IY I AM A SOCIALIST 
 
 CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 WHY I AM A SOCIALIST
 
 WHY I AM A SOCIALIST 
 
 By 
 
 CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL 
 
 Author of "'The Uprising of the Many." " Lawless Wealth," 
 "Songs of Democracy," etc,, etc. 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 1910 
 By George H. Doran Company 
 
 THE OUINN A BODEN CO. PSE88 
 RAHWAY, N. J.
 
 URL ITA^^ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Story of Two Cents and a Bucket op Coal . 1 
 
 II. The Story of the Bucko Mate 19 
 
 III. More About Bucko Mates 38 
 
 IV. The Story of the Gravity Yard 52 
 
 V. The Suicide Slip from Rivington Street ... 68 
 
 VI. A Boy's Opportunity 83 
 
 VII. The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts .... 100 
 
 VIII. Two Typical Wars 123 
 
 IX. A Note About Poverty 139 
 
 X. The Record of Regulation 171 
 
 XI. Dr. Sherman's Celebrated Specific .... 205 
 
 XII. An Apology for Stock Watering 228 
 
 XIII. A Plea for the Rich 248 
 
 XIV. Some Things that Might Easily Be ... . 270 
 XV. The Way of the World 288 
 
 ^- *- f m m /"
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE STORY OF TWO CENTS AND A BUCKET OF COAL 
 
 Life in the great East Side district of New York City 
 revolves within exceedingly narrow limits, and conditions 
 that in better favored regions would be trivial become here 
 of grave moment. This, no doubt, is true generally of all 
 poverty-stricken and over-crowded areas, where the struggle 
 for existence being primitive, always bitter, and usually 
 perilous, excludes all lesser topics. The comparatively 
 small world of the well-fed and the well-to-do sweeps on 
 ignorant of this, as of all other actual (not fictional) 
 characteristics of the habitat of the poor, until some event 
 not to be ignored strikes sharply for the moment on the 
 superior consciousness. Such a thing happening in the 
 winter of 1891-2 suddenly revealed the nakedness of East 
 Side life through the discovery that the region was dis- 
 turbed by so small a matter as two cents. 
 
 The winter had been severe. In no season can life in 
 the tenement houses be said to be joyous, but in a bitter 
 cold winter what is ordinarily but gloomy discomfort be- 
 comes acute suffering. Some unfortunates freeze to death 
 in the streets; many in the houses have difficulty to keep 
 alive. The old-style tenements, of which an amazing num- 
 ber still exist in New York, were ill-adapted for human 
 habitation in cold, or I may say, in any other kind of 
 weather; the doors and windows gaped, the walls were 
 thin, the floors ill-laid, the rooms at all times damp; and 
 
 1
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 for the least degree of tolerable comfort, not to say for 
 mere life itself, heavy coal fires were indispensable. 
 
 By the regulations of the Board of Health only anthra- 
 cite coal could be burned in the city. For years the retail 
 price had been $5 a ton. I suppose that few persons 
 in the worst of the East Side tenement houses had ever 
 bought at one time a ton of coal. For one reason, there 
 was no place to put it; and for another the average tene- 
 ment dweller never had at one time $5 to expend on coal. 
 Universally, the poorest bought their coal at the corner 
 grocery, a pailful at a time. There the price was ten cents 
 for a pailful. 
 
 When this was translated into ton weights it meant that 
 they were buying coal at the rate of $15 a ton. 
 
 Of a sudden, in the coldest week of the winter, it was 
 announced that the wholesale price of coal had been in- 
 creased fifty cents a ton and the corner grocery had ad- 
 vanced the price of coal by the bucket from ten to twelve 
 cents. 
 
 This was the two cents over which the East Side was 
 concerned. On its face and to the comfortable the state- 
 ment seems extravagant, but the two cents advance in the 
 coal price made a great difference to the East Side. In- 
 dustrial conditions that winter had been as severe as the 
 weather. Many men were out of work, the destitution 
 that always lowers over that unhappy region was more 
 than usually black, and families that had balanced the 
 relative pains of freezing and of starving before they spent 
 ten cents for a bucket of coal heard with dismay of the 
 increased cost of warmth. 
 
 As a rule the East Side accepts in dogged patience its 
 allotted troubles, but some unwonted demonstrations took 
 place over this situation, and as (in the view of uneasy 
 
 2
 
 Two Cents and a Bucket of Coal 
 
 souls that dwelt in daily prophecy of proletarian uprising) 
 these stirrings were assumed to be menacing, the attention of 
 the rest of the city was drawn thereto. The two cents 
 became an item of news. I was then a reporter on the 
 the New York Herald, and the Herald assigned me to 
 investigate the cause of the increase and its results upon 
 the poor. 
 
 The causes were well enough known to anyone thai had 
 kept track of current events, a practice that, as a matter 
 of fact, has astonishingly few followers. All of the an- 
 thracite coal mines were in a region lying between 100 
 and 170 miles from New York City. Three railroads, 
 the Philadelphia & Reading, the Central of New Jersey, 
 and the Lehigh Valley were chiefly engaged in transport- 
 ing the coal to market and were also the owners of many 
 mines. Looking somewhat ahead of his times towards the 
 industrial concentration and consolidation to be, Mr. Alex- 
 ander McLeod, a daring speculator of Philadelphia, had 
 managed to unite the three railroads. This secured to 
 the combination the practical control of the anthracite coal 
 output (since these roads either mined or carried almost 
 all the coal produced), and the first act of the new associa- 
 tion was to advance the wholesale price of coal fifty cents 
 a ton. This, when it had reached the tenement house dwell- 
 ers, meant an increase of two cents a bucket. 
 
 I climbed the rickety and ill-smelling stairway of many 
 a rear tenement to see what this increase signified for the 
 people on whom it was levied. Some rather painful things 
 had happened over there. A family in Henry Street had 
 taken the lids from the kitchen stove to increase the output 
 of heat and retard the consumption of coal, and, sleeping 
 on the floor together, had been asphyxiated by the escap- 
 ing fumes. In another quarter, inhabited by foreigners, 
 
 3
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 people had broken the windows of a grocer who re- 
 fused to sell at the old price. Wherever an old building 
 was being wrecked there was a horde of little children 
 picking up the precious fragments of wood, sometimes 
 at the risk of their lives. The charitable societies working 
 hard to cope with the situation yet were overwhelmed by 
 it, for indeed the need was too great; no ordinary society 
 could have provided for so many persons that had neither 
 work nor fuel. An old woman in a rear tenement attic, 
 who with her needle had managed for years to win some 
 scanty subsistence, was found dead in her bed from starva- 
 tion and cold. I went up to see the place, and the snow 
 from the skylight lay in a little drift across the bed, so 
 it was no wonder she died; she had over her nothing but 
 a rag. The other people in the house told me they would 
 have helped her if they had known in itself a bitter com- 
 mentary; for the house was but a wretched shell, the in- 
 habitants all but destitute and how they could have af- 
 forded help I could not pretend to say. 
 
 It struck me as rather odd and incongruous that among 
 well-fed and comfortable persons there was a disposition 
 to base upon the situation much philosophical reflection to 
 the effect that the poor brought their troubles upon them- 
 selves. For instance, they were so improvident, it was 
 urged; they bought their coal by the pailful, which was 
 the most expensive way. If they would practice thrift, 
 save a little money, and buy a ton of coal at a time, of 
 course they would get it at the ton rate. I suppose that 
 it was because I had been so much among the tenements 
 that these comments, offered in obvious good faith, seemed 
 to me to possess a kind of grim and almost horrible humor. 
 I had mind upon the dwelling places I had seen, and 
 upon the people in them, and the idea of their saving 
 
 4
 
 Two Cents and a Bucket of Coal 
 
 money from their hand-to-mouth existence, or the idea 
 of dumping a ton of coal in the midst of their cramped, 
 crowded quarters, moved me to sardonic mirth. I was, 
 to be sure, largely of the opinion apparently held by all 
 other comfortable persons, that all was well in the world, 
 and if here and there an imperfection showed, why, a 
 little tinkering no more. I was also in the main prepared 
 to accept the notion that if people got hurt by the profit 
 hunt the fact was, of course, melancholy, but the hunt was 
 right and good and not to be criticised. Yet I confessed 
 at times that none of these theories seemed quite to cover 
 the cases of the poor on the East Side. 
 
 From this tour of investigation I was sent to the region 
 of the mines to note what upon the miners had been the 
 effect of the new order of things and of the process of in- 
 dustrial consolidation and unification. Here, to my aston- 
 ishment, I found even greater and more general suffering 
 than there had been in the tenement houses, though from 
 a different cause. That they might keep down the supply 
 of coal and thereby support its increased price the gentle- 
 men in control of the new railroad combination had re- 
 stricted mining operations to work on no more than two 
 days a week. The result was that of all the coal miners 
 in the region hardly one was able to earn support for 
 himself and his family. 
 
 This, being probably a temporary restriction, might not 
 have been particularly serious if there had been for years 
 anything like a normal condition of employment in the 
 mining region ; but the fact was that the miners had worked 
 under a system that made them unable to accumulate or 
 to save, or to live otherwise than precariously; so that 
 they were unprepared for the least reduction of their earn- 
 ing power. They were, in fact, the slaves of the mine 
 
 5
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 ewners. I shall expect this term to be regarded by the 
 uninitiated as extreme or extravagant; yet it is soberly 
 used; for I can think of no other that applies adequately 
 to the miners' condition, and I have read few descriptions 
 of any state of acknowledged slavery that does not on 
 the whole seem better than theirs. 
 
 These men were not merely enslaved, in a way I shall 
 now proceed to explain, but they were systematically de- 
 spoiled and robbed. 
 
 In practically all of the mines the methods were the 
 same. When a man began to work he opened an account 
 at the company store. You may assume with entire con- 
 fidence that he opened this account because if he failed to 
 do so he ceased to work in the mine. This store was owned 
 (not openly but through a subterfuge) by the firm or com- 
 pany that operated the mine. By the laws of the State 
 such dual ownership was strictly forbidden, but with the 
 assistance of the convenient subterfuge was almost uni- 
 versal. Some years before there had been a violent revolt 
 against conditions in the anthracite region, and at that 
 time men that greatly profited by this subterfuge had 
 uttered splendid sentiments in favor of law and order. 
 I could not learn that their attention had ever been offi- 
 cially called to this inconsistency. The company store had 
 for sale everything the miner needed in his household and 
 also everything he needed in his work. These things were 
 supplied to him in advance or on credit and their cost was 
 subtracted at the end of the month from his recorded 
 earnings. 
 
 Payment for mining was on the basis of the carload, 
 so much for every mine car of coal brought to the surface 
 and delivered at the breaker, which is a kind of coal 
 elevator at the mouth of the mine. The miners hired their 
 
 6
 
 Two Cents and a Bucket of Coal 
 
 own laborers, and furnished their own tools, gunpowder, 
 oil, and accessories all purchased at the company 
 stores. The mine owners furnished only the mine, the 
 breaker, and the cars that brought the coal to the 
 surface. 
 
 This system opened the door to many abuses. Mixed 
 with the coal in the original strata was a small quantity 
 of slate. Necessarily, this was carried to the surface with 
 the coal, and for the slate a purely arbitrary and un- 
 reasonable deduction was made, apparently in a spirit of 
 cynical disregard of justice. On their way to the breaker 
 the cars passed swiftly up an inclined plane, and on a 
 bridge over this stood a functionary called the docking 
 boss, who estimated and recorded the amount of slate 
 in each car as it passed. The whole performance was 
 admittedly a farce. As the cars went hurtling along, the 
 docking boss could no more than glance at each of them 
 and in no way could the surface of the load be any trust- 
 worthy indicator of the amount of slate it contained. 
 Moreover, the man was in the employ of the mine 
 owners; his judgment was necessarily ex parte; and from 
 it there was no appeal. On his instantaneous guess the 
 deductions were from fifteen to forty-five per cent. A 
 car that contained no slate might be docked nearly one- 
 half and probably no car ever contained as much slate 
 as was charged against it. 
 
 As there was no mine inspection worth the name, the 
 miners had likewise no redress against another grievance 
 that arose from the arbitrary size of the car. This the 
 mine owners regulated to suit themselves, and while each 
 car was supposed to contain about the same amount of 
 coal there were variations, and these all in favor of the 
 mine owner. At some mines a rule had been made that, 
 
 7
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 to be recorded with full credit, a car must be heaped 
 with coal until the coal would touch and ring a bell sus- 
 pended over the tracks. No agreements regulated the 
 height of this bell. The charge repeatedly made that a 
 mine boss or superintendent, ambitious for large showings, 
 would surreptitiously increase the height of the bell seemed 
 improbable, and yet I met with it so often from many 
 sources and so well supported that I was obliged to think 
 it not without foundation. Nothing existed to prevent 
 any such species of theft, and it would in fact be quite 
 in accord with other practices toward the miner. For 
 example, I found mines where the size of the car had un- 
 doubtedly been increased without any increase of payment 
 to the miner, and it seemed quite true that in some 
 instances when the coal on any car failed to ring the bell 
 that carload had been confiscated to the mine and the 
 miner had received little for it. 
 
 Why, then, did the miners remain at work when they 
 were so unfairly treated? That was the first question that 
 arose when I had established these facts. In the big, 
 free, bustling country of which they were citizens were 
 many other employments besides mining. Why did they 
 not turn to something else? Or why did they stay a 
 day in a region so forlorn and unhappy? There was 
 the Great West, for instance, that traditionally needed men 
 to develop it and offered so many golden chances. Why 
 did they not move thither? 
 
 I turned this question to and fro for some time before I 
 found the answer. Occasionally one of the younger or 
 more fortunate men would indeed make his escape, but 
 the others could not go or did not go because they were 
 bound hand and foot to the company store by debt. 
 
 They were in debt; they always had been in debt; they 
 
 8
 
 Two Cents and a Bucket of Coal 
 
 always would be in debt; it was part of the system to 
 keep them in debt. 
 
 One reason why they were in debt at some of the mines 
 was because they were overcharged for everything they 
 bought. For a $3 keg of powder they paid $4, for a can 
 of oil worth sixty cents' they paid $1, for a rubber coat 
 worth $4 they paid $6, for a sack of flour worth $2.25 
 they paid $2.50. 
 
 They must buy at the company store or they could not 
 work in the mines, and for everything they bought at 
 the company store they were scandalously overcharged. 
 
 Most of them lived in houses (so to call them) owned 
 by the company, and were behind in their rent. These 
 houses were of wood, sometimes constructed by nailing 
 upright boards against a flimsy frame, much as a western 
 farmer might build his woodshed. They were often un- 
 painted, usually ramshackle, and always repulsive to look 
 at. At some mines they stood in long dreary rows, form- 
 ing one of the forlornest spectacles I can remember. All 
 the anthracite region had been made by the hand of man 
 a place repulsive, but surely the sorriest spots in it were 
 dwellings maintained by the mining companies; and for 
 shelter in one of these wretched sheds the rent exacted 
 seemed to be calculated on the idea of recovering in a year 
 the entire cost of construction. 
 
 You would naturally assume offhand that persons living 
 in these houses and submitting to so many extortions were 
 of low intelligence and belonged to what we are pleased 
 to call the riffraff of Europe. I was astonished to find 
 that they were Americans of long American lineage, in- 
 telligent, and, strange as it may seem, intensely patriotic. 
 Practically all of them had grown up in the mines. Their 
 fathers had been miners; they themselves had begun life 
 
 9
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 as slate-pickers or mule-drivers in the drifts, and by years 
 of practice had mastered a difficult and dangerous trade. 
 I do not know, indeed, why anyone should think a miner 
 can be an unintelligent person; to do the work performed 
 by these men in the anthracite region requires a high 
 degree of skill and much knowledge; they are not merely 
 laborers but experts and engineers. Many miners had 
 married the daughters of other miners; their children were 
 already in the mines; and on father and child was the 
 mark that one comes quickly to recognize as the stamp 
 of the mines. 
 
 These children were in themselves an interesting study. 
 The law of the State strictly forbade their employment 
 in or about the mines ; it was a law everywhere and openly 
 violated. Everybody knew the substance of the law; every- 
 body knew it was a dead letter. I have seen a father 
 going into a mine with three children all under the legal 
 age limit and all at work for wages. Parents did not 
 deliberately choose to ruin thus the lives of their children; 
 they have spoken to me of it with tears; but under the 
 existing conditions the thing was inevitable. The chil- 
 dren's wages were necessary for the support of the family, 
 and the struggle for life was always grim and terrible. 
 A father, men said, could not let his children starve. 
 After a time I was driven to question whether in some 
 instances, at least, starvation or some less painful form 
 of death would not have been preferable to the slow, long 
 drawn out murder of body, mind, and soul that was accom- 
 plished upon the child that labored in the mines. The 
 records of their employment scored upon them were both 
 obvious and shocking. I never saw one that was not pallid, 
 gaunt, prematurely old, overwrought, underfed, and an 
 easy prey to any bacterial disease, but particularly to tuber- 
 
 10
 
 Two Cents and a Bucket of Coal 
 
 culosis. I found boys passing into man's estate that had 
 never had any childhood they could recollect. They had 
 never played nor had any recreation nor drawn from life 
 any conception except that of eternally facing the one 
 battle for daily food amid surroundings that seemed cal- 
 culated to crush out every sweet and worthy thought. 
 Against the system that produced these conditions it 
 seemed to me that thousands of ruined lives daily pro- 
 tested. 
 
 Near one of the mines a mine owner had built his hand- 
 some residence in a vast and beautiful estate. He was 
 reputed, on just grounds, I believe, to be the fairest and 
 most charitable employer in the region; he had made a 
 sincere but futile effort to withstand the methods that in- 
 creasingly bound chains upon the worker, he had no sym- 
 pathy with the new coalition; and at the time I visited his 
 colliery he had determined to resist the combination or 
 retire from the business. He was a type of the old style 
 employer that had individual and kindly relations with 
 his men, and yet there were features about even his situa- 
 tion that provoked grave questions. 
 
 On the road below his beautiful estate the miners trooped 
 to and from the mines, and I cannot pretend that the 
 contrast they suggested was reassuring to one that knew 
 the kind of houses they left in the morning and would 
 return to at night. This mine owner had a son twelve or 
 thirteen years old for whom as a plaything he had built 
 a miniature railroad that ran two or three miles about 
 the hills. With real locomotives, cars, tracks, and switches 
 the fortunate boy had great amusement running his trains 
 from miniature station to station. The locomotive was so 
 large that he could ride in the cab and the cars would ac- 
 commodate several of his friends. At two places the track 
 
 11
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 crossed the highway and the boy would blow the whistle 
 of his locomotive as he approached a crossing. It was 
 great fun. Sometimes his train would come along as the 
 mine boys were going to work or returning home and 
 they would stand and watch the little cars fly past, 
 the bell ringing, and the youthful engineer seated in his 
 cab, happy and smiling. Then they would go on, swinging 
 their dinner pails. 
 
 The miners' houses were always very poor and bare, 
 inside as well as outside, and I think I found in the mel- 
 ancholy region nothing more pathetic than the efforts of 
 the overburdened housewives to preserve in the midst of 
 such surroundings the decency, cleanliness, and good taste 
 characteristic of their race. The walls had little treasured 
 ornaments and framed prints cut from the illustrated 
 papers; there was often a vase with wild flowers from 
 the hills, and to my amazement I found some of the sad- 
 eyed housewives managed to grow a trifle of a garden by 
 the door. But over everything was a terrible blight of 
 poverty and insufficiency. The miners' families went badly 
 clothed and plainly some of them did not have enough to 
 eat. They seemed to be a grave, self-respecting, and 
 orderly people ; when the father and the boys returned from 
 the day's work in the mines they plunged at once into the 
 washtubs of water the wife and mother kept standing for 
 them, and with soap and brushes scrubbed away all the 
 grime of the mines. Then they dressed in clean, if patched, 
 clothes and had supper. Afterwards there was nothing to 
 do except to smoke and to go to bed. The rows of barracks 
 on the bleak hillside afforded no vestige of human amuse- 
 ment. I was rather nonplussed to find that practically 
 none of them drank intoxicating liquor to excess, and many 
 drank it not at all, but it was explained to me that a 
 
 12
 
 Two Cents and a Bucket of Coal 
 
 miner's work is such he cannot wisely use alcoholic stimu- 
 lants. Nevertheless, I am quite sure that in the like con- 
 ditions I should be drunken every night if in any way I 
 could come by liquor. 
 
 This was the situation at the mines when (by some vio- 
 lence of speech) work was called " good." I mean when 
 on all the days of the week the miners were allowed to 
 mine coal, or to work in the mines preparing (without 
 compensation) to mine coal, and when the deductions were 
 not unusually large. They were very anxious to work all 
 the time that they might earn money to live on, and when- 
 ever work was interrupted, as by explosions in the mines 
 (which were frequent and usually fatal), by floodings, 
 or by the caprice of the mine owners, they thought them- 
 selves unfortunate. At the end of each month each miner 
 received a due-bill or ticket showing his account with his 
 kind, indulgent employer. On this ticket was recorded first 
 all the coal he had mined in the month so many cars. 
 Then there was noted the deductions for slate or for under- 
 weight, being the amounts reported by the docking boss 
 as before described. Next were subtracted the wages of 
 the laborers employed by the miner, for while these laborers 
 received their wages at first hand from the company they 
 were in reality paid by the miners. Then were deducted 
 the supplies the miner had drawn in the month; and from 
 all this was struck a balance of the amount due to him. 
 
 This amount the company store usually took to apply 
 on the back account. 
 
 As a result the average miner seldom saw any actual 
 money he could call his own, and on every side the com- 
 pany store was the horizon of his material life. 
 
 Very often when all the deductions had been made the 
 remainder, even for the taking of the company store, was 
 
 13
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 pitifully small. I collected about two hundred due- 
 bills^ each representing the proceeds of a miner's work 
 for one month in the times that were called good. They 
 showed balances of from $15 to $45. The average was 
 $36. One man that had toiled all the month had a balance 
 due to him of $16 and another of $17-50. These men 
 had spent most of the month in preparing their drifts 
 to take out coal, a work for which they received nothing. 
 This might be tolerable if their earnings when they began 
 to deliver coal were sufficient to afford compensation for 
 the unprofitable month, but they never were. The man 
 that earned $16 for the month of hard and dangerous toil 
 had four children, all girls, and therefore unproductive 
 of wages; for even the barbarism of the anthracite region 
 did not go so far as to compel little girls to mine coal. 
 How this family lived I do not know, but certainly the 
 fare in that household was far less than any child of earth 
 should have. 
 
 Upon conditions like these there had now fallen the 
 order that no more than two days' work should be done in 
 any week, a policy deemed necessary to keep down the 
 supply and to keep up the price. To the people that 
 for years had lived thus perilously upon the edge of the 
 abyss the order seemed an intolerable hardship. They 
 had hands and the will to work, they needed the work 
 that they might live, the work that they wanted to 
 do stared them in the face, and a wholly arbitrary power, 
 unconnected in any way with normal conditions, refused 
 them the work they begged. 
 
 All these facts were clear to any observation; they were 
 physical and palpable results of certain causes. But one 
 phase of the matter not so easily discerned was long a 
 puzzle to me. The price of coal in New York had been 
 
 14
 
 Two Cents and a Bucket of Coal 
 
 $5 and was now $5.50 a ton. Evidently this was wholly 
 disproportionate to the cost of producing the coal. Figures 
 based upon the expense of mine operation, including every- 
 thing except interest and taxes, showed that the cost of a 
 ton of coal loaded upon a car at the mine sidetrack was 
 about $1. Over night the car was hauled to New York 
 where its contents became worth $5 a ton. This increase, 
 in turn, bore no proportion to the actual cost of the service 
 of transporting the coal and showed an abnormal profit, 
 easy to understand, when one remembered that the railroad 
 company that transported the coal usually owned it and 
 was a great or preponderating influence in fixing the price 
 of all coal. So far all was plain. 
 
 But what became of all these various and great profits? 
 The company store must have paid very handsomely, the 
 abuse of dockage must have yielded large returns, the 
 price at which the coal was sold was an enormous advance 
 upon the mining cost. Most of this money flowed into one 
 channel ; that is to say, into the hands of the owners * of 
 the mines, who were in turn the owners of the railroads. 
 But no one heard that any extraordinary dividends or 
 profits were paid to these owners; according to the records 
 and reports the dividend rates paid by all these railroads 
 were not to be regarded as excessive, being little above the 
 current market rates for money. What, then, became of 
 all these profits ? 
 
 This remained a mystery until I looked into the lists 
 of securities that these railroads had issued; then the trail 
 of the missing profits was clearly revealed. All of these 
 railroads had in the current phrase " capitalized their earn- 
 
 * In the case of mines not in one way or another owned by the 
 railroads the exorbitant freight rates absorbed the greater part 
 of the profit. 
 
 15
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 ing power." That is to say, they had issued securities 
 up to the limit of the money that could be obtained from 
 the public on one hand and from the miners on the other; 
 and the docking boss, the company store, the wretched 
 houses, the overcharges, the pallid-faced children, and the 
 violated laws merely represented so much watered stock 
 and so many bonds. Finally, it was to meet the require- 
 ments of a fresh issue of securities that the combination 
 of the railroads had been formed, the price of coal in- 
 creased, the days of labor at the mines diminished, and 
 here was the heart and real secret of the murmurs of the 
 East Side and the added two cents in the price of the 
 bucket of coal. 
 
 Let us suppose that the normal profit of mining coal 
 had paid in the case of one of these railroads 7 per cent, 
 on a capitalization of $50,000,000. Evidently by slightly 
 oppressing the miner or slightly increasing the selling cost 
 of coal this road could pay the same rate upon $60,000,000. 
 There was issued accordingly $10,000,000 of additional 
 stock in the shape of a stock dividend to the owners. The 
 next year a little increase of pressure at both ends would 
 justify an issue of $20,000,000 of bonds, in the main 
 similarly disposed of. This was the process; by these 
 means (regarded in all financial circles as perfectly legiti- 
 mate) the enormous profits were absorbed without increas- 
 ing the dividends or attracting attention, and until the limit 
 of endurance of the miners or of the public should be 
 reached there seemed to be no reason why the process should 
 not continue. 
 
 One of these railroads, the Philadelphia & Reading, was 
 among the most heavily capitalized railroads in the world, 
 so that conservative financiers were often aghast when 
 they contemplated the load it was carrying. Most of 
 
 15
 
 Two Cents and a Bucket of Coal 
 
 its securities represented capitalized earning power, which, 
 to speak quite plainly, is equivalent to saying that they 
 represented extortions practiced upon the miner on one side 
 and the coal consumer on the other. So great, in fact, 
 had become the burden of common, preferred and second 
 preferred stock, first and second mortgage, debentures, 
 income, general and consolidated bonds, that even with 
 ample assistance from the company store and the docking 
 boss, great difficulty was sometimes experienced in meeting 
 all of the company's obligations, and it was nec- 
 essary to omit the paying of sacred dividends. In spite 
 of these stupendous totals of securities, still more had 
 recently been issued, and it was the gentlemen in charge 
 of the Philadelphia & Reading that had really brought 
 about the combination, the increase in the price of coal, 
 and the decrease of the days of mining, that revenue might 
 be provided to meet the charges on these securities. 
 
 The essence of the situation then was this: In New 
 York and other cities great populations were suffering for 
 lack of coal. In the mountains was a plenty of coal. Great 
 numbers of miners were suffering from lack of work. At 
 their hands was a plenty of work to be done. Between 
 these two great needs and two great natural supplies stood 
 a group of irresponsible persons that for their own profit 
 made coal dear in New York and work scarce in Penn- 
 sylvania. 
 
 For this condition I could find then no defense, excuse, 
 nor even palliation, and I have been able to find none since. 
 The only advantage that resulted from it was that a small 
 group of men, six or seven, perhaps, was enabled to live 
 in the greater luxury. From this fact society at large 
 could not be conceived to derive the slightest benefit. The 
 concern of society was that people should have coal and men 
 
 17
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 should have work. With this fundamental concern these 
 six or seven men were abnormally interfering and there 
 could be no escape from the conclusion that the system of 
 society that allowed interference in matters so vital to the 
 general welfare had in it a fatal fault. 
 
 Two other facts connected with this episode seemed to 
 me significant, and may seem so to you. The clamor of 
 the newspapers and the general disgust of the public had 
 such an effect that this particular combination was after a 
 few months dissolved, one of its projectors publicly declar- 
 ing that he did not care to be called a thief and an op- 
 pressor. But and here is the great point the price of 
 coal was not reduced, it has since been still further in- 
 creased, and another combination under another name took 
 the place and performed all the functions of the first. 
 
 The other fact is that eight miners that had been de- 
 tected (in spite of many precautions) in giving me in- 
 formation about conditions in the mines were dismissed 
 from their employment and at once blacklisted at every 
 mine in the three anthracite regions. It appeared, there- 
 fore, that the men in control of the country's coal supply 
 had also (in effect) over their employees the power of 
 life and death; for assuredly you deny to a man the right 
 to live when you deny to him the right to the labor by 
 which he sustains life. I was, therefore, irresistibly re- 
 minded of medieval feudalism, from which these conditions 
 seemed in no way different. The coal mine owners repro- 
 duced exactly the barons of the Rhine that levied for their 
 ease and luxury arbitrary tribute upon the highway, and 
 the miners were their serfs; nor was it possible for me to 
 see how any person that rejoiced in the fall of medieval 
 feudalism could fail to protest against the feudalism of the 
 modern system of industry. 
 
 18
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE STORY OF THE BUCKO MATE 
 
 Before the introduction of steam pilot boats the pilots 
 of New York cruised out of the port in swift, handsome 
 schooners that I suppose were the best vessels of their 
 class ever sent to sea. Whereas the steam pilot boat now 
 stands off the bar at the harbor-mouth, the sailing pilot 
 boat of the old days stretched far down to eastward, some- 
 times five hundred miles. There was keen competition 
 among the twenty-odd boats of the two fleets, New York 
 and New Jersey; racing occurred almost daily, and the 
 life, though not without danger, had a certain charm. 
 
 My work as reporter had brought me to know many 
 pilots (a class whose worth, skill, and virtues have never 
 been adequately celebrated), and for pleasure I sometimes 
 went on cruises with them. The working complement of 
 a pilot-boat, I may explain, consisted of the boat-keeper 
 (a kind of captain), four or five sailormen, and the cook. 
 Usually four pilots went out; the boat would remain at 
 sea until these had been placed on board incoming vessels, 
 when the boat-keeper would bring the boat back to port. 
 In the summer of 1890 I made a cruise on the E. F. 
 Williams, pilot-boat No. 14, a craft of which the owners 
 were justly proud, and on which I had frequently voyaged. 
 When I joined her at the Tompkinsville anchorage I found 
 on board a new member of the crew. I think I have 
 
 19
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 never seen before the mast a more unnautical figure. He 
 was about twenty-two, tall, gaunt, and wiry, and his dress, 
 gait, language, and movements were all eloquent of rusticity, 
 and, indeed, of the plow. What made his present employ- 
 ment the stranger was that he was in no condition to do 
 a seaman's work, even if he had known how. He carried 
 his left arm in a sling, walked with a limp, and looked 
 pale and sickly. One eye was rather shockingly dis- 
 colored as if from a recent blow, and one cheek showed 
 a long, broad scar, only partly healed. While we were 
 getting under way he stood about rather helplessly, and 
 I surmised that his contribution to the vessel's handling 
 would be small. 
 
 The presence of this singular person gave me some 
 curiosity, and as soon as he recovered sufficiently to stand 
 a watch forward (it quickly appearing that he was no 
 helmsman for a schooner) I made a point of sharing his 
 watch and talking with him. His name was James Sum- 
 mers. He had been born and bred in the mountains of 
 Kentucky, where his way of life had varied from farmer's 
 boy to teacher of a rural school. His parents were dead, 
 and about six months before he joined the pilot-boat an 
 uncle in San Francisco had sent for him, previous to which 
 he had never been outside of his native county. On the 
 train his pocket had been picked of his wallet, which con- 
 tained his uncle's directions and address. In San Fran- 
 cisco an obliging stranger had undertaken to guide him to 
 his uncle's house, which I deem to have been somewhere 
 in the suburbs. On the way they stopped for refreshment 
 in a water-front resort, and the next clear remembrance 
 the young man had was of lying on a rolling floor while a 
 stout, red-faced man was trying to awaken him by kicking 
 him in the ribs. He struggled to his feet to find that he 
 
 20
 
 The Story of the Bucko Mate 
 
 was on a ship about fifteen miles, I should judge, south- 
 west of the Farallones. He had been shanghaied. 
 
 He gave a mighty cry when this fact was at last borne 
 in upon his groping consciousness, and was promptly 
 knocked down by the red-faced man, who proved to be 
 the vessel's first mate. The cook, who seems to have been 
 almost the only tolerable person on that floating hell, came 
 to his help and dragged him out of sight to explain a 
 situation doubtless familiar enough on most Cape Homers. 
 While Summers was unconscious from drugged liquor 
 lie had been signed as an ordinary seaman on the Amer- 
 ican ship Willie Schernhorst, bound from San Francisco 
 to New York. There was no help for this situation but 
 to keep perfectly still, obey orders, learn his work, do 
 it faithfully, and he would be all right and probably like 
 the job. Thus the cook. Subsequently Summers added 
 to this outline of his position the fact, very important to 
 this narrative, that he had been shipped for the round trip 
 to be paid off on the vessel's arrival in San Francisco. 
 
 He was a simple soul, unimaginative, unattached, accus- 
 tomed always to hard work, and probably the horrors of his 
 lot did not at first appeal to him so much as they might have 
 appealed to another. At least it appeared that he had 
 determined to make the best of the situation, and apply 
 himself to learn his duties; the extent of which task may 
 be gauged from the fact that he knew not the bow of a 
 ship from the stern. He was seasick at first, and was 
 allowed to lie in a dark corner of the fo'c's'le, but as soon 
 as he was on his feet he found himself in the first mate's 
 watch and being driven with blows and curses to pull on 
 ropes whereof the names and uses he knew nothing, and 
 to go about the ship on errands that he always bungled. 
 There was another landsman on board, a former miner 
 
 21
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 from Colorado, whose plight was much like his own, and 
 their common misfortune drew them somewhat together. 
 The rest of the crew were mostly experienced sailors, 
 though as Summers presently discovered, all were new in 
 the Cape Horn voyage. Nearly all had come on board drunk, 
 and being now sober, were busily lamenting their ill-luck 
 in leaving San Francisco. 
 
 Summers said that from the first what struck him as 
 strange was the senseless brutality with which the crew 
 was treated. No effort, however willing or zealous, seemed 
 to satisfy the mate. Every order was given with curses; 
 many with curses and blows. When all hands were pulling 
 with every ounce of strength upon a sheet the mate would 
 come among them, striking and cursing. At the least sign 
 of resentment the incipient rebel was singled out and beaten, 
 sometimes until he had to be carried to his bunk. The mate 
 seemed to have a particular spite against all the old sailors ; 
 the landsmen usually fared better at his hands. But one 
 night, when they had been out three weeks, the mate, 
 with an oath, struck at Summers, and the Kentuckian made 
 an angry retort. The mate leaped backward, knocked a 
 belaying pin from the rack under the shrouds, and with 
 the same motion caught it and hurled it so dexterously that 
 it caught the Kentuckian on the side of the head and 
 stretched him senseless. When he came to he found him- 
 self ironed and in the hold, I think. He did not know 
 how long he lay there, but he said the cook came to him 
 several times with bread and water. Finally, an old shell- 
 back sailor came and, sitting down by his side, told him 
 matters that he called " sailorman's sense." They were 
 to the effect that he had no chance encept to submit to 
 everything, keep silence, do his work, and try to avoid 
 irritating the ship's officers. Not long afterward the mate 
 
 22
 
 The Story of the Bucko Mate 
 
 came down, took off the irons, and with a kick told him to 
 get on deck. 
 
 They weathered the Horn in the Antarctic summer, a 
 mercy the landsmen did not understand, and as soon as 
 they stood away north the cruelty redoubled. Not a day 
 passed without violence: often there was bloodshed. Some- 
 times the captain joined in the savage persecution, but 
 usually the mate was their chief oppressor. He would 
 come on deck, find fault with the way a rope was coiled 
 or a sail furled, work himself into a passion, and always 
 end by assaulting someone, either with his fists or with 
 a belaying pin. In the latter case the beaten man was 
 usually carried off insensible. Summers said that although 
 none of them had much spirit left, and all were without 
 weapons, only the fact that the officers went about con- 
 spicuously armed to the teeth prevented an uprising. Each 
 mate had two great revolvers at his belt, and the handle 
 of a revolver always showed from the captain's pocket. 
 The brutality was so incessant and fierce that the strongest 
 men in the crew were wont to wince whenever the mate 
 approached. Yet it was almost always without the least 
 apparent provocation that they were beaten: they would 
 have been glad to win peace if they had known how. This 
 continually puzzled Summers, and one night when both 
 were far forward by the heel of the bowsprit and out of 
 the hearing of the others, he asked the old sailor about 
 it. The sailor said: 
 
 " Aw, it's part of the game. It'll get worse as we head 
 up for the Hook. Mind me and keep out of the way if 
 you want to get ashore alive." 
 
 Summers asked him "What game?" but got no satis- 
 faction. The shellback only said that this was " a bucko 
 mate," and he had " heard about him before." 
 
 23
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 The mate usually applied to the crew at large what is 
 admitted to be the most degrading name in the language. 
 One day he hurled it at the Colorado man. It is not a 
 name to be used with impunity in Colorado. The miner 
 sprang at the mate's throat. All the suppressed hatred 
 in that beaten crew boiled up. With oaths and shouts they 
 ran towards their oppressor. He whipped out of the 
 way and stood defiant with a revolver in each hand. 
 The men fell back a little. At that instant the cap- 
 tain strode from the companionway and surveyed the 
 scene. 
 
