na- ture no less deep-rooted than the first. In try- ing to mold a system of society which will meet man's instinct of independence in work, it may be molding a system which will pamper to man's instinct of "selfish aggrandisement. For man can no longer be regarded as the shining sun of reason and high purpose which the purely economic phi- losophers were prone to depict. We have begun to study him coolly and critically, and we find him in no sense entitled to any foreordained and es- pecially-reserved place in nature. Not only is man imperfect, but his imperfection is inextricably wrought up with the sad imperfection of this mun- dane universe. Not only is he a creature of crude Demotions and animal instincts, as well as of men- tality; but also his emotions and instincts are highly developed while his mentality is but slightly ^ developed, and he is guided by his emotions and instincts nine times for once that he is guided by his mind. On the whole, he may still be regarded as the highest of the animals, but he is not so widely separated from the next highest as to af- ford him grounds for complacency. In a few respects, man is lower than some of the other ani- mals, and on occasions he lowers himself beneath many of them few of the species of the animal kingdom ever behave toward themselves or toward other species as man behaved toward himself dur- ing and after the World War. 78 THE LARGER SOCIALISM Few attacks hurled against Socialism prove themselves so futile as the argument that Social- ism is impossible because of the imperfection of human nature. But the argument is futile, not because the emphasis on human nature is not over- whelmingly relevant, but because it would be ap- plied more fittingly to the present capitalist sys- tem than to a socialist system. It is the capitalist system which is failing because of man 's inherent selfishness. For the weakness of capitalism is that it tempts man to yield to his selfish impulses by the lure of profit, hoping in vain that his altru- ism will guard him from surrender to the temp- tation. Capitalism is failing just because it pre- sents too many occasions when the individual's personal gain conflicts with the gain of the entire community, too few occasions when the individ- ual's personal advancement happens to coincide with the advancement of the entire community. On the other hand, it is the virtue of the Social- ist movement that it is built on the assumption of the essential weakness of human nature. The Socialist program is so framed as to deliver the individual from economic temptation so far as he can be delivered. The Socialist conception of the economic organization of society abolishes the system whereby man may be tempted by the lure of profits to advance at the expense of his fellow- man. It substitutes a system whereby he is re- warded in proportion to the direct benefit he con- f 79 fers upon his fellows, the higher rewards for the higher benefits and the lower rewards for the lower benefits. It is Socialism, not capitalism, which cherishes no illusions regarding the weak- ness of man's altruism and the strength of man's selfishness. But Guild Socialism would seem to lay itself seriously open to the charge of failing adequately to appreciate the need for a system of society which will hold our selfish impulses in check. Guild Socialism would diminish the danger that the individual would be tempted to exploit society, but it would keep alive the danger that the sep- arate guild or group of guilds would be tempted to exploit it. Under Socialism proper, the individ- ual's progress toward prosperity would lie along the road of benefiting the entire community; un- der Guild Socialism, the individual's progress toward prosperity would lie along the road of the aggrandisement of his particular guild. Anjl the aggrandisement of the individual guild might well conflict with the aggrandisement of the en- tire community the fewer hours the guild would work and the higher wages it would receive, the better for^its members. Guild Socialism would offer to a group the same temptation to rise to affluencfc through injury to the entire body politic that capitalism offers to the individual business man or private corporation. Capitalism has failed because the individual man has proved 80 THE LARGER SOCIALISM too weak a vessel to withstand that temptation; what guaranty can Guild Socialism offer that the individual guild will be able to rise superior to it? For the checks suggested by the Guild Social- ists which would thwart selfish impulses of the guilds, separately or as a group, must seem all too impotent to one who regretfully insists that such impulses would be both numerous and powerful. Consider, for example as Graham Wallas has recently asked an American audience to consider in this connection the teachers in our public schools. In view of the accelerated failure of pres- ent-day society to attract its more advanced types into teaching, it is easy to wax cynical at the teach- ing profession. It is no difficult matter to convict the teachers of unintelligence in the calling in which intelligence is the prime necessity, to depict them as almost so deeply in need of learning as those who sit at their feet. And yet, after having indulged the taste for cynicism at the expense of the teachers, it is impossible not to admit that they are at least as intelligent as the members of other callings. If it be true that most teach- ers have drifted into their work because no other work lay so readily accessible to them, and if it be true that most of them would adopt other work if they would prosper thereby, yet it is likewise true that most persons in other callings have also drifted into them, and would abandon them in SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 81 favor of other activities, if they could thereby prosper. Teaching, moreover, is essentially a socialistic function of a capitalist state. There is nothing of profit-making about it ; and, in spite of the benefits to.be derived, as in most callings, from toadying to the authorities and playing the courtier to social, religious and industrial vested interests, on the whole the teacher can best ad- vance himself by rendering good service in his field to the same extent as the worker in other fields. The teachers can hardly be expected to re- veal less altruism, any more than they can be ex- pected to reveal less intelligence, than other workers. But experience would indicate that the applica- tion of the guild socialist principle even in teach- ing would be attended by grave perils. Probably few forces have been so hostile to thoroughgoing reforms in our school-systems as have the teach- ers themselves. Whenever the contemplated re- forms involved longer hours for them the indict- ment levelled against the proposal to introduce the Gary system in the public schools of New York City, for instance the teachers have often been found to prefer their own comfort to the welfare of the community. In those municipalities where politics and schools have become bedfellows, it has frequently been the teachers themselves who have pulled political wires in the hope of acquiring favors, even though teachers should be the very 82 THE LARGER SOCIALISM first to recognize that the intrusion of politics into the public school system involves an irreparable injury to the children in their charge and to the entire community. If the teachers should be given complete control of education, it is therefore hard to hope that they would be able to resist the per- fectly normal impulse to alter the processes of the educational system with an eye first to their own advantage, and only secondly to the full needs of the schools. Again, the checks upon that im- pulse provided by the suggested Cultural Coun- cils, representing the entire community's interest in education, seem inadequate. What holds good for teachers when organized into a completely autonomous group will surely hold good for plumbers, bricklayers, miners, lumberjacks, and machinists. If the teachers prove themselves weak sisters in the face of the temptation, the thoroughly human and perhaps not reprehensible temptation, to think first and basically of their own interests, surely we have no authority to assert that face-to-face with the same fire the plumbers, bricklayers, miners, lumberjacks and machinists^will not prove themselves weak brothers. To present men with the opportunity of lowering their hours of labor and of raising their wages, even to the point of injuring society, and then to trust them to refrain lest society be injured, seems to impose upon man's moral con- stitution a burden which in his present state of SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 83 moral development is unwarranted and unjusti- fied. It may be objected, again, that these pessimistic considerations are' proved unreal by the recorpLof the workers' present association into industrial groups, or trade unions. The national guildsman may claim that the guild is but the logical exten- sion of the union, and that the former cannot logi- cally be rejected because of the danger of its selfish aggrandisement without rejecting also the latter. Certainly, it cannot be denied that the trade unions have been, are, and give every prom- ise of continuing to be, a thoroughly helpful ele- ment in raising the level of existence, not only of Labor, but of the whole community. But between the trade union in a capitalistic or even 4ft a socialistic system of society and the national guild under guild socialism there is a dissimilarity which may not be marked, but which is profound. It is not merely that the trade union of today exists largely for the negative purpose of preventing the exploit- ation of its members, and of wringing from the em- ployers concessions which have become manifestly overdue. For even under Socialism the trade union fortunately seems destined to prevent the exploitation of its members by the state, and to wring from the state any concessions which may become overdue. The difference is that, even so, the trade union under Socialism will not be wholly independent, even solely in the field of production, 84 THE LARGER SOCIALISM of the political state. The political state, volun- tarily or involuntarily, will grant autonomy to the union, and will interfere as little as possible in its direct workings; but in the last analysis, and not merely during crises in the nation's de- velopment, the trade union will have to recognize the ultimate sovereignty of the state in the indus- trial as well as in the political field. Where the advantage to the union conflicts with advantage to the remainder of the population, the former will have to yield precedence to the latter. Doubtless, in most phases of the worker's life, his point of view will be his union point of view; but in the background of his consciousness, available for summons at necessity, will thus hover the social point of view of the welfare of the entire com- munity. The Plumb Plan for our railroads gives the railroad workers a certain amount of independ- ence in their calling, and, if put into operation, would probably be progressively altered so as to give them more. But it nevertheless is based on the assumption of, and keeps constantly before the. railroad employees' vision, the paramount con- ception of the union's welfare as subordinate to the welfare .of the public at large, whenever the two happen not to coincide. Complete autonomy and the right to strike for autonomy up to the point of secession from the sovereignty of the political state must be granted labor organizations SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 85 under Socialism; but that will still fall short of the guild socialist conception, as it is understood in the United States. There is as much difference between industrial autonomy of unions and their complete independence as between political auton- omy of British colonies and their complete inde- pendence from the ultimate sovereignty of the British Empire. It is obvious that the grant of complete independence to the component parts of the British Empire would involve the disintegra- tion of the Empire, which may or may not be de- sirable. Similarly, it is difficult to conceive how the grant of complete independence to the com- ponent units of industrial production within the political state would not finally involve -the dis- integration of that state which may or may not be desirable, but which falls beyond the scope of ' the present survey, necessarily based *on the postulation of the undesirability of anarchism. But, finally, the national gaildsman may demur on the ground that the guilds under guild socialism would not be independent in their sovereignty. Each would be subject to the decrees of .the general guild congress, which would represent all the guilds ; and it would be the guild congress, not the individual guild, whose jurisdiction would be su- preme in the field of production. Any tendency that a single guild might develop toward selfish aggrandisement should thus be checked by the ac- tion of the other guilds. Now, it is true that where 86 THE LARGER SOCIALISM the self-interest of a single guild, or of a small group of guilds, should conflict with the interests of the entire body of guilds, the latter, through the general guild congress, could be counted upon to interpose a veto. But the decisions of the gen- eral guild congress could easily be dominated by a group representing the majority of workers within the guilds and yet not representing the ma- jority of the population. As for control over the guilds by the entire community, through joint councils with the bodies representing the con- sumers' and civic interests if I understand the proposal correctly, in practise it hardly guaran- tees that the control will be effective, and in theory it should not represent the community's interests more adequately than a central politi- cal body organized occupationally. And that in- volves the all-important question of method of procedure. If any deduction from the hectic history of Anglo-Saxon countries in the past one hundred years can be hazarded for the benefit of the next one hundred years, it would be the stolid aver- sion of Anglo-Saxon electorates to entertain new ideas so subversive of the old as justly to be termed revolutionary. Except when hurled into the midst of actual revolutionary events, such as a war or a business panic, Anglo-Saxondom sticks by the process of gradual change in the old ideas. SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 87 By perseverance, propagandists can manage to bring England and 'the United States around to consider the extension or the diminution of their current forms of political government; but it is hardly an exaggeration to conclude that only by a miracle or a cataclysm can they bring these coun- tries around, no longer to alter their old concep- tions gradually in the direction of new ones, but rudely and cleanly to uproot them, and in the same gesture replace them, by an altogether novel political system. It is not now open to England and the United States to start with a clean slate, as it was open to the American colonies at the end of the eighteenth century, and as it has recently become open to Eussia, and to less degree, to Ger- many, Poland, and the new states evolved from the collapse of Austria-Hungary. England and the United States have now a political past whose intellectual and emotional claims upon them can- not be denied or evaded. It may take a new broom to sweep, clean, but Anglo-Saxondom now seems in normal times to shudder at clean sweeps. Now, in comparison with our current political system, guild socialism is an altogether revolu- tionary idea. It lays violent hands upon the theory of the unified sovereignty of the political state which has now become cherished so very fervently in Anglo-Saxon bosoms as to develop into a pseudo-religious article of faith. And the great bulk of the Anglo-Saxon electorate will not 88 THE LARGER SOCIALISM only be unwilling to grasp the implications of any new principle which runs counter to the unified sovereignty of the political state it also may be unable to grasp them. Socialist propaganda has been conducted with rare persistence, although also with rare clumsiness, for several decades in the United States; and still it may be seriously doubted if it has penetrated the minds of the mass of Americans sufficiently to explain the Socialist idea to them. It may seriously be doubted if it is only a minority of the one hundred five million Americans who still believe that socialism is a step in the direction of anarchism rather than a step away from anarchism, or if indeed it is only a minority who still believe that socialism and anarchism are largely synonymous. But as contrasted with the socialist conception of the state, the guild socialist conception is more difficult of comprehension and apprehension. How much more onerous and tedious, then, to make the guild socialist idea understood ! How much more open than even the socialist idea it will be to mis- representation, honest or dishonest, from the sources from which most public opinion is formu- lated! True, if most Americans were industrial workers, they might not find the guild socialist program so hard to comprehend; but the majority of Americans is not composed of industrial work- ers. Before the guild socialist idea could become dominant in the United States, it would have SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 89 to be fairly appreciated by the large agricultural class and the middle economic class who still, in many cases, seem unable to appreciate the present status of mere trade union aspirations in the mod- ern capitalist political state. Of course, if no other road seems to be open, the rejectors of the capitalist system will have to buckle down to the frightfully difficult task of converting this non-working-class majority to the guild socialist conception. But if it be possible to arrive at, or approximately at, the guild socialist goal by the gradual transformation of capitalism into social- ism, for which, after all, the ground has now been partially broken, and thence into whatever of guild socialism seems demanded by mankind 's needs, the procedure will be rendered less difficult, more rapid and probably freer from pitfalls. For Socialism, in the theory underlying its pro- gram, cannot be regarded as an altogether revo- lutionary alteration of the present political state. It is only the theory underlying its philosophy as commonly promulgated which demands a revolu- tionary change in the mental concepts now current in Anglo-Saxondom. Indeed, it is the Socialists' insistence, especially in the United States, on clothing their appeal and their program in the shell of the class struggle, and the economic in- terpretation of history, and the social revolution (sic), and the theory of surplus value, which has persuaded the great bulk of the electorate that 90 THE LAKGER SOCIALISM Socialism involves a complete upheaval of our po- litical system. American Socialists may resent the common American belief that Socialism is in- compatible with Americanism, but for that belief they have chiefly themselves to blame. They have succumbed to the emotional temptation to depict themselves as revolutionists, devoted to a revolu- tionary program; and the man in the street may well be pardoned for being so unversed in the nice- ties of radical phraseology as to jump at the conclusion that a revolution in America implied an assault on the institutions existing in America. Only a small amount of anti-Socialist propaganda was thus necessary to induce the populace to take the Socialists at their word. But many of the all- important activities of even the present capitalis- tic political state in America are prosecuted in ac- cord with the theory of Socialism. And it is as difficult to see what Socialism stood to lose as it is easy to see what Socialism stood to gain if the American Socialists had explained to the Ameri- can public that Socialism was more of an exten- sion than an innovation. Socialism in the United States would be im- measurably nearer realization if its adherents had taken the tack of paraphrasing Bernard Shaw, reminding their hearers that the anti-Socialist leaving his club near midnight steps to a social- istic sidewalk along a socialistic street bordered with socialistic trees ; lights his cigar with a match SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 91 struck on a socialistic street-lamp, often deriv- ing power from a socialistic gas or electricity plant, and lit five hours previously by a socialistic lamplighter employed by the city's socialistic department of street illumination; crosses a socialistic bridge over a socialistic river, often tra- versed by socialistic ferryboats ; passes a social- istic school which will be manned the follow- ing morning by socialistic teachers; drops a let- ter into a socialistic mail-box which is a part of the socialistic postal system; as he passes through a socialistic park, cheerily greets a socialistic police- man ; stops to watch a socialistic fire engine of the socialistic fire department proceeding to extin- guish an unsocialistic fire ; and, on arriving home, awakens his wife to repeat to her some of the arguments he had used in the discussion at the club to prove that Socialism was all right in theory, but could never be applied in practise. And such tactics would not only have brought Socialism nearer. There is no evidence, aside from mutterings anent " bourgeois reform" and "compromise," that the Socialism thus sooner achieved would be less full or less rich than the Socialism to be later achieved by more intransi- geant tactics. But whether the socialist creed be paraded be- fore the public in evolutionary or in revolutionary raiment, surely its essence can be more readily and will be more willingly grasped by the electorate 92 THE LARGER SOCIALISM than the guild socialist creed. If, accordingly, the^guildsman can attain his desideratum through the success of Socialism, followed by Socialism's liberalization toward the guild idea, he will there- by probably attain it sooner than by rejecting the socialist movement altogether, and bombarding the public with unadulterated guild socialist shot. The national guildsman may retort that the politi- cal state as owner and manager in industry is so evil, and so diametrically a step away from, rather than toward, the guild socialist state, that he can- not compromise with Socialism any more readily than he can compromise with capitalism. But the Socialist state can go indeed, must go great lengths toward the realization of the guild social- ist program, even if it cannot go the entire dis- tance. For, even if the confirmed Socialist insists that the national guildsman 's picture of industry under Socialism is overdrawn, yet surely there can be no denial that the guild socialist colors have startlingly revealed many rough spots on the Socialist canvas. Most Socialists today would ad- mit that their hammering at the hands of the national guildsmen has forced them to alter the Socialist program in many particulars; and that all too well-founded are the guild socialist indict- ment and rejection of industry proceeding under the direct and bureaucratic management of the central political state, with little more power and SOCIALISM AND GUILD SOCIALISM 93 responsibility reposed in the workers than now ob- taining. As a result of guild socialist and syndicalist agitation, the Socialist program has shifted far toward workers ' autonomy in industry, with as lit- tle interference as possible from the political state except in general legislation. Thanks largely to guild socialism, any Socialist administration ar- riving at power must be prepared almost imme- diately to grant the workers' organizations in the various industries an almost free hand in the de- velopment of their industries. With the grant of this large measure of autonomy, there would be fair opportunity to determine the sufficiency of the Socialist program in meeting the workers' legitimate demands for freedom from undue and socially-harmful outside interference and from possible state exploitation. If then the Socialist program should be found insufficient to meet these demands, and the correctness of the guild social- ist principle should be sustained, the final step from socialism to guild socialism should be taken with less of a wrench than would be involved in the step from capitalism directly to guild socialism. If these considerations are substantially valid, it would seem that the duty devolves upon the guildsmen of refraining from weakening the So- cialist movement while keeping alive their guild socialist ideal and program, trusting that the ulti- 94 THE LARGER SOCIALISM mate administration of a Socialist state not only will be a long step and the quickest possible step toward guild socialism, but also will afford the best possible opportunity for the necessary test of the practicability of the guild program. Insistence on the guild socialist idea alone would seem like abandoning progress already made toward the center of the state from the entrance to the right, after much and long painful groping and stum- bling, only to reach, after additional long and pain- ful groping and stumbling, the same center of the same stage from the entrance to the left. CHAPTEE IV. SOCIALISM AND THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT. BUT the problem of Socialist procedure has deeper implications. The entire Socialist move- ment in the United States lies in utmost need of reconsidering, not merely the relation between it and the guild socialist movement, but the relation between it and the whole spectrum of American life. For obviously something is wrong. After some twenty years of a centrally-organized Social- ist movement, following almost as many preceding, years of more or less spasmodic Socialist propa- ganda, the Socialist Party of America has not yet polled seven per cent of the votes in a presidential election. Only on five occasions have Socialists been elected to the national House of Representa- tives, never more than one at a time, with only two Congressional districts thus represented and each of them composed largely of a foreign-born electorate; and no single Socialist candidate has yet come close to election to the Senate. The two large cities which have elected Socialist mayors are in neighboring states; and outside of them and New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, there 95 96 THE LARGER SOCIALISM have been no Socialist municipal aldermen or councilmen in our largest cities. In Philadelphia, with almost 2,000,000 people, in Detroit, St. Louis, Boston, Baltimore, all cities with a popula- tion of more than 700,000, and all important in- dustrial and manufacturing centres, not one Socialist has been elected to important office on the Socialist ticket. It will not be expected that membership in the Socialist Party of America should approximate the Socialist vote, any more than that the number of members in Democratic or Republican organizations should approximate the Democratic or Republican vote; but there is room for serious thought in the fact that mem- bership in the Socialist Party has never risen far above the 100,000 level, and that at present there are probably less than 50,000 holders of S. P. cards. It may be seriously doubted if the Com- munist Party and Communist Labor Party would have been able to roll up a larger combined mem- bership than 50,000 if they had not been subjected to ruthlessly unprincipled official and unofficial persecution. And the vote, not the membership, of the Socialist Labor Party in the national election of 1916 was 14,180, in a total vote of more than 18,500,000. Moreover, the membership of the Socialist Party of America has been recruited to an abnormally large extent from the foreign-born. Indeed, many of these foreign-born members had been partici- THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 97 pants in the Socialist movements of their respec- tive countries of birth, and for their presence in the Socialist ranks in the United States the Social- ist movement of America is but slightly responsi- ble. The national Socialist vote, such as it is about 6% in 1912, about 3y% in 19i6 and less than 4% of the total in 1920 was polled largely in the foreign-born sections of the country. (However, in all fairness it shoujd be added that the 1916 elections were fought primarily on the issue of participation in the World War, when to cast a vote which could have no effect in re-electing or defeating President Wilson was asking too much of the practical-minded American electorate.) The two large cities which have elected Socialist mayors have been Milwaukee and Minneapolis. In 1910, 30% of the population of Milwaukee was foreign-born, and of almost 50% of the popula- tion one or both parents were foreign-born. The corresponding figures for Minneapolis were 28y 2 % and 39%. These figures must be viewed in the light of a 141/2% foreign-born population and a 2Q l /2% of foreign or mixed parentage for the en- tire country in 1910. Of the delegates to the national Socialist convention in 1920, some 40% were foreign-born; since a native-born member would naturally have at least no disadvantage over a foreign-born member in the selection of the delegates by the Socialist locals, it may not be unwarranted to deduce that at least that proper- 98 THE LARGER SOCIALISM tion of the Socialist Party membership is foreign- born. These statistics are eloquent. They cry aloud that the Socialist movement in the United States has failed, signally failed, to impress itself as firmly upon the American consciousness as the Socialist movement has impressed itself upon the consciousness of all the other great Western Powers. The American Socialist can hardly maintain that the backwardness of the American Socialist movement, so far as popular support for it is con- cerned, is due to the large number of farmers in the United States. For there is Italy, although it is true that there may be in Italy proportionate- ly less farmer ownership of the land than in the United States. Moreover, the number of farmers in the United States has been proportionately de- creasing, but the Socialist vote has not been pro- portionately increasing. Nor can he well maintain that the Socialist achievement in this country is satisfactory in view of its youth. The achievement of national prohibition shows what can be accom- plished within several decades by a movement which is well organized and which appeals warmly to the bulk of the population; and after twenty years of organization most of the European Social- ist parties could boast of achievements far more considerable than those which the Socialist Party of America can produce. Even if the votes cast for the national Farmer-Labor ticket in 1920 be THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 99 counted as Socialist votes and added to the votes cast for Debs, from the information available as I write it appears that such a total Socialist vote would not exceed 5% of all the votes cast. Of such a percentage of the total popular vote in their respective countries, most European Socialist parties would be heartily ashamed. And even these few Socialist ballots were ballots largely of mere protest against Palmerism and Burlesonism, and against the failure of either the Republican or the Democratic Party to nominate a progressive or a liberal or even a well-known candidate many of the Socialist voters in 1920 were not voting for Socialism and will probably desert the Socialist ticket in 1922 and 1924. Even allowing for the facts of the temporary unpopularity of the Social- ist Party because of its anti-war attitude, the de- fection of the Communist elements, the enforced collapse of the Socialist organization in many states, and the nomination for President of a man serving a jail sentence for opposing the selective draft, even with these allowances it is startling to realize that in 1920 the Socialist Party did not poll as high a percentage of the total ballots cast as in 1912. And in 1912 there were three instead of two major political parties in the field, with only one of the Presidential candidates an avowed con- servative and with another of unusually strong personal following, particularly in the ranks of Labor. 