 "Mutiny, eh?" he said. He picked up a belaying pin 
 and struck the miner a blow that, as Summers said, crushed 
 the man's head like an egg. Then he whirled around with 
 his drawn revolver and menaced the crew. 
 
 " The first one of you that lifts a hand or says a word 
 gets the same medicine," he said. " You don't know who 
 
 you're fooling with. Mr. , drive these rats forward 
 
 and shoot the first one that starts a mutiny." 
 
 Summers said that all he knew about the miner's fate 
 was that he never saw him again. The word went around 
 the ship two days later that a body had been buried in 
 the morning watch, and a man's death had been entered in 
 the log as due to heart disease. 
 
 The shellback's prediction was verified. As the ship 
 went north the brutality increased. Summers said there 
 were always two or three men in their bunks with broken 
 bones or insensible from beatings. He made careful note 
 of every assault, for he assumed that as soon as the ship 
 reached port the captain and mate would be arrested and 
 he would be a witness against them, if he managed to 
 preserve his life. By this time he had become quite friendly 
 with the old shellback, and one fine night when they were 
 
 24
 
 The Story of the Bucko Mate 
 
 on their place of wonted resort, the bowsprit, he casually 
 mentioned this view of the matter. 
 
 " Arrested ! " said the sailorman. " They won't never 
 be arrested." 
 
 " Why not? " Summers asked. " It's crime, isn't it? " 
 
 "Why not? Well, I'll show you why not. Who's goin' 
 to say anything? Any of this gang? Well, I'll bet you 
 she won't be tied up to the dock before every man on 
 board will be scramblin' to get ashore and never come 
 back. I'm goin' out the hawse-hole myself. Naw, there 
 won't be nothin' said, and don't you say nothin' yourself. 
 S'pose this is the first ship that's seen these things? Who 
 cares for a drunken sailor? Nobody'd believe him anyway. 
 You'd only be pinched yourself and the old man and the 
 bucko'd go free." 
 
 Summers said that in the final tempest of violence that 
 broke out just before the pilot came aboard he received the 
 hurts from which he was still suffering, including a broken 
 arm and a blow on the side of the head from a belaying 
 pin. The cook set his arm that night. The moment the 
 ship was secured to the pier all the officers went below, 
 as of purpose. The crew dropped over the side like rats 
 and disappeared. Summers followed the shellback down 
 one street and up another, having no idea where he was 
 going, until they plumped into a sailor's boarding house, 
 which, from Summers's description, I concluded must have 
 been in the upper part of West Street. Here they lay 
 for several days until Summers's hurts had somewhat 
 healed. The shellback got a berth on a coastwise steamer. 
 Before they parted he made Summers understand what he 
 had meant by the phrase " part of the game " that he had 
 used that night on the bowsprit. 
 
 " You see," he said, " that's where the bucko mate comes 
 
 25
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 in. That's his job. We was all signed for the round trip, 
 'Frisco to New York and back, wasn't we? And we was 
 to be paid off in 'Frisco when we got back, wasn't we? 
 Well, if we all desert in New York we don't get no money, 
 does we? Well, if the mate makes that ship a hot enough 
 place we'll all desert, won't we? So then they'll ship a 
 new crew, New York to 'Frisco and back to be paid off 
 in New York, won't they? An' the bucko mate, he'll 
 make it hot so they'll quit at 'Frisco, won't they? So 
 the owners won't never pay no wages, will they? Well, 
 ain't that what I was tellin' you? I leave it to you if 
 you'd stayed on that ship another four months for ten 
 times the wages. You bet you wouldn't, and if you had, 
 they'd 'a' stove your head in. That's the bucko mate, me 
 boy. I heard of him before and now I know him." 
 
 Before they parted the shellback introduced Summers to 
 some cronies, including the boarding-house keeper, who 
 seems to have been of a stamp other than traditional. There 
 was much conferring among them, the purport of which 
 he did not understand, but after some delay and the coming 
 and going of messengers Summers was taken by night to 
 Tompkinsville, and found himself dropped on board the 
 pilot boat. He said he suspected that his story was not 
 unknown to the kind-hearted pilots, but for certain reasons 
 he deemed wisdom to lie in asking no questions. 
 
 To me the story seemed on its face a bit of extravagant 
 fiction. From time to time we had heard stories of cruelty 
 on Cape Homers, and from the cloudy memories of the 
 hurrying life a reporter necessarily leads in New York, I 
 recalled some threads of cases in the police courts not 
 unlike this. But that there should be any deliberate plan 
 to avoid the paying of wages by making men desert seemed 
 to my mind clearly impossible. Shipowners were not so 
 
 26
 
 The Story of the Bucko Mate 
 
 constituted. Yet to believe that a man like Summers could 
 have invented this tale was even more difficult, and I con- 
 cluded that he merely had been reading red-hued literature. 
 
 It happened that this cruise of the Williams lasted un- 
 usually long. We had met with no steamers, and my leave 
 of absence was drawing to a close. On Georges Shoals 
 one day I transferred to another boat that had been more 
 fortunate, and was bound home in charge of the boat- 
 keeper. This boat-keeper and I became close friends, and 
 I related to him Summers's story. It happened that one of 
 the pilots belonging to this boat had brought in the Schern- 
 horst. Pilots as a rule are the most close-mouthed of 
 men, particularly about their work and what they observe 
 while doing their work. But what this pilot had seen and 
 heard on the Schernhorst seemed to have moved him out 
 of his reticence, and he had confided to the boat-keeper 
 facts that confirmed much of Summers's story. The boat- 
 keeper also told me that the bucko mate was a perfectly 
 well recognized maritime character, and his function was 
 exactly as it had been described to Summers by the shell- 
 back. 
 
 " The whole thing is a trade," said the boat-keeper, 
 philosophically. " First, there is a trade in getting sailors 
 drunk and shipping them on board a Cape Horner. No 
 man sober and not crazy would set foot on those ships. 
 Then there is the bucko mate's trade of making them desert. 
 They have to pay the crimps for getting them aboard 
 $5 a head. That's all. It takes about thirty men to handle 
 one of those clippers. Wages $30 a month. From New 
 York to 'Frisco and back is anyway eight months. That's 
 $240 a man. Now if they can get men for $10 a head, 
 $5 here and $5 in 'Frisco, they think it's good business; 
 they save money." 
 
 27
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 At once upon my return to New York I was sent out 
 of the country on a mission that absorbed all my attention 
 for several months, and it was long afterward that I heard 
 of the sequel of the voyage of the Schernhorst. It ap- 
 peared that not all of the sailors followed the shellback's 
 advice and example; some were unwilling to submit in 
 silence to assault and battery. Three of them appeared 
 in the Tombs police court and swore out warrants for the 
 arrest of the captain and mate. I judge that the proceed- 
 ings must have been of an edifying nature. The reporter 
 that described them for the Herald's news columns told me 
 that the butchers of the Schernhorst appeared before the 
 magistrate freshly shaved, immaculately dressed, and wear- 
 ing an air of innocent respectability. They were defended 
 by one of the best known law firms in New York, reputed 
 to command very high fees, a circumstance that awakened 
 some speculation among the reporters. When, in spite of 
 the specious plea of a very celebrated lawyer, the magis- 
 trate held the prisoners for trial on the charges of assault 
 and cruelty on the high seas, cash bail was instantly pro- 
 duced for them and they walked forth free. Similarly, 
 when two weeks later they were indicted by the grand 
 jury the same law firm was on hand with the ready bail. 
 
 Soon afterward the Schernhorst sailed with the same 
 captain and mate, and doubtless with a shanghaied crew. 
 About six months later, when the district attorney was ready 
 to call the case, he discovered that the witnesses had dis- 
 appeared, whereupon he quashed the indictment. 
 
 We had not yet heard the last of the Schernhorst, how- 
 ever. On her arrival at San Francisco it appeared that 
 for a day or two there was a recrudescence of her bloody 
 story. The feeling must have been rather unusual while 
 it lasted, for the newspapers were moved to send reporters 
 
 28
 
 The Story of the Bucko Mate 
 
 to interview the principal owner. This gentleman, quite 
 famous in his state, eminent for his charities and marked 
 with public honors, was at first politely incredulous of the 
 story. When such evidences were put before* him as did 
 not admit of doubt he observed that if anything of the kind 
 happened on his ships it was, of course, without his knowl- 
 edge and against his wishes. He employed only careful 
 and humane men for captains. He would make searching 
 inquiry and deal severely with the captain and mate if he 
 found that the charges were in any degree justified. He 
 would have no cruelty on his ships, and he wished the public 
 to know that he would not. 
 
 With this generous expression the story came to an end. 
 The charitable owner must have forgotten about the in- 
 quiry or have been singularly obtuse to testimony. The 
 captain and the mate were not severely dealt with, and 
 both continued to sail the seas, and no doubt to command 
 ships in which no wages were paid. 
 
 But the indignation, short-lived and feeble as it was, 
 did not pass without calling forth some defense of the 
 charitable owner, who, it appeared, was regarded in some 
 quarters as a man unjustly assailed. It was urged 
 that you cannot sail a ship without some cruelty, you know; 
 and that the sailors were all drunken, depraved brutes 
 that could not possibly be managed without force, because 
 force was the only thing they respected. And as for the 
 wage matter, if the sailors would violate their contract of 
 course the owner was not to blame for that. And above all, 
 there was Competition. Competition was keen in the carry- 
 ing trade. You could not really expect an owner to run 
 his ships at a greater expense than his competitors. The 
 carrying trade was no philanthropy. It was Business. 
 And with these remarks the whole matter dropped from 
 
 29
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 sight, and the shiploads of bruised and wounded men con- 
 tinued to arrive at Atlantic and Pacific ports as before. 
 
 The defense of the shipowner will properly seem to any 
 just man but wretched subterfuge, and the whole business 
 one merely for loathing and horror. And yet, under the 
 existing system of society it was not without its valid 
 justification. The bucko mate that beat men with belaying 
 pins was not really, as might appear at first glance, an 
 innate ruffian, dealing in cruelty for the love of it. He 
 was himself, like the men he so horribly maltreated, a victim 
 of conditions. I may say that long after I heard the story 
 of Summers I met some of these butchers and noted with 
 surprise that off the seas and away from their hateful trade 
 they had all the manners and traits of decent men. Some 
 were of an unusual intelligence, and one, strange as it 
 may seem, had a strong vein of sentiment and feeling. 
 I would not seek to soften in any way the shame of their 
 deeds, yet I am convinced that at least some of them pur- 
 sued with aversion their barbarous calling, and all of them 
 were cruel because under existing conditions they had no 
 choice. 
 
 Let us take good measure of this, because it is the best 
 conceivable example of the utility of our wise and in- 
 variable practice of holding individuals responsible for 
 world-wide conditions that no individual can possibly affect. 
 
 Competition was very keen in the carrying trade. The 
 expenses were great. Much of the success of the enter- 
 prise depended upon the commanders of the ships. They 
 were the agents of the owners, handled the owners' money, 
 returned to them bills of expenses, and could largely con- 
 tribute to make the voyage profitable or unprofitable. Each 
 of them held his place at the dagger's point of competition ; 
 if he proved unsatisfactory, there were a hundred men 
 
 30
 
 The Story of the Bucko Mate 
 
 ready to jump into his place. One of the captains dis- 
 covered that if he signed a sailor for the round trip, and 
 the sailor deserted when half the trip was done, the ship 
 saved that sailor's wages. The saving was apparent on 
 the balance sheet of the voyage; the means by which the 
 saving was effected was not apparent anywhere. The 
 captain was praised by the owner for the good showing 
 he made in keeping down his expenses. It was inevitable 
 that he should next proceed to the plainly indicated step 
 of encouraging men to desert, and the easy way to that 
 was to make the ship so uncomfortable for them that 
 they would not stay. The only result that the owners 
 perceived was that here was a jewel of a captain; he could 
 keep his expenses down. He had their praise and rewards ; 
 he was secure in that place of his that one hundred other 
 men were trying to wrest from him; he was certain of 
 employment. 
 
 Of course, what one captain achieved the others must 
 achieve. Other owners would say to their captains, " Here 
 is Captain So-and-so; he makes the round voyage on such 
 an expenditure : why can't you ? " And their captains 
 would be compelled to do it. They would have no re- 
 course. It would be quite useless to say that the captain 
 held up to them as a model secured his economies by exer- 
 cising cruelty. The owners had nothing to do with the 
 methods employed and could have nothing. All they knew 
 was that their competitor was operating his ships for a 
 reduced expense, and because of that reduction of expense, 
 was carrying freight at reduced rates. They must operate 
 with a similar reduction of expense or retire from the 
 trade. Their ships were operated to make money; they 
 represented investment; they could not fairly be expected 
 to lose that investment any more than other men could 
 
 31
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 be expected to lose their investments. Some captains were 
 able to keep down the expenses; therefore other captains 
 must show equally good results or lose their places. 
 
 The captains understood this very well; so did the mates, 
 each of whom was striving for advancement. The " smart " 
 captains were sure of their places; the " smart " mates were 
 sure of speedy promotion; to be ranked as " smart " meant 
 to get the ship through in the quickest possible time on 
 the smallest possible expense. And to keep the expenses 
 down, here was the safe and certain way. 
 
 And if we come to that personal equation we are all 
 so desperately fond of dwelling upon, no good would 
 have resulted if any captain or any mate had refused to 
 accept these conditions. He would merely have lost his 
 place, which would have been taken by another man, who 
 would do what was required of him or in turn lose his 
 employment. The practice of cruelty would not have been 
 in the least abated. The one man's conscience might be 
 saved some hard wrenches, but no fewer heads would be 
 broken on the Cape Homers. Similarly, no good would 
 have resulted if any owner had revolted against the laws 
 of competition. He could do nothing but retire from the 
 trade, and whoever should take his place would be driven 
 to keep his expenses down or in turn be driven to the wall. 
 And neither his objection nor any other man's would alter 
 the conditions of the contest that competition institutes 
 everywhere. 
 
 It is always interesting to note how differently different 
 aspects of an identical subject will appeal to different per- 
 sons, and how hard it is sometimes to recognize a funda- 
 mental truth if it be but slightly disguised. I have never 
 told the story of the bucko mate without calling forth 
 indignant comments, as if it were a thing unique in the
 
 The Story of the Bucko Mate 
 
 record of human savagery. As a matter of fact, it is only 
 one phase of a common evil and one fruit of a principle 
 that similarly affects wide areas of humanity. To beat men 
 on the high seas is not really worse than to slaughter them 
 on railroad grade crossings, poison them with putrid meat, 
 or allow them to burn to death because of rotten fire hose. 
 A series of events passing now under my immediate notice 
 served to sharpen the perception that the bucko mate was 
 only one product of the competition and greed that filled 
 the world with misery. 
 
 For instance the legislature of the State of New York, 
 moved by some dreadful railroad accidents, had passed 
 a law for the better protection of passengers' lives, direct- 
 ing the removal of stoves from passenger cars. Some of 
 the railroads ignored this law. Because of this lawless- 
 ness six persons were burned to death in the Park Avenue 
 tunnel, in New York City, and (as it happened) almost 
 before my eyes. When the responsibility was by the news- 
 papers brought home to the officers of the offending railroad 
 they said that the law was unfair, that the change from 
 stoves to another method of heating would have entailed too 
 great an expense, and that the finances of the road would 
 not have justified them in making the change. Yet we 
 knew quite well that this railroad, the New York, New 
 Haven & Hartford, had been enormously over-capitalized, 
 and that a large part of its earnings had been used to pay 
 the interest on fictitious securities. 
 
 Six months later, in a collision on another railroad, 
 seventy-two persons were killed or maimed. A reporter 
 called to the attention of the managers the fact that a device 
 used abroad would have made such an accident impossible. 
 The managers did not deny this, but said that to install such 
 an apparatus on their railroad would involve an expense 
 
 33
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 that in justice to the stockholders could not be assumed. 
 And yet, of the capitalization of this railroad two-thirds 
 were fictitious and constituted only " melons " to the 
 owners. From these " melons " had been built, in a single 
 generation, one of the most gigantic fortunes in the world, 
 a tithe of which would have made the railroad safe instead 
 of dangerous. 
 
 The same year saw a strike of switchmen employed on 
 this railroad. They had been in receipt of something like 
 $40 a month, if I remember right, and asked for $4-2 or 
 $45. The management indignantly rejected the demand. 
 Much difficulty was experienced in operating the railroad 
 from New York to Buffalo, traffic was impeded, and the 
 militia was called out, though for what just reason was not 
 clear. At Buffalo the military commander drew an imag- 
 inary line on the highway beyond which no striker was 
 to step. A man passed that line (inadvertently, it was 
 asserted) and a soldier shot him dead. This seemed much 
 the same as to smite him down with a belaying pin. Neither 
 the shooter nor his commanding officer was punished for 
 the bloodshed. I believe they were not even obliged to 
 find bail. 
 
 Soon after this event the beautiful new steam yacht of a 
 principal owner of the railroad made its first appearance 
 in port. She was almost as large and cost almost as much 
 as an ocean liner, and all the skill and resources of the 
 foreign builder had been taxed to equip her lavishly with 
 beautiful cabins, parlors, music room, saloon, marble bath- 
 rooms, hangings of fabulous price. The owner was on 
 board. Some of us were relieved from strike duty and went 
 down the bay to interview him. He was a solemn man 
 and took himself, his position, and his yacht seriously. 
 He had a great many servants, all of whom were very 
 
 34
 
 The Story of the Bucko Mate 
 
 deferential and humble toward him, and very arrogant 
 toward everybody else. It was difficult to see him, almost 
 as difficult as to get an audience with a foreign potentate. 
 He came out at last and said a few words about his yacht. 
 We told him about the strike, but he did not seem interested, 
 and quickly excusing himself retired into what seemed to be 
 the gloomy and revered state of his cabin. 
 
 The switchmen lost their strike, and such as could regain 
 their positions returned to work at the old wages. Even 
 in those days $40 a month was a very small income on which 
 to support a family, and nearly all of the strikers were 
 married. A switchman's duties are both arduous and exact- 
 ing. I suppose you have noticed the long cabins in which 
 the switchmen work in a railroad yard or at a junction. 
 There is a row of perhaps thirty or forty levers, each 
 controlling a different switch in the yards, aHd the men 
 go to and fro throwing these levers back and forth as 
 the trains come or go. Sometimes an error in the use of 
 one lever might cause the loss of a hundred lives and much 
 property. Yet the men make very few errors. They are 
 therefore assisting the enterprise, they are doing a work 
 useful and necessary, they are of service to society, they 
 contribute something that the world must have. And at 
 that time they were drawing from the enterprise the barest 
 subsistence, no more than enough to maintain life on the 
 most slender terms. 
 
 . The owner of the yacht had never contributed anything 
 to the enterprise. He did not even attend the meetings 
 of the board of directors of which he was a member. He 
 was of no service to it nor to society. Yet from the enter- 
 prise to which he contributed nothing he had dr*awn this 
 floating palace, a stately residence in New York, a chateau 
 in France, a stable of racing horses, and an annual income 
 
 35
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 that no luxury nor extravagance could exhaust, even when 
 he gambled with it at Monte Carlo. The fortune that had 
 placed him in this regal position had been drawn from 
 the public largely by fraud, and the means of his luxury 
 were obtained by unfair charges upon shippers that affected 
 millions of consumers in all parts of the country. As in 
 the case of the workless miners and the freezing East Side 
 there seemed to be no power of casuistry that could dis- 
 guise the monstrous injustice of this situation. And here 
 again was the most obvious fact that the inexhaustible 
 fortune and beautiful yacht of the railroad owner were 
 of no possible benefit to the public. Except for the occa- 
 sional privilege of beholding the beautiful yacht from afar 
 as she sped abroad with her fortunate owner, these things 
 meant nothing in the world to the public. What the public 
 wanted was transportation; it did not need yachts, nor 
 Monte Carlo, nor racing stables: and all these amusements 
 of the railroad owner furthered in no way the public's 
 transportation service, but only hindered and impaired that 
 service. And here again was the most obvious question 
 as to what the public had gained from its bestowal of 
 those privileges from which this monstrous fortune had 
 been gained and the yacht had been built. To this question 
 I have never found any answer, nor been able to hear of 
 any person that has found one. 
 
 When the managers of this railroad had been asked why 
 the request of the switchmen for an increase of pay had 
 not been granted the management had responded with two 
 reasons. First, that the increased wages asked were un- 
 reasonable in view of the state of the labor market; that 
 is to say, that competition among workingmen had acted to 
 keep down the price of labor. Second, that the financial 
 condition of the road was such that the increase could not 
 
 36
 
 The Story of the Bucko Mate 
 
 be afforded. Yet if from the beginning there had been no 
 issuing of fictitious or watered stock this railroad could 
 afford to pay its switchmen $200 a month and still return 
 ample dividends on all of the money actually invested in 
 it. There seemed to be no escape from the conclusion that 
 this was a condition extremely difficult to defend. 
 
 37
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MORE ABOUT BUCKO MATES 
 
 Of the identical principle involved in all these matters 
 many illustrations came afterward under my observation. 
 For instance, the burning of a steamboat with the loss of 
 several hundred lives was the means of revealing the 
 fact that some manufacturers of life preservers for use 
 at sea were in the habit of filling their product with scrap 
 iron instead of cork, because scrap iron was cheaper. 
 This was, of course, equivalent to causing the death of 
 almost any person obliged to intrust his safety to such 
 a device. Upon the publication of this discovery a wave 
 of horror swept over the country and the manufacturers 
 were somewhat recklessly denounced as cold-hearted vil- 
 lains and no better than murderers. A little investigation 
 showed that they were not, in fact, of depraved or even 
 unusual character. Competition was keen in their trade. 
 For every contract to supply life preservers there was a 
 surplus of bidders. Under the stress of this conflict the 
 quality of the goods gradually declined as the prices were 
 cut in competitive bidding. From making life preservers 
 of cork so poor that it would not float, the manufacturers 
 drifted into the habit of filling the life preservers with other 
 and still cheaper materials. Disastrous as the results might 
 be, no one in the trade really contemplated manslaughter. 
 It was a custom brought about by competition and probably 
 accepted without thought in the fierce battle for business. 
 
 About this time the Chicago Tribune, as the result of 
 
 38
 
 More About Bucko Mates 
 
 long and minute investigations, made known some startling 
 facts concerning the prevalence of adulteration in the 
 drug trade. It declared that of one substance quite 
 commonly used in surgical dressings it had been unable 
 to find a pure specimen at any drug store, and most of 
 the many specimens purchased had been not merely adul- 
 terated, but adulterated with a chemical extremely dan- 
 gerous to introduce into a wound. The Tribune's conclu- 
 sions, all apparently well based upon investigation and 
 analysis, were that the adulteration of the most important 
 drugs was almost universal. Much indignation followed 
 this showing, and the manufacturers guilty of putting forth 
 these goods and druggists that knowingly purveyed them 
 were bitterly denounced. But here again it appeared that 
 neither the manufacturers nor the dealers were villains, nor 
 different from other men. Strange as at first thought it may 
 seem, they were really estimable persons. The practice 
 had grown up without the responsibility or even consent 
 of any man. Competition was keen in the drug trade; 
 prices were cut to obtain business; to maintain at such 
 prices the pristine quality of the drugs was impossible. 
 By a slow declension inferior quality became adulteration, 
 and adulteration grew worse. It was a custom of the trade 
 and a product of competition. 
 
 A civil suit in New York between manufacturers 
 of woolen underclothing and a dealer therein revealed in 
 court that a very large part of the undergarments sold 
 as pure wool really contained from 25 to 50 per cent, 
 of cotton. It was admitted that to persons of feeble con- 
 stitutions or of weak lungs this deception might have the 
 gravest consequences; but the men that made cotton goods 
 for woolen did not intend to spread tuberculosis and in- 
 fluenza. Competition was keen in their trade; by the 
 
 89
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 admixture of a little cotton a manufacturer was able to 
 offer his goods at a lower rate. In a short time all the 
 manufacturers were mixing cotton with their woolens. If 
 they had not done so they would have lost business and 
 in the end would have been ruined. A stronger law than 
 regard for human life drove them into the practice. If 
 a man's competitors resort to a deception that reduces the 
 cost of their product he must resort to the like deception 
 or retire from business. He has no alternative; he abso- 
 lutely must do as they do or give over the fight. And 
 if he gives over the fight that will help nothing. The 
 deception will go on as before. His place will be taken 
 by another, who will practice the deception in turn or 
 be ruined. That a man should accept ruin merely because 
 he will not practice what is universal in his trade is an 
 act of quixotic virtue that we never have required and 
 never should expect. If he does what the rest do that is 
 enough of honesty. You cannot demand of him more. 
 Competition rules him with iron rods. He must do this 
 and he must not do that, law or no law, and no matter what 
 the results may be to others. 
 
 This great fundamental truth, so often overlooked by 
 spasmodic moralists, was very frankly professed before 
 Congress when what is called the Pure Food Law was 
 under debate. Advocates of the measure showed con- 
 clusively that the adulteration of food products was a com- 
 mon practice. One member of Congress covered the top 
 of his desk in the House with samples of food purchased 
 in the open market all containing adulterants. Some of 
 the adulteration was with substances exceedingly injurious 
 to health and some with deadly poisons. For instance, 
 salicylic acid and formaline or formaldehyde were very 
 generally used as preservatives, and, of course, as to the 
 
 40
 
 More About Bucko Mates 
 
 injurious and even perilous nature of these substances there 
 was no chance for dispute. Borax or boracic acid was 
 used on practically all meats and poultry that underwent 
 a considerable transportation, and experiments by the na- 
 tional health department established beyond question the 
 extremely harmful effects of these drugs when taken in- 
 ternally. It also appeared that an immense number of 
 prepared foods were fraudulent. Jams and jellies were 
 made of sawdust, pumpkin rind, and dyes; apple butter 
 was made of sawdust and acids; honey was made of glu- 
 cose; vinegar and syrups of all kinds were artificially pre- 
 pared; canned peas were artificially colored; certain condi- 
 ments were made of pumpkin rinds and the seeds of a com- 
 mon weed; cider was so generally made of mineral acids 
 that almost no pure cider could be obtained in the market; 
 mince meat was often a hash of repulsive materials colored 
 and flavored; marmalades were made of stewed wood, and 
 coffee beans of flour paste. These are but a few samples of 
 a condition that to the uninitiated seemed appalling. In- 
 stead of food it appeared that the nation was being fed 
 upon refuse and poisons. 
 
 To cure this huge and menacing evil a law was asked. 
 It was fiercely and resolutely opposed on the ground 
 that the substitutions and adulterations were not really 
 injurious, and that to forbid their use would be ruinous to 
 business. Competition was not only keen but peculiarly 
 interwoven ; because while two manufacturers, for instance, 
 might compete in some lines each would have a line in 
 which the other did not compete, and it was from the 
 profits in this line that the losses caused by competition 
 in other lines were repaired. Still more important was 
 the overshadowing menace of foreign competition. Other 
 nations did not thus restrict their manufacturers, who, if 
 
 41
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 the law passed, would have the American manufacturers 
 at their mercy. 
 
 The force of these arguments must have been perceived 
 by Congress, for it obligingly took from the law every feature 
 that could seriously interfere with adulteration and passed 
 a measure that bore the name of the Pure Food Law with- 
 out really securing purity. 
 
 In the same discussion interesting conclusions were 
 reached as to what are called short weights. It appeared 
 that many manufacturers had a table of weights and meas- 
 ures quite different from any recognized by law or the 
 text-books. A pound with them was usually fourteen and 
 sometimes thirteen ounces, and a so-called three-pound can 
 really contained only a trifle over two pounds, although 
 sold as containing three. The attempt to rectify this fraud 
 was defeated on the ground that it was necessary to enable 
 the American manufacturer to do business and meet com- 
 petition. 
 
 Some persons that noted these revelations broke forth 
 into clamor against men that sold poisoned foods and put 
 forth fraudulent weights, denouncing them , violently ; but 
 we may as well admit that in truth they were not worse 
 than other men. Most of them had much personal worth. 
 A man that made fruit jellies from sawdust for example, 
 was well known to be of unusually high character, kindly, 
 generous, and honest. Competition was keen in the trade; 
 the pressure to produce goods at lower cost was enormous 
 and irresistible. If your competitor could offer goods at 
 less than your prices he won and you lost the trade. That 
 was business. You could not expect a retailer to purchase 
 your goods at a higher price merely to oblige you or be- 
 cause you said you were honest. If he were to do that he 
 in turn would be ruined by his competitor. An inevitable 
 
 42
 
 More About Bucko Mates 
 
 law, beyond all ethics, all legislation of men, all considera- 
 tions of public health, all accepted notions of honesty, abso- 
 lutely demanded that you should do as your competitor did. 
 You must meet his price list or retire from business, and if 
 you retired that would do no good, for the man that took 
 your place must practice the adulteration or perpetrate 
 the deceit or go himself to ruin. 
 
 In other words, what was at fault was not the character 
 of the man involved. Men that can tomatoes or make 
 glucose are no worse than other men. The effort to make 
 them appear so is most unjust; so is every effort to shift 
 upon the individual the responsibility for a general con- 
 dition. What was at fault was the system, and nothing 
 else. It was clear that so long as men to live must fight 
 upon the battlefield of competition they will do all these 
 things and worse, and literally all the laws that human 
 ingenuity can devise will not stop them. 
 
 We can see some unexpected results of this system, and 
 also the reason why the system itself is doomed to break 
 down if we will but look for a time at things as they 
 really are. 
 
 Let me illustrate again. I will take two examples fa- 
 miliar, no doubt, to all observing travelers in the Orient. 
 At Port Said I found that the ships were coaled by a 
 swarm of wretched brown men, stripped to the loins, who 
 from barges moored alongside carried the coal in baskets 
 to the steamer's hold. They worked in a suffocating cloud 
 of dust, the heat when I observed the strange spectacle 
 was maddening, and they were driven, one might say, under 
 the lash, for the armed overseers were essentially slave 
 drivers. When one fainted or perished at his task another 
 instantly arose to take his place. I knew that in many 
 other ports machinery was used to coal vessels, and I per- 
 
 43
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 ceived that here human life was cheaper than machinery 
 because competition had made it cheaper. 
 
 In Colombo, as in many other cities of the East, con- 
 veyance through the streets is by the 'rickshaw, a little 
 carriage hauled by a man. The work is so hard and un- 
 natural that it strains the heart, and the average length 
 of a 'rickshaw man's life after he enters the trade is eight 
 years. Then he dies of heart trouble. You see almost 
 no automobiles or carriages in the streets of these cities, 
 and the intelligent natives laugh at the idea that auto- 
 mobiles should be introduced. Human beasts of burden 
 are cheaper than automobiles or carriages, and competition 
 has made them so. 
 
 In every Oriental country you will see men and women 
 doing work that is elsewhere done with machinery, and 
 will find that the introduction of machinery is unnecessary 
 because human life is cheaper; and again competition has 
 made it so. 
 
 At first thought the investigator, particularly if he be 
 an American, is inclined to think that these conditions 
 result from the Oriental cruelty of which he has heard so 
 much, or from the overcrowded populations or from some 
 other reason peculiar to the locality. 
 
 He need but turn for a moment to any of the great 
 steel works of America to see how baseless is this notion. 
 Take the works of the Illinois Steel Company at South 
 Chicago, which constitute an independent principality not 
 affected by the laws of Illinois nor of the nation, where 
 men are daily maimed and almost daily killed without 
 reckoning from the police or other constituted authority. 
 Or take one of the great Carnegie works in or about Pitts- 
 burg; go into one (if you can) at night. A vast swarm 
 of men, naked to the waist, toil here at the imminent risk of 
 
 44
 
 More About Bucko Mates 
 
 the most terrible form of death. Here men with wheelbar- 
 rows pass along a narrow foot-way twenty feet in the air, 
 throwing spiegeleisen into the great furnaces. A single mis- 
 step in the glare, confusion, and smoke of the place 
 would plunge any one of them into the seething metal 
 below. Here are men surrounding a crucible of melted 
 steel moved with a huge crane. Almost every night the 
 crucible upsets or breaks or in some degree goes wrong 
 and somebody is horribly killed or horribly burned. As 
 many as five men have been killed in a night in 
 one of these places ; on some fortunate nights men 
 will be only a little burned or maybe crippled for 
 life. In another place are the rollers. Snakes of white 
 hot steel shoot out from between them. Men stand ready 
 with great tongs to catch each snake as it issues and run 
 forward with it all its length and then return it through 
 other rollers for men on the other side to catch and run 
 with. One inadvertent movement and the white hot snake 
 strikes a workman on the naked breast maybe and darts 
 through him and impales him. Then the shed or the mill 
 echoes above the din of the machinery with one awful 
 scream, and all the men know the end of one man's 
 troubles. They have five minutes in which to get his body 
 out of the way. Once they were allowed three; now they 
 are allowed five. Then they must be back at their work, 
 each of them knowing that the next instant it may be 
 his turn to fall and be by his fellows cast out of the 
 way. 
 
 Of these deaths the authorities ceased long ago to take 
 cognizance. Not because the authorities were callous or 
 cruel, but because the deaths were too common; they were 
 merely a part of the business; they always happened in 
 about the same way; it was but a cog gone from the wheel, 
 
 45
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 and instantly replaced. No good could come from daily 
 repeating the same farce of formal inquest over a cog. 
 
 Yet observe. The work is extremely dangerous. It is 
 also very ill paid. By it men win, as the men on the 
 Port Said coal barges win, the price of a loaf and little 
 more. Yet as fast as one man is stricken down in this 
 terrible way another springs forward to take his place. 
 Competition upon them is a power much greater than 
 the armed overseer at Port Said. Before it they strive 
 for work, even when it threatens death from molten steel. 
 
 And are the dangers inevitable and inseparable from the 
 trade? By no means. Most of them are preventable with 
 the use of machinery and protective devices. And why 
 are not machinery and protective devices used? Because 
 here, as at Port Said and Colombo and Hong Kong 
 and everywhere else in the world under the competitive 
 system, human life is cheaper than machinery. 
 
 There is still more to be learned from these steel mills. 
 Every now and then some kind-hearted person calls atten- 
 tion to the slaughters that occur so often in these places, 
 and an effort is made to secure an improvement of 
 conditions. It was such a movement that secured the 
 lengthening of the time allowed for the removing of dead 
 bodies. Formerly the time was three minutes; now it is 
 five. Regulation, agitation, the efforts of the kind-hearted, 
 and the appeals of the charitable have had no other result. 
 In spite of all that has been said or can be said on this 
 subject, the steel mills go on as before, grinding up men, 
 and for each man ground to his death another springs 
 forward to take the vacant place. It is so now; it will 
 continue to be so while the system lasts that makes it so. 
 
 And now for the influence that will insure the break- 
 down of the system. 
 
 46
 
 More About Bucko Mates 
 
 The steel industry in America is an excellent example 
 of the world-wide movement for concentration and con- 
 solidation. It is conducted by a trust, and one of the 
 greatest and most perfect trusts in the world. There are 
 no independent iron-masters; all is in the hands of the 
 trust. 
 
 Now, the trust hires managers to conduct its business, 
 and each manager has for his first duty and object the 
 securing of results. Likewise, all his subordinate executives 
 down to the last foreman are hired to secure results. If 
 any one of them cannot show results he must give way to 
 one that can. That is the inevitable law, and under the 
 present system it is neither unnatural nor unjust. To 
 suppose that the course these managers pursue is in any 
 way optional with them, or to blame them because their 
 course sometimes seems cruel is a very simple blunder. 
 The manager is himself but a piece of machinery; if he 
 cannot perform his allotted work he is removed and an- 
 other takes his place. He would do no good if he were 
 to refuse to do the things or to pursue the policy that 
 seems heartless and cruel; he would merely lose his em- 
 ployment, and his successor would do the things that seem 
 heartless and cruel, or he, too, would be removed. To the 
 showing of results, which is the test as well as the object of 
 his employment, these things are, under the present system, 
 necessary; and not only necessary but daily they become 
 more common. For the surest result of the process of con- 
 solidation that produces the trust is the elimination of 
 the individual workman and the production of the human 
 machine. 
 
 Take for example the steel mill that we have previously 
 considered. A very large proportion of the accidents that 
 occur in this mill result, as before observed, from the 
 
 47
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 absence of protective devices and life-saving machinery. 
 In the days when there were independent forge owners, 
 each owner naturally felt some degree of personal responsi- 
 bility for the safety of the men in his employ. He hired 
 them, they did his work and took his money, he knew 
 many or perhaps all of them by name; if any of 
 them were injured the proprietor knew of it; the vision 
 of the hurt man with his wife and children was to the em- 
 ployer a thing of verity; the scene was always latent in his 
 mind. But with the hired manager the case is very dif- 
 ferent. He has no responsibility for the workmen. They 
 do not take his money nor do his work; he is himself but 
 a hired man directing other hired men, the most of whom 
 have no more vital existence to him than so many pieces of 
 machinery. He is employed to extract from them the 
 greatest amount of work for the least expenditure of money. 
 If they are hurt or killed the fact has to him no direct 
 significance. If injured men sue the company the 
 manager is not sued; he has nothing to do with the human 
 side of their employment. The greatest amount of work 
 for the least expenditure of money is his sole aim, and the 
 criterion of his success. If he achieve in these ways he 
 wins success and is retained; if he achieve not, he is 
 rejected. 
 
 Therefore, he does not add protective devices and life- 
 saving machinery to the plant under his control. Such 
 additions would show on his balance sheet; they would 
 be an increased expenditure without the least increase in 
 the work performed nor in the revenue earned. On the 
 table of results by which he is judged they would be 
 but entries against him; no matter how much he may 
 believe in them as abstract propositions, in practice he 
 cannot adopt them because they have nothing to do with 
 
 48
 
 More About Bucko Mates 
 
 the purpose of his employment, which is to secure the 
 greatest amount of work for the least expenditure of money. 
 
 But then, how about his employer, the company? His 
 immediate superiors, who direct him, and to whom he is 
 first responsible, are the officers of the corporation, hired, 
 like himself, to secure results. They sit far away in an 
 office ; the factory is to them a remote and not very tangible 
 thing for the production of the results that they in turn 
 must show to their employer, which is the corporation. 
 If they cannot show results, if their management is deemed 
 unprofitable, they will be succeeded by other officers that 
 can show results. 
 
 And the corporation that is the final employer of all? 
 That consists of three or four thousand persons scattered 
 all about the country and in Europe, changing as the 
 stock of the corporation is bought and sold; all ignorant 
 of the conditions in the works, ignorant of the killing 
 and maiming there, knowing only that they have in- 
 vested in the stock, that they must have dividends on the 
 investment; and necessarily, and not unreasonably, indiffer- 
 ent as to the details. 
 
 How foolish then to suppose that anywhere along this 
 chain is a place where the personal character of the men 
 involved could change the situation or ameliorate condi- 
 tions for those that at the incessant risk of their lives 
 work about the furnaces! Suppose each of the stockhold- 
 ers of the United States Steel Corporation to be a most 
 kind-hearted, compassionate man. If you could by any 
 means make him understand the hell that his company 
 maintains, he would be powerless to change it. Let the 
 officers be wholly unselfish philanthropists, and they shall 
 still be equally impotent. Let the managers be moved to 
 tears by every accident, they can do nothing that shall 
 
 49
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 prevent accidents. The whole organization is utterly im- 
 personal; it is hard, mechanical, inhuman, relentless, and 
 must be so, and cannot possibly be otherwise. To make 
 profits, to declare dividends, to meet the interest on the 
 outstanding securities, to produce steel, to produce it with 
 the least possible expenditure of money: these are the 
 only considerations that can be entertained anywhere, at 
 any time, by any person in the organization. 
 
 The larger the organization the more these conditions 
 must prevail. And as the small organizations are every- 
 where giving place to larger, and the larger to the largest; 
 as competition forces the men at one end of the line into 
 the mill where their lives are ground out; and as the 
 power of accumulated capital at the other end forces from 
 the enterprise the profits for which alone the enterprise 
 at present can be conducted, it is evident that the idea 
 of ameliorating these hells by appeals or agitation is merely 
 an amiable delusion. While we talk, agitate, and appeal 
 the hells grow steadily worse, the lives of the men em- 
 ployed in them become of the less account. 
 
 To suppose that we shall allow these things to increase 
 upon us is contrary to every humane and decent impulse, 
 and contrary to the better sense of our duty to our 
 fellows that is awakening among us. Yet if we think 
 we can effect anything by laws, that is again mere folly. 
 All the laws that now exist are nullified by these corpora- 
 tions whenever the laws interfere in any way with the 
 supreme purpose of making profits. The Illinois Steel 
 Company, for instance, a branch of the Steel Trust, at 
 South Chicago, is, as I have said, an independent and 
 sovereign power, acknowledging no authority but its own. 
 Neither police, nor coroner, nor any other city or county 
 officer is admitted to its precincts. No inquests are held 
 
 50
 
 More About Bucko Mates 
 
 on the men it kills; no inquiry is allowed, no questions can 
 be asked. These facts have been pointed out repeatedly 
 in the public press; the law remains inert, and will remain 
 so, before the incalculable power of necessity, which is su- 
 perior to all law. 
 
 Why should we not admit facts as they exist? What 
 does it profit us to pretend the impossible? Do you say 
 that we should enforce these laws upon the corporations? 
 Exactly how can we enforce upon any corporation a law 
 that it does not choose to obey? The punishments for 
 law violations not of a capital nature are of but two kinds, 
 fine or imprisonment. Suppose, then, we fine a lawbreak- 
 ing corporation. It does but pass the fine along to us 
 by increasing the price of its product or of its service; 
 we pay the fine not once but many times, the corporation 
 suffers not at all. Or if we turn to imprisonment, whom 
 shall we imprison? Putting aside decisions of the courts 
 that the officers of a corporation cannot be imprisoned for 
 the corporation's acts, let us suppose that we imprison 
 all the officers of the United States Steel Corporation. 
 They will be succeeded by other officers that must pursue 
 the policy and repeat the acts of their predecessors. Not 
 because they will be bad men or more lawless than other 
 men, but because these acts and this policy will be forced 
 upon them as upon others by inexorable necessity, inherent 
 in the nature and objects of the organization that they 
 serve. And if we go still farther back, there will be no- 
 body to arrest but some thousands of stockholders scat- 
 tered over the world. 
 
 To continue to complain of these conditions while we 
 maintain the cause that makes them inevitable seems merely 
 foolish. 
 
 51
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE STORY OF THE GRAVITY YARD 
 
 The switch engine had puffed laboriously up to the 
 top of the hill, pushing before it a long line of freight 
 cars of all kinds, box cars, yellow refrigerator cars, coal 
 cars, Standard Oil cars; twenty-five or thirty, I should 
 think. At the summit the engineer shut off steam, the 
 wheezy din gave over, and there went along the train 
 the diminishing clank of drawheads as the slack ran out 
 on the beginning of the descent beyond. The switching 
 boss alighted from the engine cab and looked down the 
 line to see if the men were ready. Then he took off his 
 hat and wiped his hot forehead. To me, watching with 
 keen interest a scene few but railroad men ever witness, 
 he seemed anxious and depressed, and as one that at the 
 moment cared but little for his employment. He gave 
 a signal, and the engine, spouting a huge column of smoke, 
 pushed forward a few yards. Then between some of the 
 forward cars the couplings were pulled and the cars began 
 of their own weight to slide down the hill. 
 
 For the next two miles ahead of them the main track 
 was joined at intervals by spurs leading to side tracks. The 
 descent was continuous but easy, though I noticed that before 
 the cars had gone far they had gathered momentum and 
 rolled along at a speed of ten miles an hour; perhaps more. 
 
 On the tops of the cars, or in some instances standing 
 on the bottom step, were several men young men, sturdy, 
 active, intelligent looking young men. As the separated 
 
 52
 
 The Story of the Gravity Yard 
 
 cars ran down the incline the switches, quickly thrown, 
 shifted them upon the side tracks, and thereupon the young 
 men worked the brake wheels to bring the switched cars 
 to a standstill. Often to make the brake more effective 
 they would thrust into the spokes of the wheel a wooden 
 lever (an ax-handle, maybe, or a bit of sapling) and throw 
 upon that their whole weight and strength. Yet some- 
 times the flight was not wholly checked, and bang! went 
 the switched car into another car that stood on the siding. 
 The spurs went forth at rather wide angles to the main 
 track, and when the car struck the spur the car always 
 lurched violently. At such times the young men clung hard 
 to the brake wheel, that they might not be hurled to the 
 ground. Because at those places many men before them 
 had been so hurled to the ground or between the cars, and 
 the switchmen knew well enough what that meant. 
 
 All this was in a place called a " gravity yard," on the 
 outskirts of a certain city and railroad center much known 
 to fame. On the promise that I would not say what city 
 and what gravity yard, I was admitted to view from a point 
 of vantage the exact workings of this most ingenious and 
 singular device. To be further explicit would probably bring 
 upon some very good and overworked men certain perils to 
 which they should not be exposed, for to my knowledge they 
 have now perils enough. However, the name of the place 
 can be of no moment; the gravity yard is the same every- 
 where; when I have told of one I have told of all. 
 
 The purpose of a gravity yard is to enable a freight 
 train to be made up cheaply and quickly. This purpose 
 it serves admirably in the following manner: 
 
 Here comes along a freight train approaching, let us 
 say, Chicago. It has forty cars in it, cars picked up all 
 about the West and destined to places all about the East. 
 
 53
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 Here are cars billed to leave Chicago on every one of a 
 dozen railroads, but scattered through the train; one for 
 the Michigan Central, one for the Lake Shore, one for 
 the Wabash, another for the Michigan Central, one for the 
 Pennsylvania, another for the Lake Shore, and so forth. 
 
 You have never thought of it, but when that train gets to 
 Chicago, to break it up and distribute its cars is a tremen- 
 dous task. There must be a side track for each road, and 
 in the crowded city and among the always crowded and 
 overcrowded yards, how can that be? Real estate is far 
 too valuable there to be devoted to switching grounds of 
 the size required if this work is to be done quickly. More- 
 over, if the work of breaking up the train and putting 
 it together again, of picking out each car and depositing 
 it upon its proper siding, be undertaken on level tracks 
 (as it must be within a terminal city) a switch engine 
 must make to and fro a separate trip for almost every 
 car. Delay would result, and very likely the choking up of 
 the main track, the interruption of traffic, and the wrath of 
 competing shippers clamoring for the delivery of their goods. 
 
 So the gravity yard was devised to save all this trouble. 
 They choose a place for it some miles from the terminal, 
 and construct the long decline, sometimes two or three 
 miles of it, with spurs running from the main track. Then 
 they let the train (in pieces) slide down of its own weight, 
 and as it goes along they distribute the cars upon the proper 
 sidings. Thus all the cars for the Michigan Central, let us 
 say, are switched off upon side track No. 1, and all those 
 for the Lake Shore upon No. 2, and all those for the city of 
 Chicago upon No. 3, and so on. And when the train has 
 passed through the yard all the cars have been assorted and 
 made ready for instant and easy delivery in Chicago. It is 
 like a huge sieve or automatic separator. 
 
 54
 
 The Story of the Gravity Yard 
 
 Beyond doubt this is a grand device for economy of time 
 and money; but the economy is attained at a price in 
 lives and limbs that seems shockingly high. Every sepa- 
 rated car run through this sieve must carry with it a 
 brakeman; to avoid being slung from the car at the switch 
 or catapulted from it on the side track requires of the 
 brakeman almost superhuman strength, skill, and presence 
 of mind. He must often apply the brake at the same time 
 that he is clinging to his perilous perch. But the brake 
 he uses is of the old hand-wheel pattern, and, since the 
 compulsory introduction of the air-brake, the hand-brake 
 has become chiefly a nominal thing. In many instances 
 it is operated with the greatest difficulty; in many others 
 it cannot be operated at all. The result is that the car 
 flies around the curve with undiminished speed, and the 
 brakeman struggling with the useless apparatus is flung 
 upon the ground or the tracks to be maimed or killed. 
 
 I have on my desk as I write the record of one of 
 these terrible places. In thirty-two days the foot of one 
 man was torn off, one man was scalped, two lost their arms, 
 three lost their legs, and three were killed outright that 
 was all that happened in that particular yard in thirty- 
 two days. I have here also a photograph of six of these 
 victims, six young men with their crutches and canes, 
 crippled for life; bright, intelligent looking young men, 
 you would know them instantly and anywhere for young 
 Americans; young men with good faces and good heads, 
 and the stamp of the public school upon them; the oldest, 
 twenty-two or thereabouts, all crippled and sent forth leg- 
 less or armless into this seething battle we call life. 
 
 Six of them. They were working for the railroad com- 
 pany. They were performing with their utmost skill and 
 diligence a dangerous task that, in the view of the company, 
 
 55
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 must be done by somebody. They had fallen in the service, 
 and the power they had served and been maimed for had 
 thrust aside what remained of them as no longer useful 
 to the enterprise. They were broken cogs removed from 
 the machine and already forgotten, for new cogs had taken 
 their places, to be in turn broken and cast aside. 
 
 Such are the facts. They are typical of the gravity 
 yard, and they are typical of many other phases of this 
 monstrous slaughter. Day by day they fall all around us, 
 the men that make it possible for us to ride at ease and 
 so swiftly. Of American railroad trainmen in 1901 one 
 in every hundred and thirty-seven was killed, and one in 
 every eleven was injured. To comprehend the hideous sig- 
 nificance of these figures is almost impossible. The truth is 
 that railroad employment in the United States is more 
 perilous than the average soldier's life in war time; and far 
 more cruel. Of every ten trainmen at work to-day one will 
 be killed or maimed within a year. No figures are available, 
 but from observation and general report I am convinced 
 that the gravity yards fatalities are so much worse that one 
 may say one person in every five employed therein is killed 
 or injured every year. We have many other fatal ap- 
 pendages upon our railroad management the " permissive 
 block," the overworked employee, the boy operator, the 
 trust-made defective rail, the " facing-switch," the rotten 
 tie, and others, but none of these equals the gravity yards 
 for persistent slaughter. Nobody ever hears of these vic- 
 tims ; they are not printed in the newspapers, their names 
 are not mentioned in the annual report. Yet every gravity 
 yard is, in the course of a year, a place of dreadful death 
 and disaster to which the railroad operations of all the rest 
 of the world can furnish no parallel. 
 
 Another undesirable peculiarity of the American rail- 
 
 56
 
 The Story of. the Gravity Yard 
 
 road system, and responsible for much of the great death 
 record, was pointed out in 1904 by Hoff and Schwaback, 
 German railroad experts, though I think very little atten- 
 tion has ever been paid to the matter here. It appears 
 that, compared with European countries, our rails are in- 
 adequately watched. Thus Hoff and Schwaback declared: 
 
 The saving in expenses which the American railroads effect 
 through diminished watching of the rails is extraordinary. In the 
 United States only 49,961 persons are engaged in watching the 
 lines and guarding crossings. If the United States had propor- 
 tionately the same number as are thus employed in the Prussian 
 system the figures would be 636,000, an increase of 586,000, which 
 is greater by 356,174 than the total number of employees in the 
 Prussian system. 
 
 Then one need not wonder that, proportionately, the 
 death lists among our railroad men lead the entire world. 
 Here are some comparative figures from the records * in 
 the office of the Inter-State Commerce Commission: 
 
 THE SLAUGHTER OF RAILROAD EMPLOYEES 
 In Great Britain 
 
 Employees Employees Proportion Proportion 
 
 Year killed injured killed injured 
 
 1895 489 7,480 1 in 951 
 
 1896 490 14,110 1 in 949 
 
 1897 566 14,402 1 in 821 
 
 1898 542 12,979 1 in 985 
 
 1899 584 15,582 1 in 914 
 
 1900 631 15,698 1 in 946 
 
 1901 565 14,740 1 in 1019 
 
 1902 485 13,858 1 in 1187 
 
 1903 497 14,356 1 in 1158 
 
 1904 448 14,561 1 in 1298 
 
 1905 437 14,335 1 in 1331 
 
 1906 483 16,256 1 in 1204 
 
 1907 479 21,514 1 in 1297 
 
 1908 332 24,181 1 in 1871 
 
 Compiled by Mr. Leroy S. Boyd, the librarian. Mr. Boyd's 
 tables on this subject are not only the best in the world, but the 
 only tables that give complete and trustworthy data. 
 
 57 
 
 1 
 
 n 62 
 
 1 
 
 n 32 
 
 1 
 
 n 32 
 
 1 
 
 n 41 
 
 1 
 
 n 34 
 
 1 
 
 n 34 
 
 1 
 
 n 39 
 
 1 
 
 n 41 
 
 1 
 
 n 40 
 
 1 
 
 in 39 
 
 1 
 
 in 39 
 
 1 
 
 n 35 
 
 1 
 
 n 28 
 
 1 
 
 n 25
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 In the United States 
 
 Employees 
 Year killed 
 
 1895 1,811 
 
 1896 1,861 
 
 1897 1,693 
 
 1898 1,958 
 
 1899 2,210 
 
 1900 2,550 
 
 1901.... ... 2,675 
 
 1902 2,969 
 
 1903 3,606 
 
 1904 3,632 
 
 1905 3,361 
 
 1906 3,929 
 
 1907 4,534 
 
 1908 3,470 
 
 Employees 
 injured 
 
 25,696 
 29,969 
 27,667 
 31,761 
 34,923 
 39,643 
 41,142 
 50,524 
 60,481 
 67,067 
 66,833 
 76,701 
 87,644 
 83,367 
 
 Proportion 
 killed 
 
 n 433 
 n 444 
 n 486 
 n 447 
 n 420 
 n 339 
 n 400 
 n 401 
 n 364 
 in 357 
 n 411 
 n 387 
 n 368 
 n 420 
 
 Proportion 
 injured 
 
 1 in 31 
 
 in 28 
 in 30 
 in 28 
 in 27 
 26 
 in 26 
 in 24 
 in 22 
 in 19 
 in 20 
 in 19 
 in 19 
 in 17 
 
 Therefore, while in Great Britain the life of the rail- 
 road worker seems to become safer, in the United States 
 it steadily becomes more perilous. 
 
 These 80,000 soldiers of our industrial army thus 
 stricken every year what becomes of them? Invariably 
 they are poor men, very poor; for the most part they 
 are now not only very poor, but incapacitated for earning 
 their living. What becomes of them and what care do 
 we take of the men that fall thus in our behalf? 
 
 Practically we take no care of them. Some of the rail- 
 roads maintain sick benefit or accident funds, from which 
 a measure of relief may be obtained. In order to secure 
 this relief the employee must contribute from his wages a 
 monthly sum fixed by the company. Should he change 
 his employment he commonly loses what he has paid. 
 The control of the fund is solely in the hands of the 
 officers of the company; they decide how much shall be 
 paid in the event of an accident. As a rule, the extent 
 of the employee's participation in the control of the fund 
 is his enforced monthly payments. He gets what certain 
 
 58
 
 The Story of the Gravity Yard 
 
 officers of the company are pleased to allot him from his 
 own and others' accumulated savings, and so long as these 
 officers are pleased to let him have it. How these savings 
 of his are invested, whether they are well or ill managed, 
 whether he and his fellows reap from the fund as much 
 benefit as might otherwise be secured for them, he does 
 not know. All he knows is that month by month some- 
 thing is taken from his wages, and if he lose a leg or an 
 arm, something is paid to him until the stump heals up. 
 Whereupon he shifts for himself. 
 
 On railroads where there are no accident funds he shifts 
 for himself from the start. 
 
 This is a plain statement of practical conditions. Of 
 course, nominally things are very different. Nominally 
 the law provides remedies and compensations for those that 
 suffer in accidents. Nominally the railroad employee that 
 loses a leg or an arm can bring his case before a jury, 
 and, on proving his injury, receive a judgment that the 
 company, his employer, must pay to him. 
 
 But in practice this is not so. One of the conditions 
 of the accident relief fund, as it exists on our railroads, 
 is that, before an injured person can partake of its benefits, 
 he must release the employing company from all legal 
 responsibility for his injury. Hence, he is offered the 
 choice between immediate though inadequate assistance and 
 a long, costly, and doubtful contest in the courts, pending 
 which he shall be without funds. This, of course, is no 
 choice at all; it is coercion, with pistol at your head. 
 
 How barren, how long, costly, and doubtful the legal 
 fight would probably be can be estimated by anyone that 
 will take the trouble to reflect upon our methods of litiga- 
 tion. In many of the States any action for accident dam- 
 ages is enormously complicated with the " contributory 
 
 59
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 negligence " and " fellow workmen " phases of the statutes. 
 An injured man cannot recover if it can be shown that 
 he did not take all necessary precautions for his own 
 safety, and he cannot recover if it can be shown that his 
 doing of a hazardous thing was on the instruction or in- 
 stance of another employee. These barriers narrowly wall 
 in the actions that the injured may bring, because there 
 are not many accidents in which one or the other con- 
 dition cannot be shown. Then the cause is always liable 
 to the widespread and subtle power of the corporation, to 
 the attacks of clever lawyers, to the idiosyncrasies of juries 
 and the peculiar charges of corporation-made judges; and, 
 above all, it is subject to the abominable delay that makes 
 our court proceedings so pathetically absurd. In most 
 parts of this country an injured man must wait from six 
 months to two years from the instituting of his suit to 
 its first trial, with the comfortable knowledge that if he 
 wins the case will be appealed, and that from two to five 
 more years will be consumed in waiting for the decision 
 of the appeals. Whereupon the whole case may be ordered 
 to a retrial in the first court after a lapse of time in which 
 memories have grown dim and witnesses moved away or 
 died. When a prominent lawyer of Chicago declared not 
 long ago that, under the court methods of Illinois, he 
 would guarantee to keep any man for fourteen years out 
 of his rights, no matter how clear his case and just his 
 cause, he did not overstate the existing conditions. 
 
 In Germany, the care of the injured and of the sick 
 among all men that labor is not left to chance nor caprice 
 nor good luck, but is carefully and minutely provided for 
 by the Government. For all men that incur injury at 
 their vocations there must be adequate compensation and 
 support. That is the fundamental doctrine. It has been 
 
 60
 
 The Story of the Gravity Yard 
 
 worked out into Accident Relief, Sick Relief, Invalid Pen- 
 sions, and Old Age Pensions, all under the care of the 
 Imperial Government, which maintains a vast department 
 to direct these enterprises, and annually expends through 
 them hundreds of millions of dollars. I should like to 
 describe all the operations of this department, because it 
 is a great and memorable object lesson in practical benefi- 
 cence; but what comes home most sharply to us (in view 
 of the American accident figures) is the part that relates 
 to the care of injured workmen on the German railroads. 
 
 Out West I once knew a freight conductor that was a 
 sober, decent man of family; one night the engineer of 
 his train misunderstood the dispatcher's orders and 
 plunged into a head-on collision. The conductor was 
 caught between two cars and lost an arm and a leg. When 
 he got well there was next to nothing he could do in 
 his crippled state, and the railroad company was esteemed 
 gracious and kind when it allowed him to be a crossing 
 flagman at $30 a month. I don't know what perverted 
 views we had then about responsibility, but we all thought 
 it was good of the company, and the man thought so, too, 
 and refused the kind offers of various attorneys to bring 
 suit. After some years the company was compelled (very 
 tardily) to elevate its track at this particular place, and 
 had no more use for the flagman there. So the flagman 
 made his way to the river, preferring that to the poor- 
 house. 
 
 Every man that has intimately observed railroad matters 
 knows of such cases; indeed, once in this country we 
 scarcely knew of anything else. Yet it is not really nec- 
 essary to conduct a railroad as a shambles, nor to regard 
 injured railroad men with less concern than we have for 
 injured cattle. It is quite possible to be decent and still 
 
 61
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 maintain an efficient transportation system. In Germany, 
 for instance, the maimed railroad employee is invariably 
 held to be the patient and care of the public; he has been 
 injured in the service of the community, and the state, 
 which operates the railroads for the community's benefit, 
 proceeds at once to the relief of the fallen public servant. 
 And for many reasons that seems to be wise policy. 
 
 All the processes in this relief are wonderfully direct, 
 simple, and speedy. No court proceedings are ever nec- 
 essary, no summons and complaint, no lawyers, no trials, 
 no juries, no witnesses. Contributory negligence has noth- 
 ing to do with the matter; neither have fellow servant 
 clauses. The accident is certified by the local railroad 
 authorities and the physician of the railroad department. 
 Then from a fund provided by the State for the purpose, 
 and accessible without courts and without delays, the Gov- 
 ernment's great insurance department begins to pay an in- 
 demnity that is continued so long as the injury lasts, no 
 matter how long that may be, and calculated on the fixed 
 basis of a percentage of the man's wages. Here is a 
 table used in calculating these indemnities: 
 
 PERCENTAGES OF WAGES PAID BY THE GERMAN 
 
 GOVERNMENT FOR INJURY IN THE RAILROAD 
 
 SERVICE 
 
 
 Eyes 
 
 Arms 
 
 Hands 
 
 Thumb 
 
 Index 
 Finger 
 
 Middle 
 
 Finger 
 
 Right .. 
 Left . . , 
 Both , , 
 
 ... 33i 
 ... 33 
 . . 100 
 
 66|-80 
 60-70 
 100 
 
 60-80 
 50-66f 
 100 
 
 20-33 
 10-15 
 
 15-33| 
 10-12 
 
 10-15 
 8-10 
 
 
 Ring 
 Finger 
 
 Little 
 Finger 
 
 Four 
 Fingers 
 
 Legs 
 
 Lower 
 Leg 
 
 Great 
 Toe 
 
 Right .. 
 Left ... 
 Both ... 
 
 .. 10-12 
 . . 8-10 
 
 6-10 
 6-10 
 
 50-20 
 40-50 
 
 55-75 
 55-75 
 90-100 
 
 50-66| 
 50-66f 
 80-90 
 
 6-10 
 6-10 
 
 62
 
 The Story of the Gravity Yard 
 
 Similar bases exist for internal and other injuries. 
 
 These indemnities are paid for life by the Government 
 voluntarily, and without other action by the injured man 
 than the filing of an application. 
 
 As I have said, the physicians attached to the railroad 
 service certify, after an examination, to the extent of the 
 injury. Some of the " remarks " on the official circular 
 to these physicians are interesting. Thus: 
 
 1. Arms. In case of injury to the arms you must consider 
 whether the arms can be raised to a horizontal position, or beyond. 
 
 2. Hands. In the case of a left-handed person, the percentages 
 must be reversed. 
 
 3. Fingers. You must note especially whether finger stumps 
 can be used in whole or in part; whether patient can grasp any- 
 thing. Any exceeding stiffness is also to be noted. As, for in- 
 stance, can the patient lift tools? 
 
 4. In case there has been a former injury, has the present acci- 
 dent increased it? Has there been any illness or breakdown? 
 
 These are mere specimens of the minute inquiries the 
 physician must answer. But once answered and the answer 
 filed, there is an end of the matter. The indemnity is paid 
 until the man dies. 
 
 All this is subsequent to the first relief. From the 
 scene of the accident the Government removes the man 
 to the hospital, provides him with medical attendance, 
 nurses, and medicines until he is discharged; and mean- 
 while applies his indemnity to his family. 
 
 In the case of a fatal accident to a railroad employee 
 a pension is paid to his widow and his minor children, and 
 should the widow remarry she receives a lump sum in 
 quittance of further claims. But the children continue to 
 be pensioned until they become of age. 
 
 63
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 Sickness not resulting from accidents is relieved among 
 the railroad men by the operation of the Workingmen's 
 Sick Fund, which is contributed by the employed, the em- 
 ployers, and the Government. Old Age Pensions are pro- 
 vided by compulsory insurance of all persons in receipt of 
 less than $500 a year income. 
 
 The railroad men are only a small part of the vast 
 army of German workingmen and women, numbering close 
 to 20,000,000 persons, that are by their Government pro- 
 vided with insurance against misfortune and old age, in 
 all the world the most conspicuous and extensive scheme 
 of government insurance. The annual receipts of the 
 Workingmen's Sick Benefit Fund amount to more than 
 $50,000,000, of the Accident Insurance Fund to more than 
 $40,000,000, of the Invalidity Insurance to more than 
 $50,000,000. It is the conviction of all the German writers 
 upon these subjects that the existence of these funds has 
 not only furthered the national strength, vigor, and happi- 
 ness, but has tended to diminish accidents and to increase 
 the safety of the public. 
 
 When Emperor William I., on May 17th, 1881, sent 
 a message to the German Reichstag requesting a national 
 system of indemnity and insurance, he said: 
 
 We consider it our imperial duty to impress upon the Reichstag 
 the necessity of furthering the welfare of the working people. 
 We should review with increased satisfaction the manifold suc- 
 cesses with which the Lord has blessed our reign could we carry 
 with us to the grave the consciousness of having given our country 
 an additional and lasting assurance of internal peace, and the con- 
 viction that we have rendered the needy that assistance to which 
 they are justly entitled. Our efforts in this direction are certain 
 of the approval of all the federate governments, and we con- 
 fidently rely on the support of the Reichstag without distinction of 
 
 64
 
 The Story of the Gravity Yard 
 
 parties. In order to realize these views a bill for the insurance 
 of workingmen against industrial accidents will, first of all, be 
 laid before you, after which a supplementary measure will be 
 submitted providing for a general organization of industrial sick 
 relief insurance. But likewise those that are disabled in con- 
 sequence of old age or invalidity possess a well-founded claim 
 to a more ample relief on the part of the State than they have 
 hitherto enjoyed. To devise the fittest ways and means for mak- 
 ing such provision, however difficult, is one of the highest obliga- 
 tions of every community, based on the moral foundations of 
 Christianity. A more intimate connection with the actual capabili- 
 ties of the people, and a mode of turning these to account in 
 corporate associations, under the patronage and with the aid of 
 the State, will, we trust, develop a scheme to solve problems for 
 which the State alone would prove unequal. 
 
 Good words ! And the Emperor is commonly referred to 
 as the father of the gigantic Government insurance organi- 
 zation that has revolutionized life among the wage-earners 
 of Germany and contributed much to the sum of happi- 
 ness there. But, of course, the real author of the scheme 
 was not the Emperor. It was suggested by the sagacious 
 and adroit Bismarck, and its origin, source, and impetus 
 alike came from the first manifestation of the German 
 Socialist movement. 
 
 The Socialists appealed to the workingmen with the 
 plain and unquestionable statement that whereas the work- 
 ingmen created all the wealth they received but a trifling 
 share of the wealth they created, and it was because of 
 this unjust division of the products of their industry that 
 they had toil and hardship in the days of their strength, 
 and penury in their old age. To this argument there is 
 obviously no answer except that the condition it states is 
 inseparable from the present organization of society, and 
 to change it would require a rearrangement of the whole 
 
 65
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 industrial system. To make these changes men are every- 
 where loath; they have always endured, they come slowly 
 to the notion that they need not endure. Yet the case 
 is so simple that in Germany men were showing a dis- 
 position to weary of endurance, naturally most disturbing 
 to a ruler whose rule is founded solely on surviving feu- 
 dalism. Bismarck, therefore, undertook to quiet the grow- 
 ing unrest, head off the inquiring spirit, and preserve the 
 system by providing pensions for the aged and indemnity 
 for injured workmen. In which, of course, he was un- 
 doubtedly most wise. 
 
 Since then his example has been followed by other gov- 
 ernments that for similar reasons have interested them- 
 selves in alleviating the condition of its wealth producers. 
 But what struck me into amazement, when I came to look 
 into the subject, was that no such movement was dis- 
 cernible in the United States, and that the average labor 
 laws in the United States were the crudest, the most archaic, 
 and the least effective to be found in the civilized world. 
 I found that in most industries the workers were in the 
 same situation as the railroad employees. They were un- 
 protected while they worked, and unable to recover in- 
 demnity when they were injured. Most of the perils to 
 which they were exposed were to be obviated readily 
 enough by the proper devices: just as it was not necessary 
 to distribute freight cars with a gravity yard, it was not 
 necessary to expose woodworkers to unprotected saws and 
 all kinds of workingmen and workingwomen to the perils 
 of unprotected bands, wheels, elevators, drills, and presses 
 from which they were everywhere in danger. I found 
 that the reason for our bad eminence in these respects was 
 merely that here we had carried a trifle farther than other 
 countries the theory of Individualism, and the spirit of 
 
 66
 
 The Story of the Gravity Yard 
 
 competition, which is also the spirit of cruelty and avarice. 
 The maimed victim of the gravity yard and the sorry 
 wrecks in a county poorhouse were alike living monuments 
 to one system that hardens men's hearts and ruins their 
 lives. 
 
 67
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SUICIDE SLIP FROM RIVINGTON STREET 
 
 In New York City all unusual occurrences reported at 
 the precinct station-houses are telegraphed thence to Po- 
 lice Headquarters in Mulberry Street. If they are not 
 robberies, burglaries, or the like, very curt statements of 
 the events are written by the operators and hung in a 
 glass frame in the basement of the headquarters' building. 
 These " slips " are for the information of the newspaper 
 reporters, whose offices are across the street. 
 
 One Sunday in 1886, when I was a reporter assigned to 
 duty at Police Headquarters, there came in a " slip " an- 
 nouncing the suicide of some man with a very foreign 
 name " in the rear of No. Rivington Street." In those 
 days, when police news received much more attention than 
 it receives now, each reporter was provided with a copy 
 boy, and as every copy boy was in active training to be 
 a reporter, it was customary to allow the copy boy to 
 investigate the trivial slips and for the reporter to reserve 
 himself for important stories. It may be regarded as 
 some sign of the times that the suicides of persons with 
 foreign names residing in the tenement house regions of 
 the East Side were classed as trivial and left to the copy 
 boys. In this instance both the name and the locality (a 
 rear tenement in one of the worst streets of the East Side) 
 indicated a commonplace story not worth recording. But 
 the day had been very dull, I had idled for hours over 
 
 68
 
 The Suicide Slip from Rivington Street 
 
 the vacuous Sunday papers, there was a chance to drag 
 out a story from almost any event, and after being for a 
 time in two minds, I stretched out on the assignment 
 myself. 
 
 It was a beautiful day in the early fall, a Sunday hush 
 even on the Bowery, the air sweet and full of mild 
 sunshine, the sky very blue, and all things in nature 
 handsome; so that it seemed to me the hideous buildings 
 lining the streets were by contrast more obtrusively hideous 
 than ever. I had walked through the Park early that 
 morning, and possibly after the cool greenery these piled- 
 up horrors struck home too sharply. At any rate, I re- 
 member forming the conclusion that only gray skies and 
 lowering weather were appropriate for such gloomy regions, 
 for the sunshine did but bring out stains of dust and 
 rust and make the filth and neglect the more prominent, 
 until all the works of man seemed to be shaking fists 
 in the face of Heaven. Rows of repulsive houses were 
 accoutered with fire escapes, and each fire escape bore 
 disorderly bundles of bedding that the housewives had 
 thrust out to lie in the sunlight. The sidewalks were thickly 
 littered, as they always are in that part of the city ; every 
 conceivable sort of dirt that could offend the eye or the 
 nostril was scattered about; the roadway was (as usual) 
 a conglomerate of filth. Even in those days the East Side 
 was one of the most unsightly spots on earth; and the 
 swarms of children in the street, to whose childhood such 
 environments were the only background, seemed likely to 
 start unpleasant musings in any mind that cared to con- 
 sider the generations to come. 
 
 I came to the number in Rivington Street mentioned 
 by the slip, and went through a kind of tunnel to the 
 dark little court behind (surrounded with sanitation sheds 
 
 69
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 and reeking with foul air), upon which the rear tenement 
 opened. The aspect of everything was forlorn and miser- 
 able; I remember that even I, by this time fairly well 
 accustomed to East Side squalor, was depressed with what 
 I saw. Dirty water from washtubs or sinks had been 
 poured on the stones of that court, and in this water 
 slopped and played a horde of ragged children; for this 
 and similar places were their only playground. The doors 
 of some of the sanitation sheds gaped indecently open; 
 one was puzzled to think how human beings could endure 
 the gases that flowed out. In the rear tenement the door- 
 way was crusted with dirt, the floor of the hall was so 
 rotten it threatened to give way under the little knot of 
 people that had been drawn thither by the tragedy in 
 the house, common enough on the slips, but, it seemed, 
 always of a fascinating horror to the people about. Among 
 these stood a policeman to keep order. I went upstairs. 
 The dead man and his family had occupied one stinking 
 room in the back or darkest part of that stinking house. 
 His body now lay on the floor; the policeman on the beat 
 had cut him down, hanging there from that hook. In a 
 corner was the hysterical widow, and by her side, a hand 
 on her shoulder, speaking to her in a soothing, fatherly 
 way, was one of the most remarkable old men I had ever 
 seen. In after years, when I came to see Israel's " Jewish 
 Peddler," I recognized something of the racial traits that 
 now attracted my close attention, only this man was much 
 finer than Israel's study. He was picturesque and 
 patriarchal ; he had a long, full gray beard, a fine melodi- 
 ous voice, and from his gentle brown eyes looked intelligence 
 and character as well as sympathy. He was talking in 
 German to the woman, and I caught the phrase many times 
 repeated, " God is good." 
 
 70
 
 The Suicide Slip from Rivington Street 
 
 But about the suicide. He was forty years old, or there- 
 abouts, one Lohwasser, a commonplace looking man, his 
 hands hardened and his face twisted with toil. At noon 
 he had sent everybody out of the room, except, of course, 
 the baby there, that lay on the floor staring at the ceiling. 
 Then he had hanged himself with this bit of rope to that 
 hook you see there. They found him so when they came 
 back, the wife there and the children. What was his 
 trade? Tailor. Out of work? Of course, naturally. Does 
 one hang oneself if one has work? How long? Six months 
 no, four. He had had piecework from Johannsen's, but 
 it had not lasted. The neighbors had wondered how they 
 lived: only Tilly to earn anything, and she had been in 
 a skirt shop and had lost her job. There were four children, 
 including the baby; everybody wondered what they would 
 do now, as if even a workless man were still a bulwark 
 against misfortune. 
 
 All this was no story for me, of course; nobody wanted 
 to read about a poor devil of a tailor that had killed him- 
 self because in the whole great city he could not find work 
 to do; besides, it was too common, like the tenement house 
 fires and the children that were run over in the streets. 
 But the man that had the next stinking room took me aside 
 and said I hadn't heard all; there was something more, 
 and he was the only one that knew it, because he lived 
 in the next stinking room and through the thin partitions 
 he could hear what the Lohwassers were saying, and it 
 was all about Tilly. Tilly had gone well, of course, I 
 knew how the girls went. The truth was, Tilly, as one 
 might say well, Tilly wasn't a good girl any more. She 
 was on the streets that was the truth of the matter. 
 She had gone to the bad. And Sam there had threatened 
 to kill her, and finally she had gone away and said she 
 
 71
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 would never come back. And then Sam there had done 
 this thing. One knew something was going to happen, 
 but what could one do? After all, he needn't have taken 
 on so. Lots of girls took to the streets. 
 