100 THE LARGER SOCIALISM The American Socialist may maintain that the Socialist movement is feeble in the United States because the American working-class has not yet become a proletariat in the Marxian sense of the word. He may insist that the natural resources of the United States are so fertile that some of the prosperity of the country could not be kept from trickling down into the working-class, so that the workers, although exploited, are yet not so miser- able and poor as the workers in the European countries where Socialism has become powerful. But such reasoning quite begs the question. If Socialism cannot arrive in the United States until the proletarians represent the majority of the pop- ulation, until the lot of the proletariat becomes wretched, and until the proletarians become des- perate ; and if that period of the industrial devel- opment of the United States is not yet at hand, then, surely, there is no reason for the existence of a politically-organized Socialist movement. Until the time is ripe for Socialism in America, the con- vinced Socialist may well despair of converting the American people to the Socialist program ; Social- ist propaganda and education of the working-class will be valuable, but the organization of a politi- cal Socialist movement should wait until the soil becomes ready to receive the Socialist seed. For the true cause of the backwardness of the Ameri- can Socialist movement one must obviously look elsewhere. THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 101 The chief weakness of the Socialist movement in presenting its case to the people of the United States has been a mental weakness. The Ameri- can Socialist mind, as a rule, does not survey with unbiased eye the rottenness of the present social system, and inductively frame a program to rem- edy it. Bather, our Socialist mind generally ab- sorbs the analyses of Karl Marx, and deductively applies the answer of half a century past to the facts of today. Even where the Socialist move- ment in the United States has broken away from Marxism, it is not a break with the Marxian men- tal processes. Most American Socialists reach the Socialist answer by dint of first pondering Marx, next applying him to the modern social system, and then retaining as much of him as pos- sible. The result via Marx may finally be identi- cal with the result via independent thought, but it arrives garbed in cumbersome and misleading trappings. Thus, when boiled down to workable phraseology, the orthodox Socialist or Marxian program may be summarized as Government Own- ership and Management ; but the orthodox Social- ist or the Marxian usually rebels when his pro- gram is thus paraphrased. He has reached his conclusions by way of the economic interpretation of history, the class struggle and surplus value; and if he finally emerges from them into mere Government Ownership and Management, he feels vaguely that he might have reached that answer LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 102 THE LARGER SOCIALISM without laborious resort to the Marxian philo- sophic trinity. Even if the Marxian explanation of society could be accepted today by all students of society, accepted without qualification or amendment, no political movement could base its program on Marx and on Marx alone, and hope for success which should be more than transient. Unless the Marxian pronouncements be dowered with the infallibility which we generally ascribe only to Divinity, sooner or later some aspect of society's development would deviate, slightly or seriously, from the line of procedure predicted by the Father of Socialism. Then the Marxian movement would willy-nilly become nonplussed. Years of habitua- tion to applying accepted doctrines to reality would render the movement intellectually in- capable of framing a new doctrine and a new ma- chinery adequate to meet the challenge of the new rebellious reality. The deductive mind inevitably becomes dogmatic, and it is pathetically helpless when faced by a novel and unprecedented situa- tion. Indeed, almost every page of Marx gives forth evidence of such rudely overbearing intoler- ance of, and such extreme intellectual brutality toward, those with whom he differed as to give rise to a sharp suspicion that a movement based only on those pages can never develop the under- standing and appreciation of its opponents' THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 103 motives without which stable success must be im- possible. What Marx did was to gather all the significant facts on which he could lay his grasping and sensi- tive fingers, and erect them into a structure whose magnificence and completeness must make the be- holder gasp with admiration. But mankind 's stub- born quest for truth has vitiated some of the facts upon which all its greatest teachers of the past have relied for their reasoning, and hence has vi- tiated much of that reasoning itself. And Marx would have been among the first to recognize that eventually some of the facts on which he had re- lied would be exposed as not facts at all, but as misconceptions ; and that then his reasoning based on those facts would have to be thoroughly over- hauled. The Marxian system is all the more vulnerable to the iconoclasm of Time because its constituent elements dovetail so closely that if one of them should be destroyed, the remainder would be as the proverbial chain with the one broken link. If Marx were alive today, he would be among those most eager to digest and utilize the new knowledge of human history and of social organi- zation which has inevitably arisen since the publi- cation of Capital, and much of which inevitably contradicts the conceptions from which the con- clusions expressed in Capital were drawn. Cer- tainly, he would have concentrated, not only on the struggle between economic classes, but also on the 104 THE LARGER SOCIALISM struggle of men of all classes against their biologi- cally inherited tendencies. For example, in a sane and exact evaluation of the discoveries of Freud, there would be no keener student than Karl Marx. If he were alive today, he would probably repeat with fervor what he is reported to have repeated during his lifetime : ' * Thank God, I am no Marx- ist." Few leaders have suffered so grievously from the zoal of their disciples as has Marx. If his disciples had been content to cherish their master as the modern biologists cherish Darwin at the same time zealously preserving their intellectual independence Marx might well have been re- garded by future ages as the most beneficent of all single personal forces in the world since Jesus, instead of merely as one of the most, if not the most, stimulating. It was Marx's great achieve- ment that he should have been practically the first thinker seriously to shatter the concepts on which the capitalist philosophy of the nineteenth cen- tury was founded. The soil he ploughed was well- nigh forest primeval ; he had to clear it of its clut- tering debris before he could sow his crop. And if crops of later sowers have seemed more abun- dant and more palatable, their abundance and tastiness have been made possible only by Marx's clearance and preparation of the ground. The notability and preciousness of that service there will be few to deny. THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 105 But it is inconceivable that a Socialist move- ment would not have arisen^ without Marx. It would have arisen inductively, rather than deduc- tively; from the exigencies of day-by-day exist- ence; and couched in terms and measures which would have made it more comprehensible and doubtless more palatable to the world at large. And there Marx's disciples wrought their evil. They insisted on a complete abdication in favor of his analyses and program. By dint of the aston- ishing earliness and comprehensiveness of their master's work, they were able to pre-empt the field. Those struggling toward the light of the socialist answer by dint of rude contact with the viciousness of capitalism, rather than by dint of abstract reasoning, found themselves antici- pated. They were beaten into adherence by the strength of the organization of the Marxians, and were perforce compelled either to join it or to render themselves impotent. By the third decade of the twentieth century, a Socialist movement" would surely have been on foot, Marx or no Marx; and it may well be pondered if its tangible achieve- ments, and more particularly its hope of rapid growth and victory in the following decades, might not have been greater without Marx, just as it may well be pondered if there would not be more actual practice of the Christian teachings today had not the Church surrounded and absorbed them in its orthodox and rigid theology. 106 THE LARGER SOCIALISM For, since Marx, students of society have learned that man individually and collectively must be studied psychologically as well as eco- nomically. Marx may not have relied 'so largely (as many of his critics are wont to assert) on the conception of the economic man, dominated by his economic self-interest. But he did rely upon the dominance of economic self-interest in organized society to an extent that is now seen to have been largely unwarranted. Even though economic self- interest may start the impulse which finally causes social groups such as nations to take action, yet the impulse often is psychologically redirected so as to escape in an action which is the direct an- tithesis of self-interest. Consider, for example, the Socialist explanation of the motives of those Americans who were most anxious for the United States to declare war on Germany after the sinking of the Lusitania. For the strength or the weakness of the American Socialist movement can best be appreciated by examination of its reaction to the World "War, the most stupendous single fact in modern history. If the Socialist movement of the United States could handle in an adequate fashion the situation produced by the possibility of America's entrance into the War, it could handle adequately most of the problems confronting it if it should suddenly be called upon to administer the Government. Conversely, if it should respond to that situation THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 107 by hopelessly inadequate and unreal explanations, it obviously lies under mental influences which are unreliable. Now, the stock and almost unanimous Socialist explanation of those who wished Amer- ica to declare war in, say, 1916, was that of self- interest. Such persons were chiefly of the upper economic classes. They possessed large Allied in- vestments; or were shareholders in munitions plants; or were fearsome that a German victory would compel the United States to make financial reparation for having sold munitions to the Allies, involving high taxation which would fall most heavily upon the American propertied and wealthy classes ; or the industries in which they were finan- cially interested were becoming by 1914 unable to meet the competition of the efficient German busi- ness methods, and would be enormously benefited by the collapse of Germany, and by the consequent weakening of German business and its hold upon the world markets coveted by American business ; or they coveted German colonial territory which would supply their businesses with cheap raw ma- terials; or they wanted an army and navy on a huge scale in order later to defend Capitalism against the onslaught of the workers. And yet, if the Socialists had been more zealous to establish the truth than to justify a formula, they would have realized that the upper economic classes stood to gain less if the United States en- tered the war than if she preserved her neutrality. 108 THE LARGER SOCIALISM True, there is little evidence that most so-called hard-headed business men are guided by their reason rather than by their emotions to a greater extent than, or even to the same extent as, the remainder of the population. But there is a small group of men at the hub of American business who can and normally do survey current issues with clear-headed understanding of their own interests, and from this small group largely emanate the opinions which usually become the opinions of most of the business world. It must therefore have been evident to big business that the en- trance of the United States into the War would see the imposition of drastic income, excess profits and war profits taxation comparable to .the taxa- tion of the other belligerent Powers. Big business must have realized that the margin of profit on the munitions and other supplies it would sell to a belligerent United States would become less than the margin it was exacting from the Allied belligerents. The few clear-sighted busi- ness men could understand, and could make their followers understand, that the longer the war con- tinued, the stronger would the Labor and Socialist movements become, the nearer would approach that day when a Labor or Socialist Government would overthrow the grasp of the privileged few on industry, and in the meantime the more con- siderable would be the concessions which the Labor and Socialist movements could exact from THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 109 Capital. Even before April 6, 1917, many young men of the American upper classes had enlisted in the Allied armies. Doubtless many of them so en- listed from love of adventure, for escape from a humdrum commercial life or from other equally mixed and intangible motives ; but certainly their own economic self-interest would have retained most of them in American business pursuits, safe from the danger of sudden death or mutilation. Now, in one sense the Socialists were undoubt- edly correct in asserting that the earliest clamor- ers for American participation in the War were largely of the propertied classes. It was true that Capital was more prone than Labor, and probably more prone than Agriculture, to consider the sinking of the Lusitania a casus belli. For in the loss of the Lusitania, property as well as human lives were destroyed, and in addition the honor of the United States was definitely affronted. True, the horror at the loss of life on the Lusitania well outweighed the anger at the loss of property and at the insult, and probably was felt as strongly by one economic class as by another. And yet in addition the man of property could experience, vaguely and inarticulately, danger in and ire at the destruction of American property prior to, if not more deeply than, the propertyless American. Even the land-owning farmer could feel that his property was but slightly akin to the kind of property represented by the Lusitania and its 110 THE LARGER SOCIALISM cargo, and could not resent the German violation of property rights so quickly and so strongly as the owner of stocks and bonds. Again, in the domain of patriotic resentment at national insult, it would manifestly be inaccurate and unfair to assert that Labor and Agriculture finally rallied around the flag less earnestly than Capital. Nevertheless, it is probably both accur- ate and fair to suggest that the upper economic classes are generally the first to resent a national affront, just because they are more powerful in the country and own more of its wealth than do the middle and lower economic classes. A blow at the country is more of a blow at them than at other groups, just as they stand to lose more in the country's defeat than do most of the other groups. And, of course, the power of economic interest asserted itself in many other no less in- tangible, but no less compelling, impulses on the question of America's participation or continued neutrality in the war. For instance, membership in upper-class social life is open chiefly to the upper economic class ; and thus an attitude toward the World War receiving its first stimulus from economic interest became identified with an at- titude imposed by upper-class social conventions. The economic interpretation of history is certain- ly not the least substantial of the stones composing the Marxian arch; but the Socialist movement will come to grief, indeed, has already come to grief, THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 111 by not appreciating that impulses in the human, bosom due to economic self-interest must run the gamut of so many illogical emotions before they come to the surface, that by that time they may become translated into actions diametrically op- posed to economic self-interest. Now that the holocaust is over, it has pain- fully become more and more incontrovertible that its underlying causes were economic. The ex- pansion of national markets into international markets; the internationalization of capital, finance and credit ; the competition between the big business units of one country and those of another country, in both cases supported by their Govern- ments, for raw materials from the industrially undeveloped and politically helpless regions of the earth ; the political subjugation of those coun- tries in order to attain the subjugation of their Labor, these were the primary factors responsible for the division of Europe into an armed camp on the balance of power system, and from that sys- tem only a great international military struggle could finally flow. Even the militarism of Ger- many and Germany's boorish aggressiveness had their roots deep down in the lateness and extreme rapidity with which the industrial revolution de- veloped in that country. But these were the fac- tors influencing but the few who developed the system; they affected but slightly the decision of the masses in the respective belligerent countries 112 THE LARGER SOCIALISM to support the war and to see it through. And without that decision of the masses, the War would have been impossible. How important a role in causing the War was played, for instance, by the feeling for nationality, and how illogically and sentimentally free from economic considera- tions of self-interest is that national conscious- ness! Only in such psychological terms can the popu- lar support and prosecution of the War, and the popular attitude toward the peace, be explained. Very tediously has man built up inhibitions against the savage impulses which dominated him when he swung by his tail in the tree-tops, and those inhibitions are still in their incipient and feeble stage. At those moments when the savage impulses are roused from their slumber, the bar- riers against them collapse all too readily before their onslaught. And the inhibitions necessitated by our development out of the state of greater savagery are unpleasant as well as weak. We chafe against their restrictions upon us, become increasingly irritable when the restrictions re- main unbroken unduly long, and consciously or unconsciously hope for the day when once more the impulses of the tree-top days can reign un- I checked. We itch to hate, to torture, to kill, to llpunish. To dwell in peace and amity with our neighbors becomes a severe strain, and the longer the peace and amity the severer the strain. Those THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 113 of our neighbors who differ from us in appear- ance, speech, habits, or outlook on life are particu- larly obnoxious, for their dissimilarity from us impresses us as a direct insult to and attack on our own appearance, our own speech, our own habits, our own outlook on life, and hence as an insult to and an attack on us; and when War with them threatens, we secretly exult Up, the War! So the war against Germany. How fervently the people of the United States, after some months in war, hissed the assertion they had applauded when they entered the struggle, that we had no quarrel with the German people, but only with the German Government ! How irresistibly they swept their President along to declare in the summer of 1919 that the German people were responsible for the crimes of their Government, the same President who had solemnly declared in the spring of 1917 that they were not thus responsible! While we were neutral, most of us agreed that the best peace after the war would be a peace without victory. While we were belligerents, we scorned the very phrase the case for a peace without victory was as good after April 6, 1917, as before it, but we no longer desired the best peace. We wanted the peace that would best satiate our wholly-released savage instinct to ap- ply the maximum punishment to our opponent. Was our deliberate starvation of German women 114 THE LARGER SOCIALISM and children for months after the armistice un- Christian and barbarous? We rejoiced that we had overthrown the Christian repressions and we wallowed exultingly in our barbarian orgy of hate. Did we obscenely lie about Soviet Kussia, un- necessarily blockade it, unethically invade it? What matter? Had it not helped our enemies, and at all events, did it not have conceptions radically different from ours? Did we solemnly pledge to Germany certain terms of peace if she should sur- render, and then solemnly scatter our pledges to the wind as so many scraps of paper? Well, hadn't we won and the Germans lost? And how much more satisfactory and pleasant to break than to preserve awkward pledges to our enemies ! Did the Allies' peace-terms really redound to their own disadvantage by crippling Germany so that she couldn't pay her debts to them? It was more delightful to gratify our hate to our own hurt than to thwart our hate to our own advantage. To explain a nation's actions on the brink of, dur- ing, and after a war by economic motives has proved as inadequate as explaining childbirth by the story of the Garden of Eden. A war trans- forms a twentieth-century nation into a prehistoric nation; it invalidates almost every disquisition which might have been true of the nation in the pre-war days; in the twinkling of an eye, it eclipses Marx by the old Adam. In the face of war, the reasoning of the non-Socialist pacifists THE MAEXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 115 proved far more reliable than that of the non- pacifist Socialists. A less debatable and less disputatious example may be afforded by the recent agitation for armed intervention in Mexico. The Socialists ex- plain that agitation, and attempt to meet it, on the ground that it is inspired only by motives of pecuniary gain. Now, the mainspring of that agi- tation is, of course, the protection of American property in Mexico; so that naturally no sur- prise arises when the enthusiasm for intervention is found chiefly among the upper economic classes, with the middle economic classes lukewarm to the project, and with Labor and Agriculture inclined to be antagonistic. And yet no argument is re- quired to prove that only a minute section of the propertied class would be directly benefited by intervention in Mexico, and that the great ma- jority of the propertied class bent on interven- tion would stand to lose by it. The difficulties of the task would obviously be prodigious, and the length of time required would be great, so that the expense of the adventure would be enormous. And the propertied class cherishes no illusion that the greater part of that expense could be met except by taxation which would fall most heavily upon them. Certainly, the great majority of the propertied class possesses no share of American investments in Mexico, and it may well be doubted if most of the interventionists are sufficiently 116 THE LARGER SOCIALISM clear-visioned and far-sighted to appreciate that the investments they have made outside of Mex- ico might eventually become more valuable by dint of cheaper oil, cheaper coal, and, primarily, cheaper and unorganized labor from the occupa- tion of Mexico. Probably more of them realize that American business interests would be injured by the anger in South America at an attack upon Mexico. Their enthusiasm for intervention has probably come to the surface rather by way of " conscious- ness of kind," the clan instinct. They are aware that there are owners of property in Mexico who stand to gain by intervention or, more pertinently, who may stand to suffer serious loss without in- tervention. (It is irrelevant that this possibility of property loss without intervention may not be well-founded propaganda has made it as real to the minds of the propertied interventionists as if it were undeniable.) They also are owners of property; and although their property is not in Mexico, yet they vaguely feel a kinship binding them to the Mexican property-holders. That feel- ing of kinship is rendered all the stronger by the recognition of the intensity of the class struggle in this day and generation, and by the conscious- ness that all those who have are being attacked all over the world by all those who have not. It is the like-calling-to-like instinct, the awarenesA of a common bond, functioning today on Mexico as THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 117 several decades ago, and still in the sentimental fiction of today, it functioned so as to impel the Kentucky mountaineer to defend his cousin from the law-officer, even to the apparent injury of his own interests. And the social bond also makes its strength felt. The owners of Mexican property adhere chiefly to the upper social classes ; it be- comes almost social treason, almost a breach of social etiquette, for the remainder of those classes not to fall in with a movement so dear and so valuable to their fellows. It is not only in thus sticking too rigidly to the economic interpretation of history that the Social- ist Party of America has rendered its attitude to- ward current phenomena and movements so large- ly futile. Its interpretation of events and hence its ability to assume a position of leadership in the United States are weakened by a too literal application of the class struggle doctrine. Now, there can be little doubt that the capitalist system is permeated through and through by a conflict between those who primarily own and those who primarily work. So long as one group in the com- munity owns most of the property and capital necessary to production, and another group, with no such ownership, must sell its labor to the first group, so long will the interests of the two groups conflict at many points. Until ownership in pro- duction belongs either to both groups engaged in production, or to neither group, or until the two 118 THE LARGER SOCIALISM groups coalesce into one group which shall be at the same time both owners and workers, so long will Capital be able to feather its own nest to a great extent only at the expense of Labor, and to a great extent Labor its nest only at the expense of Capital. And any qualification that might be demanded in this statement will be all in favor of Labor. For although Capital can obviously benefit itself by exploiting Labor, yet Capital can in many ways avoid injury if Labor should exploit it by means of throwing the incidence of that exploita- tion upon the shoulders of the general public. And yet the class struggle works too loosely for implicit reliance on it as a never-failing guide to the interpretation of events in the United States. In the first place, the Marxian two-class idea has manifestly been exploded. Marx, it will be re- called, prophesied, and built his brilliant system partly around the prophecy, that the development of capitalism would be accompanied by the grad- ual but steady disappearance of the middle-class. Capital would tend toward overwhelming concen- tration in a few hands, while the remainder of the population would become dispossessed prole- tarians, increasingly exploited and increasingly miserable. Now, it is