 That was all, and it was not really very much. I 
 might almost as well have let the copy boy come. But 
 there was the old man still, and he certainly was a fas- 
 cinating study. I made a point of talking with him, and 
 was delighted to find that to my advances he responded 
 with a fine old-world courtesy. He had invited the afflicted 
 Lohwassers into his own apartments for supper, and like- 
 wise for shelter against the curious, and he asked me to 
 step in with them. He and the family he headed lived 
 in two little rooms at the top of the house. There was 
 his son's wife and the grandchildren Julius, who was a 
 cripple, and five girls. Julius was ten years old. He sold 
 newspapers, and had fallen under the wheels in jumping 
 from a street car, and so he had lost a leg. But he got 
 around very well on a crutch and could still sell news- 
 papers, and they thanked God for His goodness; Julius 
 might have been killed. The two rooms were painfully 
 bare, and the refreshment offered to the afflicted Loh- 
 wassers and to me was but sorry; yet the place was clean, 
 and the children were washed and had whole if much 
 mended attire. It appeared that this fine old patriarch, 
 whose face looked like the head of a prophet painted by 
 Guido Reni, was likewise a tailor, and likewise was some- 
 times out of work. Just now he had a job, God be thanked, 
 in an Allen Street sweatshop. Bertha, here, the oldest 
 girl (strikingly pretty, as is often the case with her kind), 
 worked in a department store and made $4 a week, and 
 Julius sometimes made twenty cents in a day from his 
 papers. It was hard for him to get about with his crutch, 
 
 72
 
 The Suicide Slip from Rivington Street 
 
 but he did well and he was a good boy, and with tears 
 in his eyes old Mr. Rubenstein, the patriarch, thanked 
 God for his grandchildren. I knew some places in Europe 
 that he knew; his youth in a Bavarian village was a dear 
 recollection to him, and I suppose that he took a fancy to 
 me because I could talk with him about a scene that must 
 have been the theater of most of his thoughts. At least he 
 dealt with me almost at once in a spirit of simple and en- 
 gaging candor. His life, it appeared, had been full of 
 vicissitude. The death of his parents had driven him 
 penniless into the world when he was little more than a boy, 
 and he had wandered much, with experiences that might 
 have hardened one of coarser fiber, but in his case served 
 only to broaden and to soften. He had been no favorite 
 of fortune, and it was not until some years had passed that 
 he felt able to go back to his village and marry the little 
 girl with whom he used to play and to whom he had been 
 faithful in his wanderings. And then she had died in giv- 
 ing birth to their son. The son grew up a fine young man ; 
 but he too had died leaving an invalid wife and these chil- 
 dren, the best children in the world, he thanked God who 
 was always good. 
 
 I used to see Julius sometimes in the street on my way 
 to or from some East Side station-house Union Market 
 may be, or Delancey Street. He was usually of an after- 
 noon stumping along the south side of Rivington, between 
 Eldridge and Allen, his papers under his arm. If I had 
 the time I stopped for a word with him, for his cheerful- 
 ness in his misfortune and some look of his grandfather 
 in his eyes were attractive to me. He told me that Tilly 
 Lohwasser had heard about her father's death and had 
 come in very white to see the body, and her mother had 
 upbraided her until she ran from the house, and everyone 
 
 73
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 in the block knew her story, and that she had gone to 
 live in a notorious resort in Second Avenue. His grand- 
 father was out of work again; the sweatshop had failed, 
 or as Julius expressed it, " gone bust." I did not know 
 that sweatshops ever failed, and was interested in the 
 news. But he said that Bertha was still at work, and 
 all were well at home. His grandfather was out every 
 day looking for work; there wasn't much doing in the 
 tailoring way; but he had peddled iron pots and skillets 
 for a man in Pitt Street and made a few dimes that way, 
 and a man that had two push-carts, a rich man that lived 
 in the front tenement, had promised to let his grandfather 
 circulate one of them for two-thirds of the profits, so they 
 had good hopes. 
 
 The next time I saw him he said that the rich man 
 had sold the push-cart, so his grandfather had been dis- 
 appointed of that line of business, but he was peddling 
 iron pots and skillets again. Julius could not help think- 
 ing it strange, but almost nobody seemed to want any iron 
 pots or skillets. His grandfather used to tramp from 
 Rivington Street to Harlem, and some days sell only one 
 iron pot, and it was a heavy load for a man of his years 
 to carry on his back. Once, Julius said, the old man had 
 fainted in the street; he guessed because he was hungry 
 as well as tired. Julius wanted to know if I would stop 
 in some time for a moment and see the old man; he did 
 so like to talk to one that knew Waiden. About the Loh- 
 wassers, he said the Charity Society was helping them, 
 and the neighbors did what they could, but it was hard. 
 He said he had heard that Tilly had sent money to her 
 mother, and her mother had refused to take it. 
 
 On a certain vacation day about that time, having nothing 
 to do, and cherishing a favorite but usually futile design of 
 
 74
 
 The Suicide Slip from Rivington Street 
 
 finding copy for a " special Sunday story/' I was sitting 
 idly in Tompkins Square, where, according to old tradition, 
 the grass will never grow, when it occurred to me that it 
 might be decent to drop in upon the Rubensteins. The old 
 court was as reeking as it had been on the day of the suicide, 
 the hallways as filthy, the children were as neglected, but 
 the two rooms of the Rubensteins were scrubbed and in 
 order. The old man was still out of work, but it appeared 
 that good fortune had befallen them otherwise, and the 
 patriarch thanked God for it. There was Bertha six 
 months before she had lost her place in the department 
 store and for a time all looked dark; not a cent came in 
 to pay the rent and buy food but only what Julius made 
 from his papers and what the old man got from peddling 
 iron pots and skillets. But God was good, and now Bertha 
 had a place in an all-night restaurant, and sometimes the 
 tips the customers gave her amounted in one night to sev- 
 eral dollars; and now all the family was happy. If the 
 patriarch could get a place in a sweatshop, they would 
 move into better rooms; perhaps they might even live in 
 a front tenement. It was all due to Bertha, she was such 
 a good girl. I looked at Bertha, and she seemed but ill 
 at ease under this praise. Where was the all-night restau- 
 rant? Up town, they said: a long distance up town, that 
 was the worst of it; Forty-second Street. But Bertha 
 didn't mind, she was such a good girl, and all was well 
 at last. 
 
 There pertained to this scene an uneasy suggestion that 
 Bertha was too good-looking to be working in an all-night 
 restaurant, and the name thereof had also no reassuring 
 sound in a reporter's ears. Nevertheless, I concluded that 
 all must be well since the patriarch had said so, and went 
 my way. Not long afterward I was transferred from 
 
 75
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 Police Headquarters to the Court of General Sessions, and 
 for many months I did not see Julius nor hear of him. 
 But one night, coming from a Broadway theater, I was 
 startled to observe among the women skulking in a side 
 street a face that seemed familiar. I stopped to look more 
 closely, and it was Bertha. For some reason not clear 
 to me I seemed to be prepared for the discovery, and this 
 explanation of the all-night restaurant seemed to be ex- 
 actly what I had looked for. But I was not so well pre- 
 pared for the next chapter in the story. About six months 
 later I found one day in my box at the office a postal card 
 from Julius with this scrawled upon it in pencil: 
 
 Dear Mr. Russell: 
 
 Grandfather died last night. Can you come to see us? 
 
 Julius Rubenstein. 
 
 I went up to Rivington Street that night. As I was 
 coming away Julius stumped with me out upon the landing. 
 
 " Isn't Bertha here? " I said, for I had noted her ab- 
 sence. He shook his head, and looked down at the point 
 of his crutch. " She hasn't been home for weeks." 
 
 " Did the old man know? " I asked. 
 
 He nodded. " It did for him," he said. We shook 
 hands and he stumped back to the rooms. That was 
 almost the end of the story so far as I knew about it. 
 Julius came out all right, got him a little corner news-stand, 
 and did well. I do not know more about Bertha, except 
 that she died many years ago. Julius took care of the 
 other girls; one married a bookmaker, and one an East 
 Side jeweler. 
 
 The whole story lay for years in the disused attic wherein 
 we stow, like old clothes, the experiences that no longer 
 are the apparel of the day's life, when about a year ago 
 
 76
 
 The Suicide Slip from Rivington Street 
 
 it was sharply recalled to my mental vision. I was sitting 
 one night in a vile, notorious resort just off Broadway in 
 the Forties. The introduction requires some explaining, 
 for perhaps without impropriety I may be allowed to say 
 that neither the place nor its environment are of my habit, 
 nor yet of my ordinary interest. I had been taken thither 
 by my friend, Lieutenant O'Darrell, of the Central Office 
 detectives, who desired to show me the modern aspects of 
 a form of metropolitan life from which I had long been 
 estranged, and had also a professional reason for his 
 presence. He was on mission bent to catch two burglars, 
 and this place was at times their favorite haunt. 
 
 There was a long room on the ground floor, staringly 
 lighted, papered in fiendish reds, and with small tables 
 at the sides. In the middle was raised a platform, with 
 a piano and some fiddlers. From time to time some woman 
 with a cracked voice and a low-necked dress would take 
 her place on this platform and sing sentimental songs that 
 no one seemed to hear. On the floor above was a room 
 that almost duplicated the room on the first floor. At 
 the tables in the two rooms sat, I suppose, as many as 
 three hundred prostitutes, ostensibly to eat and drink; 
 actually for commercial purposes. All stages of degrada- 
 tion were represented in that fearful gathering, and all the 
 horrors of hell. A man need not be a puritan nor of 
 any nice scruples about the recognized facts of life to 
 be struck here into dumb disgust of the whole business. 
 Three hundred women pitcliing down the. brink of per- 
 dition before one's eyes is a little too much. After a few 
 minutes I was for fresh air and a better scene, when, in 
 glancing about the room my eyes fell upon a face that 
 looked exactly like my recollection of Bertha's, and at 
 once the whole story of the Rubensteins poured out of 
 
 77
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 the closet where it had lain, dust-covered, these many years. 
 A sudden thought struck me. 
 
 " Lieutenant/' I said, " where do all these women come 
 from? What were they before they started for hell?" 
 
 " ' Started for hell ' is a good phrase," said the Lieuten- 
 ant, philosophically. " It reminds me of something I will 
 tell you later. Where do all these women come from? 
 Department stores, shops, cloak shops, artificial flower 
 shops, workrooms of different sorts. Nearly all of them 
 have been at work somewhere, lost their jobs, or got tired 
 of standing on their feet all day, and drifted into this. 
 There are some exceptions. That woman over there with 
 the younger woman opposite her is a professional. That's 
 her daughter. She trained her daughter to her way of 
 life. Deliberately chose it. Her son's a pickpocket now 
 doing time at Sing Sing. I pinched him on Broadway 
 here. But her case is unusual. Most girls are driven 
 into it. It's this or starve." 
 
 " Did you ever know any of them to reform? " I asked. 
 " Don't they ever get sick of it and try to turn back? " 
 
 " That was what I was going to tell you; you said 
 ' started for hell,' and it's a phrase that has a peculiar 
 meaning to me. One night in such a place as this I saw 
 a girl that came from my native town. I used to know 
 her people. Well, you know, it went over me what was 
 ahead for her. I took her aside and gave her a straight 
 talk. She told me her story: I don't know as you could 
 blame her if you knew. I gave her money enough 
 and sent her home. It seems the people in that town 
 wouldn't let her be decent. About six months later I was 
 in a fierce joint in the Bowery looking for a member of 
 the Monk Eastman gang, and in the back room there she 
 was. ' Here,' I said, ' what are you doing here ? I thought 
 
 78
 
 The Suicide Slip from Rivington Street 
 
 you promised me to reform ? ' The old bartender crooked 
 his neck over the bar and said : ' Reform ? Well, when I 
 was young I used to think I could reform some of them 
 myself, but now when I see a woman started for hell I 
 just tell her to get a through ticket.' It sounds rough, 
 but that's about what life is. Once down, always down." 
 
 O'Darrell told me that in the region bounded by Twenty- 
 third and Sixty-sixth Streets, the North River, Sixth Ave- 
 nue, and Broadway dwelt 15,000 prostitutes. I asked him 
 how many there were in the whole city, and he said he 
 could give but a guess, but from the numbers in the regions 
 familiar to him he thought there must be 25,000. A police 
 commander in Chicago once told me that there were 20,000 
 in his city, and 10,000 have been reported in Philadelphia. 
 The average life of these unfortunates is said to be four 
 years from the time when they " start for hell." If there 
 are 20,000 in Chicago, there must be 5,000 every year that 
 enter upon this road. If 5,000 women were shot in Chi- 
 cago we should cry out in horror, and yet that would be 
 really a less shocking thing. 
 
 This is not a pleasant subject. I do not know any 
 phase of the existing system that is pleasant. But if we 
 are to examine this system fairly and adequately we can- 
 not omit this part of it. I am quite well aware that there 
 are other causes for prostitution than the one great eco- 
 nomic cause; likewise, I know that we should not at once 
 abolish all prostitution if we could abolish the economic 
 cause. But the economic cause is greater than all other 
 causes together, far greater. I think it a fair statement, 
 and I have for it the indorsement of many observers, 
 that 85 per cent, of the women that " start for hell " make 
 that start because of necessity. " It's either that or starve," 
 as O'Darrell said. In New York they are department store 
 
 79
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 employees, shop girls, and hand-workers that have lost 
 their employment; in cities like Newark, Pittsburg, Lowell, 
 they are former factory hands. In cases where they are 
 not workers deprived of their work, they are women to 
 whom no avenue of employment was open, or women unable 
 by their work to earn enough to support those dependent 
 upon them. 
 
 I have heard in discussions of this subject some very 
 unfair criticisms of the men that own or manage depart- 
 ment stores and shops. It has been said of them that if 
 they were to pay a living wage to the girls in their employ 
 they would prevent an immense amount of evil. " How," 
 it is customary to ask, "can a girl live on $5 a week?" 
 Good question. Even if she lived at home, such wages 
 are merely a temptation to the downward path. Of her 
 $5 she must pay at least 60 cents a week for her carfare, 
 and since the transfers were abolished in New York, she 
 must pay more. Then her luncheons cost her at least 
 $1.50 a week. That means that of her $5 she has left 
 $2.90 at the end of the week, providing she has not been 
 fined. The store demands that she be neatly dressed, and 
 to dress neatly and in accordance with the rules will cost 
 her nearly $2.90 a week. The substance of her employ- 
 ment then is that she gives her time, works very hard, is 
 all day upon her feet, endures the exactions of captious 
 customers on one hand, and of the floor-walker on the 
 other, all practically for nothing. She sees coming into 
 the store well-dressed women that do no work. She sees 
 that they are treated with great respect because they have 
 money to spend. She goes home at night probably to some 
 repulsive tenement where everything she sees and hears 
 tends to break down her moral sense. Under all these 
 conditions the great wonder is that the majority of the 
 
 80
 
 The Suicide Slip from Riving ton Street 
 
 young women keep good; that they do so is a remarkable 
 tribute to the innate goodness of women. 
 
 All this is perfectly true except the blame for the owner 
 of the store, and that is merely an example of the evil 
 haste with which we post to hold individuals responsible 
 for conditions. By no possibility can the proprietor of 
 the department store or shop pursue any other course than 
 that for which he is thoughtlessly criticised. He is in the 
 position in which we found the manufacturers in the pre- 
 vious chapter; he does what he does because he cannot 
 possibly do anything else. It is said of him with scorn 
 that he pays only $4 a week or $5 or $6 to the girls that 
 work for him, and that because he pays them no more 
 he is in some way (not made clear) responsible for their 
 moral decline. But how can he pay more? He is com- 
 peting with many other stores; if he bear well his part 
 in that competition he retains his store and will retain 
 business ; if he lag behind he will lose his trade and his store 
 and be branded a bankrupt and a failure. Competition forces 
 upon him a narrow consideration of every item of expense, 
 for that is the price of his business salvation. His competi- 
 tors obtain girls to work for them at $1, $5, or $6 a week. 
 They have no difficulty in doing this because for every 
 vacant position there are hundreds of applicants, and the 
 girls are really glad to get work at any price. Therefore, 
 the man that we are considering can, and indeed he must, get 
 girls to work for him at $-4, $5, or $6 a week, and he 
 must not pay more. If he pay more he will soon cease 
 to have any store to keep. Some other man will then 
 fill his place that will yield to the necessities of the situa- 
 tion and pay the current rates. For any one man to be 
 quixotic and pay what is called a living wage would do 
 no possible good to anyone and work only ruin to himself. 
 
 81
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 Under the existing system no shopkeeper can justly incur 
 the slightest reproach for paying to his employees the 
 market price for their labor and no more. But what is 
 to be blamed is the existing system. So long as we have 
 it we shall have with all its other hideous features this 
 driving of women to their moral death, and all the rescue 
 work, missions, social purity movements, girls' friendly 
 societies, sermons, lectures, tracts, pamphlets, personal 
 efforts, and all other uplift influences together, excellent 
 and admirable as they are in purpose, will never affect 
 this situation. You cannot change a vast, underlying eco- 
 nomic condition by preaching at it. One may very well 
 believe that all the profits made everywhere in a year are 
 not worth the price of one woman's soul, and that one 
 ruined life is enough to condemn any business. That does 
 not change the basic facts. Lost women's souls and ruined 
 lives are the product of this system; you cannot have the 
 system without the product; if you approve of the system, 
 I offer you the products and ask you to approve of these 
 also. 
 
 82
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A BOY S OPPORTUNITY 
 
 In 1891 the New York Herald sent me through the 
 South to investigate the industrial revival then beginning 
 there. Until that time the South Atlantic States had grown 
 much cotton and shipped it to the North or to Europe 
 to be manufactured. The waste involved was obvious, and 
 in accordance with the irresistible law of evolution could 
 not long be continued. Mills for the spinning of cotton 
 were beginning to spring up close to the fields where the 
 cotton was grown, and a new industrial era opened for 
 a region long blighted by slavery and finally prostrated by 
 war. Like most Northerners of Abolitionist antecedents, 
 I had a strong sentimental interest in the South, where 
 I had traveled much; I conceived that the abolition of 
 the hideous curse of slavery would not be complete with- 
 out the upbuilding of the industrial South by free labor 
 to what might be called a normal level; and the signs of 
 industrial awakening struck me as extremely admirable. I 
 went through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
 and Georgia, and saw with delight in many towns the 
 signs of progress. Great cotton mills in these towns had 
 taken the place of ramshackle sheds or old presses; the 
 hammers were still ringing on the houses for the operatives ; 
 the old lethargy was falling from the inhabitants, un- 
 wontedly stirred by so much liveliness. All this presaged 
 prosperity and general happiness. Opportunity was knock- 
 
 83
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 ing at the doors of the South; soon we should have a new 
 South as busy and populous as the North, and all made 
 with free labor. 
 
 A year later I was detailed to Fall River, Mass., where 
 I passed a month in trying to solve one of the most famous 
 and baffling of murder mysteries. Fall River is a great 
 cotton mill town, the greatest (in point of product) in 
 the United States, one of the greatest in the world, for it 
 has nearly three and a half million spindles. In one way 
 or another its 80,000 inhabitants live on cotton spinning; 
 the clatter of the score of great mills resounds all day; 
 and bales and samples of cotton litter the streets. It 
 was my first good opportunity to observe deliberately the 
 inside of a mill town, and when the murder trails had 
 been drawn into a court proceeding, and one frequently 
 interrupted, I varied the monotony with some practical 
 sociology. 
 
 I am obliged to say that the results seemed wholly at 
 variance with my previous ideas as to the grandeur and glory 
 of industrial development. Here modern industrialism, 
 embryonic in the South, was in a state of perfec- 
 tion; here one could see exactly what fruits it brought 
 forth. I went among the operatives' dwellings and was 
 disquieted when I observed that these people, whose in- 
 dustry was supposed to be such a blessing to the nation, to 
 the community, and to themselves, lived for the most part in 
 squalid quarters and in a condition of poverty and destitu- 
 tion pitiable to see. A great many were housed in old wooden 
 tenements, dark, frowsy, ill-smelling, and obviously of a de- 
 fective sanitation. I was inured to low tenement house 
 conditions in the teeming East Side of New York; but 
 these, I had supposed to be the sole possession of a great 
 city, and in some mysterious way a product of its great- 
 
 84
 
 A Boy's Opportunity 
 
 ness: but here were conditions at least as bad, and some- 
 times, I thought, still worse. 
 
 Indeed, as soon as one turned from the fair main streets 
 of Fall River and from the homes of its wealthy inhabi- 
 tants to the streets where the workingmen lived, a kind 
 of blackness seemed to descend upon one. The physical dis- 
 comfort was everywhere too apparent; very often it was 
 not merely discomfort, but extreme distress. A native 
 led me into one house inhabited by a friend of his. We 
 went up a flight of tottering stairs in an old shambling 
 ruin, and, the day being Sunday, found the man at 
 home. He was employed in the mills, and here in two 
 little rooms he dwelt with a family of six. The rooms were 
 dark and ill-ventilated ; the family looked sickly. The elder 
 children worked in the mills. The father got $7 a week; 
 the children from $1 to $2.50 each. None of them had 
 any education to speak of; they had been taken from the 
 lower intermediate grades " to work in the mills." The 
 father had consumption; I was told that the air in the 
 mills was not good for him; and after a casual visit there 
 I was of the opinion that it was not good for him nor 
 for anybody else. The air in his squalid home was not 
 better, so far as I could discover: the man was merely 
 being poisoned day and night, so that his doom was plainly 
 stamped upon him. His children were started toward 
 the same end: the mills doing the work by day, and by 
 night the air exhaled from a consumptive's lungs and 
 breathed by children underfed, overworked, and of a defi- 
 cient vitality. I had been sent to Fall River to investigate 
 a murder. It suddenly struck me as strange that nobody 
 ever seemed to investigate this other kind of murder going 
 slowly on before me. The murder I had been sent to 
 investigate had been done with a hatchet; death had been 
 
 85
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 instantaneous. It suddenly occurred to me that of the 
 two methods slaughter with the hatchet was the more merci- 
 ful. Many persons wished to hang the perpetrator of the 
 murder with the hatchet. How did it happen that no one 
 wanted to arrest or prosecute the perpetrators of the mur- 
 ders here in these tenements ? 
 
 One of the members of this family of victims was a 
 boy thirteen or fourteen years old, I should say, and 
 I doubt if anyone could look at him without grave misgivings 
 concerning the optimistic philosophy and the glories of 
 things as they are. According to the doctrine that we 
 assiduously repeat and infallibly believe, this boy, a child 
 of the land of free opportunity, could make of his life 
 anything he pleased. He could be President; every Amer- 
 ican boy has that dazzling possibility before him. He 
 could win his way to great fortune: any American boy 
 could become rich ; thousands upon thousands of boys, as 
 poor as he, had in this glorious country of free opportunity 
 become fabulously rich; riches were within the reach of 
 all. And there this boy stood, and if one were to try to say 
 these things to him one's words would be struck to silence 
 upon one's lips. No human being could have the assur- 
 ance to preach opportunity to this boy; there he stood, the 
 mark of the mills already on his face, prematurely old, 
 hopelessly dull, obviously inert. He had already begun 
 to stoop like his father, and to have his father's look of 
 vacancy, the stamp of brutish toil. Of education he had 
 next to nothing; he could read and write (in a way), 
 but his mind was one of the most hopeless I have ever 
 observed. He had begun to chew tobacco; most of the boys 
 in the mills chewed tobacco, I was told; and his idea of 
 life seemed to be to get through his irksome and repulsive 
 toil by day and to pose on the streets at night as a young 
 
 86
 
 A Boy's Opportunity 
 
 ruffian. And over him all the time was the creeping shadow 
 of the white plague. 
 
 Before such a product, the glory of the land of free 
 opportunity dwindled rapidly. Yet he was but a type; 
 there were hundreds of boys like him. A little examination 
 showed that few of them seemed to have any ambition or 
 any purpose in life except to work in the mills and ex- 
 tract from the barren remainder of the day what scanty 
 or foolish pleasure they could find. They had been born 
 In the mills; their world was circumscribed by the mills; 
 they expected to die in the mills. Where were the boys 
 that were to rise to the Presidency or to that wealth 
 said to be open to all? Where were they? These 
 toiled doggedly all day in monotonous and drudging labor, 
 hour by hour doing the same thing until the mere monotony 
 beat their minds as flat as boards. They came forth at 
 night weary and imbruted. Their education had stopped 
 far short of a point where it could provide them with 
 resources or the least armor of the trained mind. The 
 mills, to obtain work wherein was hailed as a blessed privi- 
 lege, ground up more than cotton; human lives went no 
 less between its rollers and cruel hooks. Into one huge 
 hopper all these seemed to be thrown the cotton that I 
 knew to have been raised for a poor return by Southern 
 farmers, the men and women of the mills, the little chil- 
 dren robbed of their childhood, young men and maidens 
 that ought to have the promise of fair life before them 
 and out of the dreadful grinding there issued on one side 
 the profits of the mill owners, and on the other a ghastly 
 train of ruined lives. 
 
 I could think of no theory on which such things could 
 be justified. The world needed cotton cloth; it did not 
 need the palaces of the mill owners. To supply the world's 
 
 87
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 need the operatives contributed their indispensable labor, 
 and were rewarded with such hideous homes as this I had 
 just left, with ill-health, privation, disease, and the pros- 
 pect of an early death after a joyless life. The mill owners 
 contributed no essential thing, and their reward was the 
 life of ease and superfluity in such a palace as I could see 
 shining through the trees on the hill. I could learn of 
 no justification of this condition then, and I have been 
 able to learn of none since. 
 
 But standing that day in Fall River, and looking first 
 at the mill owner's palace, gorgeous in the sunlight, and 
 then at the rotten tenement, I fell into a train of thought, 
 obvious enough, and yet, if I may make the confession, 
 quite new to me. 
 
 Here, said I, is this consumptive operative whose home 
 I have visited. He performs in the mills a necessary part 
 of the work; someone must do this work that society may 
 have the cotton cloth it needs; this man is of use to his 
 times, he is serving his kind. From this street that leads 
 to his frowsy abode I can see on the other side of the 
 town the beautiful house and extensive grounds of the mill 
 owner. This man has inherited the stock in the mill 
 company ; he pays little attention to the business ; he is to it 
 not the slightest use in the world. He does not serve 
 his times, he is of no use to his kind. He dwells in this 
 luxury and spends much of his time in pleasant travel; 
 the man of use toils on to his grave, ill-fed and squalidly 
 housed. Exactly why is this? 
 
 It was impossible to avoid that question; it was thrust 
 too persistently in my face as I went my way. Custom 
 decreed, I knew, that industry should be conducted by 
 capital and labor, and that of the products of industry 
 capital should take a great deal and labor have very little. 
 
 88
 
 A Boy's Opportunity 
 
 But just why should this be so arranged? Custom, of 
 course, was a powerful thing; but after all, it was no 
 reason. Custom had once excluded all but noblemen from 
 any share in the government and had upheld the theory 
 of government by divine right. Suppose custom were the 
 other way; suppose custom had ordained that labor should 
 take a great deal of the products of industry and capital 
 should take very little. It was obvious that in such a case the 
 operative would now be living in the palace and the idle 
 mill owner would be living in the rotten tenement; and 
 a suggestion that this arrangement was not perfectly right 
 would seem very strange as strange as any suggestion 
 against the present system seems now. 
 
 But, I said to myself, if the operative really received 
 the great reward and the mill owner the little, why should 
 that not be an arrangement far more consistent with jus- 
 tice? The operative contributes to the enterprise an essen- 
 tial thing; the mill owner contributes something that is 
 not an essential but only a convenience. Clearly, it is 
 but a handy fiction to say that in industry capital and 
 labor are equally necessary. They are not; capital is not 
 necessary at all; only labor is necessary. All that capital 
 does could be done as well without it. Let me see. Capi- 
 tal, I shall say, erects the building for the mill. Good. 
 But the building is really erected with the labor of men's 
 hands, and it is easily conceivable that such labor might 
 be had and the building be erected without capital, for 
 each man employed might contribute his labor if he so 
 desired. This is not only conceivable, but has often hap- 
 pened. 
 
 Next, capital places in the building the engine and 
 machinery necessary for the work of the mill. Good. 
 But all of these engines and machines are made with the 
 
 89
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 labor of men's hands, and if the men that made them 
 desired to do so they could contribute their labor without 
 the interposition of capital. 
 
 Next, capital purchases coal whereof to make steam to 
 operate the engines and machines. Good. But this coal 
 was mined and prepared with the labor of men, and these 
 men might, if they chose, contribute their labor and pro- 
 duce the coal without the least assistance from capital. 
 
 Capital transports the coal and the machinery over rail- 
 roads. Good. But all these railroads are operated with 
 men's labor and could easily be so operated if there were 
 no capital. 
 
 Capital attends to the marketing of the product of the 
 mill. Good. But here, again, the marketing is done with 
 the labor of men, and if men so determined they could 
 contribute their labor and proceed without capital. 
 
 On the other hand, the building could not be erected, 
 nor the engines and machines produced, nor the coal mined, 
 nor the railroads operated, nor the product marketed with- 
 out labor. 
 
 So that, as a matter of fact, the essential of productive 
 industry is labor, and capital is a mere convenience that 
 at any time could be cast aside without interfering with 
 productive industry. 
 
 It must be, therefore, that the present division of the 
 proceeds of industry is purely arbitrary, irrational, and 
 unjust, and it is maintained solely for the benefit of the 
 capitalist. 
 
 One result of this injustice, I said, is that the worker, 
 the useful man, the man that contributes to the enterprise 
 the essential of its being, the man that is of use and 
 service, gets too little to eat, is badly housed and over- 
 worked, and crawls through life without the joy and suffi- 
 
 90
 
 A Boy's Opportunity 
 
 ciency to which every child of earth is clearly entitled. 
 Not only so, but he is part of a huge and growing army 
 of men thus robbed of the happiness to which they are 
 entitled; and he is not only robbed himself, but the rob- 
 bery extends to his children, and is multiplied upon them 
 so that we are breeding a separate race of industrial serfs, 
 deficient in mind and body, the chained slaves of the 
 machine, all robbed, and all accumulating a bill of wrongs 
 that the future must settle. 
 
 I recalled that not long before there had been a strike 
 in these mills: all the operatives had ceased to work 
 in order to better their condition. On reflection, that 
 seemed an anomalous thing, that to better their condition 
 men should cease to produce when clearly production and 
 work were primal necessities of life. I recalled some 
 newspaper comments on the strike. The strikers were very 
 bitterly condemned for striking; they seemed to be re- 
 garded as offenders against public decency, and some news- 
 papers seemed to think the militia ought to be called out. 
 I had seen many strikes attended with the calling out 
 of the militia, and like every other observer, I understood 
 quite well that the only purpose of having the militia called 
 out was to frighten the strikers back to work. I knew, 
 too, in a general way, that it was for this purpose that 
 militia and armories were maintained at a heavy public 
 expense. But after I had seen the mill operatives the idea 
 of driving them at the point of the bayonet back to their 
 deadly mills struck me, of a sudden, as a kind of grew- 
 some jest. 
 
 They told me at Fall River that at intervals the mill 
 owners, to better their condition, would close the mills for a 
 time and cease production. No bitter comments ever fol- 
 lowed this species of strike, but it seemed to be accepted as 
 
 91
 
 Why 1 Am a Socialist 
 
 quite reasonable and proper. No one demanded that the 
 militia should be called out to coerce the mill owners. 
 Yet, on reflection, I was unable to see exactly why not. 
 I could not tell exactly why the man that owned a mill 
 could stop it to better his condition and the man that 
 worked in it had no such right. So far as I could see, 
 to stop the mill for one was exactly as bad as to stop it 
 for the other, and if a distinction were to be made legally 
 against the man that worked in the mill, then I could 
 not well escape the conclusion that legally, also, as much 
 as industrially, this man must be a serf. 
 
 Of all this gloomy outlook the worst seemed to me to 
 pertain to the children. The right of a child to its child- 
 hood, the right to be happy and to know the sunlight 
 and the green grass and the trees, to learn and to play, 
 to look upon the world as a happy place, to look forward 
 with joy to life in such a world that seemed to me a 
 right at least as inalienable as the right of the millionaire 
 to possess his millions. But here the child's rights were 
 absolutely denied. A dreary and animal existence in some 
 place unfit for human beings, a few weeks in a crowded 
 schoolroom, bawled at by an overworked and underpaid 
 teacher, and then into the mills to be ground up for profits, 
 and his bones to the cemetery when no more profits can 
 be extracted from them; this was a child's life in the 
 operatives' quarter of Fall River, Mass., U. S. A., land 
 of free opportunity, in the year of grace, 1892. And 
 overhead the joyous sun, and all about the beautiful green 
 earth, with fruits enough for all, and this child's life 
 ruined from its beginning that we may have more profits. 
 
 If now this sounds acrid, I can but protest that I had 
 and have no such stuff in my thoughts, but only to tell 
 the facts that lie everywhere around us, only we will 
 
 92
 
 A Boy's Opportunity 
 
 not see them nor acknowledge them. I have heard men 
 to whom the conditions in Fall River, Lowell, Lawrence, 
 Haverhill, Paterson, Pittsburg, Newark, or other like per- 
 ditions must be fairly familiar, repeat with an appearance 
 of sincerity the ancient platitudes concerning the land of 
 opportunity and the glorious chances of success that lie 
 before every poor boy. Standing there, all such senti- 
 ments seemed a travesty not to be uttered; and seeing in 
 Fall River the perfected work, I began to doubt very much 
 the essential advantages of the industrial development of 
 the South that I had praised. 
 
 Fifteen years later I had a chance to see how this 
 matter had worked out in practice. I went again over 
 much of the ground in Virginia, North Carolina, South 
 Carolina, and Georgia that I had traversed before. The 
 progress on the lines I had forecasted was everything that 
 could have been desired of that kind. Every station 
 through the cotton belt had its mill busily spinning. The 
 dividends of some of the companies had been exceedingly 
 good. What was called prosperity had come to the greater 
 part of the region, and many of the towns had grown so 
 rapidly I could hardly recognize them. The mills had 
 done a thing that all my life I had heard lauded as most 
 desirable and admirable. They had " furnished employ- 
 ment " to thousands. But on any inspection it appeared 
 that the average life of the masses of people had not 
 improved; the proportion of poor to rich had not dimin- 
 ished; there were no fewer people whose lives must be 
 passed in insufficiency; on the contrary, there were more. 
 The prosperity had been the prosperity of the well-to-do; 
 the rest of mankind had no more to eat, no better clothes, 
 no better houses, no more joy or light. Indeed, the average 
 of white men's homes, at least, seemed to have been de- 
 
 93
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 pressed. Most of the operatives lived in houses not much 
 better than sheds, and in each of these towns was begin- 
 ning or well under way a miniature Fall River. 
 
 Beyond all this was the unspeakable blight and crime 
 of child labor, far worse than my worst recollections of 
 Fall River; if Fall River slew her scores of little children, 
 the cotton industry of the South slew its hundreds. About 
 this I offer for testimony not merely my own observation, 
 but the words of witnesses of much greater importance. 
 Here, for instance, is Mrs. John Van Vorst, who was in 
 the South about the time I was, and whose invaluable 
 book * is full of grave lessons to a purblind race. I shall 
 quote from Mrs. Van Vorst a typical scene in a Southern 
 cotton mill, because she can describe it much better than 
 I can: 
 
 I could not take my attention from the tinier of the tiny pair. 
 The boy's hands appeared to be made without bones, his thumb 
 flew back almost double as he pressed the cotton to loosen it 
 from the revolving roller in the spinning- f rame ; they no longer 
 moved, these yellow anemic hands, as if directed in their different 
 acts by a thinking intelligence; they performed mechanically their 
 gestures that had given them that definite form. 
 
 The red-headed girl laughed and nodded in the direction of the 
 dwarf. 
 
 " He's 'most six," she said. " He's been here two years. He 
 come in when he was 'most four. His little brother 'most four's 
 workin' here now." 
 
 "Yes? Where?" 
 
 " Oh, he works on the night shift. He comes in 'beaout half-a- 
 past five and stays tell six in the mornin'." 
 
 I went over to the other dwarf of the couple, older evidently 
 than the boy " 'most six." Below her red cotton frock hung a 
 
 * " The Cry of the Children," 1909, New York. Moffat, Yard 
 & Co. 
 
 94
 
 A Boy's Opportunity 
 
 long apron that reached the ground. Her hair was short and 
 shaggy, her face bloated, her eyes like a depression in the flesh, 
 and about her mouth trailed dark streams of tobacco. It seemed 
 atrocious to question her. Oblivion was the only thing that could 
 have been mercifully tendered even the peace of death could 
 hardly have relaxed those tense features, cast in the dogged mold 
 of misery. 
 
 " How old are you ? " I asked. 
 
 She shook her head. " I don't know." 
 
 "What do you earn?" 
 
 She shook her head again. 
 
 Her fingers did not for a moment stop in their swift manipula- 
 tion of the broken threads. Then, as if she had suddenly remem- 
 bered something, she said: 
 
 " I've only been workin' here a day." 
 
 " Only one day ? " 
 
 " I've been on the night shift tell neow." 
 
 Dwarfs? Ah, yes; dwarfs, indeed. But would that those that 
 affirm it might once catch sight of the expression that lowered 
 under the brows of these two miniature victims. Like a menace, 
 threatening, terrible, it seemed to presage the storm that shall 
 one day be unchained by the spirits too long pent up in service 
 to the greed of man. 
 
 Little children in the process of being first robbed and 
 then murdered in the sacred cause of profits. If you like 
 the system of which this is the certain fruit, come here 
 and like the fruit also. You should not like the one with- 
 out the other. And if you accept both, let me ask you 
 one question. How if this robbed and tortured child were 
 your daughter, or your little sister? How would you like 
 that? And if it would be bad for your daughter, or your 
 sister, do you think it can be good for another man's 
 daughter and another man's sister? 
 
 No one need think that Mrs. Van Vorst's descriptions 
 are in the least exaggerated; she has but understated the 
 facts. For what she saw and I saw and others saw we 
 
 95
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 have fortunately the corroboration of a witness without 
 emotions or sympathies, and incapable of the least in- 
 accuracy; we have the camera. A representative of Every- 
 body's Magazine traversed the South in the winter of 
 1908-9 taking pictures, as well as making careful notes, 
 and some of his photographs reproduced in the magazine 
 were calculated to turn the beholder cold. He had caught 
 civilization red-handed upon its victims; he had pictured 
 relentlessly every successive step in the slaughter of the 
 innocents that this system of industry involves, and here 
 he disclosed the sum of its results. 
 