probably in the United States that the first part of this prophecy has been most thoroughly verified; for the trusts of the United States have developed largely as Marx foresaw. And yet it is probably in the United THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 119 States that the second part of this prophecy has been most thoroughly discredited, for our middle economic class has most persistently refused to disappear. Indeed, it is likely that the middle class in the United States has even proportionately increased since Marx's day. As between Capital and Labor, the struggle is doubtless inevitable, and possibly destined to become increasingly in- tense, until the capital and ownership necessary in production and distribution become public capital and ownership. But the United States still sup- ports an extremely large middle-class, which in many localities is so numerous that it decides po- litical elections, the economic interests of which are strongly bound up with the economic interests of neither Labor nor Capital, and hence the actions of which, and therefore the actions of the nation as a whole, cannot be understood merely by a recognition of the class struggle. Secondly, the people who inhabit the United States are social animals to a greater extent than they are economic men. They are intimately and closely bound together in social groups, the affiliations of which hold them in stricter bondage than their business or economic affiliations. Even the exceptional business man who braves business hostility by breaking business conventions will quake at the mere thought of breaking the social conventions of his social group. The independent of spirit and revolutionary of actions between 10 120 THE LARGER SOCIALISM A.M. and 5 P.M. become as dependent of spirit and servile of action between 6.30 P.M. and midnight as the dependent and servile through the entire twenty-four hours. Acting so as to gain the ap- plause and escape the censure of all our immediate groups, we yet heed the social group more obe- diently than the business group. Of course, the social group has cohered chiefly from the same economic class, but "chiefly ".and not "wholly." Considerations of family history and intellectual achievement or position often enter, and on oc- casion lack of social graces and savoir faire will make even the economically eligible ineligible for membership. Even the extent to which social, grouping follows economic grouping is due largely not to any snobbish desire to exclude the less for- tunate, but to the social awkwardness which arises when one member of a party is unable to meet, or will suffer by meeting, his share of expenditures which rest lightly upon the others. The upper economic classes are apt to exclude from their social functions the individual of the middle eco- nomic class primarily because the former knows, and knows that the latter knows, that the latter cannot well repay a social obligation in kind. Again economic status becomes modified by the grouping which finally dominates and determines action. The class consciousness which the undeniable class struggle has produced is thus much more THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 121 a social class consciousness than .gin economic class consciousness. One has only to Jobk at most of the political campaigns in the United Spates, particularly in the municipal and state elections, to realize that fact. The bulk of the electorate, middle economic class and lower economic class, dislikes a "silk stocking" more than a "plute." If the candidate seems upper class by social affilia- tion, and more particularly by personality, al- though not of the tipper class financially, his case is more desperate than if his worldly jpessessions are great, but his social affiliations and personality seem of the earth, earthy. Theodore Roosevelt might have been of the multi-millionaires, with large investments in all of our trusts, without thereby losing any appreciable amount of his re- markably tenacious hold upon the rank and file of America. Likewise, the college professor of the type dear to cartoonists, or the Bostonian Mayflower descendant of the type dear to profes- sional humorists, would find the popular mind ar- rayed against him, no matter how slim his bank account. "Al" Smith defeats his Republican rival for the Governorship of New York State, in an otherwise Republican year, largely by dint of re- peating that he was a worker while his opponent was a college student; and it was chiefly the pro- letariat which supported Henry Ford for Senator from Michigan. And when the innate resentment against the upper classes can readily be gal- 122 THE LAEGEE SOCIALISM vanized, with the result of gaining votes, it is the Kepublican or Democratic politician who arouses it and corrals the votes. He does so by an appeal to the consciousness of social kind, while the Socialist propaganda, by printed or spoken word, based on consciousness of economic kind falls flat and deaf upon the ears of most of the very prole- tariat. Until the Socialist Party of America can attune its appeal largely to social class grouping rather than solely to economic class grouping, its vote will continue to be chiefly a mere protest vote. Thus, to revert again to the problem presented the Socialists by the possibility of America's par- ticipation in the World "War, the Socialist Party of America signally failed to evaluate adequately the impulses, worthy or unworthy, which finally inclined most Americans to the cause of the En- tente Allies. The question as to whether Socialist opposition to American participation was justified or unjustified is for the moment beside the point. Granted that the Socialists had determined upon opposition, the problem was to understand what to oppose; and by concentrating upon the eco- nomic factor, the Socialists overlooked the power and effect of social grouping in the United States. For the ability of the upper social circles qua upper social circles to mould, dominate and guide public opinion in the United States can hardly be over- estimated. Now, in the upper social circles in this country, the French and the British before THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 123 August 1, 1914, and before April 6, 1917, played, as they still play, prominent roles, more prominent than the roles played by the Germans. Similarly, Americans of British and of French descent were everywhere to be found in "high society," where- as our " German- Americans " had acclimated themselves chiefly to the middle-class social life. Even wealthy " German- Americans, " on the whole, were conspicuous largely by their absence in "high society." Moreover, the United States had been systematically and efficiently tapped for succor to Belgium. In order to raise the largest possible amount for the Belgian relief, recourse for funds was had, quite legitimately, to the power of upper social grouping ; and obviously it was im- possible to feel pity for the Belgians, even where that pity had to be artificially stimulated, without feeling resentment against those who were pri- marily responsible for the plight of the Belgians. I am not maintaining that the American Social- ists' course of action could have been shaped differently or more effectively if they had been intellectually capable of recognizing the true align- ment of the forces against them. The question is simply one of demonstrating how the Socialist Party, through complete reliance upon the eco- nomic interpretation of history and the economic class struggle, was led into false appreciation and evaluation of the most serious crisis in America's history which it could possibly have been called 124 THE LAKGER SOCIALISM upon to face. And the class struggle and the eco- nomic interpretation of history are probably the least vulnerable points of the Marxian system. It is an ungracious task to pick flaws in one of the confessedly most notable achievements in the en- tire intellectual history of the race, dazzling in its brilliancy, stirring in its comprehensiveness, awe- inspiring in its originality. And yet the truth is that the Marxian explanation of panics and the Marxian labor theory of value have likewise proved inadequate. Most of our business depres- sions doubtless could have been explained by the Marxian diagnosis of preceding overproduction, but other causes also have had their effect in particular, currency and credit inflation. Indeed, probably only measures looking toward deflation forestalled a panic in the United States ^n 1920, a panic which would have occurred at a time when the United States and the entire world was clamoring for increased production as a result of the preceding five years of underproduction of necessities. Similarly, the Marxian theory of surplus value in its pristine form has been sin- cerely rejected by most economists, and the few who have been able to accept it have been obliged to do so only with reservations. The proportion of the value of goods due to the labor spent on- producing them is incontrovertibly greater than the share from the sale of them now given to the workers for that labor, but all their value can THE MARXIAN CAST OF THOUGHT 125 hardly be assigned to the labor utilized on them. Moreover, even if the Marxian surplus value creed were flaw-proof, for the practical purposes of a political platform and the conversion of the bulk of the electorate in political and educational campaigns, it would be useless. For as Marx pre- sented it, it is and must remain quite incompre- hensible to all except the initiate. So far as the realizable aims of the Socialist movement in Amer- ica are concerned, no theory which is totally be- yond the mental capabilities of the bulk of the populace need be considered true. There is a com- mon-sense theory of surplus value which main- tains that Labor is paid too little and Capital too much for their respective shares in production and distribution; and since this theory may be made to appeal to the understanding of the electorate, and since Marx's theory of surplus value cannot be so made to appeal, for the purposes of the So- cialist political program the common-sense theory is true and the Marxian theory is not true. It is idle to instance in rebuttal of this point of view the picture of Darwin shaking the whole world from his hilltop by his enunciation of new and revolutionizing biological truths. Darwin's task was merely to convince the men of science lay- men, confessing their inability to pass judgment upon biology, would finally accept the verdict of the professional scientific minds upon evolution, after their first hectic and involuntary rallying 126 THE LARGER SOCIALISM to the support of the Bible. And the Darwinian theory of evolution was comprehensible to the minds of the men of science. But in the realm of politics, under our system of democracy to which the Socialist Party of America renders al- legiance, the jury is everybody, and it accepts no one's judgment but its own, or what it be- lieves to be its own. If the majority of Ameri- can voters are to register approval of the Marxian theory of surplus value, they must first under- stand it; and since they cannot possibly under- stand it, the Socialist movement in the United States may well relegate that theory to the limbo of the seminar and the library. No thought-system of the past can be completely relied upon for guidance, no matter how magnifi- cent, no matter how adequate for the generation which ushered it in and for the immediately fol- lowing generations, no matter whether it be Chris- tianity or Marxism. The Socialist Party of Amer- t ica, until it can free itself from the Marxian cast of thought, can hardly attain or deserve to attain a position of leadership in America. CHAPTER V. THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR. THE inevitable result of this dogmatically de- ductive cast of Socialist thought in the United States is nowhere more vividly typified than in the Socialist attitude toward the participation of the United States in the World War. For this reason, an extended scrutiny of that attitude will be re- munerative. As above, for the sake of the argu- ment, the question of the rectitude and advisabil- ity of Socialist opposition to America's participa- tion may be ignored. Granted that, from the Socialist point of view, support of America's war against Germany was out of the question, on what grounds, by what reasoning and in what manner could and should the Socialist Party have with- held its support of the War? The Party's answer to this query is embodied in the so-called War Platform adopted by special convention at St. Louis on April 11, 1917, five days after the United States was officially at war with the Imperial German Government. By the provisions of the constitution of the Socialist Party, the platform after adoption by the coriven- 127 128 THE LARGER SOCIALISM tion had to be submitted to a referendum of the Party membership. It was so submitted, together with the minority or pro-war resolution; and the announcement that the majority anti-war platform had been ratified by the referendum, and thus finally adopted by the Party, was made on July 7, 1917. But before entering upon a discussion of the St. Louis Platform, I must crave the indulgence of a personal admission that I do so only with diffi- dence. Diffidence arises not merely from the fear that one may be but wise-af ter-the-event ; but also from the realization that, however sincerely a writer in 1921 may attempt to re-create for his discussion the conditions obtaining in 1917, the solemn and depressing events of the elapsing four years cannot be altogether shoved out of con- sciousness. At all events, one personal statement at this point is due the reader no less than the writer. Although disapproving of much of the ^course of action it demanded, as a member of the Socialist Party I voted for the adoption of . the St. Louis Platform in 1917: and today, still a member of the Socialist Party, if faced again by the predicament existing in 1917 and with no other alternative available than that available in 1917, 1 should today, still a member of the Social- ist Party and still reluctantly, again vote for its adoption. Before passing directly to a consideration of THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 129 the statements of the St. Louis Platform, however, it may be profitable to notice the date of its for- mulation. The convention by which the platform was adopted did not assemble until five days after the President of the United States had asked Con- gress to pass a resolution declaring a state of war with the Imperial German Government. That he would make such a request was no secret. Since the dismissal of Ambassador von Bernstorff in the preceding February, it was evident that war would be declared indeed, President Wilson's action in calling a. special session of Congress was elo- quent of purpose. Now, any course pursued by the Socialist Party of America or by any other or- ganization desiring to exert influence on Amer- ica's entrance into the War would be effective only if taken before the request to declare war and the consequent proclamation of War. That was particularly true if the course pursued were to be in opposition to war participation. For, as the Socialists have learned to their cost, opposi- tion to war before the die has been cast is toler- ated to an infinitely greater degree than opposi- tion once war has been declared. As a matter of fact, the St. Louis Platform proved to be inef- fective, but it was 1 ineffective largely because it was framed a,nd adopted after the United States had entered the war. If it had been blared forth before April 2, or even before April 6, 1917, it would not have been so altogether fruitless as it 130 THE LARGER SOCIALISM proved in affecting public opinion in the United States. Now, obviously there must be something woe- fully deficient in the mental and administrative capacity of a political party twenty years old which has no machinery available to handle a long-impending and long-foreseen national crisis until too late for action to be effective. For var- ious causes, adequate or inadequate, the national convention of the Socialist Party which should normally have met in the Presidential year 1916 was omitted. In spite of that fact, no central executive body was empowered to state the Party's position even subject to a later referen- dum, should Germany's grudging promises anent a restricted submarine warfare be disregarded, and should the United States accordingly be dragged into war. There was even no machinery avail- able for calling an emergency convention at short notice the St. Louis gathering did not finally convene until more than two months after von Bernstorff had been handed his passports. The reason lay in the all-pervading Socialist mistrust of leadership, even its own leadership. The con- stitution of the Party provided and still provides that practically every significant action, and many insignificant actions, must be determined by a referendum of the Party membership. And what- ever the undeniable virtues of referenda, they do THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 131 not make for sane and rapid action in face of an emergency. Let it be granted that it would have been grossly improper to commit the Party with finality to a position on the War without registering the votes of the Party membership. Nevertheless, there was dire need for the Party to be placed tentatively on record before War or Peace was voted upon as, in fact, for all practical purposes the Party was committed to its course on the War by the adoption of the War Platform by the St. Louis Convention, even before it was ratified by the referendum. It was the tardiness in convenin'g the St. Louis Con- vention which was criminally negligent; and it is little defense to explain that the date on which the special session of Congress was to meet had been advanced several weeks. A well-organized trade union calls a national strike only with the assent of the membership in a "referendum, but also it gives the central executive the authority to make the decision under certain circumstances which can be foretold. The experiences of the last decades with the ap- plication of political democracy have shown that effectiveness is impossible unless the leaders have authority and responsibility ; and the political or- ganization which cannot in less than two months even preliminarily take a position on a vital ques- tion where "time is of the essence" is a political organization which must still travel a long dis- 132 THE LARGER SOCIALISM tance before it can be trusted with power. In no Socialist Local whose meetings I happen to have attended (and I can speak merely from my own ex- perience) has there been machinery for handling efficiently even the routine business of a ward organization. Small printers' bills, payment for rent and light, the phraseology of a letter to a delinquent Comrade, all are thrown open to the discussion of a full meeting. One reason why Socialist Locals are largely futile in converting their neighborhoods is that they are usually so poorly organized that it is almost midnight before even the routine business of inner picayune admin- istration has been disposed of. It is the inevita- ble result of a mental outlook focussed on a dogma. The mind which trusts the analyses of a nine- teenth-century Marx to interpret twentieth-cen- tury events is involuntarily disposed to meet the demand for immediate and concrete action by means of uncritical reliance upon an abstract prin- ciple of action such as the referendum. The So- cialist Party of America could not release itself from its shackles of involved and lengthy pro- cedure, even^o register opposition to its most hideous nightmare, "War, before it was too late, because its mental processes were not flexible. After which preamble, the St. Louis Resolution itself may bo considered. It opens by an analysis of the underlying causes of the War as a whole which will be less and less vigorously disputed as THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 133 the terms of the Treaties of Peace impress them- selves more and more firmly upon popular under- standing. Even the pro-war liberals, whose con- demnation of the St. Louis Resolution was based on reasoning rather than on emotional anger, ad- mit that "If you want to know what a war was about, study the terms of its peace." And a study of the terms of peace of the Treaties of Versailles, St. Germain and Sevres is sufficient to endorse the St. Louis Resolution's assertion that the funda- mental cause of the War was the economic and financial rivalries between the great Powers. However, the dogmatism of the St. Louis Resolu- tion led it to ignore the role, if only a subsidiary role, played in causing the War by psychological and even illogical factors of an uneconomic kind. It is futile to attempt to account for the World War, for instance, without paying respects to the force of hatreds of one race by another, even of one nation by another nation of the same race. It is even futile to attempt to account for all of that hatred by economic considerations, just as it would be futile to attempt to account for much of it without economic considerations. The inter- necine economic and financial rivalries of interna- tional Capitalism account for all the Serbian hatred of the Austro-Germans of the old Austro- Hungarian monarchy, for all the French hatred of the Germans, for all the German hatred of the Russians, as inadequately as they account for all 134 THE LARGER SOCIALISM the Irish hatred of British rule or for all the con- sequent anti-British feeling in the United States. Furthermore, if the Socialist Party in its plat- form on American participation in the World War saw fit to maintain that one group of belligerents was as little worthy of support by the working- class as the other, it could have founded that posi- tion on a much firmer rock than the re-echo of the old war-cry against the deep-laid plots of interna- tional capitalists. It might well have analyzed the well-being of the masses and the extent of the dis- tribution of happiness in fhe Entente countries as contrasted with the well-being and happiness-dis- tribution in the Central Empires. On this whole question of war culpability, how- ever, the great mass of Americans would have been influenced most readily, and justifiably so, by the determination as to whether Germany, was actu- ally the direct instigator of the War. To all paci- fist and Socialist reasoning on America's, partici- pation, the man in the street inevitably retorted, "Well, answer me this didn't Germany begin the War?" It was therefore highly essential that the St. Louis Kesolution should be meticulously ex- plicit in its charge that the most influential cause of the War was the international capitalist sys- tem. The mere reiteration of the phrase in gen- eral terms was not enough. There should have been concrete explanation of the way in which and why the markets of the world had become interna- THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 135 tional markets. Of the reasons why all the great industrial Powers were in febrile competition for raw materials from the economically undeveloped regions of the earth. Of the reasons why they thus sought political control of those regions. Of the way in which and why control of waterways like the Dardanelles was the cause of intricate interna- tional machinations by a Power like Tsarist Rus- sia, which was an agricultural rather than an industrial Power. Of the way in which the busi- ness interests of the great Powers could exploit Labor in colonies as they could not exploit it at home, and of the consequent advantages of the business interests of Powers with colonies over those of Powers without .colonies. Of the inter- national ramifications of Finance. And, finally and above all, of the practical control of the gov- ernments of all the great belligerent nations by their business and financial interests. These explanations should have been immedi- ately supported by concrete examples. There were enough to hand. For instance, the part played by economic factors in causing the Russo- Japanese War; the international ownership of munition plants; particularly, the reasons why p'ossession of Morocco had almost set off the War in 1905 and again in 1911; the political and eco- nomic slicing-up of China by all the great Euro- pean Powers. In passing, such an exposition would have constituted the most valuable propa- 136 THE LARGER SOCIALISM ganda which the Socialist Party could have sown. For the Party's propaganda had been compara- tively barren of results, both because it had not been able to reach a sufficient proportion of the population, and because it had been couched in terms too vague to admit of popular comprehen- sion. Obviously, such an anti-war resolution as here outlined, adopted before the declaration of war, would have been spread broadcast over the country, and would have explained the import of the Socialist doctrine by timely and comprehensi- ble applications. Also, it may be noted that this general inculcation of Socialist philosophy into the body politic might have served to hasten the Socialist recovery from the unpopularity which opposition to America's participation in the War was bound to cause. Even then, of course, the man in the street would have demanded, "Well, maybe you Social- ists are right about the underlying cause of the War, but can you deny that Germany was the im- mediate cause?" Certainly, even without such a query, the Socialist Party was impelled by its posi- tion on the War to analyze the immediate as well as the underlying causes of the struggle. By the time of the St. Louis Convention, the diplomatic correspondence preceding the major declarations of war was available for dissection, even though probably only in expurgated form. As against the damning evidence of German support of the THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 137 provocative Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Ser- bia, the Socialist Party's best, if not only, card was an exposition of Eussia's guilt in causing general German mobilization, which had long been accepted in all well-informed European circles as the well-nigh inevitable precursor of a German declaration of war on Eussia. Many American minds which were quite passed over by the St. Louis Eesolution's phrases regarding Capital- ism's responsibility for causing the War would have been caught by a searchlight on Eussia's mobilization on the German border as well as on the Austro-Hungarian border before Germany had yet ordered even partial mobilization. Those minds would have been even more firmly caught by a searchlight on the ensuing Eussian failure even to answer, within the time-limit set, the Ger- man ultimatum demanding cessation of the Eus- sian mobilization, in spite of the fact that Ger- many had informed Eussia that the ultimatum itself was very near a declaration of war. At this point, it may be noted that the Socialist Party did not oppose an American declaration of war against Germany because the Socialists were pacifists. The St. Louis Platform declares that the only war in which the working-class will be justified in engaging is a war between the classes. By definite implication, therefore, the St. Louis Platform pledges its" support to a war which may arise to settle the class struggle. The Platform 138 THE LARGER SOCIALISM also asserts that recent wars have always been "made by the classes and fought by the masses," and that "in all modern history there has been no war more unjustifiable than the one in which we are about to engage." Concerning these exag- gerations, it is, of course, possible to be hyper- critical ; for in a protest platform adopted on the brink of war, a certain amount of hyperbole is inevitable. But these statements are more than hyperbole they are the kind of sweeping and in- accurate generalities which throw discredit upon any document in which they appear. It may furnish an anti-war orator emotional satisfaction, as well as a text, to declare that all wars are "made by the classes, and fought by the masses"; but that declaration is certainly not true of the last war. In a country like England, the social pressure which largely compelled enlist- ment in the pre-conscription days was more effec- tive upon the classes than upon the masses. Pro- portionately, the classes probably enlisted in more generous numbers than did the masses, although it is probably true also that the classes went largely into the ranks of the officers, who, after all, suffered less in the fighting than did the pri- vates. And after the adoption of conscription in the United States as well as in England, the call to the colors fell alike upon class and mass. (Es- cape from fighting because of social and economic upper class membership was probably more prev- 139 alent in France than in the United States or in England.) And the ratio of those who were ena- bled to stay at home because of the essential char- acter of their work was certainly no lower among the ranks of Labor than among the ranks of Capi- tal. On the other hand, little exception may be taken to the assertion that "in all modern history there has been no war more unjustifiable than that in which we are about to engage." Considering the impetuous advance of human knowledge since the last previous great international war; the steady multiplication of international ties and under- standings; the comparatively increased material well-being of mankind; the absence of any direct oppression or of redemption of national honor as a pressing casus belli; the power of the organiza- tions and organisms working toward international peace; the fact that the war sprang as the culmi- nation of a complicated, carefully-planned and well-constructed division of Europe into two armed camps on the Balance of Power system; the fact that the European dynamite had very nearly been set off into the explosion of war by the Moroccan spark of 1905, the Bosnian and Herzegovinian spark of 1908, the second Moroccan spark of 1911, the Turko-Italian war spark of 1911 and the Balkan Wars sparks of 1912-13; the fact that each of these sparks had crept nearer the dynamite than its predecessor; the fact that 140 THE LARGER SOCIALISM therefore the explosion of 1914 could almost with certainty have been foretold and therefore pre- vented in view of these considerations, the war in which the United States was about to engage when the St. Louis Eesolution was adopted was verily as unjustifiable as few wars of history. But the language of this section^of the Eesolu- tion was obscure. It was particularly obscure when read in the context of the preceding and fol- lowing statements that to satisfy the capitalists' greed for gain, they had dragged America into war against the will of the American people. And. it was obscure when read in the high emotion and unreason of war-times. I have met Socialists, and altogether there must have been thousands of them, who were sincerely and immovably under the impression that the St. Louis Anti-War Reso- lution, for which they had voted, asserted that it was America's entrance into the lists against the German Government which was unprecedentedly unjustified. Outside of the Socialist ranks, even many of those who were above being stampeded by one hundred per cent American patriotic anti- Socialist propaganda were under the same im- pression. And obviously America's declaration of war against Germany was more fully justified than most war declarations in the past had been, If the Socialists wished to maintain that all such declarations of war were unjustified ; that war be- cause of insult to national honor was as obsolete 141 as duels because of insult to personal honor; that hence nothing vital was at stake save the predomi- nance of one group of nations' capitalist system over another and similar group's capitalist sys- tem that position might well have been defended. But if any wars of the past have been justified merely on the grounds of national avengement of national insult and of violated national rights, our war on the Imperial German Government was so justified. There has already been discussed, in Chapter IV, the unreality of the St. Louis Resolution's charge that America's participation in the War was due to the machinations of America's capital- ist class. The latter part of the Eesolution may therefore next be considered. It is concerned with the course of action to which the Socialist Party of America pledged itself; and it is this part to which the sharpest exception may be taken by even an anti-war member of the Socialist Party. The Party pledged itself to " continuous, active and public opposition to the War . . . through- all means in our power." To opposition to the enact- ment of conscription; and, shoiild it nevertheless coma, to "the support of all mass movements in opposition to conscription." Finally, tlie Party pledged itself to "oppose wit!? all our strength" any attempt to rai^;e money for war by taxing the necessities of life or by issuing bonds. Now, at the time when the St. Louis Resolution 142 THE LARGER SOCIALISM 4 'S ' was framed, the Socialist Party of America, by the very essence of its existence as a political party, placed, as it still places, its chief reliance upon political action for the accomplishment of its %nds. It differs from the syndicalists, the I. W. W., the anarchists, the cooperatives, the Bolshe- vists, and the American Federation of Labor, in that it concentrates its efforts upon the verdict of the ballot-box. In other words, it subscribes to the principles of political democracy. By those principles, the minority is pledged to accept the verdict of the majority, so long as the majority does not interfere with the minority's effort, by political procedure, to make itself the majority. But the course of action imposed on the Socialist Party by the St. Louis Eesolution was in direct opposition to the principles of political democracy, and hence to the idea on which the Socialist Party itself is founded. In opposition to the prosecu- tion of the War, to the enactment and enforcement of military and industrial conscription, to the im- position of war taxation on necessities, to collec- tion of war loans, the Party pledged itself to go beyond its right to agitate for the repeal of the objectionable legislation by appeals to and educa- tion of the electorate. It pledged itself to more than demonstrations and petitions. It pledged itself to "mass movements" and all other means within its power (whether or not within its pre- rogative). THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 143 All due regard may be given to the looseness of phraseology to be expected from a special con- vention of a mere protesting organization still without any responsibility or power in the proce- dure of governing the nation ; to the fact that the platform was framed by a hastily-chosen commit- tee, which had to formulate it in such eloquent lan- guage as would earn the commendation of an ex- cited and excitable open convention of more than one hundred persons ; to the warmth of controver- sial feeling which pervaded the country at the time the St. Louis Resolution was framed. And yet, with all regard to pardonable exuberance of language, in its stand on the War the Socialist Party went over to the direct actionists. Although an insignificant minority in the country, it pledged itself to disregard the registered decision of the vast majority, and to upset that decision before and without obtaining a mandate to that effect by the democratic procedure of a show of hands. The Socialist Party was willing to achieve its ends by use of its sheer power in exactly the method which it is the first and the loudest to condemn when that method is employed by the Steel Corporation, by the capitalist Press, by a group of bankers or by a strike-breaking agency. Of the course of action demanded by the St. Louis Resolution, one defense, and one only, is open to the Socialist Party. The Party may base its disregard of the procedure of political democ- 144 THE LARGER SOCIALISM 'racy on the grounds that thnt procedure had al- - ready been disregarded by the Republican and Democratic Parties in their declaration of war. The Congress which declared war had been elected in time of peace, when America seemed to have extricated herself from the danger of being drawn into the European holocaust. Indeed, in that elec- tion the Democratic administration of President Wilson had been endorsed by the electorate after a campaign in which the Democrats had relied largely upon the slogan, ' ' He kept us out of war. ' ' In that campaign, the Republicans, who had up- braided President Wilson for not taking a firmer stand toward the Imperial German Government, had been rejected by the voters of the country. With much show of justice, the St. Louis Resolu- tion might have insisted that only by an advisory referendum, or by the results of a number of rep- resentative special Congressional elections in dif- ferent sections of the country, would the principle -of political democracy have been previously ob- served in the declaration of war. Objection had been raised to an advisory referendum on Peace or War because no machinery for it was available, and because it would be impossible to create that machinery with speed and adequate safeguards against fraud. But that that objection was in- valid was proved by our rapid creation of machin- ery for the far more difficult and more complicated procedure of registration for the draft. Indeed, THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 145 in view of my strictures on the St. Louis Besolu- tion, at this point I again crave indulgence for a personal reference. I believed in April, 1917, and believe today, although naturally the belief cannot be substantiated, that a Peace-or-War referendum held before Congress had declared war on the Im- perial German Government, a referendum in which women would have voted on the- same terms as men, would have declared for peace. But the Socialist Party's War creed indulged in no direct reference to a referendum, nor to any 'other politically democratic method of deter- mining the will of the majority of American vot- ers on the question of war. With such a reference, opposition to the prosecution of the War by the United States might not have flown so flagrantly in the face of democratic procedure. Without it, the Socialist Party was itself declaring war war on the political system of the country. For to stop our prosecution of the war, the St. Louis Eesolu- tion was relying on a naked test of strength Socialist strength versus Government (or, if you will, capitalist) strength. And in a test of sheer strength by resort to war, the vanquished can hardly object to being disarmed by the victor. Since the Socialists were appealing to mass action in order to paralyze the Government's (or the cap- italists') strength, they could hardly object with propriety when the Government (or the capital- ists) in return, in order to paralyze the Socialist 146 THE LARGER SOCIALISM strength, appealed to mass action such as impris- onment and denial of mail privileges. I need hardly add that it is one thing to render war objec- tors impotent to injure the program of the major- ity during the prosecution of a war, and quite another thing^to inflict ten and twenty years' jail sentences upon them as punishment for merely voicing their disagreement. Nor could the Socialist Party, in defence of the St. Louis Resolution, fairly point to the sabotage of public opinion by Capitalism through the press and the pulpit and the movie theatre. It may be true that the processes of political democracy de- pend for their validity upon a public opinion which has access to the truth ; and that at present most or many of the agencies which spread informa- tion before the people distort the truth. But if the Socialist Party is determined to play the game of political democracy, it must abide by the rules of the game. (If not, let it previously announce that it does not intend to abide by them and take the consequences, as did the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party.) If the capitalist pulpit, the capitalist press and the capitalist movie will not impart the truth about the Socialist move- ment, the Socialist movement must organize its own press, its own pulpit and its own movies. By the rules of the game of political democracy, resort to propaganda qilU propaganda is quite legiti- mate; the quintessence of political democracy is THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAE 147 to be found in the contest between the most highly- developed propagandas. When one's opponent resorts to propaganda, one is justified, not in aban- doning the game, but in resorting to counter-prop- aganda, and may the best propaganda win ! If the Socialist Party should achieve political control in the United States, and, even illegitimately', should use that control to influence public opinion, the Socialist Party would nevertheless be well within its rights in suppressing the Capitalist Parties if the Capitalist Parties used that influencing of pub- lic opinion as an excuse for disregarding the ver- dict of the ballot-box, and attempted to overthrow Socialism by means of such mass action as an arti- ficially-created business panic. Accordingly, it is more than wisdom-after-the- event to suggest that the Socialist Party of Amer- ica could have expressed its opposition to Ameri- ca's participation in the War on grounds more fun- damental than those of the St. Louis Eesolution, more convincing to the great majority of the American electorate, and more fully in accord with the principles and practise of Socialism itself. Surely, even in March, 1917, the war platform of the Socialist Party, after tracing and proving the economic origin of the War and the overwhelm- ingly economic character of the true issues at stake in the War, after analyzing the immediate events which led directly to the outbreak of hostilities, and after making other points which the framers 148 THE LARGER SOCIALISM desired to have it make, surely the Socialists' plat- form would have better served both the cause of peace and their own cause, and still have voiced the opinions of the great bulk of the Party mem- bership on the War, by proceeding in some such language as this : "In none of the belligerent countries, nor in the United States, is the Government devoted to the welfare and happiness of the masses. Bather, the national life of all countries under the capitalist system is so organized as to shower wealth upon the few, while the many receive merely the mini- mum necessary to keep them at their task of manu- facturing the wealth of which they obtain but a proportion. So far as the welfare of the masses is concerned, therefore, they are but little afrected by what flag flies over their heads while they are exploited. The capitalist class of another country is no more the enemy of the workers than the capi- talist class of their own country even if Germany should impose its rule upon the entire world, the workers of the several countries would merely be exploited by the capitalists of Germany instead of by their own capitalists. However strong a hold national allegiance may still enjoy upon the hearts of the people, modern industrial, commer- cial and financial extension has nullified the true significance of national boundaries. The only war which can repay the untold life, wealth, misery and sacrifice which are spent on it would be a war THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 149 prosecuted for the purpose of distributing happi- ness equitably, if not equally. ''The present war is not such a war. Which- ever group of belligerents wins, and whichever loses, it will be merely one branch of the capitalist system which wins and a similar branch of the capitalist system which loses. The only truly sig- nificant war is the struggle to abolish the capital- ist system, and that struggle is only interrupted, if, indeed, not seriously postponed and weakened, by the present struggle between artificial issues. The world issue of the present and future is social and industrial democracy, just as the worJd-issue of the immediate past lias been political democ- racy. * Hence the future, looking back upon any war of today which is not waged for social and industrial democracy, will regard it as pathetically futile, just as the nineteenth century regarded a war between two groups of mediaeval principali- ties both of whiph were groping in the darkness of the mediaeval system. "It is maintained, however, that though eco- nomic democracy and social democracy are not at stake in this war, the principle of political democ- racy is so at stake. It is maintained that economic democracy and social democracy are available only through political democracy, and that the goal of Socialism will be brought nearer by the victory of political democracy in this war, and will be ban- 150 THE LAEGEB SOCIALISM ished to a greater distance by the victory of politi- cal autocracy. "In reply to this contention, the Socialist Party must insist that the issue of political democracy in the present war is sadly obscured. France, Great Britain and Italy, it is true, have sloughed off the antiquated governmental absolutism which still rules Germany, Austria-Hungary and Tur- key; but even the German system of Gov- ernment is not so antiquated in its abso- lutism as is that of Japan, one of the En- tente. And more and more the Far East is becoming the center of the world-stage. The Balkans also are near the center of the world- stage on which the curtain of the present war was raised ; and the most democratic nation of the Bal- kans fights by the side of the Central Powers while the least democratic ranges with the Entente. Even the German system of government is not so autocratic and so inimical to progress as was that of Tsarist Russia; and when Ambassador von Bernstorff was dismissed, and war thus practically declared on Germany by the United States, the Tsar was still upon his throne. For more than two and a half years, the opponents of Germany were glad to have Tsarism as their ally. It is thus only an accident that the success of the United States in a war to defeat Kaiserism will not result also in the enhancement of Tsarism. A war which be- came a war of political principle only several THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 151 weeks ago through the chance of a revolutionary coup d'etat might readily again become in a few weeks a war of no principle through the accident of a Tsarist coup d'etat. ' ' The Socialist Party may be told, however, that the tree must be judged by its fruit; and that the capitalist system which is Germany is proved in- finitely more evil than the French, British and Italian capitalist systems by the German violation of a solemn international pledge in the invasion of Belgium, as well as by the German treatment of Belgian civilians. The Socialist Party takes this occasion firmly to condemn the German invasion of Belgium as infamous, and its treatment of Belgian civilians as a reversion to barbarism. However, the Socialist Party must justify its position by calling attention to the fact that the present world war came but a hair's breadth from erupting in 1911, as a result of the ' Second Moroccan Affair. ' This Moroccan crisis was brought to a head partly by the overbearing conduct of German diplomacy, but more largely by France 's wanton violation of her solemn international pledges regarding Mo- rocco, as defined in the international Algeciras Treaty of 1906 and later. "The German treatment of Belgian civilians the Socialist Party takes this occasion to use as a text to illustrate its contention that the true enemy of the workers and of modern civilization is the capi- talist system. Numerous vice investigations in 152 THE LARGER SOCIALISM the great cities of the United States itself have dis- covered that hundreds of working-girls are driven into prostitution in our own country to an extent because of the low wages they receive. In spite of these findings, in but few instances has the coun- try, through its national, state, or municipal gov- ernments, provided such an easily available rem- edy as general minimum wage legislation. A coun- try which will not pass laws to help keep many of its own working-women from resorting reluc- tantly to prostitution cannot cast a stone at even so brutal an outrage as the German treatment of Belgian civilians. Moreover, the cruelties inflicted by Germans on Belgians have by no means sur- passed those inflicted by the Belgians themselves on the natives of the Congo, or by our own white citizens on our negro citizens in the South, while our local, state and national Governments officially refuse to interfere. "In this connection, we call attention to the fact that it was not until the German Government again resorted to unrestricted submarine warfare that the present Administration was willing to lead this country into the War. Therefore, the United States enters the War, not because the war repre- sents a struggle of right against wrong in which the right must triumph, but because this country's rights as a neutral have been violated. If war is declared upon Germany by the United States, the war will hence have as its main purpose avenge- THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 153 ment of violated American honor. It thus falls within the category of the duel; and the Socialist Party maintains that victory by means of armed might is no more successful a method of settling an international quarrel than the rapier thrust or the pistol shot at dawn was an adequate and justi- fiable method of settling a personal quarrel. We go on record as asserting that American rights and honor have been flagrantly abused by the Ger- man Government; and that all modern civilized standards of decency were outraged by the sinking of the Lusitania. We go on record as denouncing in the strongest terms of which we are capable the violation of international law by the German Gov- ernment. We go on record as admitting that, ac- cording to the conceptions of the past underlying the old relations between nations, America has a just grievance against Germany. But, as the party entrusted with the conceptions of the future which will underlie the new relations of all classes of mankind, Avn must deny that an insult to na- tional honor and to national rights justifies the untold expenditure of life, suffering and wealth, demanded in the process of avenging the insult by means of ~w ar. ' ' The Socialist Party, however, is not so blinded to the character of the belligerents in the present War as not to appreciate that, on the whole, Ger- many represents a somewhat more vicious type of capitalism than Great Britain, France, Italy or 154 THE LARGER SOCIALISM the United States. Insisting that Prussianism is inherent in all capitalist nations, and that the Huns are by no means all in Prussia, we yet realize that Prussianism has a stronger hold upon Germany than upon the Entente countries and the United States, and that in those lands the percent- age of Huns is somewhat lower than in Prussia. If our country should unhappily be drawn into war against Germany, and if that war should nev- ertheless unhappily be dragged out until one camp is victorious and the other is vanquished, we go on record as believing that the progress of the world will be less seriously set back by the victory of the United States and its associates against Germany. " Nevertheless, we are impelled to take an anti- war position because of our conviction that the present civilization represented by the United States as by all the other Great Powers is inher- ently a vicious, antiquated and backward-looking civilization. As Socialists, we obviously cannot support a war which, if successful, thus will result merely in the ascendancy of, let us say, an 80% vicious type of civilization over a 90% vicious type. The cost is too extravagantly high for the slight value of the achievement. When the present war is over, the struggle of Socialism to unseat Capitalism will face well-nigh the same opposi- tion from a victorious Entente as from victorious Central Powers. For these reasons, as Socialists we pledge ourselves to, and concentrate all our THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 155 efforts on, preventing the entrance of the United States into the War. And if unsuccessful, we pledge ourselves at all times to exert all legal ef- forts in behalf of an immediate peace through the cessation of hostilities. "Moreover, even to those who believe, as we cannot, that a difference of a truly fundamental nature exists between the civilization of one group of belligerents and that of the other, we solemnly point out the degrading effect of war. War is a direct and devastating enemy of the beneficent features of national life. It is similarly a direct and luxurious encouragement to malevolent forces undermining a nation's democracy. The nation which wades through months and years of war emerges with an aggravated materialism and a new impatience of any considerations except those of might and force. War necessarily brings into play dormant brutal and savage instincts; and largely inhibits, even to the point of atrophy, the instincts which are the more generous and enno- bling. Whatever differences may have existed be- tween the Entente Allies' civilization and Ger- many's civilization before the War, to the dis- favor of Germany, will be practically wiped out by the processes of war. "Nor can the United States hope to escape this morally enervating effect of War, should she enter the lists against Germany. To whatever extent the capitalist system of Germany before 1914 was 156 THE LARGER SOCIALISM more vicious than that of the other great Powers, it was so largely because Germany in time of peace was permeated by the spirit of war. The opponents of Germany may defeat her armed might on the battle-field; but in the course of the process, the spirit of Germany will have permeated them, and will have removed most of the points differentiating" them from her. Our determination to oppose war by the United States against Ger- many thus functions for the preservation of what- ever is wholesome in American civilization, and against the malevolent forces which would lower the plane of our national life. "This being the position of the Socialist Party of America, what course of action can it and must it take in support of that position? "In determining its course of action, the Social- ist Party recognizes that it is but a minority party. As a minority, and as a political party pledged to abide by the decision and will of the majority, it must accept the decision and will of the majority if the majority determine upon war. But with all its power, the Socialist Party de- mands that action be taken to determine the will of the majority by means of an advisory referen- dum in which women as well as men shall vote. Only thus can both the proponents and the oppo- nents of an American declaration of war upon Ger- many know whether the people of the country are (in favor of war. In such a referendum, the Social- THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 157 1st Party, in conformity with its principles above set forth, naturally will exert all its power to obtain a decision for peace. "In case such a referendum should return a de- cision for war, the Socialist Party in its actions must consider itself bound to accept that decision of the majority, no matter how firmly convinced that such a decision will redound to the injury of the country and of the world. It is in duty bound, therefore, not to resort to active, violent, illegal or extra-political methods in order to prevent the majority from prosecuting the war, or in order to effect peace. On the other hand, we remind our pro-war opponents that if we respect their rights as a majority, they are in duty bound to respect our privileges as a minority. Even if the country decides upon war, we preserve our right of free speech, of free press, of assemblage and of peace- ful petition for a reversal of the war decision. In pursuance of this right as a political minority, and in accordance with our position as Socialists in opposition to this war and to the participation of our country in it, we pledge ourselves to agitate ceaselessly, through the constitutional methods open to a minority political party, for the immedi- ate advent of peace. "This demand for an advisory referendum on America's participation in the War may be denied, and America may declare war by vote of Congress without any opportunity for the masses of the peo- 158 THE LARGER SOCIALISM pie to make their voice heard. In that case, we still are pledged as a minority political party to abide by a decision adverse to us. By having organized politically in the past, we have accepted the method of government prevailing in this coun- try, no matter how imperfect it may be. Also, we recognize that a minority political party cannot ex- pect to enjoy all the freedom of dissent in time of war to which it is entitled in time of peace. To an extent, the exigencies of war justify the curtail- ment of certain superficial rights ; and of course, military and naval information of value to the enemy cannot be allowed public discussion. But the fundamental rights of dissent belong to a minority even in war. The existence of war can- not provide any legitimate excuse for the majority to break its tacit contract with the minority which is implied in the practise of political democracy, any more than for the minority to break its con- tract with the majority; and the Socialist Party will carry out faithfully its end of the contract so long as its opponents carry out their end. There must be no suppression of Socialist newspapers and magazines; no interference with Socialist meetings ; no ban upon Socialist campaigns in elec- tions ; no imprisonment of Socialist leaders merely for expressing anti-war views. In war as in peace, the presence of a militant opposition party is nec- essary to keep the ruling group from error, and from betrayal of the trust which has been reposed THE SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR 159 in it. If the United States should enter the war against Germany, it will be of service rather than of injury to the country if the Socialist Party con- tinues its opposition to the war, and thus compels those responsible for the conduct of the war to wage it for the high purposes which they have pro- fessed, and doubtless will continue to profess. ''Thus opposing American participation in the war, the Socialist Party nevertheless lays one sol- emn injunction upon those who differ with it and who support war participation. It is that possible American participation shall be used only to pre- vent German success and to ensure a peace without victory. The Socialist Party demands that the President of the United States keep ever before him and before the country his statements of Jan- uary, 1917, that only a peace without victory can be a stable peace, and that a peace between victor and vanquished can only sow the seeds of future wars. If that was true while the United States was a neutral, it will be no less true if the United States become a belligerent. "With respect to conscription and war loans, the Socialist Party must continue its attitude as the anti-war opposition party. We pledge our utmost to resist the enactment of conscription leg- islation. If conscription comes, we shall abide by the laws, and the attitude of each Socialist toward compulsory military service becomes then an indi- vidual matter. To every Socialist, as to any non- 160 THE LARGER SOCIALISM Socialist, who feels called upon to deny the right of the state to conscript the individual for the busi- ness of killing, against