 He found, to give you here but one example, a girl of 
 eleven that had been in the mills since she was five. She 
 could neither read nor write, but the foreman said she 
 was the best worker on his floor. She looked so old that 
 persons that saw her for the first time were always startled, 
 and thought she must be in some way deformed, or ab- 
 normal, or uncanny. At eleven years of age her face was 
 lined and hollow and gray, like an old woman's. Care 
 and the brute struggle for daily bread had stamped it 
 with their usual marks. When she was asked the simplest 
 questions of ordinary human knowledge she shook her head 
 and made a guttural sound of negation. She seemed hardly 
 human ; no one about her could remember to have seen 
 her laugh or play or take part in any pleasure. Her 
 earliest associations were with the mills and drudging work 
 therein ; her life of toil seemed to have crushed out of her 
 all faculties not connected with her work; and she had, 
 in fact, become a part of the machinery, in any true sense 
 as dead as one of the cog-wheels and already doomed to 
 a like fate. 
 
 I have played tricks with the photograph of this little 
 girl. I have shown merely her head without her body, 
 
 96
 
 A Boy's Opportunity 
 
 and caused persons to guess her age. Some have said forty 
 and some thirty-five; none ever came anywhere near the 
 truth. I have shown her complete photograph and told 
 her story to some men and they have clenched their fists 
 and sworn, and tears have come into women's eyes when 
 they looked at her. 
 
 She is only a type, a single example of the work we 
 are doing for the next generation. She worked in an 
 Alabama mill. Do you imagine that Alabama is the only 
 state in the Union where such things go on? They go 
 on everywhere; the only difference is in degree. The 
 South is only relatively worse than the North. In every 
 Northern State are thousands of children almost equally 
 robbed and maltreated. Everybody's Magazine had photo- 
 graphs likewise of boys employed in the coal mines of 
 Pennsylvania, and boys employed in the glass factories 
 of Indiana, and on all of them was the same stamp of 
 soul-murder and body-murder. Mrs. Van Vorst says that 
 in the United States are 1,500,000 little children illegally 
 employed in the productive industries. Other authorities 
 place the number as high as 1,700,000. In view of that 
 fact, I know of nothing stranger than this, that you can 
 with great ease and great success gather meetings and 
 form associations to declaim against war, and with only 
 the greatest difficulty can you draw a passing attention to 
 this huge evil a thousand times worse than any war. 
 
 Does anyone think it is to be abolished with more legis- 
 lation? Many states now have stringent laws against the 
 employment of children, and in most of these states the 
 law is violated. Mrs. Van Vorst found in staid, well- 
 ordered New Hampshire what might be called an open 
 contempt for the law about clnldren. In the mills of 
 Manchester she found hundreds of children manifestly 
 
 97
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 under the prescribed age of employment, and no apparent 
 attempt to enforce the law or inspect the factories. Chil- 
 dren are illegally employed in New York State in the 
 teeth of repeated and stringent legislation, and very high 
 public officers have apparently connived at the crime. 
 The ready defense for the mill owner and the factory 
 inspector alike is that the parents lie about the ages of 
 their children in order to get the children at work, and 
 if the parents lie, who shall gainsay them? But how 
 is it that nobody inquires why the parents lie? These 
 people are not readier than others to see their chil- 
 dren swept away to death or ruin. The plain reason 
 for their lying and the reason why they seek to have 
 their children at work is that they need the money the 
 children earn; the struggle for life is so hard upon them 
 that they must have these additional earnings that the 
 family may live. It was for this reason that when a 
 few years ago the question of child labor was before a 
 British Trades Union Congress in London the representa- 
 tives of 514,000 textile workers voted in favor of it. They 
 said so; they said that in existing conditions without the 
 wages earned by the little children they did not know 
 how they should live. Yet there were no little children 
 of the mill owners being ground to death that their parents 
 might live. It was only the children of the men that 
 contributed something essential to the enterprise that suf- 
 fered this infinite wrong. One man in those cotton mills 
 wove enough cloth for 200 persons, and yet himself went 
 badly clad, badly shod, badly fed, was badly housed, 
 and to keep the breath in his own body was obliged to 
 sacrifice his children. What possible defense can there 
 be for such a condition? 
 
 So we take also this immeasurable crime and pile it 
 
 98
 
 A Boy's Opportunity 
 
 
 
 upon the head of this abominable system, already dripping 
 with blood and bowed with so many other abominations, 
 knowing quite well that nothing ever conceived by man 
 is strong enough to endure under the curse of little chil- 
 dren. And while we are filled with horror at child labor 
 and its consequences, we need not forget that all of it, 
 and all of the system of production and distribution re- 
 sponsible for it, are unnecessary. 
 
 We can have cotton spinning without murdering little 
 children, and without darkening men's lives, if we wish 
 so to have it. 
 
 99
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MEN BEHIND THE DREADNAUGHTS 
 
 I once lived for a time in Pegli, on the Gulf of Genoa, 
 six miles west of the city. It is a beautiful place, the 
 " rose town " of Northern Italy. The slope of the hill 
 facing the blue Mediterranean is covered with the villas 
 and elaborate gardens of rich Genoese. At these the roads 
 cease, and he that goes on into the hills, rising higher in 
 successive folds behind the town, must make his way on 
 winding footpaths, good to climb because they go some- 
 times among thick pines and sometimes emerge upon a 
 surpassing view of the Gulf and to the east the towers 
 of the city. Among these hills you come sometimes upon 
 isolated farmhouses, where people live in a kind of grapple 
 for existence, and one such dwelling grew particularly 
 upon my notice. 
 
 It stood in a little ravine so that a six-inch brook ran 
 past its door, and enabled the farmer to irrigate his fields 
 (if I may so call them), which were about the size of 
 blankets and seemed almost perpendicular. The house was 
 of plastered stone, two stories high, the lower floor de- 
 voted to the cow, the pig, and the donkey; the other 
 (reached by a ladder through this menagerie) being the 
 abode of the family. For reasons of economy in regard 
 to an ancient window tax, the house had been built with- 
 out glazed windows: square openings had wooden shut- 
 ters that were closed in bad weather, leaving the rooms 
 
 100
 
 The Men Behind the Dread-naughts 
 
 in utter darkness except for the single beam of light that 
 entered through a small round hole in the shutter. When 
 the cold was not too severe the shutter was opened a 
 few inches and fastened there, an arrangement that ad- 
 mitted enough light to cook by, and a trifle of fresh air. 
 The presence of the livestock on the lower floor had 
 strong reasons in economy, since they were a cheap source 
 of heat; an advantage that, in the estimation of the 
 family, overbalanced certain drawbacks apparent to the 
 senses. 
 
 Pietro was the farmer's name; I found that out from 
 hearing his wife call him one morning when he was hoeing 
 something at the lower edge of the farm. He had for 
 family his wife, two little boys, two little girls, and two 
 old women, whom I subsequently discovered to be his 
 mother and his wife's mother. The life of all these con- 
 sisted merely of toil. They raised two and three crops 
 a year from their microscopic farm, and to secure the 
 tilth they must be out early and late, belaboring and 
 turning, and, it seemed to me, beseeching the reluctant 
 soil. I found that the farmer rented the place (at a 
 heart-breaking price) from the owner of one of the beau- 
 tiful villas that sat apart and from a nest of vivid green 
 looked out upon the sea. This owner never saw Pietro 
 nor his farm, distributing his time and languid presence 
 between Cairo in the winter, Pegli in the spring, Homburg 
 in the summer, and Lugano in the fall, an arrangement 
 that gave him little opportunity to consider the sweaty 
 tenants whose efforts provided him with these and other 
 pleasures. His estate at Pegli was a wonderful thing; 
 American tourists were always coming to see it, and view- 
 ing it with ecstasy, and wishing they had something like 
 it at home. I was told that the place produced a hundred 
 
 101
 
 Why 1 Am a Socialist 
 
 and seven varieties of roses, and the owner had once de- 
 voted enough attention to it to spend $90,000 on, one grotto. 
 
 Up at Pietro's house there were no roses and no vistas; 
 the house stood four-square, and the rooms on the upper 
 floor were hopelessly barren and dismal. There was 
 nothing beautiful to look at, and no attempt at adorn- 
 ment, except a crucifix and a poor little picture of the 
 Virgin. In these forlorn environments even the sturdy 
 Italian spirit had been crushed. It was a gaunt and 
 sad-eyed family; incessant toil without relaxation, with- 
 out change, without hope, and without joy had branded 
 them all with the intellectual debasement that pertains 
 to such things. Yet they were of a good sort, warm- 
 hearted, and kindly, only battered into the essential state 
 of beasts of burden, of their own donkey, if you please, 
 by the monotony of their lives and that ceaseless struggle 
 for bread. 
 
 The produce of the farm Pietro carried to the market 
 of Genoa in two baskets slung one on either side of his 
 donkey. To get to the market early enough to dispose 
 of his handful of carrots or bunch of lettuce he must 
 start from his home about midnight. Soon afterward (for 
 I lived close by his path) I could hear his donkey's feet 
 clattering downward on the stones. Before noon they 
 would be coming back, Pietro and the donkey, the paniers 
 empty, and maybe as much as thirty cents in the farmer's 
 pocket to be laid aside for the rent, I suppose, or for 
 taxes. In the afternoon he would be out on his farm, 
 hoe in hand, still grappling with the reluctant soil. In 
 the end I scraped an acquaintance with him (no difficult 
 matter, for, like most of his race, he was affable and 
 courteous), chiefly to ask him one question that I had 
 long desired to put. 
 
 102
 
 The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts 
 
 " Why do you stay here in these conditions ? You see 
 how hopeless it is. You work hard for mere bread, your 
 children will be as you are, only very likely they will be 
 in still worse straits. They tell me your taxes grow; 
 that you pay the tax-gatherer more than your father paid, 
 and are likely to pay still more. Why don't you leave 
 it all and go to America, where there is unlimited oppor- 
 tunity ? " 
 
 It appeared that he had three reasons. First, there 
 was the place; his father had tilled it before him and 
 his grandfather. Then he was an Italian; his father had 
 fought for Italy; he could not well part from his native 
 land. Then to go away he would need much money, and he 
 had none, and no chance to get any. How, then, could 
 one travel? There were many mouths to feed in his 
 family. And as for America, his cousin Michael, who 
 lived in the town, had been in America, and it was all 
 just the same there as here, nothing but hard work for 
 little money, so that Michael was glad to get back to 
 Italy, and was begging all his friends not to go to Amer- 
 ica. So he would go on as he was, and hope with the 
 blessings of the saints to pay his taxes and keep the 
 family alive. Perhaps the taxes would be smaller here- 
 after, and there was always a chance that the children 
 would do something. Anyway, Italy was Italy. 
 
 I tell you all this because the man was a type. I 
 have seen many of his kind, and so has every other 
 traveler. 
 
 Now there was, of course, more than one reason for 
 his poverty, his dreary life of toil, and his view that saw 
 nothing of hope. He was, in the first place, the victim 
 of a system, exactly like hundreds of millions of other 
 men around the world; exactly like the vast majority of 
 
 103
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 the inhabitants of the earth, who in the midst of abundance 
 dwell in destitution, and with light enough for all lead 
 only darkened lives. Like all the others, he was in this 
 respect a victim of the capitalistic organization of society 
 that is steadily at work everywhere drawing the fruits 
 of the earth from those that need them and bestowing 
 them upon those that need them not. But there was an- 
 other factor in this man's condition, and I desire to em- 
 phasize it, and beg for it the attention of those that, in 
 spite of their reason and their senses, still hold the exist- 
 ing system to be right. 
 
 The other factor was his taxes. In addition to the 
 inevitable burden of inequality that the present system 
 always imposes, this man was crushed under a monstrous 
 load of taxation. When from the produce of his in- 
 cessant grappling he had paid his tribute to the land- 
 lord of the beautiful villa, about one-half of the poor 
 remainder must go in some form to the government. On 
 everything he owned and everything he used, from the pinch 
 of salt wherewith he seasoned his scanty food to the 
 halter wherewith he led his donkey, there was levied 
 tribute. In ways visible and invisible the tax-gatherer was 
 always taking something from that household. Whenever 
 Pietro went to market the tax-gatherer of the octroi met 
 him at the city gates and took tribute from his bunches 
 of carrots and heads of lettuce took it for the govern- 
 ment. If he bought a little fiasco of cheapest chianti 
 the tax-gatherer took something of it for the government. 
 If he wrote a letter to his brother in Pra, only a few 
 miles away, he must put on his letter a four-cent stamp, 
 of which two cents were for the carrying of the letter 
 and two for the inevitable tax-gatherer for the govern- 
 ment. And if he should ever go anywhere by railroad 
 
 104
 
 The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts 
 
 train, fourth-class, and standing up like cattle for the 
 market, with the buying of his ticket he must pay a tax 
 for the government. And the man that kept the little 
 grocery store in Pegli, of whom Pietro must from time 
 to time buy certain little things, this man, too, must pay 
 taxes on everything he bought and everything he sold. 
 If he hung up posters in the town to advertise his busi- 
 ness he must pay a tax on each poster; when a customer 
 paid a bill and took a receipt he must pay a tax on that. 
 Every hour the tax-gatherer was taking something from 
 the grocer, and whatever the grocer gave to the tax- 
 gatherer that the grocer took again from Pietro and his 
 kind with interest and profits for his trouble. And all 
 the men with whom Pietro dealt in any way did the same; 
 they took from him and his kind all the money that the 
 tax-gatherer took from them for the government. For 
 instance, the man that owned the great villa and Pietro's 
 farm; he must pay taxes on many things in and about 
 the villa, but all of these he passed along to Pietro and 
 his kind, who paid all for the government. But Pietro 
 and his kind could not pass the burden along like the 
 others. When the burden came to Pietro and his kind there 
 was nobody left to pass it to; so they paid for it out 
 of their labor, their daily food, the rags whereon they 
 slept, the dark houses in which they lived, the nourish- 
 ment and the education of their children. You shall not 
 be extravagant if you say they paid for it out of the 
 blood in their veins. They paid for it all, because under 
 the present system of society matters are so arranged 
 everywhere that only Pietro and his kind pay any of these 
 bills for the government. 
 
 And what does the government do with all the money 
 thus wrung from Pietro and his kind? I went over to 
 
 105
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 Spezzia that winter and easily discovered there what the 
 government does with a great part of it. The great gov- 
 ernment shipyard is at Spezzia, and the hammers were 
 ringing on many ships. One of them was a great battle- 
 ship; men told me it would cost $6,000,000 of Pietro's 
 money. There was also a cruiser, a great and splendid 
 vessel, almost ready, that they told me had cost $2,000,000 
 of Pietro's money and a smaller vessel that would cost, 
 or had cost, $600,000 also of Pietro's money. I was 
 told that the next year the government would lay down 
 a battleship that would cost $8,000,000, and it was plan- 
 ning or hoping for one after that to cost $10,000,000 
 all with Pietro's money, and every year more money. In 
 ten years or less the battleship that cost $6,000,000 and 
 was now nearly ready for sea would be worthless and 
 thrown upon the junk heap; so would be the battleship 
 that cost $8,000,000, and the battleship that cost $10,- 
 000,000, if such a battleship should be built. Everybody 
 in the government knew this, but nobody in the govern- 
 ment seemed to care. All plunged ahead, spending Pietro's 
 money. Every year more and more. And as for Pietro, 
 he hung upon his farm and arose at midnight, and grappled 
 with the reluctant soil, and furnished the money with his 
 sweat and his blood and his life. 
 
 Or one could go about Spezzia or Genoa or any other 
 considerable city and observe where, on great casernas 
 and vast fortifications, on guns and marching troops and 
 camps, on small arms and uniforms and ammunition, gov- 
 ernment was spending other millions of Pietro's money. 
 No one, noting all these extensive operations, could fail 
 to see where Pietro's money went, but in the mind of 
 every observer of these prodigies must at once arise one 
 question : 
 
 106
 
 The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts 
 
 Pietro pays for all this. What on earth does Pietro 
 get from it? 
 
 He pays for all; he arises at midnight and drives his 
 donkey down the hill and then six miles to Genoa; he 
 lives in the house without windows, he hangs by his feet, 
 and with his two hard hands he grapples with the re- 
 luctant soil that he may get the money wherewith to pay 
 for it. 
 
 What on earth for? 
 
 What are all to him battleships, cruisers, guns, caser- 
 nas, troops, great and small arms, uniforms, ammunition, 
 manoeuvres? What possible advantage do they bring to 
 him? How can he eat them, or wear them, or read them, 
 or use them to light his house, or educate his family? 
 He pays for all, and from all that he pays for, what 
 one least thing does he derive? He and his kind make 
 up the majority of the people of Italy. Their government 
 is engaged in a mad race with other governments to build 
 (for the junk heap) the biggest battleships, to possess 
 the strongest forts, to have the best trained army. With 
 36,000,000 people and little wealth, Italy is striving to 
 keep pace with the other nations, to provide as much for 
 the junk heap and to waste as much energy in preparations 
 for murder. And for these rational enterprises Pietro and 
 his kind furnish the money coined as aforesaid. 
 
 For what possible reason? 
 
 Looking at the matter impartially, nothing that is said 
 or done in any madhouse, or could be said or done there, 
 seems so insane as this. In 1906 England lays down a 
 Dreadnaught battleship; Germany responds by laying 
 down two. To preserve her lead in the race for the prize 
 in national lunacy, England must now lay down three. 
 Germany responds with four, and England, making a 
 
 107
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 gallant effort to retrieve herself and be perfectly dodder- 
 ing, lays down six. Whereupon Germany devises the 
 Super-Dreadnaught, a new candidate for the junk heap 
 much more terrible than anything yet invented, and the 
 whole game must begin anew. Meantime, the former in- 
 ventions are either to be thrown away or they become 
 of doubtful utility. They have cost from $5,000,000 to 
 $10,000,000 each of the toilers' money. 
 
 Meantime, also, the other nations have been tearing 
 frantically along in the race, each building Dreadnaughts, 
 and each trying to be as lunatic as its resources will allow. 
 Italy lays down one Dreadnaught and Austria lays down 
 two, both countries being horribly poor, so that they must 
 wring the last cent from Pietro and Franz to enjoy these 
 junk heap luxuries. Japan lays down three that the world 
 knows of, and some more that it keeps concealed. America, 
 cheering wildly for blood and slaughter, starts two every 
 year, although her navy yards are littered with instructive 
 junk and she sorely needs money for education and for 
 internal improvements. Neglecting at home one of the 
 most terrible and insistent problems that ever confronted 
 any nation, she is pouring millions into a useless foreign 
 possession to defend which she is told she must have many 
 Dreadnaughts, and much other junk. Poor old Russia 
 extorts more money from the Ivans and Michaels of her 
 peasant hovels and produces a new species of extravagance. 
 Spain turns the rack and grinds additional millions from 
 her starving populations. Every few days a South Amer- 
 ican republic, poor as poverty, gives out a new contract 
 for ships and guns ; everywhere the news that one govern- 
 ment has developed a new form of mania revives the frenzy 
 in another; and everywhere the toiler surrenders more of 
 the fruits of his toil that the junk heap may grow and 
 
 108
 
 The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts 
 
 the instinct for bloodshed be properly nourished. Com- 
 pared with all this Bedlam seems a sweet and rational 
 place. 
 
 This is what the chief nations of the world are annually 
 expending in the armament competition, compared with 
 their respective debts and the interest paid thereon: 
 
 Annual Military Annual Interest 
 
 Expenditures Debt on Debt 
 
 Austria-Hungary $ 95,000,000 $ 3,140,000,000 $ 121,600,000 
 
 Belgium 12,500,000 665,000,000 25,000,000 
 
 Bulgaria 5,600,000 6,950,000 640,000 
 
 Denmark 6,000,000 6,660,000 220,000 
 
 France 205,000,000 5,435,400,000 246,400,000 
 
 Germany 219,000,000 4,500,000,000 165,000,000 
 
 Great Britain 325,000,000 3,945,000,000 155,000,000 
 
 Greece 6,000,000 179,000,000 7,320,000 
 
 Holland 18,200,000 480,400,000 15,320,000 
 
 Italy 85,000,000 2,604,400,000 115,400,000 
 
 Norway and Sweden . 27,500,000 188,600,000 7,320,000 
 
 Portugal 13,000,000 800,000,000 24,400,000 
 
 Roumania 9,000,000 287,000,000 10,680,000 
 
 Russia 232,500,000 4,619,800,000 203,200,000 
 
 Servia 4,000,000 1 10,000.000 5,000,000 
 
 Spain 33,500,000 1,829,200,000 81,000,000 
 
 Switzerland 6,500,000 20,400,000 1,200,000 
 
 Turkey 24,000,000 474,000,000 23,900,000 
 
 United States 229,000,000 938,132,409 21,424,990 
 
 The military expenditures of Europe amount to $200,- 
 000,000 a year in excess of the interest on the national 
 debts. Here is forty years' increase in Europe's national 
 indebtedness : 
 
 1866 $ 5,320,000,000 
 
 1906 29,600,000,000 
 
 Here is forty years' increase in interest charges: 
 
 1866 $ 480,000,000 
 
 1906 1,200,000,000 
 
 Here is forty years' increase in military expenditure: 
 
 1866 $ 600,000,000 
 
 1906 1,400,000,000 
 
 109
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 Europe has five million men at all times practically under 
 arms. 
 
 As in none of the larger countries, with the possible 
 exception of the United States, is the ratio of increasing 
 wealth equal to the ratio of increasing military expendi- 
 tures and to the ratio of increasing debt interest, national 
 bankruptcy is for them merely a question of time if the 
 present policy be maintained. In at least two of these 
 nations the pinch is already severely felt; Great Britain 
 and Germany seem to have reached the limit of national 
 resources: and whatever they waste hereafter on Dread- 
 naughts and the like must needs be taken out of the 
 stamina of their people. 
 
 The true aspect of all this has long been perceived by 
 thoughtful men in all the countries, who have steadily in- 
 sisted that, aside from any question about the morality of 
 wholesale murder and merely on the cold basis of dollars, 
 the nations must call a halt in the race. Few of these 
 have been willing to denounce the cause of the distemper, 
 but all heartily agree in denouncing the symptoms. I 
 will now give an illustration of what may be expected 
 of all such attacks on the symptoms of war, with the more 
 readiness because it is at the same time an excellent illus- 
 tration of the true reason why we have wars, Dreadnaughts, 
 and military expenditures. 
 
 By all the good people in the world that believe things 
 in the main to be about right but needing perhaps a trifle 
 of tinkering, the International Peace Conference that met 
 at The Hague in 1907 was hailed with the greatest satis- 
 faction. Considering the modern facilities for enlighten- 
 ment, the number of such good people and their influence 
 are very amazing. They exist everywhere, but I must 
 suppose a larger proportion of them to hold forth in and 
 
 110
 
 The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts 
 
 bless the United States of America than one can find in any- 
 other country. Their attitude of mind seems to be reached 
 by resolutely shutting their eyes to the existence of poverty, 
 misery, and insufficiency in the world, and by holding that 
 whatever little improvements are needed anywhere to bring 
 us up to perfection are to be supplied through the medium 
 of a few great and good men that they either have placed 
 or hope soon to place in authority over us. 
 
 To all such minds the Hague Conference was a grand 
 event. They did not pretend that it would abolish the 
 military frenzy, but they thought it would mitigate war 
 and lead us eventually to a state in which we shall not 
 wish to murder our brethren. Not too quickly, of course; 
 because we are conservative and opposed to any sudden 
 changes, even the leaving off of habitual murder; but even- 
 tually; some centuries hence, perhaps. True, nobody knows 
 now just what the Hague Conference did to further these 
 desirable ends. It met, it spent the summer in debate, it 
 adjourned, and the madness of war expenditure went on 
 unabated, and has gone on ever since. Yet to the con- 
 servative mind these little facts are not for the impair- 
 ment of satisfaction. The Plague Conference met; per- 
 haps it will meet again. Let us rejoice. But as a matter 
 of fact, the Hague Conference was not really called for 
 any purpose of ending or of discouraging war or war ex- 
 penditure, but for quite a different purpose, as will appear 
 to anyone that will contemplate the records. 
 
 For many years the Interests in Europe that control the 
 money supply and finance the nations had been much an- 
 noyed by the difficulty of collecting debts in certain South 
 American countries. The great banking houses (which 
 really sit behind the scenes and pull all the strings) had 
 been driven on several occasions to send fleets to South 
 
 111
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 America and threaten or bombard cities to get their money 
 back. This was troublesome and expensive. Sometimes it 
 did not work very well, and at all times it was a great 
 nuisance, so the Interests seem to have determined to 
 abolish this condition. 
 
 The year before the Hague Conference met there was 
 called in Rio Janeiro a Pan-American congress, to which 
 all the nations of South, Central, and North America were 
 invited to send delegates. Rather to the wonder of the 
 experienced observer, the government of the United States 
 was a prime mover in this congress, and Mr. Elihu Root, 
 then Secretary of State, attended it in person as one of 
 his country's representatives. There were two reasons why 
 this seemed strange. As a rule, this government has re- 
 garded the South American countries with neglect or in- 
 difference, except when it has suited our purposes to steal 
 a canal zone or foment a revolution; and the sudden access 
 of zeal in our South American relations was a rare novelty. 
 Furthermore, for a Secretary of State to attend such a 
 gathering was without precedent, and seemed all the 
 stranger because Mr. Root's career had not revealed any 
 great interest in statesmanship, having been devoted chiefly 
 to legal services for certain corporations and great moneyed 
 Interests closely allied around the world. Mr. Root not 
 only attended the Conference, but took active part in it, 
 and was greatly, and no doubt justly, praised for the tact 
 and skill that he displayed. 
 
 Just what the Congress accomplished in other ways seems 
 to be somewhat vague, although its mere existence gave 
 much joy to bromidic believers in things as they are. In 
 one respect, however, its achievements were of the order 
 that make history. It adopted an agreement to the effect 
 that hereafter disputes between European and South Amer- 
 
 112
 
 The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts 
 
 ican countries should be submitted to the Hague Confer- 
 ence. Mr. Root, it appears, was heartily in favor of this 
 measure, and its adoption was hailed as a triumph of his 
 ability not less than a victory for the cause of peace to 
 be achieved by the dosing of symptoms. 
 
 The Hague Conference met the next year and discussed 
 many things, doubtless of the greatest value to mankind, 
 although no one can now remember what they were. But 
 its true function was performed when it arranged to care 
 for the South American disputes, hereafter to be settled in 
 a European tribunal controlled by European influences ; and 
 if war was not discouraged at least European bankers were 
 relieved from the necessity of sending fleets to South 
 America to collect debts. 
 
 And if the Conference did not abolish or discourage war, 
 we may feel quite well assured that in this respect also 
 its deliberations were quite satisfactory to the Interests. 
 These cannot very well at present desire to have war ex- 
 penditures abolished. Such expenditures are enormously 
 to the profit of the European banking business. Nations 
 that participate in the Dreadnaught race must be financed; 
 it is the business of the Interests to finance nations; there- 
 fore, the more Dreadnaughts the more financing. If they 
 so wished these Interests could abolish war to-morrow. 
 Their power upon all the governments of the world is so 
 irresistible that if they were but to raise a hand the 
 armament race would cease and militarism decline. No one 
 that has any conception of the real governing forces of 
 Europe will doubt for a moment that this is so. The 
 Interests do not stop the armament race because it is profit- 
 able to them to have it continue. Hence, it will continue 
 and all the protests and declamations against it are but 
 wasted breath. 
 
 113
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 So long as we maintain the present organization of society 
 we shall have exactly these conditions, and it is right that 
 we should have them. The foundation stone of the present 
 social system is competition; war is the highest and most 
 perfect expression of competition; it is merely competition 
 carried to its normal development. After all, to kill men 
 on the battlefield is not worse than to starve them, or to 
 slaughter them in the dangerous occupations, or to make 
 them drag out wretched lives in the slums. Business com- 
 petition does these things daily, but we shall listen in vain 
 for any particular protest against them. We think war 
 is worse than the silent slaughters now going on in a 
 thousand factories and a thousand slums, but we only think 
 so because there is more fuss made about the noisier battle- 
 field. In point of fact the difference is indiscernible: 
 slaughter is slaughter, however achieved. The essence of 
 the Competitive System is cruelty. In what respect is 
 war more cruel than poverty? Competition steels men's 
 hearts against one another; it makes them indifferent to 
 the suffering of others; it gives them no object in life 
 but gain, and fosters no traits but greed, individual and 
 national. Then, so long as we maintain competition, by 
 what right shall we object to war, which is nothing but 
 competition in its final form? Or if we really desire to 
 abolish war, why not abolish the thing that alone makes 
 war? And if we will not abolish the cause of war, shall 
 we not look rather foolish at Carnegie Hall and elsewhere 
 declaiming vehemently for peace? 
 
 Many persons that hold fast to what is called " the 
 glorious spirit of optimism " and believe we need not be 
 disturbed about the wrong in the world, habitually refer 
 much to the assertion that war is diminishing among men, 
 a statement from which they seem to derive a great and 
 
 114
 
 The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts 
 
 peculiar satisfaction. Perhaps this is a good time to ex- 
 amine for a moment the optimistic philosophy, for here is 
 an admirable specimen of its usual procedure upon half 
 truths and superficial statements. The theory of the de- 
 cline of war has two branches. First, it is said that 
 modern invention and skill have made war so much more 
 terrible and costly that nations will not again engage in 
 it; second, that the improved modern spirit has so much 
 softened the horrors of war that we can hope for a time 
 when this process of amelioration shall abolish it altogether 
 or perhaps reduce it to a game of basketball. You will 
 at once observe that the two branches of the theory do 
 not cohere, and I should in fairness explain that the two 
 are not usually held by the same optimist; some optimists 
 hold to one and some to the other. But the general idea 
 is that war is gradually ceasing among us, and in the course 
 of time perhaps a million years it will have wholly dis- 
 appeared. Therefore, why worry? 
 
 But has the attitude of the nations toward war really 
 undergone much of a change? War costs more than once 
 it cost of Pietro's money that is true; to fire one great 
 gun costs now almost as much as once a battle cost. But 
 assuredly the great guns are very much more destructive 
 than the guns of former years, and neither their increased 
 cost nor their increased destructiveness has deterred the 
 nations from gathering large supplies of them, nor did 
 these considerations for one moment hold back Japan and 
 Russia from flying at each other with some of the greatest 
 guns ever made. We get the impression that war is de- 
 tested by the governing powers because kaisers and kings 
 are constantly uttering platitudinous sentiments in favor 
 of peace, while they are unceasingly preparing for war. 
 Such protestations as theirs have (with the assertions of 
 
 115
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 the optimists) resounded for generations about this earth, 
 filling every breathing space between war and war and being 
 without other meaning. When we reflect that from 1837 to 
 the present time Great Britain has fought more than two 
 hundred campaigns, and that there has hardly passed a 
 day when some of the great civilized nations were not 
 making war upon somebody the optimistic vision seems 
 much impaired. Observe the dates of some of the great 
 wars of recent times, and see if they indicate that war is 
 decreasing: 
 
 1856 Crimean war: France, England, Turkey, and Sar- 
 dinia against Russia. 
 
 1859 France and Sardinia against Austria. 
 
 1861-5 Civil war in America. 
 
 1866 Prussia against Austria. 
 
 1870 United Germany against France. 
 
 1877 Russia against Turkey. 
 
 1894 Japan against China. 
 
 1897 Turkey against Greece. 
 
 1898 United States against Spain. 
 
 1899-1902 Great Britain against the Boers. 
 
 1904-5 Japan against Russia. 
 
 1909 Spain against the Riffians. 
 
 This seems to dispose of the theory that war is ceasing 
 on earth or becoming infrequent; and yet this is a very 
 inadequate list of the world's disturbances, for it takes 
 no account of the incessant campaigning of the Europeans 
 against the brown and yellow men, of the wars of Great 
 Britain in the Indian peninsula, in the Soudan, in Burma, 
 against the Maoris, against the Chinese, against the Zulus; 
 of the campaigns of France in Tonkin, of Holland in Java, 
 of Italy in Abyssinia, of Germany in South Africa, the 
 
 116
 
 The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts 
 
 wars of the South American states, and lesser conflicts 
 of which the list is endless. 
 
 The truth is that, while we are holding peace conferences, 
 peace jubilees, and peace dinners, congratulating ourselves 
 on the decline of war and the prospect (somewhat afar, 
 it is admitted) of universal amity, the sounds of conflict 
 go on unceasing, and the nations rest not but increase 
 their preparations to cut one another's throats. 
 
 As to the diminished cruelty of war methods, that seems 
 on examination an idea equally fallacious. In the old days 
 the lines of battle rushed together and men hewed at one 
 another with their swords. To the optimistic mind that 
 seems very terrible; it is so much more refined to stand 
 off six miles and blow one another to pieces with lyddite 
 shells or mow down our enemies with the Maxim auto- 
 matics. But however barbarous the custom may seem of 
 seizing your enemy by the beard and striking at him with 
 a sword, it was very much less dangerous to him than to 
 blow him up with a mine or to riddle him with Mausers. In 
 other words, the manner of the thing has been refined; the 
 essence of it is worse. 
 
 I question much if any of the correspondents that fol- 
 lowed the Russo-Japanese war are enthusiastic supporters of 
 the theory that modern war has been humanized: the things 
 they saw seem to have made another impression upon such 
 of the correspondents as I have been privileged to talk 
 with. I was in Japan just after the close of the war, and 
 saw some of the remains of Japanese soldiers brought 
 home for burial, an arm or a foot or a cap (being all 
 that could be found after the shell exploded), and there 
 was nothing about these spectacles that appealed much 
 to one's senses as remarkably humane. There is no way, 
 so far as I have been able to learn, by which war can 
 
 117
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 be made anything but infinitely horrible in all its stages 
 and phases; General Sherman's definition of it remains 
 absolutely correct after all these years of what are called 
 humane inventions for the speedy making of widows and 
 orphans; and there still remains unchallenged the hideous 
 indictment that for this also the system called Capitalism 
 is responsible. 
 
 And yet even war is doomed with the system that pro- 
 duces it; not by foolish, mouthing Hague Conferences, 
 nor by the resounding platitudes of Carnegie Hall, but 
 by something of far greater importance to the human race 
 than all the peace conferences that have ever assembled. 
 
 I shall, for two reasons, paraphrase from Mr. London's 
 " The Iron Heel " the illustration of the standard theory 
 of the unconsumed surplus, first, because it is there set forth 
 as clearly and as concisely as it can possibly be framed in 
 words, and then because any other attempt at a brief 
 statement of the principle involved must seem like an in- 
 fringement upon Mr. London's work. 
 
 Let us put the matter in this way: 
 
 Take the United States of America as a fair type of 
 the modern developed nation. We produce in the United 
 States annually, let us say, four billion dollars of wealth 
 of all kinds farm products, manufactured articles, and 
 what not. Now the wage earners of the country, who 
 compose about 85 per cent, of the population, receive in 
 wages and salaries approximately two billion dollars a 
 year. Obviously, then, they can consume each year no 
 more than two billion dollars' worth of the produced wealth, 
 because certainly they cannot buy more than the amount 
 represented by their total income. This leaves 50 per cent, 
 of the wealth to be consumed by 15 per cent, of the 
 population. Of course such consumption is impossible, 
 
 118
 
 The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts 
 
 and there is left every year a bulk of unconsumed products 
 amounting to not far from one-half of the whole. 
 
 This unconsumed surplus we ship abroad, chiefly in the 
 form of grain, meat, cattle, and manufactures. There it 
 is exchanged into the unconsumed surpluses of other coun- 
 tries, because nearly all of the nations of Europe are in 
 the same condition that we are in: that is to say, they 
 are producing more than they consume and every year 
 each of them has an unconsumed surplus of which she 
 must dispose. Thus the unconsumed wheat of America 
 may be exchanged into the unconsumed cloth of Great 
 Britain, or the unconsumed wine of France, or the un- 
 consumed oranges of Italy, or the unconsumed steel of 
 Germany; but it is still an unconsumed product, and in 
 one shape or another it goes about the world until it 
 reaches a country that consumes more than she produces, 
 and there it is finally consumed. Against this consumption 
 are issued the evidences of debt, that is to say, bonds, 
 which are transferred to a nation that had an unconsumed 
 surplus, and where the financiers operate profitably with 
 them. 
 
 All this is quite clear and very well. But the trouble 
 is that the number of these countries that consume more 
 than they produce is steadily diminishing, because they 
 are the undeveloped countries, and all undeveloped coun- 
 tries tend to become developed. Thus, for a long time 
 the countries of South America, Argentina, Brazil, Chili, 
 and so on were excellent consuming countries and dis- 
 posed annually of much surplus from the European circuit. 
 Within the last few years several of these countries have 
 been developed so that their capacity as surplus consumers 
 has almost vanished. Japan was for many years a grand 
 place in which to dump our surplus products; she has 
 
 119
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 now surplus products of her own to dump upon other peo- 
 ple. As fast as a country becomes developed she ceases 
 to consume the surpluses of other nations and begins to 
 produce a surplus of her own to the growing perplexity 
 and distress of the world. 
 
 This process has already had some remarkable results 
 and some very instructive illustrations well worth attention 
 on their own account. For example, it renders perfectly 
 clear certain eccentricities of foreign policy otherwise 
 merely hopeless riddles. The real concern about the 
 awakening of China is not lest she should overrun Europe 
 with her armed hordes, which is merely a fantastic dream 
 of the war-makers, but lest she should cease to consume 
 the surplus products of Europe and America and begin 
 to produce a surplus of her own. Therefore, the whole 
 of our uproar about " the open door " in China (a thing 
 in which we had ostensibly not the least interest in the 
 world) had in view this contingency, and nothing else. 
 " The open door " was to let in the surplus products of 
 civilization already seriously threatened by advancing de- 
 velopment in so many countries. 
 