the dictates of his own conscience and his own reason, we pledge our heartiest support; but the Socialist Party as such will not urge its individual members either to re- sist or to yield to conscription. Similarly, we demand that the war be paid for as it progresses, and that surplus wealth be taxed to the vanishing point before necessities are taxed, and before the Government incurs debt to pay for the war by means of war loans. If such loans are neverthe- less passed, the Socialist Party can neither en- dorse nor oppose popular participation in them. "As the political representative of the class- conscious workers of the United States, the Social- ist Party of America once more reaffirms its alle- giance to the principles of international Socialism. It still places international before national wel- fare. It still affirms that the true enemy of man- kind and the true bar to mankind's progress is the capitalist system. It renews its affiliations, with the working-class movements and parties of other countries. It takes its stand by the side of these parties in all countries, Entente, Central Powers or neutral, which are opposing the continuation of the war; and it pledges to those parties its active cooperation in effecting an immediate peace." CHAPTER VL SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL, APPEAL. IF the foregoing considerations concerning the weakness of Socialism in the United States are substantially valid, the American Socialist move- ment will do well to launch its appeal from a new basis. The old appeal based largely on self -inter- est has proved too inadequate ; for, as previously suggested, it may well t/3 doubted if the majority of Americans at the present time belong to the proletariat in the Marxian sense of the term. Cer- tainly, the doubt becomes stronger as to whether three-fourths of the people of the United States would gather round the Socialist flag even if they could be induced to obey the slogan, ' * Stick to your own class, work with it, vote for it." And Jby the constitutional obstacles to innovations in govern- ment in this country, it is probable that the Social- ist Party could not succeed in realizing its pro- gram through political action unless it were sup- ported by electorates in three-fourths of the states. This is especially true because of the fact that in national elections both the old parties will indisputably coalesce against the Socialist Party 161 162 THE LARGER SOCIALISM when it becomes powerful, as they have already coalesced against it in Congressional and local elections where it has threatened their supremacy ; and will thus remove the possibility of playing off one old party against the other, in the method of campaign employed, for instance, to effect pro- hibition. And unless the farmers are brought into the fold, success for political-action Socialism in the United States may again well be despaired of. The num- ber of farmers in the United States may be stead- ily decreasing in proportion to the population, and the number of farm tenants steadily increasing, but there are few indications that in the immediate future the number of farmers will fall below 25% of the total number of workers. (About 36% of the employed males in the United States were listed by the 1910 census as in agricultural and kindred pursuits.) Even if the number should fall to 20%, when it came to rounding up the three- fourths of the states necessary for constitutional amendments, the Socialist Party would probably find that in more than one-fourth of the states the farmers would be sufficiently near 50%, especially when reinforced by the members of the capitalist and middle classes and by others outside of the benefits to be conferred by Socialism, to put a spoke in the Socialist wheel. It seems obvious, therefore, that unless the So- cialist Party is willing to remain a minority party SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 163 of protest and stimulation, furnishing to its mem- bers only the emotional thrill and intellectual sat- isfaction of being in open rebellion against the established order of things, and to its opposing capitalist parties new ideas and a goad to prog- ress; or else unless it is willing to abandon its status as an organization of political action, it will have to enlarge its program so as to provide for the interests of the agricultural population, both individual landowner and tenant farmer. To do so, it will be compelled to do more than throw a few sops to Agriculture in the way of planks for state-owned grain elevators and state marketing machinery, as the more recent programs of the Socialist Party have done. Indeed, the Socialist programs will have to go farther than v even give extended attention to the farmers' needs. They will have to place the farmers ' welfare on a plane of at least equal importance with the welfare of Labor, and will have to devote at least as much attention to solving the ills of agriculture as to solving those of industry. Otherwise, there will be no reason why the farmer who becomes dissatis- fied with the present economic system should turn to the Socialist Party instead of to the Non-Par- tisan League, for instance ; or why the Non-Parti- san League should join forces with the Socialist Party. But so long as the Socialist Party appeals for membership and political support solely or chiefly 164 THE LARGER SOCIALISM on the self-interest appeal, the farmers will remain religiously aloof. It is true that the 1920 Census shows that the proportionate number of farms in the United States is growing smaller. The day may even arrive when the ownership of agricul* tural land will become as concentrated as the ownership of industries; when the small farm owned and worked by the individual will become so rare as the small business owned and worked by the individual; when the economies of large- scale production will prove -applicable to agricul- ture as well as to industry ; when hence there will arise large agricultural corporations, which will produce the bulk of the farm products of the coun- try, which will be owned by stockholders scattered over all parts of the nation, and which will em- ploy thousands of men who will own no part of the land they work, receiving money instead of produce as the result of their toil. But, unless all indications lie, that day belongs to a period too distant to enter into the calculations of Socialist procedure in the immediate future. At the pres- ent time, it is far from tha farmer's self-interest to join a movement aiming generally at Govern- ment ownership and operation, as distinct from general private ownership and operation. True, the Socialist Party may assure the farmer that for the present the Socialist program will not be applied to land worked by its owner, so that at least it will not be to the farmer's injury if Social- SOCIALISM ASfD THE ETHICAL APPEAL . 165 ism becomes dominant. But neither will the domi- nance of Socialism redound appreciably to his ben- efit on the present appeal to self-interest. It might redound slightly to his benefit by cheapening agri- cultural implements, seed, fertilizer, clothing, agri- cultural credit and mortgages, marketing proc- esses. But to bring him along on that reckoning, the Socialist Party would have to launch its ap- peal from the basis of the greater material effi- ciency of a Socialist system; and, as we have seen, the Socialist Party seldom takes that tack. Fur- thermore, if Agriculture be corralled by proof of greater material efficiency, Labor will have to be similarly corralled; obviously, a Socialist move- ment cannot progress by holding self-interest be- fore the wage-earners who support it and greater material efficiency before the farmers who sup- port it. In the last analysis, greater economic efficiency and economic self -interest may be almost identical as bases of appeal; but at present the Socialist appeal asserts self-interest chiefly through more efficient distribution of wealth, in- stead of through more efficient production of wealth. Even so, the benefit to be derived by the farmer from such items as the cheapening of the tools and the fertilizer he uses is probably insuffi- cient to overcome his natural and acquired iner- tia and hostility to Socialism to the point where he will support the Socialist program. In suggesting that the Socialist movement pre- 166 THE LARGER SOCIALISM sent its appeal largely on an ethical basis, I fully appreciate that in the present year of our Lord the "word ''ethical" has a most unfortunate con- notation. It suggests the Epworth League, the Chautauqua platform, the social problem novel and Woodrow Wilson. What I mean by the ethi- cal impulses on which the Socialist movement ought chiefly to rely is the impulses in man which tempt him to work for the common good, often when he himself will not thereby be benefited, and occasionally when he himself may even thereby be injured. That such altruistic impulses are pres- ent in man as well as selfish impulses, it seems hard to deny. The instances are too many, spring too readily to the mind, occur too frequently in one's every-day experiences as well as in history, are too convincing. True, they may be and doubt- less should be traced back to non-altruistic factors, and I am particularly fearful lest the use of the word "ethical" should imply a belief that the "ethical" impulses in man derive from some su- pernatural source. The anthropologist may give us their origin in the tribal instinct developed in the prehistoric days when inability or failure to place the survival or success of the tribe above the individual's selfish instincts proved fatal not only to the tribe, but also to the non-altruistic individ- ual. Or the psychologist may find the origin of the ethical impulses in the instinct for commenda- tion of one's fellows, in a sublimation of the sex SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 167 instinct, in development of the paternal instinct, in a slight twitching of a minor abdominal muscle, or in similar sources. The birth and nurture of the ethical impulse do not concern us here. I am pointing only to the fact that it exists, may be appealed to, may be built upon. The Marxian may deny that this ethical impulse is ever strong enough to counterbalance the ap- peal of self-interest, except in rare instances and in rare individuals. But surely the very existence and procedure of the Socialist movement in the United States refute him. The Socialist Party of America contains a large number of members who belong to it and strive for it solely because of their belief in its principles, and who have nothing to gain by their Socialist adherence and striving. Indeed, it contains many who have lost jobs, higher salaries, social prestige, to say nothing of leisure and recreation, because of their Socialist activities ; and who held no illusion that Socialism would arrive in time to benefit them, or would benefit them if it did arrive. The regular attend- ance upon drab and dreary Local and committee meetings, the early rising on Sunday mornings and the late retiring on week-day nights in order to distribute literature, the persistent street-cor- ner harangues before apathetic or hostile audi- ences, to say nothing of ten, fifteen and twenty year jail sentences, surely these evidences of devo- tion which alone have held the Socialist Party 168 THE LARGER SOCIALISM together cannot be explained solely on the basis of self-interest. And if the Marxian retort that these instances are exceptional, one can point to the stand of the Socialist Party as a whole on Ameri- can participation in the World War. It must have been apparent to the leaders and rank-and-file of the Socialist Party that the adoption of the St. Louis Resolution would injure the organization perhaps at the very outset of American participa- tion giving it renewed strength from the support of pacifists and pro-Germans, but as the war con- tinued, covering it with general disapprobation and hostility. Indeed, probably only a few of the more cool-headed leaders and rank-and-file mem- bers -paid any heed to the effect of the St. Louis ^Resolution in advancing the self-interest of the Socialist Party; they voted for it because of the ethical impulse to have the Party take the stand on war which it seemed to them the Party was ethically obligated to take. However, even granting that the ethical impulse cannot generally be appealed to, in opposition to self-interest, to gain general support for the So- cialist cause, surely the Marxian will grant that the ethical appeal may succeed where it is not opposed to self-interest. He will doubtless grant even that in such case its use is justifiable and may be wholesome, or, at least, not unwholesome. Now, in the present stage of development of the Ameri- can capitalist system, there are still great num- SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 169 bers of people whose self-interest is but little bound up, for better or for worse, in the advent of Socialism. They are not only members of the middle-class, whose salaries would probably be cut in about the same proportion as their expenses by the substitution of Socialism for capitalism, and whose mode of life would accordingly proba- bly be but little changed. They are also, and more particularly, as just maintained 1 , the farmers. The farmers are peculiarly susceptible to the ethi- cal appeal. Religion has a stronger hold upon them than upon most of the other elements of the , community, and they respond more readily than probably any ether element to appeals for support of a movement because it is "right" and in fun: therance of the ethical principles of Christianity. As a matter of fact; there is at the present time in the United States an inchoate sympathy with socialism not with Socialism. To an extent, of course, this sympathy is due to resentment at prof- iteering; discomfort from the high cost of living; anger at the ruthless suppression of minority opin- ion inflicted during and after our participation in the World War ; possibly stirring of the imagina- tion by the success of Soviet Eussia against the capitalistic nations' attacks upon her; and, within intellectual circles, sad disillusion as to the ability of a mere liberalism to be effective in the present intensity of post-war hysteria and economic class warfare. But that sympathy is due also to a vague' 170 THE LARGER SOCIALISM realization that the motif of the capitalist system contradicts the ethical principles that we avow, whether in churches, in silent communion of prayer, in literature or elsewhere. This sympathy is evidenced by an increasing number of admis- sions that "Oh, yes, there are many good points about Socialism"; "I'm a Socialist in lots of things"; "I suppose Socialism is bound to come." Of course, this frame of mind is largely unor- ganized and unconscious of the true import of So- cialism. What it purports, rather, is an increas- ing longing for a system of human relations that will be more kindly and generally "different," without any very definite program for the consum- mation of this ethical impulse. But the significant point, it seems to me, is that when persons of this frame of mind come into actual contact with the Socialist movement, many are apt to be repelled, rather than attracted. The compleat Marxian, of course, would explain this repulsion by self-inter- est : the vague sympathizer with Socialism as hold- ing forth a promise of a more Christian civiliza- tion loses his sympathy when he realizes that Socialism will endanger the fatness of his purse. But many who are thus repelled are those whose pocketbooks will be fattened, or at least unaf- fected, by the advent of Socialism. Or else they are, in some cases, of those who in the past have proved superior to the self-interest consideration by supporting other movements which have threat- SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 171 ened their purses, or which occasionally, becoming successful, have carried the threat to fulfillment. And when such persons get on the inside of the Socialist movement, they cannot but feel stifled at the intolerance and suppression inherent in its machinery. Socialist Party members who, even at the dictates of their consciences and in almost un- paralleled crises, should vote for a candidate other than the regular Party candidate, are automati- cally subject to expulsion. The rule is as inflexi- ble when the vote was cast for a President in the hope that he would keep the country out of war as if the vote were to be cast for a physician of rare administrative ability as health commissioner of a large city, rather than for the Socialist candi- date who might or might not be able to handle the municipal health problems in the face of an im- pending plague or epidemic. There are other sim- ilar rules the infraction of which also renders the Comrade automatically subject to expulsion. The Socialist Party, bitterly complaining when, as a sincere minority party in the United States, it is treated with intolerance, displays much intoler- ance toward any minority opinion which might sincerely arise within its own ranks. Moreover, such potential sympathizers with So- cialism are particularly repelled, in many cases, by the flatly sordid demand which underlies much of the current Socialist propaganda in the United States : ' ' The workman must receive the full re- 172 THE LARGER SOCIALISM turn of his labor. ' ' They thus discover that, in the words they themselves would probably use, "These Socialists are afraid that they aren't get- ting all that's coming to them." They can under- stand, of course, this point of view it is the point of view of most other organized groups in the com- munity, and it may be justified. But many who have been vaguely stirred by the promise of a "better" type of civilization turn away feeling that, after all, "The Socialists are just like the rest of them." In the battle-cry, "The worker must receive all he produces," there is little to capture the imagination of those who, like the farmers, have little direct interest in such a slogan, but who are responsive to ethical issues. At all events, I believe most Socialists themselves would agree that the sympathy with socialism with a small " s " in the United States is greater than the sympathy with or support of Socialism with capital "S," and that that state of affairs can be only partially explained by the effect of an ti -"So- cialist propaganda. After all,' the evils which Socialism attacks are largely the evils against which the ethical prin- ciples of Christianity are arrayed, and the bene- fits which Socialism would bestow are largely the benefits which would accrue by adherence to the ethical principles to which Christendom pays at least nominal homage. This statement natu- rally does not imply any belief that Jesus was SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 173 a Socialist more than eighteen hundred years before Marx, or that Jesus 's system can in ariy sense be described as Socialism. Still less does, it imply, in making use of ethics on which Christian civilization is founded, or on which a Christian civilization would be founded, a willing- ness to accept, or even to connive at, the theology which has grown up around those ethics. This is, rather, simply another way of saying that when Socialism abandons its " inevitability " line of ap- proach in favor of an "ought" line of approach, the "ought" becomes meaningless unless the ethics of Christianity are accepted. It is on these ethics that the Socialist must base his "ought"; if those ethics are rejected, the anti-Socialist merely retorts " * Ought?' Why 'ought!' " and is unanswerable. Why, then, should not the Socialist movement present its appeal largely on the ground that the present capitalist system of Christendom is a frank and flagrant denial of the ethical principles which Christendom prof esses ; and that a Socialist system, on the whole, represents the -crystalliza- tion of those principles, as tampered by the twen- tieth century's need for organization and integra- tion which must render impracticable much of the individualist communism and anarchism which Jesus taught! These ethical principles are in existence ; are accepted theoretically by most per- sons ; are mighty in their power ; and clamor to be 174 THE LARGER SOCIALISM used in political and economic campaigns and struggles. Of course, it is easy to wax clever at the expense of the Christian ethical system not merely in its present application, or lack of appli- cation; but also, if strictly applied, in its inade- quacy and vagueness in meeting the complex prob- lems of modern life. And yet, away from the in- tellectual circles, there would probably be nothing to replace the Christian principles, or at least nothing so wholesome, if they should be aban- doned. For most people, after all, nothing else preaches so adequately the need for the elemen- tary virtues, and it would be a serious calamity if those principles should still further atrophy through disuse. It may be objected that it is exaggeration to maintain that the Socialist movement in the United States is not based upon ethical considera- tions and ignores ethical values in presenting its case. True, there is naturally a proportion of Socialist propaganda which may be called ethical, just as there is a proportion of the Socialist Party membership which visualizes Socialism funda- mentally as the fulfillment of the commonly- accepted moral code. And yet, on the whole, a Socialist who would like to see American Social- ism lay more stress upon the ethical, appeal is apt to find in the Socialist movement too much reliance upon the idea of physical force. He is apt to feel that the working-class is urged to hurl SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 175 the capitalist class from the seat of power, and jump into the saddle itself, too little because it ought to be in the saddle; and too much because, if it so wills, it has the might to sit there. He would find this point of view too often, for in- stance, in Socialist reaction to current industrial struggles. He would find too many Socialists who will support every strike, whether justified or un- justified indeed, too many who are prone to deny that the workers can ever be unjustified in striking. Now, all strikes can be supported as part of the general struggle between the capitalist class and the proletariat, in which the proletariat on the whole has the better case and should win, and in which general support of the proletariat therefore involves support of all its skirmishes. Just so, a pro-Entente sympathizer during the World War might have stuck to his side despite the violation of the neutrality of Greece and the theft of German private property in the United States. But such a pro-Entente sympathizer must still have charac- terized the violation of Grecian neutrality and the German private property . robbery as ethically wrong, regretting that they had to be supported if the entire Entente cause was to be supported. Whereas your American Socialist too often sup- ports even strikes in direct violation of contracts, not regretfully, not because only thus can he sup- port the general class struggle, but joyously, be- 176 THE LARGER SOCIALISM cause in his eyes almost any means to raise the proletariat and lower the bourgeoisie is justified.. Again, it is naturally possible to defend strikes in violation of contracts on the ground that such contracts, if inelastic, if manipulated by union officials against the will of the rank and file, if covering too long a period of time, are in them- selves unethical and unjustified. But, again, that is seldom the Socialist position in the case of strikes involving a breach of contract on the part of the workers any more than in those involving a breach of contract on the part of the employers. I have seen a copy of what might be called the most representative Socialist publication in the United States appearing in large type under this motto : "The Working-Class Is Always Right." Sure- ly, that sentiment is evidenced by the fact that the journal in^ question frequently distorts news of strikes to favor the workers almost as violently as capitalist newspapers distort it to favor the employers. If 50,000 workers go out on strike in New York City, one can generally be as sure that the Call will announce that 100,000 have struck as that the Times will announce that 25,000 have struck. If the strikers are losing their struggle, the Socialist press can usually be relied upon to conceal the fact at least as faithfully as the capitalist press can be relied upon to conceal a strikers' victory. It is too much the unethical creed that against the foe all means are justified, SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 177 the creed which dictated the German invasion of Belgium, the Allied conduct of the War, once it was begun, and the terms of peace which tried to crystallize the victory when it had been achieved. And if the Socialist movement pursues its struggle against the capitalist system thoroughly under the sway of such a creed, the organization of the victory will be along lines similar to those of the Treaty of Versailles, as unstable, and as surely calculated to make the effort and the victory not only useless, but even worse than useless. Of course, there are many Socialists who believe that the ethical principles which claim mankind's theoretical allegiance are not wholesome, and that the use of them is hence not wholesome. A*nd yet this very type of Socialist is apt to make use of these ethical principles, and thus also to render theoretical allegiance to them. He is a rare So- cialist, indeed, who does not arraign the capitalist class and the capitalist leaders for Disregarding ethics by imprisoning prominent Socialists, by dis- organizing Socialist meetings, by expelling Social- ist representatives and assemblymen elected to office, by suppressing Socialist newspapers, by keeping I. W. W. in jail without bail and almost without charges, by poisoning the sources of public opinion and by utilizing thugs and religious preju- dices to break strikes. Certainly, it will be difficult to find a Socialist palliation of these unethical acts of the capitalist class on the ground that these acts 178 THE LARGER SOCIALISM are but in conformity with the principle of self- interest. Under these circumstances, it would seem as though the Socialists might be willing to leave the question of the value of the ethical prin- ciples open, as more than twenty-five hundred years of fervent discussion have left it open; and to use them to further the cause, if they will fur- ther it. And finally, even the Socialist who is an out-and-out materialist can hardly object to using ethical principles, even those in which he disbe- lieves, to attain his ends, for he naturally will not object to the principle and practise of "The ends justify the means." (In passing, it may be noted that if the Socialist movement should succeed in identifying itself in the minds of the electorate with the electorate's present current and accepted ethics, and if the electorate should nevertheless still reject Social- ism, the result would be to end much of the peo- ple's theoretical allegiance to principles which they either cannot or will not live up to and there are few consummations more devoutly to be de- sired than that.) For example, consider the Socialist appeal based on the class struggle. The^class struggle is probably the least vulnerable of the doctrines in- voked by Marx. Acceptance of it must be quali- fied less seriously than even acceptance of the economic' interpretation of history. Many of the keenest students of modern social and political SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 179 movements who have felt themselves unable to accept either Marxian Socialism or Eevisionist Socialism are willing to accept most of the doc- trine of the class struggle. The Socialist program calls theoretically not only for a recognition of the class struggle, but also for its abolition by what Socialism conceives to be the only possible method. Socialism maintains that the abolition of the class struggle can come only through the abolition of the present class division by the incorporation of all members of society into one class, the class of the .workers. (Under Socialism, of course, the owning class would be. replaced in this process by the Government, synonymous with all the people, that is, with the workers ; or else, under the latter- day influence of the syndicalist and guild socialist urge, by individual groups of the workers, who thus become both workers in and owners of the establishments to which their labor is devoted.) Now, the public mind in the United States at the present time is seriously perturbed at manifesta- tions of the class struggle which have forged. to the fore, especially since November 11, 1918. The American public is more than discommoded at the incidence of strikes. It is developing anxiety con- cerning the danger that the entire fabric of Ameri- can political institutions may be rent in twain by the intensity of the economic conflict; and itis sin- cerely eager to find a method of ending the class struggle. ' If the Socialist appeal would stress ade- 180 THE LARGER SOCIALISM quately the value of the Socialist system, and the futility of any other prescription, in abolishing the economic class struggle by abolishing the eco- nomic class-division, the American public would react much more" favorably than it does now to the Socialist appeal. Naturally, this statement does not imply thqt the appeal to terminate the class struggle by abolishing the owner class would find ready listeners among all or most of that class ; but it does imply that it would find ready listen- ers among most of those whose status is not over- whelmingly owner status, and even among a con- sio^rable number of those, including the farmers, whose status is the owner status. But in the face of this feeling in the United States, ready to be exploited and holding out rich promise to those who will exploit it, the Socialist Party of America concentrates too much of its fire on the evil and too little on the cure. There is much preaching of class consciousness in order to end the class struggle, but there is also too much preaching of the class struggle qua class struggle anol too much recognition of class con- sciousness qua class consciousness. True, in the books and more formal Socialist documents and addresses the blessings of ending the class strug- gle are stressed ; but to one who believes that the American Socialist movement has much to gain by emphasizing the ethical import of Socialism, it must appear that much of the Socialist propa- SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 181 ganda which actually penetrates the American consciousness rejoices in, rather than deplores, the class war. The charge that Socialism preaches class hatred is based on a fallacy so transparent that by ^his time it must arise from sheer misrepresentation rather than from mere ignorance. It is the present alignment of society largely into the group of the owners and the group of the workers which gives rise to the class struggle and hence causes class hatred. But, nevertheless, the Socialist movement , in this country has provided too much excuse for observers of it to conclude that it assails the capi- talist class, not merely in order to render the capitalist class powerless to thwart the fruition of - the Cooperative Commonwealth, but also through' sheer hatred of it; not merely in order to soften the world's old misery, but al^o to give the capital- ' ist class a taste of misery new to it. Those seek- ing surcease from the spirit of hatred dominating the world today turn naturally to the Socialist movement, and they will be repelled by evidence, that it, too, lies in the grip of war-psychology. For it is more than a question of tactics it is a question of a frame of mind. Such a war-psychol- ogy inevitably develops the frame of mind of those who professed that the United States must defeat Germany in order that a better world-system might replace the Balance of Power; but who in reality rather were actuated by the longing to 182 THE LARGER SOCIALISM ' ' lick the Huns good and proper. ' ' And a Social- ist may be pardoned for fearing that this frame of mind in waging a class struggle would render the results of the victory as barren and dangerous as it rendered the results of the victory in the strug-- gle between the capitalist nations. This failure of the Socialist movement to stress the virtues of Socialism in abolishing the present class division has become all the more serious since August 1, 1914. For, as the pacifists predicted, the processes of War have intensified nationalism so extravagantly as to render more difficult than ever any organization of the world on the basis of an internationalism to which nationalism will be and must be subordinate. But, as many of the pacifists did not understand, the feeling for nation- alism is more than an artificially-created allegi- ance inculcated by non-Christian and militaristic education. It is a mighty manifestation of man's clannish craving, of loyalty to his group as against other groups; and doubtless it is the inevitable heritage of man 's long history in tribal groups as he groped toward development somewhat higher than that of his fellow-animals. It has become well-nigh an emotional necessity, this patriotism; and hence it cannot be nullified by a mere intellec- tual demonstration of either its futility or its viciousness. Or, at least, it can be so nullified only in the case of those who have severely trained their emotions to be subordinate to their intellects; SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 183 and at the present development of the race, such persons are an impotent handful, if, indeed, they will ever cease being in the decided minority. If the evils of nationalism as opposed to inter- nationalism and of loyalty to the group as opposed to loyalty to the whole are ever to be controlled, it will have to be by opposing to them a system based also on man's craving for clannishness. And, this the Socialist- preachment of the interna- tional class struggle could do. By lining up the working-class of all countries against the common enemy, the capitalist system (or, if necessary, the capitalist class), it furnishes as a substitute for nationalism an internationalism which makes the same appeal to man 's clannish instinct as nation- alism makes. Of course, the corraling of the world's working-class into one group for the pur- poses of action, together with those not primarily of the working-class who are attracted by the ethical appeal of such a program, will probably prove far more difficult than it has proved in the past to corral all economic classes into effective geographical national groups. Differences such as those of language and religion are serious ob- stacles to such an effective internationalism. Fur- thermore, however weak the feeling for na- tionalism may have been at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it works most potently upon mankind in this third decade of the twentieth cen- tury. It has become surrounded with a halo of 184 THE LARGER SOCIALISM tradition and authority which has given it an ethical, or even religious, hold upon men. For that reason, it can be supplanted by an interna- tional alignment along class lines only if that alignment is preached, not primarily as a scien- tific or a determinist development, but primarily as an emotional summons to an ethical, or even to a religious, crusade. And even if the international class struggle should be sincerely waged as an ethical crusade, its results, if successful in achieving the purpose for which it was waged, also will have to be sur- ^ounded with an ethical, even a religious authority. Man is a worshipping animal. To assure preser- vation of the wholesome institutions which he has achieved, he must be allowed or induced to con- ceive them as worthy of veneration. Of course, in the face of a crisis like war, even the worship will not save the institution, any more than it saved freedom of speech and press in the United States during the war against Germany ; but when the crisis is over, the worship paid the institution will help to restore it, as our holding of freedom of speech and press as a fetish in the pre-war days has been largely responsible for the opposition against continuing the more drastic sections of the Espionage Act after the war. Naturally, there is a grave danger in thus sur- rounding an institution or a movement with a pseudo-religious authority. The danger is that SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 185 ihe institution or movement is rendered imper- vious to change, and becomes an Old Man of the Sea on the back of progress, as the Constitution of the United States has become. Therefore, along with this raising of the institution or movement to a pedestal must proceed the leadership that will stimulate a people or the international group- ing of all peoples to empirical criticism and ex- periment. This balancing between the two ten- dencies, inevitably, will be no easy matter; but whether under internationalism or under national- ism, the truly wise statesmanship of the future, as of the past, will strengthen the veneration in which the wholesome heritage from the past is held, at the same time that it undermines the veneration in which the unwholesome heritage is held. Also, even if the attempt at an international working-class alignment should be successful, it cannot expect to eliminate minor groupings and affiliations. The instincts of the herd which had previously resulted in particularist nationalism will not be satisfied with the umversalism of even an effective internationalism. TJie nations will persist, if in emasculated power. The repression of man's clannish instinct thwarted by their emas- culation will then probably result, in part, in an intensification of the present allegiances not af- fected by the advent of international Socialism in Europe and the Americas. Such will be the 186 THE LARGER SOCIALISM religious and the fraternal allegiances. But with national boundaries made fainter, this thwarting of the clannish instinct should result also in benef- icent new and mightier groupings and affiliations along natural instead of artificial lines, such as kinship of profession and similarity of intellec- tual interests. This launching of the Socialist appeal prima- rily from an ethical basis, then, should help to obviate the danger that the advent of Socialism will provide merely an increase in material wel- fare, and stop there. Let the idealistic spirit of the pre-Marxian Socialism be revived, to be guided and rendered definite and practicable by the Marxian and post-Marxian study of organiza- tion. Let the Socialist movement identify its pro- gram, if only loosely, with the concrete exempli- fication of what may be called the Christian ethics and principles and ideals, putting them to the pragmatic test. Let the Socialist movement thus appeal primarily to the deep-lying right-and- wrong sentiment of the nation, not as propaganda and not in mere lip-homage, but as the guide to be meticulously followed in the organization of the Socialist state. There will be little danger that such an ethical enthusiasm appealed to in- telligently, and in a spirit of tolerance, will be satisfied with the mere achievement of decent material comfort for all in the community, and SOCIALISM AND THE ETHICAL APPEAL 187 will not proceed to project itself, with material well-being as the necessary foundation, into well- nigh every field of human endeavor and every creation of the human spirit. CHAPTER VII. SOME CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING SOCIALIST POLICY. THE Socialist movement in the United States has been ineffective in its appeal, not only because of the background from which that appeal has pro- ceeded, but also because of its technique of cam- paign. Even if in the past the Socialist Party, had been able to free itself from the deductive Marxian mold of thought and had launched its appeal largely from an ethical basis, in all probability it still would have been impotent because of faulty presentation of its case. And even if its case had been ably presented, and the Party ridden tri- umphantly to power, in all probability it would have been soon unseated had it not opened its eyes to certain features of its problem to which at the present time it seems to be blind. Without in any way attempting to formulate a detailed and final mode of procedure for the American Socialist movement, it may be of service to indicate cer- tain pitfalls in its path which must be carefully avoided even when the path has been finally dis- covered and fairly entered upon. In the first place, the Socialist Party of America 138 SOME CONSIDERATIONS 189 seems to labor under appalling ignorance as to the^ nature of _most Americans. . Tho reasons are obvious. The Party membership is recruited largely from the foreign-born. It has been almost entirely industrial, and it does not understand the problems and the concepts of the great mass of Americans, even in the cities, who are not in- dustrial workers. It also is predominantly urban, .and does not appreciate the nature of the life and the people in the agricultural districts and in the small towns. The addresses and the literature which arouse "enthusiasm in a New York East Side or in a Pater son or in a Milwaukee audience are apt to arouse only hostility in a Brooklyn or a Montclair or a Louisville or an Adams County, Ohio, audience. And when it comes to a show of hands at the polling-booths for or against Social- ism, the country will go as go Brooklyn and Mont- clair and Louisville and Adams County. Consider, for example, the prohibition agitation and the prevailing Socialist explanation of it. Here was a movement which in less than a genera- tion swept across the country with irresistible force, which is now seen to have evidenced a senti- ment well-nigh as unanimous as any sentiment which has left its mark upon the United States without artificial stimulation, and which placed upon the statute books in some respects the most radical and far-reaching single piece of legislation ever enacted in this country. Yet even when the 190 THE LAEGER SOCIALISM prohibition movement was on the brink of its final triumph, the Socialists, as a rule, were so unap- preciative of the dominant American opinion on the drink problem as to ascribe Prohibition to a plot of the capitalists to lower wages, or to what- ever other capitalistic plot happened to fit in with Marxian ideology. The leaders of the Republican and Democratic Parties, national or local, were by no means so undiscerning ! For another and perhaps more illuminating ex- ample, consider the conventional Socialist attitude toward the phenomenon known as Billy Sunday. The current and well-nigh unanimous Socialist diagnosis of Sunday was that he was the tool of the capitalist class in allaying discontent among the workers. Undoubtedly Sunday's work may have had that effect, among other effects, and undoubtedly much of the support, financial and personal, donated to the Sunday campaigns was donated with that ulterior purpose either con- sciously or unconsciously in mind. But to ex- plain away the Sunday revivals solely or even chiefly in such terms was to reveal ignorance of the normal frame of mind of many Americans, which those revivals served to illuminate. Prob- ably nothing would be of greater value to the Socialist movement than some development which would compel each of its leaders to spend six months in a town like Marion, Ohio, and the thou- sands of other communities where the type of SOME CONSIDERATIONS 191 mind which shouts Amen to Billy Sunday theology is the dominant type of mind. Or else to pay weekly visits to the scattered farmhouses of Kan- sas and Georgia ; for to judge by the Socialist cam- paigns of the past, the Socialist leaders appear ignorant that the average American farmer is hostile to "big business" at the same time that he is complacent towards or else uncomprehend- ing of ' ' capitalism. " It is one of the encouraging features of the American Socialist movement in 1921 that the unpopularity and persecution visited on its head in the preceding four years should have partially awakened it to the mental reactions of most Americans an awakening revealed by a moderation in the 1920 national Socialist platform as regards statement of principles and by the couching of its immediate program in phraseology and projects comprehensible to most voters. Consider also the typical Socialist attitude to- ward the detention by the "Wilson administration of the conscientious objectors. To most Socialists, Secretary of War Baker was abnormally remiss and hard-hearted in his treatment of them during the War, and in his refusal to release all of them immediately after the armistice. And yet the Wilson administration's treatment of the "C. O.s," bitterly denounced by most Socialists as too stringent, was far more tender than the treatment desired by most Americans. The handling of the objectors was one of the many reasons for the 192 THE LARGER SOCIALISM t Wilson administration's general unpopularity through the entire country during and after hos- tilities against Germany. Indeed, if aside from the treatment meted out to the "C. O.s," the Democratic Party had had an equal chance to de- feat the Republicans in the 1920 elections, outcry against the "tenderness" shown the conscientious objectors would probably have been alone suffi- cient to turn the tide of battle against the Dem- ocrats. The American Legion's position on the subject is illuminating; not merely because the American Legion is politically powerful, but also because it is well representative of the ideas cur- rent in most Americans' minds. The Socialists' ignorance of -the bitterness felt by most sections of public opinion towards the conscientious ob- jectors is but another evidence of their ignorance of American public opinion generally. In the second place, the American Socialist movement errs flagrantly in both disregarding and misconceiving the role played by personali- ties in carrying a political movement to fruition by the processes of political democracy. The con- ventional Socialist appeal to the voters is "Vote for a principle, not for a personality ; follow a new philosophy, not an individual leader. ' ' But it may be seriously doubted if that appeal is practicable of pursuit by the great mass of the voters. The difficulty is probably an intellectual one. The ma- jority of Americans, if not also the majority of SOME CONSIDERATIONS 193 all the western European races, seem unable or unwilling to think in abstract terms. They must think and vote for the concrete, and the abstract principle and the new philosophy can present themselves to their minds only in the guise of a personality- and an individual leader. Socialist exhorters may obtain a hearing to explain what Socialism is and at what it aims, but 'the great mass of the American people will form their judg- ment of Socialism by their judgment of the Socialist standard-bearers. Even the compara- tively small proportion of the electorate which is reached by Socialist addresses and pamphlets is prone to visualize the true character of Socialism by those Socialists most in the public eye today. When the Socialist Party arrives at a stage of strength when both the old parties concentrate their .fire upon it, most of the electors, in their decision as to the contrast between the new system for which they are asked to vote and the old sys- tem under which they will be living, will be guided largely by the personal contrast between the expo- nents of the new system and the proponents of the old. pne of the reasons for the American Socialist movement's comparatively feeble hold upon the American people lies in the, failure of its leaders to impress the American people with a sense of nobility of character and fineness of purpose. The particular political and economic remedy offered 194 THE LARGER SOCIALISM by Socialism for our present ills is not what is connoted to the average voter by the word " So- cialism. ' ' It connotes to him, rather, a scheme or a hope for a generally nobler and finer civi- lization, different from our present civilization to a revolutionary degree. He therefore natural- ly, if illogically, expects the leaders of Socialism, or even the rank and file of Socialists, to be gen- erally nobler and finer personal types, leading lives of purpose different to a revolutionary degree from the life's purposes of the hoi polloi. Thus I have met among the foreign-born in the con- gested districts of one of our great cities men who had been inspired by the example of Tolstoi ; who were elevated by the very mention of his name or the sight of his picture; and who yet admit- ted that they had read none of his writings, and, indeed, had little knowledge as to just what sort of writings they were. It was the example of his personal career that had impressed them. In our own country, si parva licet componere magnis, the personal faith inspired in great masses of our humbler citizens by William Jennings Bryan may well have been one of the most valuable assets of the Democratic Party in the last several decades. Tolstoi was hopelessly visionary, of course, and Bryan's mind is inelastic; but the Socialist move- ment will hardly succeed without leaders who can inspire personal following as those men inspired it. Indeed, unless our present information is too SOME CONSIDERATIONS 195 scanty for successful analysis, Socialism in Ger- many failed to keep in the saddle, after its un- paralleled opportunity following the military de- feat of Germany in the World War, very largely because there was no German Socialist leader or group of leaders whb could arouse in the German people's breasts sufficient conviction of high nobil- ity of character and fineness of purpose to lead to enthusiastic faith and confidence. In some slight campaigning for Socialism in New York City, the greatest single stumbling- block I have encountered in the task of converting my audiences has been the fact that one of the most prominent Socialist leaders happens to be associated with a large retail coal monopoly in that city. It has proved of little avail to retort that the audience was being asked to vote for a principle, not for a personality; and that the desirability of Socialism was not to be confounded with the personal business relations of any indi- vidual Socialist. Of little more avail were the re- torts that the gentleman in question was, after all, asking the electorate to vote him out of a job by removing the coal business from private into pub- lic hands ; that he had waxed far less prosperous than if he had not devoted most of his life to the furtherance of Socialism, and comparatively little of it to the prosecution of his profession ; that he had manifestly proved his sincerity by all but laying down his life for his cause ; or even that it 196 THE LARGER SOCIALISM was impossible to live according to Socialistic tenets under a capitalistic system. For even the few dollars that a conscientious Socialist might deposit in savings banks or invest in life insur- ance might well be used to buy houses from which high rentals would be charged working-class ten- ants. Despite all logical refutation, the fact alone was damning to an electorate which seems in- curably disposed to think politically in terms of personality and there was always the lurking suspicion that, after all, it might not be alto- gether unfair nor unwise to gauge a movement's fitness for confidence by its leaders' adherence to its tenets in their own lives. For this reason, the personality of Eugene Vic- tor Debs probably has been the most valuable single asset of the Socialist Party of America. (This statement is in no wise related to the wis- dom or folly of nominating Debs for the Presi- dency while he wa^ serving a jail sentence.) Were he still the Socialist Party's nominee for Presi- dent, and still available for the office, when the Socialist Party might be seriously considered as a contender for the Presidency, the inherent no- bility of his personality and of his career would rally more support to the Socialist ticket than would come from the nomination of a candidate who inspired more confidence as an administrator and as a thinker-through of problems, but less en- thusiasm as a personality. To this, your orthodox SOME CONSIDERATIONS 197 ^ocialisf will, of course, reply indignantly that such support is worse than none at all, and that Socialism must not come until such day as the working-class has been educated to Socialism's significance. But it is supremely difficult to edu- cate the working-class or any other class to the conception of a new state of society which has not yet been concretely realized. Their final educa- tion along these lines may well have to await the day when a Socialist administration begins to legislate the new state of society into concrete being, and when thus the people are shown the aims of Socialism in actuality. It had become by 1921 a platitude to explain the British political situation by saying that Lloyd George was a splendid leader without a party, and that the British Labor Party was a splendid party without a leader. If even so well-organized and so discerning a radical political movement as the British Labor Party finds itself handicapped by the lack of a leader or leaders who can capture the popular imagination, how much more does the poorly organized and undiscerning American Socialist movement suffer from that lack ! A sin-> gle Socialist chieftain of the Roosevelt type,; a powerful exhorter and yet an able administra- tor, would be the greatest of boons to the Socialist Party of America. Swept into office by even an electorate uneducated to class-consciousness and the program of the cooperative commonwealth, his 198 THE LARGER SOCIALISM very legislative and administrative achievements after election would provide most of the elector- ate's necessary enlightenment. Conversely, a So- cialist movement which by many painstaking cam- paigns had finally come into power without a Roosevelt could almost certainly be swept out of power by the appearance on the political scene of an anti-Socialist Roosevelt, no matter how thor- ough the Socialist education of the electorate might have been. Bearing upon this point, one of the sections of the Socialist Party's national constitution must seem particularly mischievous. It is that which requires a Comrade to have been a member of the Party for at least two years before he may be nominated or endorsed for any public office by any Party subdivision, unless the subdivisions have not been in existence for two years. True, the consent of the state organization may invali- date this ruling, but that consent is cumbersome of attainment, and many of the state constitutions, notably New York's, repeat the rule of the na- tional constitution. The rule was obviously de- signed to prevent a popular personality from en- tering the Party in order to exploit it for his personal ends. But if the members of the Party cannot be trusted to form a personal judgment of their own fellow members, with what can they be trusted, particularly since in the selection of their nominees the tendency would be to select SOME CONSIDERATIONS 199 those of long membership and service-record, and since there inevitably would be a prejudice against the selection for high nomination of a recent con- vert, no matter how captivating his personality? Many political leaders of- national or at least of local influence, chafing under the present leader- ship of the old political parties, must be restrained from casting in their lot with the Socialists only by the realization that thereby they would be ren- dering themselves politically impotent for leader- ship and occupancy of public office for a period of time. This procedure is especially deplorable in view of the fact that, outside of Debs and some ten or twelve other chieftains, the Socialist Party of America lacks leaders who inspire public confi- dence or general popular support, so that for many nominations on the Socialist ticket the only available candidates seem to be of the type which Mr. H. L. Mencken calls the "rabble-rouser." In the third place, and as a corollary of the preceding considerations, the Socialist movement in the United States seems blissfully unaware of the part played by administrative ability in the conduct of Government, capitalist or socialist. True, this disregard of the personal factor in guid- ing the ship of state may have little effect upon the success of Socialist political campaigns. But it would have a decisive effect upon the fortunes of a Socialist state if the electorate ever suscep- tible to passing whims and prone to perform as- - 200 THE LARGER SOCIALISM tgnishingly at the polls should at some election in the near future suddenly and unexpectedly yield to the Socialist Party's exhortations, and return it to power. The Socialists evidently pin their faith to the ability of the untrained prole- tariat, serene in the confidence that executive ex- perience will prove unnecessary in administering the railroads and the banks pr in the purchase of building materials for the erection of schools and apartment-houses. The more conservative Social- ists will answer that the Socialist state would en- gage for those tasks the McAdoos and the Kineses and the Vanderlips and the Hoovers, and there will be little dispute that they should be so en- gaged. But it may well be doubted if the temper of most of the membership of the Socialist Party at the present time would sanction or tolerate the hiring of these bourgeois experts for the highest offices within the Socialist Government, aside from those of a purely technical nature. (And this in spite of the example set by Lenin.) The dream of most Socialists is an all-Socialist administration, following success at the polls; and at the pres- ent time there is probably not sufficient material within the Socialist Party of America to fill effi- ciently merely the ten Cabinet positions. And even if the mass of the Socialists could be recon- ciled to seeing the Socialist state working out its destiny through the medium of non-Socialist or even anti-Socialist expert administrators, it may SOME CONSIDERATIONS 201 be doubted also if the McAdoos and the Hooveps would accept the positions offered. For the po- litical parties to which they belong would almost certainly be feverishly planning to upset the; Socialist Government at the next election. More- over, the pressure of their business and social con- nections would probably rather keep them at the task of administering private enterprises still in competition with the Government enterprises (and at the inception of a Socialist Government there would be many of them) so efficiently as to bring business defeat upon the enterprises being con- ducted for the Socialist Government by largely untrained and untried proletarians, by intellec- tuals or by mass-meeting speakers, and hence so as to bring ruin and repudiation upon the entire Socialist administration. - In this connection, there may be considered the common objection to the Socialist program on the ground that Governmental activities make for graft and inefficiency. To this objection, the con- ventional Socialist reply is four-fold. (1) The maximum as well as the minimum income in the Socialist state might be fixed, so that if an in- dividual's income in any year rose sharply beyond that which he could realize from his salary and his past savings, it would cause suspicion and investigation. Obviously, a Socialist state should be better able to ferret out concealed income than our present capitalist state. The grafter would 202 THE LARGER SOCIALISM find it harder to translate