 Because the number of undeveloped countries where sur- 
 pluses can be dumped is strictly Mmited; no more new 
 worlds can be discovered; and there is impending a situa- 
 tion that ought to cause the gravest concern to every person 
 that believes in the existing order of things. 
 
 A little incident that occurred in the year of grace, 
 1909, and passed almost unremarked, contained an ex- 
 pression of the whole situation. One of the notable 
 phases of the awakening of China is the development of 
 an ability to finance, organize, build, and operate railroads 
 without European assistance. The construction of the Can- 
 ton-Hankow line in this manner was a fact extremely dis- 
 
 120
 
 The Men Behind the Dreadnaughts 
 
 agreeable to European financial interests; it looked too 
 ominous. At the beginning of last year China was 
 ready to launch similarly the new Hankow-Szechuan rail- 
 road. At this the European and American bankers went 
 to the extraordinary length of protesting. They wanted 
 some of the good bonds that would necessarily be issued 
 for the work. I know of nothing that gives a better notion 
 of the international pact of the Moneyed Interests and the 
 tremendous power it exerts than the fact that President 
 Taft was induced to send a personal telegram to the Regent 
 of China asking that American capital be admitted to the 
 enterprise. The Chinese government seems to have 
 yielded, as it generally yields to foreign pressure, but not 
 with very good grace, for it has evidently adopted a policy 
 that will exclude foreign exploitation. We have in the 
 past counted much on this Chinese habit of yielding. Un- 
 less the present Chinese activities are very deceptive, the 
 time is not far off when China will cease to yield. And 
 about that time look out for squalls. Sixty years ago 
 Great Britain thought it but fun to force upon China with 
 guns and battleships the surplus opium product of India. 
 You may have noticed that when in 1907 China renewed 
 the exclusion of opium, Great Britain did not care to 
 go to war over this loss of surplus consumption. 
 
 Other signs multiply upon him that will take notice. 
 It is most significant that at the time when the previously 
 undeveloped countries are ceasing to consume our sur- 
 pluses a great wave of business depression sweeps over 
 all the surplus producing countries ; there is loud complaint 
 of the accumulation of the unconsumed surplus, and pro- 
 duction is retarded everywhere until consumption can catch 
 up with production. It is the first time this has happened 
 around the world; it cannot have happened without a 
 
 121
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 cause. For the time being the closing of factories and 
 the restriction of hours of work avail much toward the 
 restoring of the balance, although at a heavy cost of suf- 
 fering; but the fatal fact is that exactly this situation is 
 certain to recur more and more frequently as the field of 
 surplus consumption continues to narrow. Some time, per- 
 haps only a generation hence, all the nations of the 
 earth will be surplus producing countries, and there will 
 be no corner in which they can get rid of their surpluses. 
 The present system of production will then, of course, 
 break down. By no conceivable chance can it continue 
 when there is no consumption of its surplus, because it is 
 from the consumption of the surplus that capital draws 
 the profits that alone are the occasion of its existence. 
 When these profits are abolished Capitalism is abolished, 
 and the world will necessarily pass to a new basis of in- 
 dustry. And when Capitalism is abolished, war, poverty, 
 destitution, slums, insufficiency, most of the crime, and 
 much of the disease in the world will be abolished also. 
 
 The only question is, since these things are inevitable 
 in the process of time, why should we wait until at an 
 enormous cost in suffering and lives the doomed and 
 wretched system works out its own destruction? Why not 
 end it now? From its inception it has wrought upon 
 earth only fathomless evil. All other sorrows that afflict 
 mankind parting, disease, the chances of accident, and the 
 perils of the elements are less than this one black curse, 
 for the sake of which the majority of men live in darkness 
 and pain. 
 
 122
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TWO TYPICAL WARS 
 
 In May, 1900, I was at Exeter, England. Going into 
 the hotel one morning I was closely followed by the post- 
 man; him a pleasant- faced young woman ran eagerly to 
 meet. As I stepped upon the stairs I heard behind me 
 a poignant cry and turned to see the young woman's 
 body falling to the floor as if she had been struck with 
 a hammer. She was quite unconscious when we got to 
 her, and when she was revived it was to go into hysteria. 
 At intervals that night and afterward her sobbing re- 
 sounded through the hotel, and when I came back next 
 year I was not astonished to find that she was dead. It 
 was her brother in South Africa they were two orphans, 
 alone in the world; he had been shot dead in a charge, 
 and the word of it had stretched out a great fist and 
 bludgeoned her to death in England. 
 
 One woman's sorrow. I know it seems foolish to weigh 
 that against the mighty purposes of great empires. It 
 is from blood and tears and the crushing of lives that 
 empires are always built, and in no other way. Would 
 you have us desist from the building of empires because 
 of a few ruined lives? To build empires is the grandest 
 object of the human race, and justifies any means. God 
 knows what good they do in this His world, nor why we 
 should look upon them with pride; but empire builders 
 
 123
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 we must be. Therefore, let the women weep, and the 
 building go on. 
 
 You go about England now and see in all the parish 
 churches, and in the 'cathedrals, and in St. Paul's, and here 
 and there, fresh brass tablets, " Sacred to the Memory of 
 Captain Henry Sanderson, late of His Majesty's th 
 Regiment, who fell gallantly fighting at Spion Kop," and 
 the like. And every one of these is cemented and sealed 
 and bathed in tears and blood. " Sacred to the memory 
 
 of , who died of enteric at Bloomfontein " 
 
 " who died of enteric at Cape Town " " who died of 
 enteric " somewhere else. It is a very ghastly showing. 
 All young men, no doubt; bright, able, capable young men, 
 or they would not be officers in the army; all laying their 
 lives and the tribute of so much sorrow on this one altar 
 of empire. 
 
 What was it all about, and what was gained by all these 
 butcheries in the field, and these terrible death rolls in 
 the enteric hospitals, and these so many homes of England 
 made wretched? What was the harvest of so much sorrow? 
 What good did it do? 
 
 Not long after that scene in Exeter I went up to London. 
 We got news one morning of the triumphal entry into 
 Pretoria. Before noon there were signs of a public demon- 
 stration, buildings blossoming with bunting, men ceasing 
 to work, and people trooping idly along the streets. I 
 had an errand to old St. Saviour's, Southwark. About 
 three o'clock I started to return. With difficulty I made 
 my way across London Bridge. The 'buses were already 
 off the streets. No cab was in sight. The bridgeway was 
 filled with a dense mob that shouted, shrieked, and danced 
 in glee, tearing off one another's hats and coats, drinking 
 from bottles, red-faced and mad-eyed and libidinous, beat- 
 
 124.
 
 Two Typical Wars 
 
 ing one another with bunches of feathers, laughing im- 
 moderately at nothing, already more than half drunk, and 
 dangerous. At the Middlesex end of the bridge I saw 
 that further progress in the main thoroughfares was im- 
 possible; to the end of one's vision in any direction there 
 was a sea of faces, packed in the streets where all vehicular 
 traffic was abandoned; an insensate crowd howling with 
 mad delight, and many already unable to care for them- 
 selves. I steered off to the left and threaded one side 
 street after another, even then not wholly safe. At inter- 
 vals I would have a glimpse of Cannon Street, Ludgate 
 Hill, or Fleet Street, and could see something of the 
 antics of the mob, and all the time went up the roar 
 of a million voices. Sometimes a detachment of the cele- 
 brators would dash into a side street, seize a cab, hurl 
 the driver to the pavement, and, climbing upon the vehicle, 
 parade with it to and fro. If there were a passenger 
 he might follow the cabman, or if he protested his clothes 
 might be torn from him, or his face covered with filth. 
 
 The crowds and the furious merriment increased as night 
 came on. All the way from London Bridge to Piccadilly 
 Circus and beyond the streets were impassable. Men and 
 women rolled in the gutter, helplessly drunk. Bottles 
 passed from hand to hand in the crowd. Piccadilly Circus 
 was jammed with people and deafening with uproar. Be- 
 fore long the fountain in the center was covered with the 
 rags of clothes torn from persons that the mob had made 
 the objects of its rough humor. There was little sleep any- 
 where in London that night; the noise resounded to the 
 suburbs ; it was estimated that a million persons were drunk. 
 
 Surely it must have been a great and marvelous triumph 
 to call forth such great, if somewhat disorderly joy, and 
 to be celebrated with such unusual and vehement enthusi- 
 
 125
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 asm. The celebrators must have gained an enormous ad- 
 vantage, some important cause must have gone forward, the 
 poor wretches that dwell in the slums of Stepney and 
 Shoreditch must have perceived at last something of hope 
 and the promise of release from their torments. They 
 must have seen that in the conquest of Pretoria they had 
 won something; their interests had in some way been at 
 stake, and now they had triumphed. 
 
 How well founded such a view would be we can readily 
 see if we review the history of this war, interesting in itself, 
 and forever memorable as the perfect example of the origin 
 of modern warfare. 
 
 Back of every government in the world (under the pres- 
 ent system) is a power seldom seen but always at work, 
 much stronger and more subtle than any government, a 
 power that we usually recognize by the name of the Finan- 
 cial Interests. What we mean by that term is the great 
 power of accumulated capital that resides in the world's 
 leading banks. These banks necessarily exercise a potent 
 influence upon the affairs of men, because they control the 
 supply of money without which (under the present system) 
 business is impossible. The men that manipulate this 
 money supply find it a source of great profit, and as 
 the profits increase their power also grows to make more 
 profits. 
 
 A great part of this power of money control has for 
 generations resided in England. Within the last thirty 
 years it has seemed to the men possessing this control, 
 and particularly to those in England, that their interests 
 would be furthered if the world had a single monetary 
 standard. They have, therefore, induced all the civilized 
 nations, one after another, to demonetize silver and adopt 
 gold as the one standard of value. 
 
 126
 
 Two Typical Wars 
 
 This greatly simplified the control of the money supply, 
 and reduced it to comparatively few hands. It happened 
 that with few exceptions the great gold fields of the world 
 belonged to Great Britain or to the United States, and it 
 was English and American bankers that were most con- 
 cerned about securing the single monetary standard. Aus- 
 tralia, New Zealand, British Columbia, British Honduras, 
 British Guiana, Burma, were British territory; the gold 
 fields of California, Nevada, Alaska, South Dakota, be- 
 longed to the United States. The world's supply of silver 
 was widely distributed, and much of it was in regions 
 where it could not easily be controlled, as in South Amer- 
 ica and Mexico, where the people had on historic occa- 
 sions shown a resentment against European interference. 
 But the gold supply lay largely in the countries I have 
 named, and these were either British or American. When, 
 therefore, the world went upon a gold basis it was obliged 
 to come for its gold supply mainly to British or American 
 sources, and of these the British were preponderating. 
 To this there was one great and notable exception. The 
 rich gold deposits of South Africa lay in the territory 
 of the Transvaal, or South African Republic, although they 
 were worked almost entirely with British capital. 
 
 There was another matter that was both a cause and 
 a convenient excuse for the trouble that followed. The 
 Transvaal was a country of the Boers, a religious, liberty- 
 loving, and agricultural people that cared little for gold 
 hunting and desired only their freedom and to possess 
 their homes in peace. They looked with disfavor on the 
 methods pursued by the British companies, and made laws 
 strictly regulating the mining processes. These laws were 
 regarded by the mine owners (who were financed and 
 controlled by the Interests) as irksome because they re- 
 
 127
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 duced profits and interfered with dividends. The Re- 
 public sought to derive revenue from the gold that was 
 being taken from its soil, and these exactions were a further 
 source of annoyance to the companies. One tax was 
 in the shape of the government ownership of the dynamite 
 industry whereby the price of dynamite (an indispensable 
 requisite in mining) was enhanced. The mine owners took 
 the position that they ought to be allowed to buy their 
 dynamite wherever they pleased. If a man in France, 
 Austria, or Italy should assume a like attitude in regard 
 to his purchases of tobacco, or should denounce the gov- 
 ernment of Italy, for instance, as an intolerable tyranny 
 because it carried on the country's tobacco trade, he would 
 be regarded as a kind of maniac; but a great part of 
 the British press took very seriously the mine owners' 
 protests against the Transvaal's dynamite monopoly. 
 
 A still more troublesome matter was the government's 
 regulations in regard to labor, which were so drawn that 
 Kaffirs (the lowest type of natives) could not be employed 
 in the mines. This, as it effectually prevented any cheap 
 labor and greatly increased the cost of mining while it de- 
 creased the dividends, was the mine owners' chief grievance, 
 although it was the grievance of which for certain reasons 
 they said the least in public. To explain why the Boers 
 opposed cheap or Kaffir labor I should have to tell the 
 story of the Kimberly mines, and the famous incident 
 of " David's bones," which would lead us too far astray, 
 and probably be unnecessary. Anyone that knows the 
 horrors of Kimberly will readily understand what was also 
 involved here. 
 
 The Financial Interests, therefore, had two reasons for 
 desiring the Transvaal Republic to be abolished. The 
 Republic was an outsider in the control of the gold supply, 
 
 128
 
 Two Typical Wars 
 
 and it made mining expensive to the companies that the 
 Interests had financed. It was, of course, but natural 
 that the Interests should force the hand of the British 
 Government to work its will; natural, and not difficult. 
 The same or similar Interests had never failed to coerce 
 any government. In this instance, the first thing that the 
 situation demanded was that the British people should be 
 deceived and their minds inflamed against the Boers; for 
 in England a government cannot usually last very long if 
 it has not the support of the people. Accordingly, through 
 the part of the press that the Interests directly controlled, 
 the people were led to believe that the Boers were very 
 ignorant, besotted, arrogant people, half savage, and in- 
 tolerably oppressive of the British. Looking back now 
 it is easy to see every step in these adroitly managed 
 manoeuvres, and the outcome is most natural and instructive. 
 
 In December, 1895, an adventurer named Jameson or- 
 ganized a band of his countrymen in a British territory 
 adjoining the Transvaal and made a raid into the Re- 
 public, hoping to capture it. There is good reason to 
 believe he was not acting without the connivance of his 
 government, although ostensibly he was merely a filibuster. 
 The Boers defeated Jameson and took him prisoner. Under 
 the rules of nations they might justly have shot him. With 
 great magnanimity they turned him over to Great Britain 
 for trial and punishment. The proceedings were chiefly 
 farcical. Jameson was, indeed, found guilty, but he was 
 condemned to a merely nominal imprisonment, from which 
 he was almost immediately released on a ridiculous pre- 
 tense about his health. 
 
 This incident was made use of still further to incense 
 the British mind against the Boers. It was represented 
 that Jameson and his band had merely revolted against 
 
 129
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 a brutal and odious tyranny, that they had made a brave 
 effort for the cause of freedom, and their exploit (however 
 mean and shabby it may now look) was pictured as the 
 brave but unfortunate effort of men sorely beset. Most 
 of the world accepted this balderdash at its face value, 
 with much more of the same sort. For instance, we were 
 daily told that the British in the Transvaal were in the 
 position of the revolting American Colonists under George 
 the Third, that they were contending for the same high 
 principle against similar odds, and that the friends of 
 freedom everywhere should be on their side. No one need 
 now be blamed for the conducting of this campaign of 
 falsehoods, and no one for being deceived by it, since it 
 is an inevitable incident of the present system, and the 
 like of it exists, or may exist, in all parts of the world. 
 The development of the organized news service has now 
 reached such a stage that a single influence can sway or 
 poison the minds of literally millions of readers around 
 the world, and the editors of the very papers thus utilized 
 may be as ignorant as their readers of the contaminated 
 news they are printing. It is like a spring from which 
 all the world daily drinks ; one drop of poison in the foun- 
 tain may infect myriads, and yet no eye behold the hand 
 that manipulates the poison. Since the beginning of the 
 world there has been no such power as this. A paragraph 
 given this morning to the news agencies in London is read 
 within twenty-four hours by millions upon millions of 
 people residing in every civilized country on this globe 
 and speaking every language. It goes successively through 
 the European countries; it is translated into Portuguese 
 and Finnish, Dutch, Turkish, and Russian; it is discussed 
 to-morrow morning in the cafes of Madrid and the cafes 
 of Odessa; it is printed in Cairo and Teheran; it goes 
 
 ISO
 
 Two Typical Wars 
 
 through Siberia to Vladivostok, and by way of Egypt to 
 populous India. It is printed in Cingalese and Burmese; 
 it goes through Australia and New Zealand; it reaches 
 China, and is cried on the streets of Japanese cities. 
 And just as the thought of that paragraph is framed 
 myriads of people will think; they will get from it an 
 opinion that may control destiny. 
 
 Who ordinarily sways this incomparable power? Here 
 is a question well worth every man's pondering. Armies 
 and battleships and forts are nothing compared with this 
 dominion over the thought of civilized mankind. The 
 mind that can sway this force is the emperor of the world. 
 No other empire ever established or dreamed of is fit to 
 be mentioned with this. Day by day it can make history 
 what it will, inform the world or delude it, stop progress 
 or accelerate it. And as to the hands in which it chiefly 
 lies and the cause in which it is commonly exerted you 
 can see very plainly from this chapter of history. From 
 the beginning to the end of the incident the news sources 
 were so cleverly controlled on behalf of the Interests that 
 the sympathies of much of the world were perverted. 
 
 In 1899 the British government took up more seriously 
 the so-called grievances of British residents in the Trans- 
 vaal, and particularly the question of naturalization. At 
 that time the naturalization of foreigners was achieved after 
 nine years of residence, but any foreigner might be natural- 
 ized at any time if he performed a meritorious service for 
 the Republic. The British demanded that the probationary 
 term be shortened. In response, the Boers, who seem 
 throughout the whole controversy to have borne themselves 
 with singular patience, made many concessions. Nothing 
 seemed to satisfy the British representatives and at last 
 they demanded that British subjects in the Transvaal should 
 
 131
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 be admitted to the franchise without foreswearing their 
 allegiance to Great Britain. 
 
 At this, of course, there was an end of negotiation. No 
 government on earth could grant any such demand and 
 retain its own existence. What was really asked was that 
 the Transvaal government should surrender itself to Great 
 Britain and sign its own death warrant. President Kruger 
 said with memorable and pathetic dignity, " I see that noth- 
 ing will satisfy you but the destruction of my country." 
 Soon after the war began. None of the facts about the 
 true nature of the negotiations was known to the world 
 until long afterward. 
 
 The war continued three years. Its cost to Great Britain 
 was one billion dollars in money, an appalling sacrifice of 
 young lives, and a blow to her military prestige from which 
 she has not yet recovered and may never recover. Although 
 enormously outnumbered from the beginning the Boers 
 fought with a courage and devotion that deservedly won 
 them the world's praise. No more stirring spectacle was 
 ever afforded of outnumbered men battling for their coun- 
 try; it was worthy of the Greeks at their best, of the 
 Swiss when they stood forth against Austria, or of the 
 Dutch against Philip the Second. In the end, when the 
 Boers were reduced to guerilla bands in the mountains, 
 the British confined the Boer women and children in 
 reconcentrado camps similar to those established by Weyler 
 in Cuba. Then the Boer men came in and surrendered. 
 
 It is rather odd to reflect that here in America we pro- 
 tested vehemently against reconcentrado camps in Cuba, 
 but seemed to think reconcentrado camps in South Africa 
 were quite admirable. Yet this is not the only point in 
 our national conduct whereon we are judged harshly by 
 the surviving Boers. If the statements made to me by 
 
 132
 
 Two Typical Wars 
 
 a former Boer leader have any truth, one of the strongest 
 hopes on which the Boers based their cause was of the 
 moral support of the United States. They argued, he said, 
 that the United States was a republic, that its sympathies 
 would naturally be with a sister republic oppressed by a 
 monarchy, that the Americans had assisted the Cubans to 
 win their liberty, and had previously helped many feeble 
 nations struggling against heavy odds. They were amazed 
 and bitterly hurt when they found that instead of assist- 
 ing them the government of the United States actively 
 helped Great Britain. It was of no use to tell him that 
 popular sympathy in America was with the Boers; all he 
 could recognize was the undeniable fact that officially Amer- 
 ica helped Great Britain. He said that at any moment 
 between the pressing of the British demands and the sur- 
 render of Cronje a quiet word from the United States 
 would have ended the contest and kept the Boer republic 
 intact. The government of the United States had refused 
 to say that word and the republic had been sacrificed. It 
 was not from ignorance that the American government had 
 adopted this policy; there was something else at work 
 that the Boer envoys in America found an impassable bar- 
 rier whenever they sought an official hearing, the same 
 mysterious and subtle power that always defeated the re- 
 solutions of sympathy offered in Congress, and seemed to 
 drive the government along a course wholly repugnant to 
 American traditions and the will of the people. 
 
 This Boer leader dwelt at length upon the readiness of 
 America to interfere in behalf of Cuba and its cooperation 
 with Great Britain against the Boers as facts absolutely 
 contradictory. He did not know that in the one case Capi- 
 tal, represented by American investments in Cuba and the 
 interests of the Sugar Trust, happened to be on the side of 
 
 133
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 the Cubans, and in the other case, represented by the 
 Moneyed Interests, it was wholly on the side of the British; 
 and that in these instances, as in so many others, govern- 
 ment in the hands of Capital was a puppet. 
 
 When all was over in South Africa the Transvaal and 
 the Orange Free State were formally annexed to Great 
 Britain. Then the mining companies, being made free to 
 employ as much cheap labor as they pleased, imported 
 great numbers of Chinese coolies and increased their divi- 
 dends. 
 
 This was the victory that the people of London were 
 celebrating; it was for the sake of those dividends that 
 the young woman at Exeter was stricken down, for their 
 sake that so many English homes were darkened, for their 
 sake the enteric death lists, the graves on the veldt, 
 and the burdens of debt that the English toilers must 
 pay. 
 
 These facts, long concealed by the controlled or inspired 
 press, began slowly to reach the popular intelligence. The 
 armies of imported Chinese coolies on the Rand began to 
 be a public scandal. People inquired where these obvious 
 slaves were purchased, and why. Ugly questions were 
 asked in Parliament; the news control could not prevent 
 the situation from becoming apparent. When the masses 
 of people anywhere understand any cause they never fail 
 to do justice, and yet I cannot help thinking that the 
 frankness and thoroughness with which the people of Great 
 Britain acknowledged their error and the sweeping manner 
 of its reparation did them infinitely more honor than any 
 victory ever won by British arms. They made this war 
 for cheap labor a direct issue, and drove it home without 
 flinching. They hurled from power the men that had been 
 responsible for this chapter of shame, they insisted upon 
 
 134
 
 Two Typical Wars 
 
 a sharp reversal of policy in South Africa, they elected 
 thirty-one Socialists to Parliament, and they installed the 
 most radical government their country has ever had, and 
 one whose achievements for the poorest part of the com- 
 munity are likely to set examples to the world. 
 
 But no change of parties or administrations could abolish 
 the evil fruits of that contest. " Consequences are un- 
 pitying." On the additional public debt the workers con- 
 tinue to pay the interest, and will continue to pay it, 
 this year, next year, all the years of their lives. Their 
 children will pay it after them, and their children's chil- 
 dren. They will pay it many times over, and in many 
 ways, that billion dollars it cost to augment the mine 
 owners' dividends, cheapen labor in South Africa, and 
 complete the control by the Interests of the world's gold 
 supply. With their labor and sweat the workingmen of 
 Great Britain will pay for a war the object of which was 
 to cheapen labor. The men that got the enhanced divi- 
 dends and the men that got the control of the gold supply 
 did not pay for the war. The workingmen paid for all 
 of it. That was what they were cheering about that night 
 in London. Some of the workingmen went to the Trans- 
 vaal and took active part in the war, and were shot, or 
 died of enteric fever, in order that labor might be cheapened 
 and dividends increased. They left their wives and chil- 
 dren to give up their lives in that cause. And that is 
 what their brethren were cheering about. 
 
 This is what war is in these times, and this is why at 
 such ruinous cost we maintain armaments and build battle- 
 ships. The workingmen pay for all. No workingmen of 
 one country ever want to make war on the workingmen 
 of another country. If let alone the workingmen of one 
 country would be glad to have the workingmen of another 
 
 135
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 country live in peace and be happy. It is always the 
 capitalists that make war and involve nations in quarrels. 
 Then they drive or induce the workingmen to go up to the 
 firing line and kill, or be killed, until the war is decided ; 
 whereupon the cost of it is presented for the surviving 
 workingmen to pay. 
 
 In order to prevent workingmen from perceiving the 
 huge folly of this arrangement, it is customary to arouse 
 periodical spasms of patriotic fervor, to picture the Ger- 
 man Emperor as about to descend upon England, or the 
 Czar about to capture India, or Japan about to hurl her 
 hosts against the United States. The outcome of each of 
 these spasms is an increased expenditure for armament 
 and battleships, which the workingmen must pay. And all 
 the time the fact is perfectly apparent to any observation 
 that the German Emperor will not descend upon England 
 except with German workingmen, and the Czar will not 
 capture India without Russian workingmen, and the only 
 hosts that Japan can hurl against the United States are 
 composed of Japanese workingmen. And if any of these 
 improbable events should happen, the invading armies of 
 workingmen would be met by other armies of workingmen, 
 the blood that would drench the earth would be the blood 
 of workingmen, the widows and orphans that would be 
 made would be chiefly the widows and orphans of working- 
 men, the limbs that would be amputated in the field hos- 
 pitals would be chiefly the limbs of workingmen. So that 
 unless the workingmen can be deceived and inflamed against 
 one another, unless they can be made in some way to think 
 that they have some interest in these international brawls 
 there will be no war. But as a matter of fact, the working- 
 men cannot have the slightest interest or concern in such 
 conflicts, they never gain aught from them except heavier 
 
 136
 
 Two Typical Wars 
 
 burdens and a more wretched condition; in no conceivable 
 respect is the war any concern of theirs, but only the 
 concern of the capitalists, as it was in South Africa, and 
 as it is or yesterday it was in Morocco. 
 
 Day after day we read of the battles between the Spanish 
 troops and the Moroccans; about the desperate valor of 
 the Spanish, the dead and wounded they count, or 
 about the sufferings of the troops in the field. What is 
 it all about? Why are all these men engaged in killing 
 one another? Not one hint of the real cause is allowed 
 to be made public; the news vouchsafed to the world is 
 that it is a quarrel growing out of the attempt of Spain 
 to police Morocco, in accordance with the international 
 agreement of 1905. The real cause, perfectly well known 
 behind the scenes in every European capital, is that the 
 Interests of Spain have made certain investments in Mo- 
 rocco; they seek those profits and returns that under the 
 present system of the world we have decreed for invest- 
 ments; the native rulers stand in the way of these profits. 
 Hence the Interests compel the Spanish government to 
 make war upon the native rulers, and thousands of Spanish 
 workingmen are sent off to perish in the desert. What 
 concern is it of theirs? Why should they give up their 
 lives ? 
 
 Their brethren in Spain begin to ask this question ; their 
 widows ask it, when the news comes that they are dead. 
 The people resent the sacrifices they are making for the 
 Interests; they rise against the government that has thus 
 betrayed them. Then the government places guns in the 
 square of Barcelona and by the thousand mows down the 
 workingmen and workingwomen. This happens in 1909, 
 and when the revolting people have been killed, imprisoned, 
 or overawed, the governments of some other countries are 
 
 137
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 manifestly relieved, and the war in Morocco is prosecuted 
 with renewed vigor. 
 
 All with workingmen; these things are always done with 
 and at the expense of workingmen. The capitalists that 
 make the wars never take part in them, and never pay 
 for them; the working classes that are fooled into going 
 forth to shoot at one another are also fooled into paying 
 all the bills of the shooting. Some day, it is to be sup- 
 posed, the workingmen will weary of being fooled and 
 being shot at. Then they will put an end to these pleasant 
 games. The way that they will end them is by ending 
 the system of which the games are an integral and in- 
 separable part. 
 
 For at all times, and in all places, and under all condi- 
 tions, Capitalism is War. 
 
 138
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A NOTE ABOUT POVERTY 
 
 I have enough to eat, enough to wear, enough of light 
 and fresh air, something of recreation, something of leisure. 
 All the persons in my street, and almost all the persons that 
 I see about me day after day, have enough to eat, enough 
 to wear, and are comfortably housed. I go through a resi- 
 dence street from my place of abode to the places where I 
 transact business or seek amusement, and then from the 
 places where I seek amusement or transact business to 
 my place of abode, and all the persons I meet seem to 
 have enough to eat, enough to wear, enough of light and 
 fresh air, and to be physically comfortable. Year in and 
 year out, unless I go to seek them, I shall see practically no 
 persons that do not have enough to eat, enough to wear, 
 and are not comfortably housed; for so is the world ar- 
 ranged. If by any rare chance one gaunt face or ill- 
 nourished form crosses my path I may tell myself that 
 this person is intemperate, or improvident, or of ill-life. 
 I may say so with reasonable assurance, because I and 
 all others in my walk of life are repeatedly assured by 
 persons of some experience that this is the case. I am 
 assured, for instance, that if there are any beggars in the 
 world, they are beggars by choice, and not necessity; if 
 any men have not labor, it is their own fault, since there 
 is work enough for all ; that if in odd and unvisited corners 
 destitution may lurk, this is no concern of mine, nor of 
 
 139
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 any others like me, but merely a condition the destitute 
 have brought upon themselves. In this fair land of ours 
 opportunity is equal for all; if a man be smart and alert, 
 he shall win a competence; if he be not smart and alert, 
 his defects be upon his own head; we that are smart and 
 alert have no responsibility for him. This is a beautiful 
 world, and most things are now arranged as they ought 
 to be; whatever slight changes may be needed will be 
 provided as we go along by the wise and the good, to 
 whom we shall commit our affairs. 
 
 Something to this effect echoes about us at all times, 
 as we walk to and fro in pleasant places. And yet, the 
 truth is that the world, as at present constituted, is a 
 pleasant or even a tolerable place for only the minority 
 of the persons that live in it. Poverty and insufficiency 
 are so common that they may be said to be the rule, and 
 sufficiency the exception. We are slow to admit this, be- 
 cause the poverty is crowded out of the path of the for- 
 tunate, who monopolize all the newspapers and most of 
 the books, and other means of knowledge, with information 
 or literature for and about themselves; so that unless we 
 go forth to seek the truth about the state of the earth's 
 children we shall never find it. We may indeed, and 
 probably shall, live out our days in the midst of the 
 truth and never suspect it. Not one in one thousand of 
 fortunate New Yorkers has the slightest conception of 
 the amount of poverty in New York. The typical well- 
 fed New Yorker has no reason to know it. He never 
 sees it. From one year's end to another he has no occa- 
 sion to go near it. Wherever he has occasion to go are 
 well-fed and comfortable people. He inevitably absorbs 
 the impression that most persons must be well-fed and 
 comfortable. He hears from time to time of the great 
 
 140
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 East Side, and of poor people there. He never has the 
 least occasion to mingle with such people. If in all his 
 life he has visited the East Side it has been as a slumming 
 excursion or a lark, and then the people did not seem 
 to him very poor, or very miserable. Of their actual lives 
 or actual condition he has not the vaguest conception. In 
 point of fact, the people of Egypt or of Greece are much 
 more real to him, and it never occurs to him that the suffi- 
 ciency he daily sees about him is only a thin strand, beaten 
 on all sides by a great sea of poverty. 
 
 How many of the well-fed and the well-to-do of London 
 have any knowledge of the conditions of life as it really 
 exists in their city? They go to and fro as the typical 
 New Yorker goes, in the comfortable belief that their 
 class and the other well-fed classes are the majority, and 
 if there are any poor persons they must be few. What 
 is still more remarkable, the tourists and persons that for 
 a time at least make a business of seeing what is to be seen, 
 almost never see life in the mass as it really is. How many 
 American tourists that think and say they know London 
 well, know anything about the poorer regions and the vast 
 East End, in point of population the most important of 
 the city? Year after year, Piccadilly and Regent Street, 
 the Strand and Pall Mall, the theaters, the music halls, 
 the art galleries, and the great shops are the scenery of 
 their daily drama, until they know all these quite well, and 
 London means to them a place of perfectly familiar resort. 
 Yet of the real London, of the swarms of unhappy people 
 that fill mile after mile of the area of the world's metrop- 
 olis, they know nothing. They have had no occasion to 
 know it. Where their path leads there is no sign of it. 
 
 Thus the members of the fortunate class live, as it were, 
 within a walled city, practically unaware of the regions 
 
 14.1
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 beyond, busy with news of their own class, believing their 
 class to be all that is important in the world. These talk 
 much, for example, about general prosperity, and the gen- 
 eral welfare ; what they really mean by these phrases is 
 the prosperity and welfare of those that dwell within the 
 walled city. When what are called " times " are good, 
 and business is prosperous, the dwellers in the walled city 
 are the happier, and possess themselves of the greater 
 luxuries. When " times " are not good, the dwellers in 
 the walled city are the less happy, and possess themselves 
 of the fewer luxuries. That " times " may be good foi 
 them is the object of legislation and governmental anxiety 
 all about the world. Whatever may be the pretense about 
 the matter, the overwhelming majority of men are prac- 
 tically unaffected by the dreaded thing we call " business 
 depression." True, in this vast sea of insufficiency, many 
 men, in a period of such depression, will be deprived of 
 work, and their misery and the misery of their families 
 will be increased; true, in such periods the minority that 
 has sufficiency will be called upon to relieve the necessities 
 of a part of the majority that has insufficiency ; soup kitchens 
 will be established, and many charitable enterprises will 
 be inaugurated. But all this means only a relative con- 
 dition. In times of business depression most of the ma- 
 jority of insufficiency manage to live; not many of them 
 starve to death; and not much more can be said of them 
 in times of business prosperity. At any time, and at all 
 times, they do but manage to live; in the best of times 
 they fall short of some necessities and all the luxuries of 
 life, and in the worst of times their way of life shows 
 that most of the people are either poor or very poor, and 
 the rich, and even the well-to-do, are a small minority. 
 Rich and poor are, of course, somewhat indefinite terms, 
 
 142
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 and it may be thought that this indefiniteness covers some 
 escape from the appalling significance of these facts. Let 
 us understand, then, that by very poor we mean here, first, 
 all persons that are in actual want, those that must be 
 relieved by others, and those that, when they rise in the 
 morning, have no assurance of their day's sustenance; 
 and, second, the larger class whose sustenance each day 
 depends upon their day's employment, and who live, there- 
 fore, divided from imminent hunger by the thin line of 
 one day's earnings. By poor we mean those that, if they 
 were deprived of their daily employment, could still for a 
 short time sustain life. By the well-to-do we mean those 
 that have accumulated competences at least sufficient for 
 their actual support. The rich are those that have fortunes 
 and incomes beyond their daily necessities. It appears, 
 then, that on this reasonable classification poverty is so 
 general in the United States that even in what are called 
 " good times " more than one-tenth of the population is on 
 the starvation line, or below it. 
 
 I have seldom mentioned these facts to any member 
 .of the well-to-do class without eliciting expressions of in- 
 credulity, and yet, that there are in this country at least 
 10,000,000 persons in direst poverty, is a conclusion forced 
 upon every person that contemplates the statistics. In 
 the year 1900, a year of great prosperity (so-called), there 
 were more than 2,000,000 persons recorded as out of work, 
 a fact that alone should be conclusive of the estimate here 
 given. Mr. John Graham Brooks in his book, " The Social 
 Unrest," says that of the 12,500,000 families in the United 
 States, 125,000 families are rich, having each an average 
 wealth of $263,010; 1,3G2,500 families are fairly well off, 
 having each an average wealth of $14,180; 4,762,500 fami- 
 lies are poor, having each an average wealth of $1,639, 
 
 143
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 and 6,250,000 families are very poor, having no wealth at 
 all. No one has ever succeeded in attracting to these 
 figures the least attention from the well-to-do, and yet 
 they are figures of a stupendous import, even to the most 
 complacent and the dullest. If 6,250,000 families in the 
 United States, being one-half of all the families, are so 
 poor that they have no wealth, by what possible right 
 do we refer to this as a prosperous or happy country? And 
 if these vast masses that have no wealth are steadily in- 
 creasing in numbers as the present system continues its 
 unequal distribution of the products of industry, how long 
 is it conceivable that we can continue in security to tra- 
 verse this downward road? 
 
 We have still more to consider on this subject. Sum- 
 marizing the situation by percentages, it appears that so 
 appallingly unequal is the distribution of wealth in our 
 country that one per cent, of the people own 55 per cent, 
 of the wealth, ten per cent, of the people own 32 per 
 cent, of the wealth, 38 per cent, of the people own 13 
 per cent, of the wealth, and the remainder of the people 
 own no wealth at all. And Mr. Charles B. Spahr con- 
 templating this matter from a slightly different point of 
 view, concludes that seven-eighths of the families in the 
 United States own only one-eighth of the wealth of the 
 country, and one per cent, of the families have more wealth 
 than the remaining ninety-nine per cent. Years ago, on 
 the basis of the census of 1890, Mr. George K. Holmes 
 estimated that three-tenths of one per cent, of the families 
 in the United States owned 20 per cent, of the total wealth 
 of the country. If this was the case in 1890, the dis- 
 proportion must be much greater now, because the process 
 of unequal distribution has been much advanced in the last 
 twenty years. 
 
 144
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 According to the census of 1900, less than one-half of 
 all the families in the United States own the homes they 
 live in. In New York, 94 per cent, of the families rent 
 their homes, in Chicago 75 per cent., in smaller cities like 
 Fall River and Holyoke, Mass., from 80 to 82 per cent. 
 Mr. Robert Hunter, for many years a settlement worker, 
 estimates that 99 per cent, of the wage earners in the 
 larger cities are without property, and that a very large 
 majority are in debt. 
 