his graft into a form which would redound soon and appreciably to his credit; and although this method could not be counted upon completely to eliminate graft, yet it should go far to make graft less frequent, smaller in amount and more difficult of attain- ment. (2) The inefficiency in the present Gov- ernment service is due largely to the greater inducements offered by private enterprise, a con- trast which should be eliminated in the Cooper- ative Commonwealth. (3) The present Govern- mental activities do not affect the daily lives of most people in ways that they can directly ascer- tain; whereas when the Government takes over the milk' supply and the grocery stores and the department stores, people will understand directly how they are benefited or injured. Thus, when even railroad service is inefficient, it is apt to be only the business men who complain, while the great mass of the voters are apathetic to the at- tack thus launched upon their pocketbooks. But let graft and inefficiency raise the cost of milk several cents a quart, or meat five cents a pound, or overcoats five dollars each, or kerosene three cents a gallon, or apartment rentals one hundred dollars a year, and the people will rout out the graft and inefficiency thus brought home so naked- ly to their daily lives. Similarly, when the politi- cal sagacity of the electorate is decried, the Social- ist replies that the voter is better able to form an SOME CONSIDERATIONS 203 intelligent opinion of the kind of service he is get- ting in the furnishing of milk, clothing and housing $ian of the kind of service he is getting in for- eign relations, property evaluation for taxes and even tariff administration. Indeed, it may well be that the projection of the Government into the fields of clothing and housing and food may prove a most serviceable step in insuring an intelli- gent selection of public officials by the electorate. (4) And finally, the Socialist answers that even" granting individual graft and inefficiency, the loss due to them will be more than atoned for by the elimination of the social graft and inefficiency known as the acquisition of profits. A five per cent loss on transactions due to graft and another five per cent due to inefficiency should be more than met by the elimination of the loss due to al- lowing a certain percentage as profit to owners and in the months following the War, few were the transactions in which net profits were as low as ten per cent. However, the last of these considerations may prove less valid than the three preceding. For it is probable that in the United States Socialism will arrive, if it arrives at all, by slow gradations rather than by an abrupt break. And in the course of those gradations, it is almost inevitable that sops will be thrown to the growing pro-Socialist sentiment in the form of further and further Gov- ernment supervision over the private enterprises 204 THE LAKGER SOCIALISM for which, the Socialists demand Government own- ership and operation. Just so, the feeling for Government ownership and operation of the railroads has been staved off by creating an In- terstate Commerce Commission, and by granting it increased powers over railroad rates and hence over railroad profits, routing, equipment and gen- eral service. And if a Socialist State were to take over the ownership and management of industries whose operations, and especially whose profits, had previously been rigorously regulated, there might well be little social graft in the form of profits left to be eliminated. That is, the profits being made under the system of state regulation preceding the assumption of state ownership and management might well be hardly above the legitimate interest for the use of capital. And legitimate interest for the use of capital will have to be paid by the state as owner and operator no less than by a private owner and operator. (Much of the current criticism of the Socialist program by professional political econ- ' omists is based on the belief that Socialism over- looks the need of paying for the use of capital by means of interest. The truth is, of course, that Socialism would have the state furnish the capital. But this misunderstanding is hardly un- expected, in view of the seeming ignorance of so many American economists that there is a Social- ism which is not Marxian and which is based on v SOME CONSIDERATIONS 205 something beside the labor theory of value.) If the Government were to take over the railroads, for instance, from their operation would have to be met the interest on the enormous bond issue floated to buy them, even at their physical valua- tion alone; or else the interest to be guaranteed the owners of the railroad securities, in case the Government adopted that plan of conducting the railroad enterprises. Under such circumstances, the question as to whether the operation .of rail- roads and of other large business undertakings under Socialism would prove more economical than their operation under the capitalist system would probably hinge upon the availability to the Socialist state of the services of a McAdoo or a Hines or a Hoover. At all events, the assumption of power by a Socialist administration which would turn over the reins of Government to officials who neither by experience nor by personal ability hafl been trained to administer would spell ruin. For the technical work in the clothing factories, the pack- ing-houses and the railway repair shops, the work- ers themselves could be confidently held responsi- ble-'-or else the principle and practise of de- mocracy hold no meaning. But in sheer executive administration qua executive administration, the proletariat can hardly be relied upon to acquit it- self nobly. We in the United States have been told that leaders of the British Labor Party, 206 THE LARGER SOCIALISM with its respectable roster of trained executive ad- ministrators of reputation, privately admit that British Labor has not yet developed sufficient executive ability to administer the complex affairs of the British Empire. How much more earnestly, then, should the untried American Socialist move- ment take thought on this problem of administra- tive ability as it campaigns for offices of high responsibility! The difficulties of meeting the problems of government administration in a Socialist state cannot be pushed aside by empha- sizing the all-too-apparent inefficiency of the high- est administrators in the capitalist state and in the capitalist system, any more than by romanti- cally endowing the proletariat with a sudden gift of administrative genius when once it has the power to obtain the full product of its toil. In the fourth place, the Socialist movement in the United States, like the other radical or "lib- eral" movements, must learn the essentially un- intellectual nature of the electorate's interests and sympathies. The electorate's most open avenue of approach is not that of reasoning; the appeal for its support must warm the cockles of its emo- tions before success may be dreamed of. And its emotions are sunk deep in prejudices and preconceptions which either are not realized by most of those who read and write books and weekly reviews, or else the strength of which is not appreciated by the book-readers and -writ- SOME CONSIDERATIONS 207 ers. The concepts which control the decisions of the man in the street have been handed down from generation to generation almost unaffected by the education and the culture of the intellectual classes. There is too much calm assumption that information will work up and down from one intel- lectual class to another, instead of frank recog- nition that the tendency is rather for information to expand laterally within the same intellectual class. There is a more violent contrast be- tween the current concepts of the upper and lower intellectual classes within a given nation of even a homogeneous culture than between the general national concepts of whole nations even so dis- similar in their cultures as France and the United States. It may well be doubted if even the least cloistered leaders of the Socialist and other radi- cal and liberal movements have more than the faintest understanding of the concepts of the man in the street regarding religious differences, sex morality, the place of woman generally in the scheme of the Universe, the value of college edu- cation, the questioning of conventions, polished manners, the habit of criticism, and all the other manifold personal concepts which not only enter into, but even determine, the man in the street's judgment of political parties and move- ments. The "intelligentsia" in New York recent- ly made merry when a high official of the New York City government decried libraries as " places 208 THE LARGER SOCIALISM where people read themselves to death and then come out with theories to overthrow the Govern- ment," and when another high official of the same government announced that policemen were better off without much education ; but the intelligentsia fails to appreciate how high a percentage of the population, especially the male population, en-^ dorses these statements of the New York City offi- cials. It is this comprehension of the true nature of the masses ' mental processes which is signified by. the phrase, "Understanding politics." When a college professor or a society matron is rejected by the cognoscenti as a candidate for a political nomination on the grounds of "not understanding politics," the rejection does not mean primarily that politics and the game of politics have rules, methods and tactics which are apart from other fields of human endeavor, and which must be care- fully studied and mastered of and for themselves. It means rather that the college professor or the society matron is blissfully unaware of the ac- tual mental reasoning, prejudices and allegiances of the great mass of the people who make up the country. Some day an iconoclastic sociologist, abandoning his text books, his prehistoric excava- tions and his psychological laboratory, will achieve an enviable reputation overnight by living for several years wholly in such an environment as is to be found, for instance, in the Lower West SOME, CONSIDERATIONS 209 Side of New York City and eventually publishing to a startled world of book-readers and -writers a list and discussion of what the book-readers and -writers will very accurately term the mediaeval conceptions and prejudices which guide the opin- ions of the great majority of Americans. For instance, the greatest obstacle now hinder- ing the growth of Socialist sentiment in the United States is a deep suspicion in the minds of many voters that Socialism is fundamentally a Jewish movement, designed to further the aims of Jewry ; and also a movement which favors, practises, and would establish what is euphemistically described as "free love." Doubtless, the inculcation of this belief was inevitable, and is in no wise to be blamed upon the Socialist movement. But so long as that belief persists, it will be difficult for the movement to get ahead. Probably it is chiefly in the small towns and the rural districts that the "free love" accusation is credited, for in the larger centers most non-Socialists have come sufficiently 'into personal contact with Socialists to recognize that in the field of morals the Socialists rank at least no lower than the remainder of the population. But it is just in the larger centers that the Socialist membership seems to be dispro- portionately Jewish. It is not a question of ex- plaining the fact or of deploring anti-Semitism-; it is a question of recognizing the strength of this factor which influences the situation in actuality. 210 THE LAEGER SOCIALISM As a matter of practical tactics, therefore, the Socialist movement's chief point of attack for the present should be the "free love" and the ^iJTewish movement" allegations. And the attack must not confine itself to pam- phlets and statistics, meetings of protest and similar agencies which, so far as the mass of the people are concerned, may well be considered "in- tellectual." Again, the leaders of the Socialist and the other radical and liberal movements are wont to overestimate the influence of the printed word in forming public opinion. It is not merely the unwillingness of large proportions of people to read written argument; it is also their sheer inability to understand it or to concentrate their minds upon it. I have met people to whom the pages of the Saturday Evening Post seemed ex- tremely difficult and heavy reading, and who were by no means quasi-illiterate or foreign-born in- deed, were of the economically well-to-do. And it is not alone such persons whose opinions are formed by rumors and whispered gossip even many of those who have read a pamphlet will disbelieve it on the word of a friend who has a friend who told him, etc. American public opin- ion on the welfare of Labor at the present time, for instance, revolves around the rumor that most workingmen made a practise of buying twelve- dollar silk shirts in the years of war far more effectively, so far as a vote at the polls would SOME CONSIDERATIONS 211 be concerned, than around the detailed and pains- taking figures on the cost of living and wages issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With- out attempting to construct a comprehensive campaign program for the American Socialist movement, I think it could be proved that at the present time far more helpful to it than all its, street meetings and pamphlets would be an active, representative and country-wide campaign by a group of Christian Socialists, with as large a pro- portion of Christian ministers as possible, telling the country at large that to them the aims of So- cialism, and the aims of Socialism alone among the political parties, were synonymous with the ideals of Christianity as applied to government. Along with such a campaign, of course, would have to go a strong increase of membership in the Socialist movement from the non-Jewish elements of the population, so that there would no longer be a disproportionate number of Jews in the Social- ist ranks. Finally, the Socialist movement would do well to emphasize more strongly than at present its remedy against a possible excess of population arising through increased social welfare in- creased income to the family for each child only to the limited number of children seen to be de- sirable for the continuation of that social welfare, with even decreased wages or salaries for parents who have children too far in excess of the limit 212 THE LARGER SOCIALISM set, unless possibly by exceptions allowed those with manifestly ana abnormally favorable heredity. On this entire question of tactics, it may be remarked in conclusion that for a person sympa- thetic with the aims of Socialism, the only posi- tion of effectiveness at present seems to be with- in the political Socialist movement in America. True, the most satisfactory organization would manifestly be a general radical holding company, with the several groups maintaining their own au- tonomy, their own creeds and their own platforms, and constantly endeavoring to convert their as- sociates to their own way of thinking; but in politi- cal campaigns, and against the common enemy, loyally maintaining a united front in accord with the majority decision within the general inclusive organization. However, such a desideratum seems not to be possible at present, unless by an almost unbelievable identification of President Harding 'a administration with all the forces of reactionary capitalism. With all its faults of both principle and practise, there is yet no other vehicle so read- ily available as the Socialist Party to carry for- ward the Socialist message in the United States. It should be as practicable, if not more practi- cable,* to bore at it from within as at the Ameri- can Federation of Labor. It will hardly be con- tended that either of the old political parties, as SOME CONSIDERATIONS 213 they are now constituted, can be headed toward a socialistic goal, be it ever so thickly disguised under other names. Capitalistic ideology has a firm grip upon the dictators of the Republican Party's policies, and the voting strength of the Democratic Party lies in the negro-baiting South and among the Southern agricultural Junkers. It was no accident that a Burleson was high in power in the last Democratic administration in- deed, it was largely through his and his type's in- fluence with the Southern congressmen and sena- tors that the considerable legislative achieve- ments of the first Wilson administration were realized; and the marvel was rather that from 1913 to 1921 there were so few Burlesons in high positions. As for "Liberalism," it has proved itself pecu- liarly futile, even more futile than the Socialist movement. The creed which is loosely called " Liberalism" in America today has undoubtedly rendered great service in' the past and will conceiv- ably render great service in the future. Liberal- ism in England has been invaluable to the cause of progress. But it seems to me that there is one paralyzing difference between the liberalism of Gladstone and Morley, which, after all, was effec- tive and forward-urging, and the creed which now calls itself liberalism in America. The liberalism of Gladstone and Morley was couched in ethical formulas which, however platitudinous and even 214 THE LAKGER SOCIALISM hypocritical, yet bore within them the germs of inspiration and enthusiasm for the great mass of the people. "Whereas such a liberalism as that Represented by the New Republic, for instance, seems to be concerned primarily with administra- ;'.tive technique and intellectual efficiency. Those who have followed the development of the pres- ent-day American movement or creed known as Liberalism surely will agree that it hardly fits into the definition of liberalism which Morley gives in his "Recollections," beginning with " Respect for the dignity and worth of the individual is its (Liberalism's) root." And emphasis on efficiency and technique alone, however necessary and how- ever more serviceable ultimately than recourse to mere undefined and unanalyzed ethical plati- tudes, can hardly rally popular support around it. At all events, and whatever the causes, our American liberals have proved themselves inef- fective in the maelstrom of the past several years, and their liberalism has been sadly discredited. The Presidential election of 1920 was proof suffi- cient that they had no power to guide either of the major political parties toward Liberalism's goals; and by remaining outside of the Social- ist movement, they left little impression upon the country. And the power of the trade-union movement to accomplish the ends of Socialism need not be discussed here, for the question is of political action. Individual Socialists as well as ^. SOME CONSIDERATIONS V V j ; the Socialist Party of America are actiVefy sup- porting the trade-unions, both those in the Ameri- can Federation of Labor and those outside tne Pale. I have reserved for the last any mention of the Farmer-Labor Party because in essence the Farm- er-Labor Party is a mildly Socialistic movement. It seems to recognize the class struggle, if only distantly. It emerges from its first presidential campaign, in 1920, with practically no farmer support, despite its name; and with a platform hardly to be distinguished from the immediate platform of the Socialist Party, except for a slightly greater admixture of self-government in industry than the latter. The Farmer-Labor Party is still too young and its future too uncer- tain for prediction concerning its ultimate service to be more than f oolhardiness ; only time can tell whether it or the Socialist Party is better quali- fied to advance the Socialist banner. Similarly, only time can tell whether there is sufficient en- thusiasm for it among its members to inspire them to perform between elections, without hope of reward in the shape of political office, the routine organization work and propaganda necessary for its permanence and success. However, one essen- tial difference between it and the Socialist Party of America at the present time must be stressed. It is that, however much the two platforms may agree, and however much more realistic the Social- 214 , THE LARGER SOCIALISM 1st phnkBjrology has become than in previous years, the ultimate aims of the Socialists are revolu- tionary. Everyone understands that a socialist society will differ from our present capitalist so- ciety to a revolutionary degree in almost all phases of human activity. If the 1920 program of the Farmer-Labor Party should be realized, the eco- nomic problem of the ownership of the basic in- dustries would be solved largely according to the Socialist formula, but a wholly revolutionary pro- gram would otherwise hardly be attempted. There would be a radical change in industry, but hardly a radical change in the point of view dominating society as a whole. Whereas, by plain implication as well as .by frank confession, the Socialist Party aims, however crudely, at a wholly new social point of view. The former at present stands for a nar- row Socialism ; the latter aims, or may be made to aim, at a larger Socialism. CHAPTER VIIL THE LABGEE SOCIALISM. i THE larger Socialism stands for the adoption of so comprehensive a Socialist point of view, and for its adoption in so liberal and so empirical a spirit, as to assist materially in the success of all other revolutionary, radical or even merely liberal movements and thought also working toward a better adjusted universe. The larger, Socialism refuses to stop at the socialization of ~ industry. It believes that the principle of Socialism will be served .as inadequately by its application only in industry as the principle of democracy has been served by its application only in political govern- ment. It realizes that the political Socialist movement bears to Socialism as a whole much the same relation that woman suffrage bears to the woman's movement as a whole. It insists that the material welfare resulting from the advent of Socialism shall be used merely as the foundation on which to build loftier structures. The larger Socialism recognizes that along with and depen- dent upon the success of the political and economic Socialist movement there must proceed to their 217 218 THE LARGER SOCIALISM fruition such movements as eugenics and femi- nism, for example. The elimination of the congeni- tally unfit, the transformation of the married woman from an economic dependent, the endow- ment of motherhood, the conscious control of con- ception, the application of similar standards of sex morality to women and men, the liberalization of family ties, the scientific training of children before the kindergarten age as accepted at pres- ent these and similar derivatives of the eugenics movement and the woman 's movement are but faint reminders of the inadequacy of a Socialism that will end its exertions with the triumph of Social- ism in socially-necessary industry and in Govern- ment. The larger Socialism understands that in its political platform it cannot include such con- tentious non-political reforms, but it understands also that it must throw its' energies into the* fur- therance of such reforms when its political pro- gram has been achieved. Socialism in this larger sense thus aims not merely -at a new principle in government and industry, but at a completely new orientation in every field of human endeavor. The underlying concept of our present capital- ist society is that the individual has a vested right to prosper even at the expense of society, un- less the social damage wrought by his success is too glaring and too' serious. Production occurs primarily for profit, and* only through the oppor- tunity for profit; and the profit accrues to the THE LARGER SOCIALISM 219 individual who is strong and crafty enough in the competition of business wits to climb toward the top of the business ladder. Under capitalism, business ability still is conceived as having a vested interest in society's opportunities. What- ever checks exist upon the able business man's exploitation of the community's needs are largely negative-r-we have forbidden him to advance him- self by adulterating food, or by manufacturing whisky, or by managing roulette wheels and faro games. For the rest, he is entitled to wring trib- ute from society in the form of profits, as long as the profits are not too disproportionately large, or unless the community. is not temporarily at' war, or in similar unusual conditions. Organized society at present exists, not for the welfare of all its members, weak as well as strong, but for the welfare of the strong. The weak are left to pros- per or suffer *as an incident of the activities of the strong. Aside from a scanty number, of nega- tive checks, it is felt that the state has no right to proscribe the prosperity of the few nor callecl upon to assure prosperity to the many. Against this individualistically anarchistic phi- losophy, Socialism sets firmly a social point of view. Not that a social point of view and -a social- ist point of view are necessarily synonymous, or that a social point of view may not be developed outside, or even in opposition to, the Socialist point of view. But the goal aimed at by Socialism 220 THE LARGER SOCIALISM is that of the greatest social welfare, and the standards set by Socialism are social standards. With the advent of a Socialist state, these stand- ards would become the reigning standards in the economic field, and the standards set by the eco- nomic activities are apt to fix the standards of most other activities. Conversely, it is probably impossible, or at least supremely difficult, to stimu- late society to a social point of view in fields of endeavor outside of business, if the business point of view is anti-social. Even those proponents of movements and thought which are anti-Socialistic, but which are aimed at higher social welfare, would probably find that the establishment of a Socialist state would immeasurably aid them by its general stimulus to most people to begin to think in social terms. Thus, there are students of our economic or- ganization who believe that economic production and distribution should be left largely to private initiative because otherwise economic production and distribution cannot be managed efficiently. These students are . quite as socially-minded as the Socialists. Their point of view is as much one of social welfare as is the Socialistic point of view. They are unwilling to uproot the capitalists ' hold on our economic processes, not because of consid- eration for the capitalists, but because of consid- eration for those economic processes. But under such an arrangement, it would be difficult for the THE LARGER SOCIALISM 221 great mass of people to appreciate that the capital- ists were not maintaining their position because of their vested rights to profit at the expense of society. Their maintenance of their position be- cause of their social service would be recognized only obscurely, and the acquisition of a general social point of view in all fields of human endeavor would be but slightly stimulated. Not that Socialism can close its eyes to the danger that individualism may be suppressed or discouraged with the development of . the social point of view by the Cooperative Commonwealth. The larger Socialism recognizes that individual- ism must be tolerated, even encouraged; not be- cause, as under Capitalism, individualism enjoys vested interests and natural rights, but' because it is to the welfare of the whole that the recalcitrant single parts should be allowed to -present their case. Thus, the conscientious objector must be tolerated, even in time of actual military invasion, not because he has an inherent moral right to go counter to the will .of the majority j but because it is for the encouragement of truth, and hence ultimately to the benefit of the majority, that mi- norities 'be allowed free rein to present truth as it appears to them. If Lloyd George had been sent to jail for twenty years for opposing his country's prosecution of the Boer War, in all probability Germany would have won the World War. Feminism and eugenics have been instanced as 222 THE LARGER SOCIALISM two of the developments sprouting from the foun- dation of the political Socialist state which are necessary to the realization of the larger aims and possibilities of Socialism. Now, the most formi- dable obstacle to the advancement of movements such as feminism and eugenics, as to the advance- ment of Socialism itself, is psychological. It is the reluctance, indeed, the hostility, of most people even to consider abandoning old concepts for new. An excellent example of this psychological barrier to progress is furnished by the present agitation in the United States for a classless dissemination of knowledge concerning birth control. When its proponents go before a state legislature and plead for the repeal of laws forbidding physicians and nurses to inform women how to prevent the con- ception of infants whose birth would be a calam- ity for both infants and mothers, their logic is unanswerable. But their arguments beat futilely against a stone wall of established custom and prejudices which is so thick that years of ceaseless propaganda and skilful organization are necessary before their case can get a hearing simply on its own merits. It required some seventy years of such effort to gain woman suffrage ; and that was gained, not so much through man's final willing- ness to consider a new idea fairly, as through the economic projection of women into new fields, and through the need of women's economic help in the prosecution of the World War. THE LARGER SOCIALISM 223 There is not only deafness toward a new idea just because of its newness there is also, as so convincingly portrayed by Mr. Galsworthy in "The Island Pharisees," fierce anger against the innovator for his mere questioning of the old ideas. Unsophisticated youths fresh from their books or their college halls expect disagreement with and. inattention to their "advanced" creeds; but all too many abandon their crusade because they are unprepared for the gusts of hatred which rake them fore and aft for their temerity In merely doubting. They are regarded not only as enemies, but as traitors. In so defending himself against radical Youth, the conservative is fond of basing his hostility to change on the ground that the status quo represents the result of years of long, painful and illuminating experience on the part of the world; but he seldom can prove that the status quo has so logical a raison d'etre. The status quo is apt to be rather the result of a chance decision, which, when once made, became surrounded by the halo of custom and conven- tion. It is by chance, not by experience, that our telegraph, telephones, express service and rail- roads were given over to and kept in private hands. If chance had decreed otherwise, most of the present resorters to the "mankind's long years of experience" argument to oppose government operation would just as firmly and on the same grounds oppose private operation. It took defeat 224 THE LARGER SOCIALISM in the greatest of all wars to persuade the German people to examine their Constitution on its merits ; from present indications, the examination of the American Constitution by the American people on its merits belongs to the dim and distant future when the circle is squared and perpetual motion is discovered. The fiercest expounders of the doc- trine that the American Constitution was directly inspired of God were the fiercest denouncers of the German people for being so ridiculous as to suppose that God, the only true God, would choose any one people as the object of his favors. It requires much inner wrestling with scepticism before one -can persuade oneself that this type of mind, if by chance born and dwelling in Germany in 1914, would not have vociferously joined the "Gott mit uns" chant until the Second Battle of the Marne. Perhaps the day is not remote when the biolo- gists and psychologists will explain in full and final detail why the mind so works that it derives pleas- ure from rehearsing an idea to which it has be- come accustomed, and extreme displeasure at the effort called forth to permit a new idea to plough an unblazed trail through the mind's cells. At present, only the fact itself can be recorded. Doubtless, the mind will ever be friendly to old ideas and. hostile to new, unless most conscien- tiously disciplined. Also, the minds in power will particularly so tend because they will generally be THE LARGER SOCIALISM 225 the older minds, and, other things being equal, the older minds will be less receptive to novelty than the younger. At all events, conservatism will probably always have the advantage in strength and position, and radicalism or mere progressiv- ism or liberalism *be always under a handicap. The rare exception will occur when countries like Revolutionary Eussia in March, 1917, start on their career with a practically clean slate ; and as letters and figures and drawings begin to appear on the slate, the old pro-old and anti-new trend will reassert itself. Society under the . larger Socialism thus must consciously provide every en- couragement for radical thought, consciously con- ceiving itself in duty bound to prepare the soil for new doctrines, and consciously recognizing that its preference for the old concepts may be but preju- dice. . But if the Socialism which comes into its own with the advent of a Socialist state should be the deductive and didactic Marxism deriving from formulas of the past, most progressive non-sccial- ist movements will have as hard a row to hoe under Socialism as under capitalism. The mind which believes that spiritual and" political truth was once for all time expounded by the Bible and the Constitution is no more a closed mind than the mind which believes that economic truth was once for all time expounded by 'the Commimist Mani- festo and Capital. True, at the present time even 226 THE LARGER SOCIALISM Marxian American Socialists are receptive to in- novations, such as the programs of feminism and eugenics; but they are thus receptive .largely be- cause their Socialism, being still severely unsuc- cessful, has all the trappings of a radical move- ment, so that its supporters are still inclined to embrace most other radical movements. But let the Marxian Socialists once become successful, and Marxian Socialism become the established order, and then well may new radical movements beware ! Of course, those other older radical movements which had been advocated by the Marxians in their own days of struggle, such, doubtless, as feminism and eugenics, will remain in good standing, be- cause of the earlier affiliations and allegiances. But new radical non-Socialist movements arising after the success of a Socialism drawing its inspi- ration primarily from deductions of the past will find themselves Confronted by a trenchant preju- dice against any other deductions not also derived from the Word and the Law. The present prejudice against innovation ex- presses "itself in the state of mind which is called ''intolerant" by those who have schooled them- selves to be receptive tpward innovation. Now, the difference between the tolerant mind and the intolerant mind is due chiefly to the former's un- derstanding that the truth has not yet been com- pletely exposed beyond amendment or addition; and to the latter 's conviction that the truth, the THE LAEGER SOCIALISM 227 whole truth, and nothing but the truth has been already revealed, so that iconoclasm against the revelation must be false and wicked. Intolerance toward the I.W.W., the pacifist, the prostitute, the atheist can be understood and explained only by the assurance that there is not even the slight- est possibility that they can be right in their courses. Indeed, if capitalism, militarism, chastity and Deism are as eternally and self -evidently true as the Chambers of Commerce, the one hundred per cent Americans, the anti-vice societies and the evangelists believe them, to be, then the treat- ment meted out to the I.W.W., the pacifists, the prostitutes and the atheists is justified. If one were compelled to choose a single gauge by which to measure the virtue of a civilization, most of us would probably choose tolerance. This is all elemental enough, but if it is disre- garded by the Socialist movement, the Socialist state will present to the world a civilization but slightly preferable to that which it supplanted, and certainly not in conformity with the roseate hopes for a purer social order held and held out by most Socialists. If Socialism arrives in the spirit of the old deductive, dogmatic, special dis- pensation Marxism, and not largely in the spirit of what is here termed the larger Socialism, it will necessarily prove itself as intolerant toward new ideas in violation of its own as Capitalism has proved itself. 228 THE LARGER SOCIALISM For instance, how will the Socialist state con- duct the schools? Will it continue the present- day methods by which hard-and-fast formulas are fastened upon the child's mind; or will it present standards of conduct as evolutionary, and current values as relative? Will it suppress all undermin- ing criticism of Socialism in the public schools as ruthlessly as capitalism suppresses all fair con- sideration of Socialism today, and as ruthlessly as we have been told that Soviet Russia suppresses hostile criticism of the principles of Bolshevism? If it will, it will be prostituting. its promise. For much of the intolerance of our present system of society has been deliberately inculcated by the finality with which concepts have been foisted on most of us in the lower schools. Herein lies an- other reason why Youth is unable to carry on for his earlier resolutions after leaving the world of books and school-teachers. He has been taught thiet the good is wholly good and the evil wholly evil, that the issues by which he will be confronted are palpably all white or all black; and he is first confused and then discouraged as he gropes his way through this gray and brown world of partly and obscurely good and partly and debat- ably evil. The larger Socialism would conscien- tiously present its education as an efficient medi- cal school today presents the study of medicine. Medical students are given current findings in medicine largely from an evolutionary point of THE LARGER SOCIALISM 229 view ; they are shown how the accepted treatment of today was not the accepted treatment of yester- day, and are warned that it well may not be the accepted treatment of tomorrow. They are hence taught to be as receptive to new theories and new practises in medicine as it is possible for naturally conservative humans to be; and in like manner the larger Socialism, an evolutionary and not a de- terminist growth, would strive to inculcate the receptive state of mind in its school-children. Again, the larger Socialism would insist that the standards sketched even thus tentatively in its schools be applied to contemporaneous problems, and not allowed to atrophy in the pupil's mind through lack of employment. Under our present educational methods, the student's understanding of the problems of life is as effective as would be his understanding of arithmetic if he were taught the multiplication table, but never induced to ap- ply it to concrete arithmetical problems. The world of the school-room and the world outside the school-room are rigidly quarantined against each other, v The standards taught and the conduct prac- tised in the one world are seldom integrated with the standards and conduct of the other. Thus we develop a type of mind which strenuously insists that the American colonies had every right to free themselves from English rule, at the same time that it is either apathetic or hostile to Ireland's struggle to free itself from British rule. So far 230 THE LARGER SOCIALISM as appreciation of our contemporaneous radicals and non-conformists is concerned, our school-chil- dren might never have been taught that most of the noteworthy figures of the past were the radi- cals and non-conformists of their generations. That it was glorious to be more advanced than one 's age in the past they are taught so inapplica- bly that they seem never to surmise that it might be glorious also to be ahead of one's own age in the present. Socialism in this larger sense is thus primarily concerned with the kind of man produced under a socialistic instead of under a capitalistic order of society, rather than merely with the material con- trast between those orders. From this viewpoint, its indictment of our present civilization for un- necessary lack of leisure for the great mass of people is severer than its indictment for undue lack of physical well-being, as evidenced by un- necessarily low wages. The validity of this eval- uation is indicated by the fact that in our recent burst of prosperity large numbers of the work- ers, even allowing for capitalistic anxiety to make out a case against Labor, seem to have preferred to support themselves comfortably on four days' work per week, rather than enjoy luxuries as a result of six days ' work per week, especially when the work was monotonous or laborious. And in THE LARGER SOCIALISM 231 the program for a Socialist state, if it should prove impossible, particularly in the early years, to grant to the workers an altogether socially de- sirable scale in both wages and in hours of toil, the larger Socialism would reduce the hours of toil rather than increase wages always provid- ing that production is sufficiently high so that the hours of toil can be lowered without cutting pro- duction to the danger point, and providing that the wages already being paid are sufficient to pro- vide the necessities of life. The larger Socialism would make that decision largely with the view of affording every possible facility for greater numbers to come into contact with the inspiring or clarifying type of books, art, music, speeches, meetings, and even sermons. For it is the present lack of contact of the great ma- jority of people with the written or spoken in- spiration driving most of the intellectuals, radi- cals and idealists forward which accounts for much of the present all-too-apparent hold of sophistry, prejudice, conservatism and crass ma- terialism and self-seeking upon popular opinion and action. The intellectuals, radicals and ideal- ists are prone to be cast down that their new pro- grams and ethical appeals seem so uniformly and decisively rejected of men. But they are so re- jected very largely because to those with whom the ultimate rejection or acceptance lies, the stimuli which animated the intellectuals, Social- 232 THE LARGER SOCIALISM ists and idealists are generally unable to gain ac- cess. Not only does the length of absorption re- quired today in modern industry and business, for employer as well as for employee, afford little leisure for thought and mental exhilaration; but also the intensity of the personal effort required is apt to exhaust the mind to the point where thought and mental exhilaration can make no im- pression, even if occasionally the sheer leisure for them should be available. It is reported of Brown- ing that every morning before beginning his day's composition he would read some pages of Shake- speare, in order to transport himself into the rare- fied atmosphere. Similarly, the atmosphere in which the intellectuals, Socialists and idealists move has been created largely from outside inspi- ration. For the success of their causes, the daily lives of most of us must also be so ordered as to bar that inspiration from taking hold of our minds only by the degree to which those minds are in- herently impervious to it. Thus, the Socialist roused to a white heat of indignation and high resolve in the protest-meet- ing is generally unappreciative of the fact that probably the great majority of his fellowmen have seldom dwelled in the protest-meeting atmos- phere, except possibly during Liberty Loan drives. Upon the busy outside world which has no time for protest-meetings, he fails to impress his gen- erous impulses because the outside world can- THE LARGER SOCIALISM 233 not appreciate nor understand them apart from the atmosphere in which they are conceived. And perhaps the arch-consummation of the Social- ist state would be the extension of the atmosphere of the protest-meeting and even the soap-box ex- hortation until it became the atmosphere in which most of us received our stimulation, acquired our fundamental conceptions, made our effective re- solves. The reports which have come out of Soviet Eussia indicate that such an atmosphere has been prevailing in Moscow, for instance, to the extent that it has not been literally smothered by cold, disease and malnutrition. If that atmos- phere has managed to keep alive, even to strength- en, the influence of the more inspiring books, pamphlets, dramas, music, art and addresses in that hapless land, where material sufferings might well have been expected to still all impulses ex- cept those of obtaining surcease from want, surely it holds vast possibilities of rejuvenating eco- nomically more fortunate lands. Doubtless, it must be confessed that, even with full leisure and mental opportunity to dwell under the influence of the more ennobling stimuli of life, many persons, perhaps even the majority, will prove to be still either antagonistic or apathetic to them.v But beyond the limitations set by the old Adam, even the larger Socialism does not pretend to be able to go. Its possibilities will have been realized when the factors working against the old 234 THE LARGER SOCIALISM Adam's limitations upon human progress shall have come into their own, and shall have been vouchsafed full scope for their power. Doubtless, also, permeation of the social milieu by the pro- test-meeting atmosphere will have a baneful effect upon the individual's productive efficiency. If that be the case, Socialism from this larger point of view will be deliberately preferring comfort with leisure to luxury without leisure. For the man who can listen, with ears keenly attuned, to the still, small music of the inspirational forces of the ages and of his own era, and at the same time can wade lustily and effectively into the concrete business problems of the twentieth century, with each of these sides of his nature complementing rather than hampering the other, that man is so rare as fittingly to deserve the appellation of " genius." Bather, the mind easily and fervently aroused to enthusiasm is apt to be the mind with a feeble grasp upon the concrete realities and prob- lems of the factory and the workshops. Converse- ly, even a firm grip upon the realities of material business problems is apt to be loosened when the mind finds itself constantly assailed by inspiration from the world of books, music, drama, religion or intellectual devotion. It seems not to be the same world as that of our mundane everyday business efforts. On the other hand, the broadening of the world of books and art into more general popular ap- THE LARGER SOCIALISM 235 peal may well have the effect of closing the gap between that world and the world of our everyday mundane efforts and routine experiences. At the present time, the world of books and art is ruled largely by the upper intellectual classes. At least, the standards in that world are set by those classes. Now, the upper intellectual classes are composed to a very large extent of those whose economic position is secure, of those who live by intellectual work, or of those who fall within both categories. As a rule, the inspiration they de- rive from books and art is not immediately and without paraphrase transferred into actual deeds of the everyday world. Therefore, the kind of action portrayed in the works which are ranked highest according to present literary standards is often, if not usually, the kind of action which would be ranked lowest in the world of actual ex- perience. Good example is furnished by Brown- ing's dazzlingly brilliant Porphyries Lover. By all present literary standards, this poem of sixty lines must be ranked as nothing short of a master- piece. Yet in the actual world of action, the deed it so glowingly celebrates must be classed as sheer homicide, and the character who reveals himself so sympathetically in the dramatic monologue must be punished as a mere criminal. I am not sug- gesting that this type of literature now dear to the intellectual and aesthetic aristocracy must be abandoned or frowned upon in the days when 236 THE LARGER SOCIALISM opportunities for literary appreciation are greatly broadened, largely through leisure. All that is being suggested is that in those days the literary standards may be set by a much wider number and class of judges than at present, even with some semblance of democratic procedure in the evaluation of literature ; and that the literary pro- ductions which accordingly will gain the highest accepted applause will be those whose stimuli are directly applicable to the actual problems of mod- ern highly organized life, not merely to aesthetic enjoyment. Even in the field of literature, service in terms of action may become the gauge of great- ness, instead of our present individualistic and un- pragmatic gauge. But Socialism's indictment against the capitalist system's influence over the character of man rests not alone, and not fundamentally, upon man's lack of leisure under capitalism to attune himself as far as may be to the more inspiring forces of the universe and products of his fellowman. The basic Socialist indictment of Capitalism rests upon Capitalism's economic discouragement of service by the individual to society. Conversely, it is the basic virtue of a Socialist system of society that it would hold out the highest rewards to those who served mankind most bountifully, and would strive to discountenance the anti-social economic effort. It is only necessary to observe -the am- THE LARGER SOCIALISM 237 bitions of youths before and after entering the business world today to recognize the antithesis between the conduct rewarded most highly under capitalism and the conduct previously mapped out for themselves by the more ambitious and the finer among such youths. Even those who seem well broken to the capitalistic harness before strap- ping it on themselves have usually been previously permeated, through their social and family con- nections, by the capitalistic standards of worldly prowess. w True, they will find that under capital- ism the qualities of individual honesty, frankness, sincerity, truthfulness and reliability are at a premium ; but it is in the social effect of our busi- ness efforts that the capitalist system persistently lowers youth to and keeps man at a lower social level of character than even imperfect human nature warrants. For the acquisition of wealth under capitalism derives usually from profiting at the expense of one's fellowmen. It is not necessary to deny the existence of striking exceptions to this statement in order to insist upon its general validity. The exceptions occur usually in the professions, such as medicine, teaching or, perhaps, social service; in the arts, and occasionally in the sciences. Only rarely do the exceptions occur in business, as when the safety razor or the Ford automobile or a new invention is perfected. But a civilization in the twentieth century takes its tone from its normal 238 THE LARGER SOCIALISM business, rather than from its professions, its arts, its science or its unique business forms. The wealthy man under capitalism, as a rule, is ne who has utilized to his own advantage the current-eco- nomic system of producing and distributing goods. Any benefit which may accrue to society from his efforts accrues only incidentally, if at all. And the acquisition of wealth, or the manifesta- tion of large income, is the standard by which the great mass of the people gauge success. The in- tellectuals and the Socialists, who pay their tribute for personal success to intellectual, social service, scientific or artistic achievement, may recognize, even may recognize freely, the deference paid to wealth by the non-intellectual majority. But a book-reader or -writer, no matter how generously he may attempt to recognize that wealth and in- come provide the measure by which individuals and their careers are judged by most people, is still apt to be under the illusion that the sort of achievement which he praises has a firmer hold on the general populace than it actually has. Amer- ica toadies to monetary achievement hardly less supinely than pre-war Germany toadied to mili- tary achievement. It is by no means the bell-hop and the waiter and Pullman porter alone whose conduct toward a stranger is guided by the amount of wealth his apparel connotes. The essential thing about a man, in the mind of Brooklyn, Mont- clair, Adams County, Marion, Main Street, Spoon THE LARGER SOCIALISM 239 Eiver, and Winesburg, Ohio, is his income. The intensity of their interest in how much Jones is worth, and if his daughter is " doing well" when ishe is betrothed, can hardly be exaggerated. All the power of social adulation is exerted to drive the modern man to get the better of society by deriving great wealth from it, and the modern woman to marry such a man; all the power of social rejection is exerted to prevent the modern man from choosing the ways which benefit soci- ety, but which lead to small income, and the modern woman from joining her life to that type. So long as modern business is conducted primarily for the individual business man's profit; so long as the average individual business man gains the highest profit by exploiting his consumers, his workmen, his competitors and the other businesses which serve his own; so long as he gains the least profit by being generous to the consumers, to his workmen, to his competitors and to the other businesses which dovetail into his, so long is he under pressure which makes well-nigh im- possible any great faithfulness to ideals of liv- ing by serving his fellowman, and which makes well-nigh inevitable his frank or concealed adher- ence to the principle of serving himself at the ex- pense of others. By its very essence, capitalism denies the validity of the higher ideals to which the church, literature and certain racially pre- servative instincts call us for homage, which cap- 240 THE LARGER SOCIALISM ture our imagination, and which hold our alle- giance. By its practises, capitalism supplants these ideals by courses of conduct which have only to be stated in the abstract to be condemned of us as unworthy of worship. This indictment does not close its eyes to the inevitability, or even to the possible desirability, under any modern system of society, of gauging men's value by their monetary achievements. Man seems as incurably disposed to judge and evaluate his fellows as he is disposed to act so as to gain the commendation and to shun the con- demnation of his fellows. And in modern complex society, doubtless size of income is the only gen- erally available measure of personal evaluation, replacing the number of scalps of the Indians, the titles of nobility of S9me lands, the military rank of militarist nations. But under a Socialist sys- tem and herein lies the supreme superiority of Socialism to Capitalism the highest monetary rewards will appertain to the work which most highly benefits the community. With practically all men working for the state, that is, working for their fellows; and with the state apportioning salaries according to the value, difficulty and re- sponsibility of the work performed, the greatest monetary reputation will accord to those who prove themselves most indispensable to the state, that is, to their fellows. The measure of the in- dividual's prow/ess ; the adulation, or perhaps even THE LAEGER SOCIALISM 241 the envy, lie will inspire in the breasts of his as- sociates; his social status, will vary proportion- ately, and no longer inversely, to his value to his fellowmen. Society will reward those best who serve it best, will penalize most severely those who serve it least effectively. Society will exert most of its pressure of praise and dispraise in har- mony with, no longer in opposition to, whatever social and altruistic impulses exist within the hearts of its members. Each of us will receive outside stimulation to serve our fellows well, for therein will lie our best opportunity for personal advancement. Such a system of reward for socially-service- able conduct and of penalty for socially-harmful conduct provides the answer to those who loosely dismiss the Socialist program on the ground that it underestimates the need for personal stimula- tion by the opportunity for personal profit. This citing of Marxian materialism by the capitalist for his own purposes has been frequently and con- clusively proved to be unjustified, in view of the many other impulses from within and without the individual which drive men forward to their best efforts. At all events, this point of capitalistic attack is manifestly directed at absolutist com- munism or at certain -forms of philosophic anarch- ism, rather than at Socialism. For 'the Socialist program provides that economic reward should stimulate all in tbe community to their best ef- 242 THE LARGER SOCIALISM forts as strongly as under capitalism, but with the stimulus turned in a different direction. If the defenders of the capitalist system object that the highest stimuli under Socialism might be lower, and considerably lower, in amount than the highest stimuli under Capitalism, the answer is that the Socialist state will have to raise its high- est stimuli to the limit necessary to summon the most enthusiastic work of the most capable admin- istrators. Moreover, the desire for expenditure is to a great extent competitive; among the higher incomes, expenditure is guided largely by demands of one's social class rather than by impulses and desires springing wholly, and without artificial stimulation, from within the individual. Naturally, along with this payment of the higher remuneration for the more valuable service would proceed devastating inheritance taxes. It would be impossible for a family to dwell #t ease in Zion for generations by means of whatever wealth might have been accumulated, even in a Socialist state, by the abilities of an ancestor. True, there are keen students of our social structure, such as Professor McDougall, who defend the institu- tion of the hereditary succession to nobility in England, for instance, on the ground that in both theory and practise it personifies Noblesse Oblige, and hence makes possible the acceptance by the whole community of the high standards of the community's highest caste. To this point of view, THE LARGER SOCIALISM 243 the Socialist is sympathetic. His program also calls for the sovereignty of a class that guides the community; but the system of caste under Social- ism would be based on service. By their sheer in" ability to keep up to the standard set, the unfit would drop out ; by the workings of heredity, there should nevertheless still be comparative stability in the ranks of the class which served the com- munity most valuably from one generation to the next ; the deference paid those of first rank in the state would be based on an appreciation of their value to those from whom the deference came, rather than merely on the accident of birth; and from the organization of our society as well as from whatever socializing impulses lay within us, our guiding thought in functioning as members of society would be the highest welfare of that so- ciety. FEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Date Due JWAY 1 : 1981 APR 1 51962 MAK 2 2 1962 JAN I 4 1963 DEC 1 8 1962 JAN 1 i> i 365 65 MAY 8 1965 :HAY29' 965 <* ^ ? ; 7 2 o 1967 K-^> ^ 36/3 MAR 21 f967 MAR 17 1967 ft Library Bureau Cat. No. 1137 UC SOUTHERN REGION' A 001068454 6