 Years ago, Mr. Jacob Riis pointed out the astounding 
 fact that one person in ten that died in New York City 
 was buried in the Potter's Field. In eight years, as Mr. 
 Riis showed from the records, 135,595 families in New 
 York City (Manhattan and the Bronx only) were regis- 
 tered as asking for or receiving charity. These families 
 represented a number of persons equal to almost one-third 
 of the total population of the city. The Tenement House 
 Commission of 1900 found facts that corroborated all of 
 Mr. Riis's conclusions. A map of the city was prepared 
 for this Commission, with dots showing the tenement 
 houses from which in five years families had applied 
 for charity, each dot representing five families that 
 had so applied. The result seemed beyond belief. 
 Many of the tenement houses were black with dots, and 
 there was hardly one in the whole city that was not 
 dotted. 
 
 Further light on the same situation is obtained from 
 the statistics about wages. It appears that the average 
 wages of unskilled laborers in the United States is less 
 than $400 a year. In some parts of the country it is 
 $300, or even less. The average earnings of cotton mill 
 operatives (in the South) is less than $250 a year; of an- 
 thracite coal mine workers, less than $500 a year; of 50 
 
 145
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 per cent, of the unskilled labor in shoe factories, less than 
 $300 a year. 
 
 Evidently, then, nothing can be more fallacious than the 
 continual assumption from the platform and in the news- 
 papers that this is a country of general prosperity. In- 
 stead of being a country of general prosperity it is evi- 
 dently a country of general poverty, and unless we can 
 assume that the only purpose of organized society is to 
 provide for the welfare of one-tenth of the population, 
 there can be no escape from the conclusion that there is 
 something radically wrong in this situation. Or, if there 
 be any such escape I shall be gratified to have it called to 
 my attention, either by a champion of the glorious spirit 
 of optimism, or otherwise. 
 
 If, then, in this country that is reputed to be more than 
 ordinarily rich and prosperous, something like one-half of 
 the people live from hand to mouth, and in conditions of 
 practical destitution (conditions, that is, wherein their sup- 
 plies of the natural necessities of food, sunlight, air, and 
 rest are precarious or inadequate), what shall we con- 
 clude to be the conditions in less favored countries? In 
 countries, let us say, where the process of degrading the 
 masses, which always keeps pace (in the present organiza- 
 tion of society) with any country's settlement and develop- 
 ment, has gone farther than it has yet gone in the United 
 States? The present fundamental system of society is new 
 in North America; it can be said to haxe existed here 
 hardly two hundred years. Yet the proportion of poor 
 to rich has increased year after year. In the beginning of 
 the system on this continent there was scarcely any 
 perceptible division into rich and poor; now at least 
 three-fourths of the people are to be classed as poor, or 
 very poor. In other countries, where the same system has 
 
 146
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 existed longer, the proportion of the poor is relatively 
 even larger, and the depth of the poverty is even greater; 
 and we find that, as a general rule, the longer the system 
 has been in uninterrupted working, the larger is the body 
 of the poor and the greater their poverty. To see how 
 this is without reciting a tiresome list of illustrations, we 
 need but compare India, where the system has existed 
 without interruption for at least twenty centuries, with the 
 United States, where it has existed only two. And if we 
 desire to apprehend something of the actual amount of 
 poverty in the world, we should remember the poorer 
 quarters of an American city, and then the similar quarters 
 in London, Hamburg, Naples, or other capitals in Europe; 
 we should think of the toiling peasants and artisans of 
 Europe, and then, turning to the East, reflect that of 
 the people of Egypt, the 300,000,000 of India, and the 
 400,000,000 of China, the vast majority dwell in the utmost 
 destitution and physical discomfort, and a very large num- 
 ber have never known what it is to have even enough 
 to eat. 
 
 It will be found exceedingly difficult to reconcile these 
 facts with any conception of right or natural justice. 
 
 Yet all this time it is obvious that the earth yields enough 
 for the ample support and comfort of all. Nothing can 
 be more certain than that the fruits of the earth are suffi- 
 cient for the children of the earth. Here on this earth 
 are for all enough of light and air, enough of room, enough 
 of labor, and enough of rest; the bountiful earth yields 
 enough of food. If anywhere men have less of the fruits 
 of the earth than they need, this can only be because of 
 some perversion of natural conditions. 
 
 It appears, further, that in this vast class that we have 
 called the majority of insufficiency are included all the 
 
 147
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 persons that create wealth, and practically all the persons 
 that bear the burdens of the community, and here again 
 are highly abnormal conditions. Thus, the men that with 
 the labor of their hands create wealth, do not possess the 
 wealth that they create, but this wealth is possessed by 
 others that did not create it. And all taxes levied for 
 the support of the state are eventually paid by these same 
 men that labor with their hands, notwithstanding that their 
 means are invariably much smaller than the means of more 
 fortunate men, able to shift from their shoulders the burden 
 of taxation. 
 
 Therefore, those that have the least of means bear such 
 disproportionate burdens that, except in very rare instances, 
 they have no chance to be anything but poor; and this 
 remains perfectly true, both in principle and practice, 
 no matter what vaporings we may choose to utter in regard 
 to an equal chance for all. 
 
 Here, again, is a condition that will seem infinitely re- 
 pugnant to the just mind. 
 
 The simple fact that at present all taxes are eventually 
 paid by the man that labors with his hands, although one 
 of the most obvious facts in existence, has, I believe, escaped 
 the attention of some persons. It will become perfectly 
 clear if we follow any present form of taxation from the 
 man that pays the tax into the tax office back to the man 
 or men from whom this taxpayer gets the money to pay 
 the tax, and so from landlord to tenant, from grocer to 
 purchaser, from one purchaser to another, until we come 
 at last to the man that toils with his hands and creates 
 wealth, beyond whom there is nobody to whom the tax 
 can be passed. 
 
 It it customary to defend all these rank injustices or 
 to huddle them out of sight by saying that inequalities of 
 
 148
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 condition are ordained for us; that they are inevitable and 
 incurable, pertaining always to man's life on the earth. 
 This is an argument that never appealed much to me after 
 I had visited the places on the earth where these inequalities 
 had been successfully minimized. 
 
 But first, I desire to go farther into the fundamental 
 basis of the difference between one man's material condi- 
 tion and another's. 
 
 I sat one day in the pretty little garden of the Kursaal 
 at Lugano. The tables set in the shade of the trees were 
 surrounded by well-dressed, well-fed, and happy peo- 
 ple, who were drinking cooling drinks, eating ices, and 
 conversing joyously. The orchestra was playing Rossini's 
 Stabat Mater. Outside, the roadway was dusty, hot, and 
 glaringly white. An Italian laborer came by. He put 
 down the bundle he was carrying, and pressed his face 
 between the iron bars of the fence while he listened. It 
 was a very good face, albeit so reddened by the sun, and 
 from the expression it bore one could see easily that the 
 man appreciated and understood the music he was hearing; 
 he had manifest delight in the sound, he followed with his 
 own thoughts the thought of the composer, which is more 
 than could be said of nine-tenths of the well-dressed per- 
 sons within the garden. Yet between his face and their 
 faces was a difference that went far beyond the fact that 
 he was sunburnt and they were not. His face was scored 
 and carved deep with the marks of heavy toil, and their 
 faces were not; his eyes had a certain look of perpetual 
 fear, and their eyes had not. The sun shone clear upon 
 him as he stood there with his wistful and infinitely pathetic 
 face hard pressed between the bars, and every record of 
 incessant and hopeless toil, and of the terror that haunted 
 him day and night, stood out like legible words. 
 
 149
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 I know nothing about the man's way of life; I never 
 saw him again. But suppose, as there is every reason 
 to believe, he was engaged in useful work, in some form 
 of activity that added to the world's store of the things 
 it needs, that helped to produce food or to provide shelter 
 or to transport products. Evidently that was more than 
 could be said of nine-tenths of us that sat at ease and 
 care free under the trees, drinking cooling drinks, and 
 watching the shadows on the mountains. 
 
 Exactly what is the reason that we should sit there in 
 comfort, and he, covered with dust and maimed with toil, 
 should stand outside with his eager face hard pressed 
 against the bars? 
 
 Again, you may stand in the Tiergarten in Berlin, and 
 here roll by the handsome carriages with jingling harness 
 and liveried footmen. Very comfortable people lounge on 
 the cushions. The women have diamonds and costly dresses ; 
 the men have white soft hands. At one side of the park 
 is a long line of costly palaces, each occupied by some 
 fortunate man that belongs to the minority of sufficiency. 
 They are built of stone brought at great expense from 
 another region; they are inhabited by persons that waste 
 and destroy more than they consume, that cannot possibly 
 expend their incomes, that are overloaded and embarrassed 
 with the surplus of the earth's fruits they have seized for 
 themselves. And on the river there is a barge going slowly 
 by. A man takes a long pole to the bow and drives it 
 down to the bottom of the river, and sets his shoulder to 
 the end. Then he struggles slowly toward the stern, 
 pushing with all his strength upon the pole. On the deck 
 of the barge, inside the gunwale, are crosswise cleats upon 
 which he clings with his feet as he pushes. He crawls 
 slowly along, bent far over, his head below his knees. 
 
 150
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 The weight of the barge pushes his body out of normal 
 shape, he looks like nothing human as he pants along, his 
 head hanging down, his mouth open, his tongue hanging 
 out like a dog's. So, inch by inch, he fights his way to 
 the stern. There he takes his pole from the river and 
 moves forward to the bow again. And you see how his 
 toil has distorted his face and twisted his body, and you 
 look at him and wince. And he takes his pole and limps 
 back to the bow. The birds are singing in the garden, 
 the trees are handsome in the sun, there are vistas down 
 the avenues, somewhere a band is playing. Evidently he 
 sees none of these things and hears none. Birds and green 
 grass and the blessed sun mean nothing to him. Brutal 
 toil has obliterated the sense of them. The handsome 
 carriages go by, full of laughing people; a Prussian officer, 
 brilliantly dressed, rides down the bridle path. You stand 
 there and look at these, and look at the man, bent over 
 his pole, clinging and struggling from cleat to cleat, his 
 head below his knees, his tongue hanging out like a dog's. 
 You reflect that he is still a man, and you wince. 
 
 Exactly what is the reason that I sit at ease in a 
 carriage in the Tiergarten and he wrenches his body on 
 a barge on the Spree? I know that this contrast is typical 
 of universal conditions, that it is the custom and rule of 
 Society; but when all is said, exactly why should it exist? 
 
 In a general way, and speaking here of types and not 
 specifically, or personally, I am told that the reason for 
 this difference and the reason why it is right that I should 
 have ease and he should have only toil, is some difference 
 between his mind and mine. I am capable, he is not; I 
 am smart, he is not; I am efficient, he is inefficient. There- 
 fore, his inefficiency is justly punished with toil and misery, 
 and my efficiency is justly rewarded with ease and comfort. 
 
 151
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 This is a theory immensely pleasing to my vanity. I 
 like to hear people say it. I like, so far as I can, to delude 
 myself into thinking that there really is some superior 
 quality in the poor little modicum of mind that I possess. 
 It pleases me to have people say that I have won by merit 
 what success I have been able to achieve. And yet, I 
 know perfectly well, and in moments of fair introspection 
 I cannot conceal from myself the fact, that the successes 
 I have won, so far as I have won any, have, without 
 exception, resulted from circumstance and not from any 
 effort or merit or quality of my own, and that in 
 every critical moment of my life the event has been de- 
 cided by environment, by conditions, and by facts entirely 
 beyond my control. I come to this conclusion very re- 
 luctantly the other is so much more the gratifying and 
 delightful supposition but I am irresistibly driven in upon 
 it, not only by reflections concerning my own career, but 
 by intimate recollections of what I have observed of other 
 men; for example, of the men the world calls great. It 
 has been my fortune to be able to observe closely and 
 under widely different conditions many such men, and I 
 am obliged to say that in all circumstances of action and 
 inaction, they have been different in no way from the 
 men that the world esteems not great. No observer could 
 detect any difference between the operations of their 
 minds and the operations of the minds of inferior men. 
 The great men have been as much puzzled in emergencies, 
 and (to one behind the scenes) as much the prey and 
 sport of circumstance as the rest of us, and, it having 
 been my privilege to observe some great actions in the 
 doing, I am further obliged to say that none of these 
 seemed to be anything but the product of blind and 
 irresistible chance. Of the able men that I have known 
 
 152
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 the successful ventures have been clearly fortuitous, and 
 I have yet to observe one instance of man commanding 
 circumstance. 
 
 If, then, it is not really a difference in merit that ac- 
 counts for the difference between the man pushing the 
 boat and the man at ease in the carriage, by what possible 
 right does the man in the carriage sit still and accept 
 of his good fortune in the face of the other man's 
 misery ? 
 
 Furthermore, if this difference really exists between the 
 essential mental qualifications of those that we call the 
 able and those that we call the unable, it can exist only 
 in one of two ways. Either the brains of the able must 
 be different in texture, substance, or size from the brains 
 of the unable (a fact for which it will be admitted the 
 able cannot possibly claim credit, since it is beyond their 
 control), or the difference in the mentalities must result 
 from a difference of training, educational opportunity, ad- 
 vantage of schooling and preparation. 
 
 But so far scientific research carried on by many zealous 
 and careful investigators has failed utterly to detect any 
 such differences in texture, structure, or size between the 
 brains of the able and the brains of the unable, as would 
 afford a basis for the first conclusion. The brains of 
 men held to be the ablest have sometimes been found on 
 post-mortem examination to be smaller in size than the 
 brains of some illiterates, or the brains of those notoriously 
 unable; nor has anything been detected in regard even 
 to cellular arrangement that would afford a basis for a 
 belief that what are called the able are from the beginning 
 gifted with different brains from those that are called 
 the unable. 
 
 Therefore, this part of the theory seems wholly un- 
 
 153
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 tenable. But if, then, the difference between the successful 
 and the inefficient, between the man in the boat and me, 
 is only a matter of training, education, preparation, op- 
 portunity, how does that justify me in accepting the 
 situation? If the man in the boat had been as well trained 
 as I have been he would be in the same situation of com- 
 parative ease and comfort or better. That he is not 
 in such a condition, that his life consists only of frightful 
 toil and destitution, that his horizon is narrow, that the 
 birds, the sunlight, grass, trees, flowers, the joys of the 
 earth mean nothing to him, that his existence is only day 
 upon day of darkness and misery, is due to the fact that 
 he has been deprived of privileges that I possessed. But 
 he is exactly as much the child of the earth as I am. He 
 is in all respects man as I am. His blood is of the same 
 color, his body is made of the same elements, he is sus- 
 ceptible to the same emotions of joy and sorrow, he was 
 born into the world with the same capacity for pleasure 
 and pain, he will go the same way back to earth again. 
 Unless I am to wallow in a mire of selfishness; unless 
 by incessant suggestion I am to indurate my mind to every 
 claim of kindness, sympathy, and justice, by which process 
 it will become equally proof against all pleasures that are 
 not solely bestial; I must be driven irresistibly to protest 
 against the conditions that without a shadow of justice 
 have deprived this, my brother, of the training and oppor- 
 tunities that have won me the degree of comfort I enjoy. 
 
 It is true that if I wish I may close my eyes to the 
 certain justice of these reflections, as I may close them to 
 my brother struggling in the boat, or to my brethren that 
 in every corner of the world toil and suffer equally with 
 him. But this is a choice that in every instance will bring 
 its penalty. By exactly so much as I am indifferent to 
 
 154
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 these my brethren, by so much I have robbed and darkened 
 my own life. 
 
 Yet even this is not all the significance pertaining to 
 the fact that the majority of mankind are essentially in 
 the condition of the man pushing the boat. Besides the 
 individual penalty always exacted of the man that shuts 
 his eyes and hardens his heart to the condition of his 
 brother, there is a fearful penalty exacted of the nation 
 that tolerates poverty. While this government by and for 
 the prosperous goes its way everywhere in the world, in- 
 tent upon maintaining and securing the welfare of the 
 fortunate, poverty, too, goes on, undermining (unobserved, 
 but incessantly), the physical stamina of the nation. For, 
 contrary to what seems to be the universal view of govern- 
 ment, the strength of a nation does not lie in its fortunate 
 inhabitants, but always and solely in those that toil with 
 their hands. As the toilers bear all the burden of taxation, 
 so also from the toilers is recruited the national army, 
 and from the toilers come, as a rule, the inventions, the 
 ideas, and the motives toward progress that have made for 
 national success. If now this great mass of toiling men 
 in any nation is ill-housed, ill-fed, dwelling without suffi- 
 cient light and air, without sufficient rest and recreation, 
 if it inhabits overcrowded regions, if it lives in badly 
 ventilated houses, dark and damp, if it is overwhelmed 
 and dragged down by the necessity that compels debasing 
 and imbruting toil, the strength and stamina of the nation 
 that tolerates these conditions are eaten out. No matter 
 how fair the outside of such a nation may be, at the touch 
 of an emergency the structure collapses like rotten wood. 
 
 Great Britain offers to the world a powerful example of 
 these truths. Formerly an agricultural country, when the 
 sturdiness of its yeomanry was proverbial, Great Britain 
 
 155
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 became, with the development of machinery, and especially 
 since the corn laws were abolished, a great manufacturing 
 country. Manufacturing drew the people into the cities, 
 where, partly because of the antique land laws and partly 
 because of the national neglect, they were terribly over- 
 crowded and masses of them lived in insufficiency of the 
 primal necessities. Philanthropists and investigators re- 
 peatedly sought to draw attention to the certain results of 
 such overcrowding and general poverty as existed in the 
 frightful regions of London called Stepney and White- 
 chapel, and in similar regions in Manchester, Liverpool, 
 Birmingham, and other great cities. No heed was paid to 
 these warnings; year after year the populations in the 
 slums were allowed to pile up, while the average standard 
 of living declined. After two generations of such condi- 
 tions the Boer War burst upon the country. Recruits were 
 necessary for the army, and when these were sought in 
 the great cities the amazing discovery was made that there 
 was practically no material for army making. Although 
 the physical standards were lowered, the numbers of young 
 men that could pass the examination were very small. In 
 Manchester, of 11,000 men that offered themselves for 
 enlistment, nearly 10,000 were necessarily rejected for 
 physical defects, and the percentage of rejections, as re- 
 cruiting work progressed, became so great that for reasons 
 of national security it was thought well not to make public 
 the actual figures. 
 
 But enough was known to set on foot public and private 
 investigation of the state of the poor in British cities, and 
 to cause general alarm for the future. Much that was dis- 
 covered was calculated to startle complacency. Thus, for 
 instance, it was learned that there was a steady and ter- 
 rifying increase of congenital insanity and imbecility re- 
 
 156
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 ported among the children in the vast city slums; that on 
 medical examination in the schools of the region about 
 80 per cent, of the children were found to be physically 
 defective; that for children in the schools to faint for 
 lack of food was so common that the teachers were quite 
 accustomed to the sight; that little children, and often 
 adults, were to be seen picking and devouring garbage and 
 fruit rinds from the gutters; that many thousands of 
 persons were without even a cellar or an attic to shelter 
 them and nightly slept in archways, doorways, and the 
 streets; that the annual number of suicides in the East End 
 reached to very distressing figures; that constitutional 
 diseases, rickets, tuberculosis, influenza, and spinal com- 
 plaints were very common, and the prevalence of tuber- 
 culosis, in particular, amounted to a grave menace to public 
 health elsewhere; that in average stature and average in- 
 telligence, as in average health, the people of the slums 
 showed a reversionary progress ; that the typical slum 
 dweller was incapable mentally and defective physically; 
 that both the extent of the area thus affected and its popu- 
 lation were much larger than had been suspected, even by 
 those that had given heed to the subject; that in the city of 
 London alone, 1,800,000 people live on the line of extreme 
 poverty or below it, and still another million have between 
 them and deadly want nothing but the scanty wages of a 
 week, while there are something like 125,000 registered 
 paupers and one person in every four is buried at public ex- 
 pense. What kind of an Inferno is this to thrust into our 
 faces as the ripe fruit of modern civilization? In the East 
 End of London 55 per cent, of the children die before they 
 are five years old ; fifty of every hundred die in their first 
 year, and the coroners down there hold something like 600 
 inquests a year on infants that have been smothered by 
 
 157
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 their mothers. Is there any horror recorded of war that 
 compares with this? Of the population of London 1,800,- 
 000 belong to families that have a total income of less 
 than $5.25 a week. There are 300,000 people in the fami- 
 lies that live in one room each one room to each family, 
 and in that room seven, eight, nine, perhaps a dozen per- 
 sons, sleeping on the floor, cooking, and eating, and calling 
 the place " home." 
 
 With this appalling region I early became (almost against 
 my will) fairly familiar. The first time I went to London, 
 about sixteen years ago, I was on a newspaper's errand, 
 and nothing was farther from my thought than that I 
 should take the trouble to go into the East End. I knew 
 in a vague general way that there was a great deal of 
 poverty in London; my father had often told me of his 
 observations there, but I am sorry and ashamed to say 
 that I hardly listened to him. I had the point of view 
 perfectly characteristic of the well-fed American: I could 
 not see how poverty in London concerned me. If there 
 were any poor, they were probably poor because they got 
 drunk or otherwise misbehaved, and if they would keep 
 sober and be good they would not be poor. Anyway, why 
 bother? And then I went to London, and circumstances 
 led me down to the East End, where I stood and peered 
 over the edge of perdition, and into my dull head was 
 slowly pounded the fact that poverty in London and pov- 
 erty everywhere directly concern every man upon the 
 earth. 
 
 It was this way: on the first morning I went, in pursuit 
 of my newspaper errand, to Leicester Square, and was 
 amazed to find there the benches filled and the railings 
 lined with swarms of the most forlorn, hopeless, gaunt, 
 and wretched human beings I had ever seen; men so 
 
 158
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 wretched, in fact, that, in some way that I cannot well 
 describe, they struck me as inhuman and weird. They 
 were merely so many specimens from the submerged tenth, 
 the lowest stratum of organized society, and afterwards 
 they became so common a sight that I wholly ceased to 
 be shocked; but on that morning it was all new and hor- 
 rible. I had known tramps and vagabonds of all kinds, 
 but there was something very different here, and after 
 a time I perceived wherein lay the difference. These faces 
 were the faces of men that in all their lives had never 
 once known hope. That was the difference. 
 
 While I stood there I saw one of the breed, a young 
 man, with a face of deadly pallor and half-closed eyes, 
 fall in the street from weakness, and when he staggered 
 to his feet I saw a great hulking policeman knock him 
 down twice (for being in the way, I suppose), and finally 
 push him, tottering, out of sight around the corner. I 
 learned to my further amazement that this young man 
 was not drunk nor sick, but only starving. Just as I 
 learned that a woman somewhere behind me laughed. 
 There was something so discordant and incongruous in 
 laughter just then that I turned sharply around. The 
 square lay before me, filled with carriages, the gaudy 
 music halls on one side, bright showy store windows on 
 the other. Happy men and women went lightly along 
 the sidewalks, and there were handsome equipages about. 
 In front of one of the stores was a black chariot, with 
 beautiful horses in shining silver harness, a footman 
 and a driver in handsome livery. Behind it was the 
 woman that had laughed. She was sitting in a carriage 
 with a man. Both were very handsomely dressed; 
 the woman I remember had some kind of silk or satin 
 parasol with much lace upon it, and my companion told 
 
 159
 
 Why 1 Am a Socialist 
 
 me that the lace was of some rare and costly kind that 
 I have forgotten. She had diamonds at her throat, and 
 she looked very happy. She was not laughing at the 
 starving men, though she might as well have been; she 
 was laughing at something the man had said. But some- 
 how in the midst of that scene, with two or three hundred 
 human wrecks drawing agonized breaths about her, and 
 this one man starving almost before her eyes, the sound 
 of her laughter made unspeakable discord, and her smiling 
 face was the most incongruous thing I had ever seen. 
 
 I had never before had the fact of starvation thrust thus 
 upon me; it was, of course, inevitable that, coming thus to 
 the notice of an old reporter, I should make inquiries about 
 so strange a matter. The inquiries led me to the region 
 whence that young man had emerged, and where in misery 
 as black as his, under the shadow of a fate the most awful 
 that can be conceived for men and women, dwelt a million 
 brothers and sisters of mine. I stood on the edge of that 
 pit and looked down, and once there, naturally I could 
 not well leave a phase of life so strange, so grotesque, and 
 forming such an instructive commentary upon us and all 
 our ways until I had learned more about it. 
 
 Of the truly appalling facts that came within my knowl- 
 edge I need here give but one example. It is a case that 
 was under my own observation. A family of nine persons 
 dwelt in a cellar in Stepney; a cellar of one room, about 
 fourteen feet square. All the light and all the air that 
 came into that cellar entered through a. grating in the 
 sidewalk. By day a carpenter used the cellar for a work- 
 shop; to get light enough to do his work he had his bench 
 directly under the grating. The place was dark and foully 
 dank; the only furniture (if by the straining of speech 
 these things could be called furniture) consisted of 
 
 160
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 a collection of filthy rags for a bed and an iron pot 
 in which the wretched denizens cooked food, if by chance 
 they could come upon any. Water dripped from the walls, 
 the odor of the place was almost insupportable; and yet 
 nine persons had it for their abode. The children slept 
 on the carpenter's shavings ; the parents on the pile of 
 rags. And above this pit of misery was, if you will believe 
 me, a school. It was not a rare instance as you might 
 think; there are other places as bad. This one came to 
 light because the mother had smothered one of the babies 
 and was dragged into court, and the police described what 
 they had found. No doubt it was terrible for the mother 
 to smother the baby, but looking upon the wan faces, 
 shrunken forms, listless eyes, and bestial expressions 
 of those that survived one would be hard put to 
 say that the dead baby was not the better off in this 
 city of London, capital of civilization, A. D. 1894. 
 Amen! 
 
 And yet, if you say to me that these people are so made 
 that they are incapable of anything else, that they are 
 naturally incapable and inept, that they are not the prod- 
 ucts of this system of yours but persons afflicted by 
 the will of God with inferior brains and weaker spirits, 
 I ask you to explain the record of the Dr. Barnardo enter- 
 prise. Here is an organization that takes these children 
 from the sub-cellars and the loathsome attics and carries 
 them beyond the seas to new countries, where they have 
 fresh air and sunlight, and enough to eat, and 95 per cent, 
 of them become good, healthful, intelligent men and women. 
 Where, then, rests the blame for this hell, so far beyond 
 all the hells ever conceived by theology? Day after day 
 these millions go slipping down the precipice, children are 
 murdered, lives are led without sufficiency or comfort, with- 
 
 161
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 out one glimpse of joy or hope. And at the other end of 
 London men and women live in idle splendor and luxury, 
 and with all their waste and profusion cannot spend their 
 incomes. If there be any justification for this situation I 
 should be gratified to learn of it. 
 
 Yet London is but the epitome of England, and England 
 of the world. What you see in Stepney and Whitechapel 
 you may see in Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, and even in 
 the ancient and quiet city of York. Mr. London * tells 
 us that of every 1,000 persons in Great Britain 939 die 
 in poverty; there 8,000,000 " simply struggle on the ragged 
 edge of starvation, and 20,000,000 more are not com- 
 fortable in the simple and clean sense of the word." In 
 the course of years of observation of conditions in London 
 and elsewhere in Great Britain, I have found everything 
 to confirm and nothing to refute Mr. London's con- 
 clusions. Total population of the country, 42,000,000, and 
 this is the state of 28,000,000 of those 42,000,000 in the 
 country that is empress of the world and leader of civiliza- 
 tion. Then I hold with Wendell Phillips that this kind 
 of civilization did not come from above, but from below, 
 and the sooner it goes down the better. And if I seem 
 to write about this with bitterness I can only say that 
 earnestly I hope I do. A man that could spend some days 
 in the East End of London and write of it without bitter- 
 ness has powers of self-control I can never hope to emu- 
 late. And if you think I am in any way extreme or 
 extravagant about it, I summon as witness a scientist noted 
 for his cool and judicial temperament, the late Professor 
 Huxley, who was himself once a medical officer in the 
 East End, and he says, " were the alternative presented 
 
 * In " The People of the Abyss." 
 162
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 to me, I would deliberately prefer the life of the savage 
 to that of those people of Christian London." 
 
 To combat this national enemy within, far more menac- 
 ing than any foreign foe, many reforms were advocated. 
 The London County Council, one of the ablest legislative 
 bodies in the world, undertook vast benevolent enterprises 
 in the building of cheap and sanitary dwellings. Whole 
 estates (like those at Norbury and Tooting) were pur- 
 chased at public expense and covered with attractive homes. 
 Many so-called "garden cities" were projected, and some 
 were built. Every British city began to demolish slums 
 and to supply model tenements. Miles upon miles of rotten 
 rookeries in Westminster, Stepney, Shoreditch, Manchester, 
 Liverpool, Glasgow, and York were obliterated. Money 
 from the public funds was voted everywhere for these 
 laudable purposes. Private means were also devoted to 
 some housing experiments, and individual philanthropists 
 gave help to a warfare upon such results of poverty as 
 tuberculosis. The London County Council began to feed 
 poor school children, and to build cheap lodging houses for 
 the shelterless. Some attempts were also made (I am 
 afraid in a spasmodic and half-hearted manner) to deal 
 with the question of the unemployed. 
 
 Altogether, therefore, we may believe that as poverty 
 had reached its most menacing and fearful aspects in 
 London, so there, also, were made to cope with it the 
 most determined and the ablest efforts that under our 
 present system of society are possible. I desire to cite 
 the net results as the most instructive lesson of these times. 
 On the mass of poverty there has been made not one 
 visible impression. After so much and such conscientious 
 effort the suffering among the poor of Great Britain in 
 the winter of 1907-8 was the most severe that had been 
 
 163
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 known in a generation. There is no lessening of the 
 vast hordes of hungry, ill-nourished, and idle persons that 
 fill the East End streets, there is no statistical result that 
 gives encouragement, there is no lessening of the area 
 nor of the amount of human misery. Indeed, there is every 
 reason to believe that the sum total of poverty grows at 
 least as fast as it grew before all these noble projects 
 of improvement were conceived. In my own annual visits 
 to the East End this has been my impression, and I am 
 supported therein by the judgment of persons whose means 
 of observation and knowledge are far beyond mine. 
 
 It is true there have been many new houses built, and 
 some old houses destroyed; but these changes have been 
 of no avail. The new houses have been occupied by the 
 fairly well-to-do; the poor remain housed as they were. 
 The futility of all such methods of attack is exempli- 
 fied in these vast housing enterprises. The bright, new 
 airy dwellings erected by the County Council are so ad- 
 mirable and are offered at such low rentals that they 
 are at once possessed by the fairly well-to-do. For less 
 than the current rents they can here secure better than 
 the average dwellings. This, I think, tells the story prac- 
 tically everywhere, and so long as our affairs are con- 
 stituted upon the present basis this must be the result 
 of all such philanthropy and to give less and obtain more is 
 so exactly in accordance with the basic principles of our 
 society that we can find no manner of fault when our 
 model housing schemes achieve such results. Those that 
 were well housed before are better housed now, and at 
 cheaper rents ; those that were ill-housed before are ill- 
 housed now; for every slum destroyed, a new slum takes 
 its place; and while the remark seems ungracious and 
 almost inhumane, there is some reason to think that the 
 
 164
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 well-meant efforts of the London County Council and other 
 municipal bodies have been rather worse than fruitless, 
 and a brighter prospect of good would now appear if the 
 whole condition had been allowed to slide from bad to 
 worse without an effort to provide one distracting palliative, 
 until it should reach a state where the nation was willing 
 to abolish the cause of the disease instead of dosing the 
 symptoms. 
 
 Great Britain is the present world empire; she sits upon 
 the world's throne; she is the reputed leader in the world's 
 affairs, occupying the place once held by Greece, Rome, 
 the Franks, Spain, and France. Yet while she has been 
 spreading her flag and power in so many quarters of the 
 world, and enforcing her rule on so many unwilling peoples, 
 there has been at work within her this deadly cancer of 
 poverty that unnoticed has sapped her strength and left 
 her nothing but the shell and show of power. So it will 
 always sap the strength of any nation that tolerates it, 
 and if we are to take only the lowest and meanest view, 
 the view of selfishness and narrow patriotism, nothing is 
 so clear as that these conditions do not pay. Aside from 
 the moral crime of allowing these great populations to 
 be swept down an abyss of misery without one adequate 
 effort on our part to rescue them, there is the practical 
 result of national decline always to be dealt with. No 
 nation on this earth ever was or can be so rich that it 
 can afford to tolerate poverty or to allow any number 
 of its people to dwell in conditions that deny them physical 
 and mental health, and an opportunity for development. 
 
 Have we no lessons of this kind to learn in the United 
 States, and is there nothing terrifying in the yearly in- 
 crease of poverty, the lengthening bread lines, and those 
 growing regions in our large cities that are grossly over- 
 
 165
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 populated? The East Side of New York is only in degree 
 less terrible than the East End of London; the essential 
 character of its conditions is the same, and I can con- 
 ceive of nothing better calculated to cause disquieting re- 
 flections to any mind in the least hopeful for the future 
 of America and of the American race than the truly alarm- 
 ing spread year by year of the East Side, and the still more 
 alarming increase of population in blocks long ago notorious 
 for overcrowding. In 1902 the Tenement House Com- 
 mission, after patient investigation of these conditions, 
 issued a warning to the prosperous, and supported that 
 warning with tables showing the populations by blocks in 
 the then perilously overcrowded regions. I wish that in 
 some way it were possible for me to give emphasis to the 
 fact that what was then regarded as dangerous overcrowd- 
 ing is much more crowded now. The population of almost 
 every block specified by the Tenement House Commission in 
 1902 is greater now than then. In some blocks the in- 
 creased population amounts to 25 per cent. I have here a 
 table showing the population of typical blocks as reported 
 by the Tenement House Commission, and the population of 
 the same blocks now. I submit that there is nothing in 
 the statistics concerning the slums of London, nor of any 
 other city, better calculated to cause alarm:* 
 
 Block bounded by Ward 1902 April, 1909 
 
 Madison, Jackson, Monroe, Scammel.. 7 3,085 4,662 
 
 Monroe, Jackson, Cherry, Scammel... 7 3,149 2,680 
 
 E. 11th, Ave. C, E. 10th, Ave. B 11 3,116 2,541 
 
 E. 6th, Ave. D, E. 5th, Ave. C 11 3,007 3,433 
 
 E. 4th, Ave. C, E. 5th, Ave. B 11 3,153 3,618 
 
 Division, Rutgers, E. B'dway, Pike... 7 1,171 2,182 
 
 Madison, Jefferson, Monroe, Rutgers. . 7 1,037 3,335 
 
 Madison, Scammel, Monroe, Gouveneur 7 1,044 1,354 
 
 * By courtesy of Everybody's Magazine. The figures for 1902 
 are from the Tenement House Commission's Report. 
 
 166
 
 1,139 
 
 1,615 
 
 1,000 
 
 2,180 
 
 1,000 
 
 2,967 
 
 1,171 
 
 3,260 
 
 1,011 
 
 2,655 
 
 1,036 
 
 2,865 
 
 1,004 
 
 1,710 
 
 1,022 
 
 1,400 
 
 1,089 
 
 1,376 
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 Block bounded by Ward 1902 April, 1909 
 
 Monroe, Market, Hamilton, Catherine. 7 
 Monroe, Rutgers, Cherry, Pelham .... 7 
 Monroe, Jefferson, Cherry, Rutgers . . 7 
 
 Monroe, Clinton, Cherry, Jefferson 7 
 
 Rivington, Orchard, Delancey, Allen . . 10 
 Rivington, Essex, Delancey, Ludlow . . 10 
 Rivington, Norfolk, Delancey, Essex.. 10 
 Delancey, Allen, Broome, Eldridge... 10 
 Delancey, Orchard, Broome, Allen.... 10 
 
 Walk through one of these teeming regions, take note 
 of the dirt everywhere, the squalid, slatternly, and dirty 
 houses, the noisy, crowded, and dirty streets, the forlorn 
 and unkempt appearance of everything, the total absence 
 of objects that can give an inspiration of beauty. Enter 
 one of these tenement houses, go through the narrow, dark, 
 and vilely odorous hall on the ground floor, up the dirty, 
 rickety stairway, across the dark landings, into the homes 
 of some of these people. Take note of what they have 
 of decency, privacy, comfort. Go into one of the interior 
 rooms used as bedchambers, (in some cases by several 
 persons), unlighted, unventilated, without even an opening 
 upon an airshaft. Remember that in the city of New 
 York there are 330,000 of such rooms used for human 
 habitation. Consider what these places must be in the 
 breeding of disease germs; then remember that after ten 
 years of vigorous effort the charitable organizations, the 
 Health Board, and the philanthropists of New York have 
 succeeded in letting air and light into only 30,000 of such 
 rooms out of the 360,000 that existed when the campaign 
 began against them. What shall we deem to be the sig- 
 nificance of these conditions? 
 
 Take as a type of the hopeless struggle for its own 
 preservation that confronts society, the history of the 
 notorious " Lung Block " in lower New York City. This 
 
 167
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 place was for years infamous among the health authorities 
 as a breeding place of tuberculosis, from which the entire 
 city was threatened. At last Mr. Ernest Poole, a powerful 
 and versatile writer, took the matter in hand and pro- 
 duced a description of the " Lung Block " that startled 
 the community. He gave the statistics of the cases of 
 tuberculosis that had been reported from this deadly spot, 
 and showed that its existence was more fatal to human 
 life than some famous battles had been. With patient care 
 and accuracy he revealed the causes of these perils, and 
 he awoke such a revulsion of feeling on the part of the 
 public that the repair or demolition of this block was 
 imperatively demanded. All this happened six years ago. 
 To-day the " Lung Block " stands where it has stood for 
 nearly a century, and continues its former functions as a 
 destroyer of human life. The only changes effected have 
 been the cutting of certain windows and certain holes in 
 the roof that are supposed to admit light and air. Such 
 have been in a general way the results of similar efforts 
 to ameliorate the like conditions. 
 
 From these distressing pictures we may turn for a con- 
 trast to the new tenement houses of Berlin and other Ger- 
 man cities, with the more encouragement that these offer 
 an indication of the way by which mankind will eventually 
 escape from all these horrors. The new Berlin tenement 
 houses, light, airy, handsome, clean, with courts, gardens, 
 playgrounds, with every known convenience and comfort, 
 and provided at low rentals, were erected from the surplus 
 revenues derived from the government's insurance opera- 
 tions, and with the design and supervision of the govern- 
 ment. Under the system in vogue in the United States 
 the insurance surplus has been used to found great private 
 fortunes, to build private yachts, to provide private pal- 
 
 168
 
 A Note About Poverty 
 
 aces, and to entertain French actresses; because in the 
 United States, insurance, the most important interest of 
 the masses of people, is in the hands of private specula- 
 tion and greed. In Germany insurance is in the hands 
 of the government, and its surplus fund has been used 
 by the government to maintain and further public health 
 by providing sanitary, attractive, rational homes for the 
 masses. For if other nations have been deceived as to 
 the fatal products of poverty, the German government has 
 come in the last twenty years to understand clearly 
 what these things mean. It has perceived that all its 
 chances of future greatness and success depend upon the 
 physical and mental well being of its laboring populations, 
 and it has determined that German strength shall not be 
 destroyed as the slum is destroying the strength of Ger- 
 many's competitors to-day and to-morrow. 
 
 The products of the overcrowded tenement are tubercu- 
 losis, influenza, epidemics of other diseases, and crimes that 
 lay the rest of the population under expense and subject it 
 to incessant danger. Healthy minds do not grow in un- 
 healthy bodies ; the human race is so constituted that healthy 
 bodies are impossible in dark rooms and without fresh 
 air, sufficient food, sufficient rest, sufficient sunlight. When 
 we reflect that under the existing organization of society 
 poverty must steadily increase, that the result of the present 
 system is to give more to those that already have much 
 and to leave less for those that already have little; that 
 this system is only a huge pump to draw from the masses 
 the fruits of the earth that they need, and confer upon 
 a few a surplus that they cannot consume, it is evident 
 that the present system is doomed. It will assuredly 
 achieve its own destruction; and those that expend time 
 and effort in its defense are but striving against the in- 
 
 169
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 evitable. If the present organization of Society could 
 endure it would reduce the masses of men to such a 
 state of physical and mental weakness that the world's 
 work could not be carried on, a practically impossible 
 supposition. 
 
 170
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE RECORD OF REGULATION 
 
 The domination of the government of the United States 
 by the great railroad Interests was foreseen and foretold 
 more than a generation ago. Rather oddly, two men that 
 had never agreed upon anything else, and about many 
 matters were bitter antagonists, came to be of one mind 
 on this. At about the same time, though quite independ- 
 ently, Wendell Phillips and Jefferson C. Davis uttered 
 solemn warnings to their countrymen against the perilous 
 influence of railroad corporations; warnings entirely un- 
 heeded, but justified within the next twenty years. 
 
 Not long after the close of the Civil War it became 
 evident (to look merely upon the commercial and not 
 the governmental aspect of the railroad problem in Amer- 
 ica) that unless some check or control were provided upon 
 the rate-making practices of the railroad companies, many 
 communities would suffer severely because of arbitrary and 
 unjust rates. To secure such a check or agency of na- 
 tional control became the life work of the late Senator 
 Regan, of Texas. His project to establish an Inter-State 
 Commerce Commission, that should represent the public 
 and have judicial control over railroad operations and 
 rates, was urged, if I remember correctly, upon five suc- 
 cessive Congresses, and was defeated or allowed to die in 
 four. The long campaign for Senator Regan's bill (a 
 campaign in which my father took vigorous part) revealed 
 
 171
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 three principles that, I have since observed, pertain to 
 every effort to curb or regulate railroads or other powerful 
 corporations. 
 
 First, the plan for an Inter-State Commerce Commission 
 was earnestly opposed on the floors of both Houses of 
 Congress by men highly reputed for personal integrity 
 and patriotism. These men stated generally as a ground 
 of their objection that the proposed bill would be unfair 
 to the transportation interests of the country, and render 
 very difficult, if not impossible, the operation of the rail- 
 roads at a profit and the paying of dividends on railroad 
 stock on which the prosperity of the country is supposed 
 to depend. Their opposition, therefore, was ostensibly 
 based upon a sole regard for the public welfare. Of 
 some of these men it was certainly true that their political 
 success had been achieved by the active though secret 
 assistance of railroad companies, and consideration of 
 this fact brought about rather surprising revelations. 
 Thus, for example, in the case of one man of my own 
 state whose methods became very well known to me, there 
 was disclosed a wonderful political organization by the 
 railroad that traversed the district, an organization freely 
 used in behalf of this member or of any other member that 
 was agreeable to the company. This organization embraced 
 every county in the district, every township in every county, 
 and was in its way one of the most perfect political ma- 
 chines I have ever known. As it subsequently appeared 
 that this instance was in all respects a type of the manner in 
 which the railroads generally exerted their influence, and as 
 most of the phases of this case happened to pass under my 
 own observation, I should like to dwell for a moment on the 
 highly instructive aspects of a matter to which we may think 
 too little attention has been drawn. 
 
 172
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 The first of these impressive facts is that the railroad 
 company's political machine (which included a particu- 
 larly offensive lobby, and was maintained for merely cor- 
 rupt ends) was assiduously served by men of the highest 
 standing in the community. Without exception these men 
 would have scorned the slightest suggestion that they could 
 be bribed or bought to betray their duty to the country 
 or the city. Some of them were accounted most earnest 
 patriots, and I have heard them on public occasions de- 
 nounce all forms of corruption and in terms most eloquent 
 eulogize purity, honesty, and patriotism. So far as one 
 could judge, they were in all this most sincere. And yet 
 each of them was purchased and paid for, and secretly en- 
 rolled in the service of a public enemy more dangerous than 
 any that ever made war upon their country. 
 
 This brings me to the subject of indirect bribery in 
 the United States, a factor that in my observation has 
 been of the greatest influence in all our affairs, and yet 
 is almost never referred to. The means by which the 
 railroad secured the services it needed were chiefly by 
 retainer fees to lawyers, and the useful pass to other 
 persons. Every county along the railroad line produced 
 a regular crop of damage suits at law; suits by farmers 
 for cattle killed, claims from merchants and shippers 
 for overcharges and swindles, suits in which the rail- 
 road sought to evade its taxes, and many others. These 
 were under the care of the railroad's legal department, 
 which was in Chicago, and held in its hands the whole 
 huge network of political and legislative activities by which 
 the railroad maintained itself in its privileges. When a 
 legislature was to be bought, a convention controlled, or a 
 candidate selected, the necessary work was directed from 
 the office of the chief counsel in Chicago. 
 
 173
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 In such multiplicity of suits there was wide opportunity 
 to employ local attorneys, and to be retained by a great 
 railroad company had for a practitioner in a small town 
 threefold attractions. The work was always liberally paid 
 for, it was paid for promptly, and it conferred an un- 
 deniable prestige, for it showed that the fame and skill 
 of this practitioner had gone as far as the metropolis, 
 and there was a tradition that a railroad company would 
 employ none but the best lawyers. The legal profession 
 was overcrowded, clients were few, competition was keen, 
 and a railroad company's retainers were choice windfalls 
 anywhere. By paying for the defense of a small damage 
 suit about five times as much as the service was worth, 
 and by adding a pass, the railroad company could count 
 on much more than the court assistance of almost any 
 lawyer. It had, in fact, purchased that man and all of 
 his political influence for a year. 
 
 There were many cases in which this arrangement was 
 without concealment, but what interested me most were 
 the many other cases in which, because of the high stand- 
 ing or supposed political integrity of the lawyer or firm, 
 the fact of the purchase was effectually disguised. For 
 instance, I have seen letters from the general counsel of 
 the railroad I have in mind written to its legal representa- 
 tives in small Iowa towns purporting to deal at length with 
 some pending cases, and really giving the adroitly managed 
 signal for the lawyer to get to work on some political 
 
 job in his neighborhood. " Smith vs. The Chicago, 
 
 & Railroad," the letter would begin. It would then 
 
 discuss this case, which was probably a suit of a farmer 
 for two hogs killed because of a defective cattle guard, 
 and at the end the writer would say: 
 
 " By the way, I see that Simkins is a candidate for the 
 
 17 4>
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 Congress nomination in your district. If you can, with- 
 out inconvenience, do something for him I wish you would, 
 as he is a friend of mine." That was all, and on the 
 face of it most innocent, and yet in nine cases in ten it 
 concealed black devilry. 
 
 Here was the dispenser of employment, the man upon 
 whose word hung fat retainer fees and much distinction; 
 ostensibly he was politely requesting a personal favor that 
 was in the line of the lawyer's business; by the simplest 
 rules of business reciprocity his request must needs be 
 granted, and the lawyer was made of adamantine stuff 
 that could resist such an appeal. As a rule, he went out 
 and worked for Simkins; as a rule, also, he was the most 
 skillful politician in the county, for upon such fell the 
 choice of the railroad company. Very often he was sup- 
 plied with some annual and many trip passes signed in 
 blank. With all these aids he returned from his county a 
 delegation for Simkins, and as meanwhile the same process 
 had been in operation in the other counties in the district, 
 Mr. Simkins was presently triumphantly nominated. 
 
 When he reached Washington he was opposed to the 
 Inter-State Commerce Commission bill because it was un- 
 fair to our great transportation enterprises and threatened 
 to destroy prosperity. 
 
 By a similar process members of the legislatures were 
 carefully chosen, so that undesirable legislation was pre- 
 vented in the states, and undesirable persons were ex- 
 cluded from the national Senate. I could even wish that 
 the process ceased there, but you are to remember that 
 judges were also nominated and elected, that the goal of 
 every young lawyer's ambition was to be a judge, and 
 that the choice of the judges lay chiefly with the railroad's 
 political and legal department, to be awarded for service 
 
 175
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 done. To speak irreverently of the judiciary is in this 
 country no light matter, but perhaps I may be allowed to 
 record the fact that in my observation, at least, very few 
 suits against railroad companies were eminently successful, 
 and that the property of the railroad companies in Iowa 
 was assessed at one-fifth as much as other property. Pos- 
 sibly the facts have no connection. I do know, however, 
 that in one year one railroad company spent in Iowa more 
 money for improvement on its property than the total 
 assessment of all its property in the state. And I also 
 know that all judges that tried cases, sheriffs that drew the 
 juries, assessors that regulated taxes, and all other officers, 
 state, county, and city had free passes. I can recall one 
 case where a farmer that had been trying in vain for years 
 to get justice against a railroad company finally forced his 
 suit to trial and lost it, and subsequently discovered that all 
 the court officers, all the members of the jury, and his own 
 attorney carried the passes of the railroad he was suing. 
 
 But to return to legislation, with which we are most 
 directly concerned here. I must do the railroads the justice 
 to say that they were without partisan prejudice; one 
 political party was in their eyes as good as another. Thus, 
 for instance, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad 
 traverses the southern part of the state and has lines in 
 three or four congressional districts. The first district 
 was in those days always Democratic, and in that district 
 the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad was always 
 intensely Democratic. The next district to the west was 
 Republican, and in that district the Chicago, Burlington 
 & Quincy Railroad was always intensely Republican. In 
 Republican counties it was represented by Republican at- 
 torneys, in Democratic counties by Democratic attorneys, 
 and I have seen within a few days of each other a Re- 
 
 176
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 publican state convention and a Democratic state conven- 
 tion each dominated, controlled by, and chiefly composed 
 of the county attorneys of the railroad companies. In fact, 
 for years we never saw anything else, and at every con- 
 vention some railroad employee would be on hand with 
 books of passes to accommodate all the delegates that had 
 done their duty. This was no more the practice of any 
 one railroad than of all the railroads, and it was no more 
 the practice in Iowa than in all the Western states. I 
 can speak of this with perfect confidence because I saw 
 it in the performance and knew well the fruits thereof. 
 I have, for instance, seen the pass-handler with a fountain 
 pen in one hand and a book of passes in the other standing 
 at the door of a state convention to reward the faithful 
 delegates, and subsequently in a railroad train have seen 
 the faithful delegates riding on their well-earned passes. 
 As to other than Western states, and particularly as to 
 the Southern states, I have no such personal knowledge, 
 but I am given to understand by those informed in such 
 matters that the custom in no wise differed. 
 
 By these methods men that would have been of im- 
 movable virtue if approached with direct offers to betray 
 the community were influenced as effectively as if they 
 had been bought by undisguised corruption. I remember 
 that on one occasion the person that was called the town 
 crank brought this matter rather forcibly to the notice 
 of one of the eminent men thus bribed. " You denounce 
 aldermen that take boodle," said the crank, " and you your- 
 self take the railroad company's retainers and do its 
 crooked work. What's the difference?" 
 
 But the attorney was only amused. " That," he said, 
 " is all in the way of business. Of course, it has nothing 
 to do with my convictions." Yet the men that through 
 
 177
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 this lawyer's endeavors were sent to Des Moines and to 
 Washington were no less certainly the tools of the railroads 
 than if for sums of money each had been sold in the market- 
 place. 
 
 Second, it appeared that the ramifications of this in- 
 fluence were enormous and totally unsuspected by the 
 general public. Thus, for instance, every bank was allied 
 with the railroad company, not for reasons of sentiment, 
 but because of common interests. Nor was it possible to 
 see how this could be otherwise, the inter-relations between 
 the banks and the railroads being so close. The railroads 
 did much business through the banks, the banks all held 
 quantities of railroad stock as collateral, many of the bank 
 directors were railroad stockholders, the railroads helped 
 the banks, the banks helped the railroads. In the present 
 organization of society, the power of any financial institu- 
 tion, if exerted in politics, becomes a contradiction of the 
 democratic principle. It is, in fact, a power too dangerous 
 in any democracy to be exercised without active super- 
 vision. For instance, in the average community most 
 of the merchants are dependent upon the banks for the 
 accommodations with which business is carried on. These 
 accommodations are granted or withheld at the will of 
 the bank officers. From their decision, which may mean 
 business life or death to the merchant, he has no appeal. 
 He is at his bank's mercy. Therefore, it is not often nec- 
 essary for any bank officer to make a personal request of 
 a merchant in behalf of any man or measure that is the 
 subject of a pending election; the mere fact that the sym- 
 pathies of the bank are known in a general way to lie 
 on one side or another is usually sufficient to influence a 
 merchant whose need for accommodations may be urgent. 
 It is, of course, perfectly true that banks seldom interfere 
 
 178
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 in partisan politics (the conspicuous exception being in 
 1896) , but they do continually, though very quietly, exert 
 themselves concerning primaries, conventions, and candi- 
 dates; and these exertions are far more important both to 
 the corporations and to the interests of the public than 
 any ordinary partisan activity could be. 
 
 I sat one day in the office of a man in Davenport, Iowa, 
 whose convictions and sympathies were entirely in behalf 
 of a certain cause and a certain candidate extremely dis- 
 tasteful to the railroad companies. While we were dis- 
 cussing this cause a bank called this man on the telephone 
 and requested his presence. He went to the bank parlors, 
 where he was told that a certain business arrangement 
 much to his advantage was open to him if he would refrain 
 from activity for the anti-railroad candidate. This man 
 could not be bribed with money to do anything contrary 
 to his convictions. He could be easily bribed with an 
 opportunity for business advantage, not essentially dif- 
 ferent in principle from an offer of money. This case 
 was in no way peculiar. It has been duplicated many 
 times in my observation, and doubtless in the observation 
 of every man that has seen politics from the inside. 
 
 All of the great corporations are, in fact, closely allied, 
 and must necessarily be so. These enterprises inevitably 
 tend more and more to have the same owners, and this 
 is an ultimate condition that was certain from the dawn 
 of united effort in business, and from the time when the 
 invention of steam and machinery began to make large 
 combinations of capital essential (in the present system of 
 society) to industrial production. Mr. B., let us say, in- 
 vests money in railroad stock. In the process of time 
 through the issuing of additional stock, and through the 
 enhancement of values, this stock yields him an annual 
 
 179
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 return that demands investment. He cannot hoard it; he 
 cannot dig holes in the ground and hide it; this surplus 
 return must be invested. The number of investments and 
 the variety thereof are really small. Banks, manufactories, 
 and more railroad securities, mines, and real estate com- 
 prise the chief investment avenues. As the process of con- 
 solidation, unification, and combination (which is the mani- 
 fest course of business evolution) has gone on, all these 
 interests have come to have about the same controlling 
 ownership, so that incessantly all investments tend to con- 
 verge and the men that share the accumulated capital of 
 the country feel more and more the unity of their inter- 
 ests. Mr. B.'s investment in a bank of the surplus earn- 
 ings of his railroad stock becomes a bond that fastens 
 the railroad company and the bank together. They are 
 already allied because the bank has lent money on the 
 railroad stock as collateral, and the market price of the 
 stock is therefore of vital moment to the bank. They are 
 now further bound by a common ownership. It was for 
 such reasons that all the financial institutions of the coun- 
 try were opposed to Senator Regan's Inter-State Com- 
 merce Commission bill, just as they have been opposed to 
 every other measure looking toward the limitation of rail- 
 road power; and the extent of this influence was hardly 
 less than that of the railroads themselves. 
 
 Third, the true interest of the people at large, which 
 might be expressed as the true interest of democracy, is 
 always inimical to the interests of the corporations and 
 the financial institutions. The course of a conflict between 
 the interests of the public and the interests of the cor- 
 porations has usually been about the same, and I take 
 what happened in the case of Senator Regan's bill as the 
 perfect type of what has happened many times since, and 
 
 180
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 will doubtless continue to happen as long as we tolerate 
 the great corporation. 
 
 In four sessions of Congress the influence of the rail- 
 roads and banks, exerted through men like our friend 
 Simkins and elected in the way that he was elected, was 
 sufficient to defeat Senator Regan's bill. All this time the 
 demand of the public that such a measure should be 
 enacted was steadily increasing. There was, in fact, every 
 reason why the public discontent should increase. The rail- 
 roads, without any form of national control, were in many 
 regions practicing an intolerable tyranny. Even to men 
 ordinarily careless of such things, the fact had become 
 apparent that the railroads were the greatest power in 
 the country, and it was a question even then whether it 
 were not too late for the national government to curb 
 them. 
 
 At last this public conviction swelled into an irresistible 
 demand for action. In many congressional districts the 
 people were so much in earnest on this question that the 
 continuance in office of Mr. Simkins and his tribe and 
 the pleasant political success of the railroad attorney were 
 seriously threatened. This was in the session of 1886- 
 1887. Senator Regan had, as usual, introduced his bill. 
 A great many petitions from all parts of the country, 
 resolutions of public meetings, and letters of constituents 
 to their congressmen insisted that the bill should be passed. 
 It was then in the hands of the Commerce Committee of 
 the Senate. By this committee it was introduced for 
 passage with amendments that cut out the heart of the 
 measure and made it merely nominal by depriving the 
 Inter-State Commerce Commission of any real authority 
 over the railroads, and leaving it as an amiable body of 
 purely ornamental purpose. It was established to go about 
 
 181
 
 Why 1 Am a Socialist 
 
 the country, to listen to complaints, to sit as a court with 
 much solemnity, and then to render decisions that were 
 binding upon nobody. It could, indeed, issue an order to 
 a railroad to amend an unjust practice, or an extortionate 
 rate, but the railroad was under no obligation to give heed 
 to this order until the order had been indorsed by the 
 Federal courts, up to the Supreme Court, if the railroad 
 chose to carry it so far. 
 
 The opponents of the measure, Mr. Simkins and his tribe 
 in both Houses, insisted upon these amendments. A very 
 long and weary debate ensued, in the course of which the 
 public lost track of the proceedings, a result secured by 
 amending the amendments, by demanding trivial changes 
 in verbiage, and by the like expedients, until even the 
 minds of legislative experts failed to follow the mazes of 
 the discussion. At last the bill, amended until every feature 
 that could really affect railroad practices or establish any 
 degree of railroad control had been eliminated, was passed. 
 Outside of Congress no one analyzed the measure. The 
 fight of so many years for an Inter-State Commerce law 
 had been won. Such was the popular verdict. No one 
 stopped to inquire whether the bill really represented a 
 victory for the people or a victory for the railroad com- 
 panies. An Inter-State Commerce measure had been 
 passed. It was now to go into effect, and all agitation 
 of the railroad problem promptly came to an end. 
 
 Sixteen years passed before public attention could be 
 secured to the fact that the law was a mere jest, and that 
 the railroads were really as uncontrolled and extortionate 
 as they had been before. In those years the mere existence 
 of the law was in the public mind a sufficient answer to 
 every complaint; there was the law, an Inter-State Com- 
 merce law, a law for which the public had fought the 
 
 182
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 railroads for many years. Under that law things could 
 not really be wrong. 
 
 In those years, too, the railroads had enjoyed an im- 
 munity from control or responsibility as complete as they 
 had ever before enjoyed. From every point of view the 
 passage of the bill was to them a great advantage; nor 
 was their smallest benefit in the almost complete silencing 
 of adverse agitation. All the substantial fruits of victory 
 were with them. The four sessions in Congress in which 
 they had defeated Senator Regan brought them no ad- 
 vantage comparable with this that they had won by the 
 final passage of the bill in the shape to which Mr. Simkins 
 and his tribe had reduced it. And this, I have since 
 observed, is the principle that underlies all of these at- 
 tempts at regulation and repression. Not one so-called 
 victory for the public in these regulative ventures has been 
 in fact anything but a victory for the corporations. 
 
 For further illustration of these truths we may well 
 proceed to the next chapter of the history of railroad regu- 
 lation in the United States. By 1903 the fact had become 
 obvious even to the most skeptical that the railroad situa- 
 tion had been changed in no important particular by the 
 Inter-State Commerce bill. The railroads continued to 
 make rates on an arbitrary and, frequently, an unjust 
 basis. At their discretion they granted the forbidden and 
 illegal passes to favored shippers, to political servitors, or 
 to other persons. They set up one community and pulled 
 down another, and above all, there was a loud and increas- 
 ing clamor of discontent growing out of the undiminished 
 practice of granting rebates and illegal favors. Discrimina- 
 tions and illegal rate reductions were in use everywhere, 
 and the net result of them always was to increase the 
 advantage of the big shipper, the big dealer, and the big 
 
 183
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 manufacturer, and to increase at the same time the dis- 
 advantages of the small competitor, so that railroad rate 
 discrimination became a factor of incalculable power and 
 extent, working incessantly to draw greater wealth into 
 the hands of those already wealthy and to impoverish the 
 masses. Great firms and corporations never paid the 
 schedule rates on any shipment. One firm in Chicago re- 
 ceived from one railroad an average of $30,000 a month 
 in rebates. The total amount paid out in rebates by all 
 the railroads of Chicago was annually a stupendous sum, 
 distributed solely among the greater enterprises. Some rail- 
 roads maintained in their offices a so-called dark-room, 
 that is to say, a room without windows or natural light, 
 in which a very dim gaslight burned in one corner. Into 
 this room a shipper or his agent that was to receive a 
 rebate was directed by the companies' agent. He went 
 in, shut the door, a man that he could not see handed him 
 a roll of bills, and he departed. Other railroads or fast 
 freight lines employed trusty agents that went about de- 
 livering rebates at back doors, or in saloons, or up dark 
 alleys. An officer of the Pennsylvania railroad, being 
 asked by an investigating committee for a list of the firms 
 in Pittsburg that were in receipt of rebates from his com- 
 pany, replied that if the committee would get the corpora- 
 tion directory of Pittsburg it would have an accurate 
 list. 
 
 Besides the rebates that were given directly or indirectly 
 to certain firms and recognized by the railroad companies 
 as rebates, there were two other systems of rebating as 
 vast, as injurious, and, to the just mind, still more offensive, 
 because they were carried on under specious disguises. 
 These were the private car, so called, and the terminal rail- 
 road. The private freight car was always owned by some 
 
 184
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 large shipper. For the hauling of this car the railroad 
 company paid to the owner a certain sum for each mile 
 hauled. This was, of course, in effect nothing but a rebate 
 to the large shipper. The small shipper could not afford 
 to own a freight car. To show how effective was the prac- 
 tice, I may mention that the firms composing the Beef Trust 
 owned a total of about 20,000 refrigerator cars; these 
 cars were employed partly in the transporting of the Beef 
 Trust's products, and on a carload of such products shipped 
 from Chicago to New York, for example, the firm received 
 $7.50 mileage for the car, which was equivalent to an 
 average rebate of about 20 per cent, on the shipment, and 
 a corresponding advantage to the Beef Trust firm over its 
 small competitor. All told there were about 50,000 private 
 cars of different kinds, each representing heavy annual re- 
 bates to favored shippers. 
 
 The terminal railroad was a device equally iniquitous. 
 A large manufacturing firm would have a piece of side- 
 track from its warehouse to the main line of the railroad 
 nearest, this sidetrack being perhaps in some instances 
 as much as 1,000 feet long. A railroad company would 
 be organized with some resounding name, like The Chi- 
 cago, Lake Shore & Pacific,* and composed of the owners 
 of the factory. The entire property of this railroad com- 
 pany would be the piece of sidetrack from the warehouse 
 to the main line. The great railroad company would then 
 make on the products of this factory what is called a 
 joint rate. That is to say, for instance, a rate to New 
 York made jointly between the Chicago, Lake Shore & 
 Pacific and the Pennsylvania Railroad might stipulate 
 that one-fourth of the rate should be paid to the Chicago, 
 
 * As a rule the shorter the piece of track the more pretentious is 
 the name. 
 
 185
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 Lake Shore & Pacific, and the rest to the Pennsylvania. 
 The distance hauled over the terminal railroad would be 
 1,000 feet, the length of the side track; the distance hauled 
 over the Pennsylvania might approximate 1,000 miles. 
 This practice was, of course, nothing in the world but the 
 disguise of an illegal rebate. At the time I am treating 
 of it had become very common. 
 
 The general unrest and dissatisfaction with the existing 
 railroad conditions reached a head in 1903, when Congress 
 was again petitioned to remedy the existing abuses. Sev- 
 eral bills were introduced to this end and urged by re- 
 formers. The usual period of debate and delay ensued. 
 Finally, it was announced that the best features of all 
 the bills had been incorporated in a measure that was 
 credited to Senator Elkins, but was really drawn by one 
 of the ablest railroad executives we have ever had. The 
 avowed purpose was to make the granting of rebates and 
 discriminations more difficult. Possibly no better com- 
 ment on regulation as a cure for economic evils is needed 
 than the fact that the result of the bill was to make rebating 
 and the granting of discriminations both easier and safer. 
 For, whereas the old law, though never enforced, carried 
 the penalty of imprisonment for these offenses, the new 
 law, in a paragraph not generally commented upon, abol- 
 ished imprisonment and substituted a mild fine, which, of 
 course, would be paid, not by the individual, but by the 
 corporation. 
 
 The ridiculous futility (for all public purposes) of this 
 enactment having become apparent, and the complaints 
 from the plundered shippers and consumers having be- 
 come an intolerable burden, President Roosevelt issued his 
 famous message of December, 1904, in which he proclaimed 
 the necessity of dealing radically with so grave a situation. 
 
 186
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 He set forth quite clearly (so far as he went) the injustice 
 and great injury to the general public that always result 
 from rebates and rate discriminations, and while he did 
 not apprehend the full extent of the practice, ample excuse 
 for him lies in the fact that this was knowledge possessed 
 only by the expert and the student that had devoted much 
 time to the subject. The average citizen is always content 
 to think that the laws are obeyed except by what are called 
 the criminal classes. He obeys the laws himself, he is 
 respectable; therefore, all other respectable men obey the 
 laws. Managers of railroads are generally respectable men; 
 therefore, they generally obey the laws. The laws of the 
 nation strictly forbid rebating; therefore, most railroad 
 managers do not rebate. Thus the average citizen who 
 would not have believed (at that time) that every day, many 
 times, and in more than one way, every railroad company 
 in the United States deliberately violated the national laws. 
 He would not have believed, for instance, that every rail- 
 road granted rebates, and that in every considerable town in 
 the United States the largest shippers had an unfair and 
 criminal advantage in freight rates. He would even have 
 been very slow to believe (at that time) that these criminal 
 discriminations had built up the trusts under whose ex- 
 tortions he was beginning to groan. He would not have 
 thought that only a criminal conspiracy with the railroads 
 had given birth to the oil monopoly, or that only illegal 
 rebates had made possible the construction of the Beef 
 Trust ; that every great monopoly in the country was operat- 
 ing with reduced railroad charges, and it was this ad- 
 vantage that crushed every competitor, and in every in- 
 dustry gave to the preponderating concern the control of 
 the market. Even the small tradesmen that were being 
 crushed out and ruined by such changes could not see 
 
 187
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 the origin of the changes and yet the direct origin was 
 exactly the same in every instance. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt's message contained the famous words, 
 " Above all, the highways of the nation must be kept open 
 to all upon equal terms," at once a rallying cry to all 
 that agreed with him in holding these evils could be abol- 
 ished by regulating them. The country gave him a mar- 
 velously united support; not since the days of Jackson 
 and the United States Bank had any President had the 
 masses of the people so solidly behind him. With dogged 
 persistence and skill he brought to the fight all the power 
 and resources of his office. , Patronage is the substance 
 of the President's power in Congress; the Constitu- 
 tion has so hedged him about that otherwise he has 
 little authority; but he can always bestow or withhold the 
 post offices, and with these he can bring into line many 
 members that are insecure in their seats. This great power 
 Mr. Roosevelt strained to the utmost and beyond all prece- 
 dent, supporting it at the same time with personal appeals, 
 argument, and the bullying of the weaker members, all 
 his effort being directed toward the passing of a bill that 
 would cure the rate discrimination evil. 
 
 He was opposed at every turn by all the power of the 
 railroads, the banks, and the allied institutions; these also 
 had seldom shown a more united front. The situation, in 
 fact, precisely duplicated the situation when the original 
 Inter-State Commerce act was passed. The corporations 
 fought everything to the last ditch. When they saw that 
 the pressure from the country was too great, and that the 
 supremacy of their political organization was in danger, 
 they took the most innocuous of the pending measures for 
 railroad regulation and began to amend it. As they struck 
 out one vital feature after another the advocates of rail- 
 
 188
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 road regulation protested and objected. In every skirmish 
 their guns were silenced by the one argument. If they 
 yielded they could get some kind of a measure passed; 
 if they persisted in fighting there would be no enactment. 
 On these terms Mr. Roosevelt himself more than once 
 surrendered. When at last the bill had been shorn of 
 every feature that could really interfere with railroad ex- 
 tortions it was allowed to pass. As in the former case, 
 the debate had been long strung out, amendments had been 
 piled upon amendments, and all persons that had any- 
 thing else to do exept to watch this one struggle had lost 
 the sequence of changes. In the end the people hailed the 
 passage of the bill as a victory for their cause and a 
 defeat for the railroads, and, of course, as a matter of 
 fact, it was a victory for the railroads and a defeat for 
 the people. 
 
 Under the operation of this law not one essential fact 
 in the railroad rate situation has been changed; whatever 
 has been changed has related to the names and externals 
 of things, not to their substance. As for instance, the so 
 called free passes have been, to a considerable extent, 
 abolished, but favors to big shippers, of which the free 
 pass was only one form and expression, continue as before. 
 The general passenger agent does not write out a pass for 
 the representative of a great firm that ships many goods; 
 but a ticket, the price of which is subsequently allowed on a 
 claim account, is easily provided. The rebate agent is no 
 longer a recognized officer of the railroad organization; re- 
 bates do not appear as such on the books ; but in most rail- 
 road offices the Claims and Allowances account, for instance, 
 has wonderfully swollen. If a great firm presents claims 
 in a month for $30,000 for goods injured or delayed in 
 transit, who is to object if the claim be allowed, and 
 
 189
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 whose business is it? The allowing or disallowing of 
 the claim rests entirely with the railroad management; no 
 one else has a word to say about it; except for the firm 
 no one else knows anything about the basis, origin, or 
 actual nature of that claim. If the management chooses 
 to allow the claim, no authority has any right to dispute 
 the allowance; and the whole history of the transaction is 
 buried forever under one book entry that reveals nothing. 
 
 There was a very broad intimation of the extent to 
 which this practice is carried in the proceedings of the 
 government against a Chicago packing house in January, 
 1909, but it naturally passed without much remark. 
 
 Similarly, the whole Supplies Account in many railroad 
 organizations has become the subject of more than suspi- 
 cion. Here is the Standard Oil Company, for instance, 
 with much freight to be carried. Every railroad consumes 
 a great deal of oil, lubricating oil, axle grease, illuminating 
 oil. Now, if a railroad is willing to pay for its oil 30 
 cents a gallon instead of 1 5, it is, of course, entirely natural 
 and within the limits of business good sense if the Standard 
 Oil Company reciprocates by giving many freight ship- 
 ments to such an excellent and liberal customer. Many 
 oils are really worth 30 cents a gallon, and more. If oil 
 that is worth 15 cents a gallon is included with oil that 
 is worth 30 cents a gallon, that is the affair of the railroad 
 management, and no district attorney will ever find it out. 
 Oil is by no means the only supply that can be had from 
 large shippers. The clerks that make these entries may 
 exchange winks and nods, but probably not one of them 
 has the complete story of the purchase, and whatever he 
 may suspect he has no testimony that the courts would 
 entertain. Rebating, beyond doubt, has been made more 
 secret than ever before; possibly it is therefore more 
 
 190
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 difficult, and to a slight degree discouraged, but the essence 
 of the practice remains the same. Nay, in one aspect 
 it is certainly worse for now the big firm has more than 
 ever before the crushing advantage upon the small firm, 
 and to that extent the evil of unequal wealth distribution 
 is augmented. 
 
 Yet with all the vast wrong wrought by this device, one 
 cannot deny that, while the rebate is illegal and criminal, 
 it is under the present system perfectly natural, logical, 
 and inevitable. The men that defy the Federal statutes 
 and grant rebates are only following the higher law imposed 
 upon them by the economic situation. Nothing is so foolish 
 as to denounce or condemn them; they but do what they 
 are compelled to do. Strenuous persons that have much 
 indignation about this matter may feel surer of their own 
 great virtue; but for my part, if I were the general freight 
 agent of an American railroad, I should grant rebates, 
 law or no law. And if the law forbade me, I should say 
 that the law was wrong, and not I, because the law 
 prohibited the thing that in existing circumstances abso- 
 lutely must be done. I should say that I had been em- 
 ployed to deal with a certain situation; neither I nor any 
 other man had created that situation; and my duty to the 
 interests confided to my care was a higher consideration 
 than an impossible law passed by men that had no ac- 
 quaintance with the facts. I should say that if Congress 
 wished to stop rebating, it should stop the cause of rebat- 
 ing, and until it did so, and showed some recognition of 
 things as they are in this world and not as they may 
 be in the New Jerusalem, I should go ahead and grant 
 rebates, and take the risk. And as I have for myself, 
 as a rule, no greater pretensions to viciousness than most 
 of my contemporaries, I believe that other men, including 
 
 191
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 the chief protestants of virtue, would in the like circum- 
 stances do exactly the same thing. 
 
 And, of course, in existing circumstances, I should either 
 grant rebates or lose my position; and, again, in existing 
 circumstances, I do not see wherein a man is called upon 
 for self-immolation or martyrdom. To grant rebates is 
 part of the national railroad business as at present con- 
 ducted; why make an individual the victim of presidential 
 wrath instead of the system? Much cry has gone up that 
 all the officers of all the railroads that violate anti-rebate 
 laws ought to be put into jail. Those that cry thus seem 
 never to have reflected that if, in existing conditions, you 
 were to imprison every railroad officer in the United States, 
 existing conditions would be no whit changed, and the 
 successors of the jailed men would assuredly proceed to 
 repeat the same old offenses in the same old way, or some 
 other. 
 
 Look for a moment and impartially at the situation as 
 it is. Here from Chicago, for instance, extend eastward to 
 the seaboard nine railroads. All of these have, to be 
 sure, about the same owners, are connected with about the 
 same interests, and always make a common cause when 
 attacked. Yet each has a separate general freight agent 
 or freight traffic manager, or whatever the officer may be 
 called, whose duty is to secure the largest possible amount 
 of business for his railroad. This man holds his position 
 solely on the basis of results. He must show results, he 
 must show an increase of tonnage carried ; that is what he is 
 hired for. The increase is imperatively demanded, because 
 it must appear in the annual report; otherwise the road 
 is held by the public not to be in a prosperous condition, 
 the price of its stock may be affected, and very unpleasant 
 results may follow. For one thing, the men that control 
 
 192
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 it may lose their hold upon its market value by which 
 they are enabled to play the games that reap them their 
 greatest profits. Therefore, the tonnage showing must be 
 healthy and satisfactory, and that it may be so, the freight 
 agent must strain every nerve to obtain for his road every 
 possible shipment. 
 
 Here is a large firm of dry-goods dealers in Chicago, 
 let us say, merely for an illustration; there are hundreds 
 of cities similarly situated, but let us take the most obvious 
 illustration. This firm receives and dispatches annually 
 great quantities of freight, nearly all of which it can send 
 by whatsoever route it may select. Here are nine rail- 
 roads between Chicago and the seaboard, over any of which 
 the firm can ship freight. Which shall it choose? Let us 
 be fair. Shall it take one route because the scenery is 
 beautiful? Or another because it has a resonant name? 
 Or another for reasons of sentimental regard? Or shall 
 it distribute its business among the nine, taking care that 
 no railroad receives a larger share than another? Not 
 unless the management has lost its wits. By all the rules 
 and customs and principles of business, the only possible 
 ground upon which it can decide between one railroad and 
 another is the ground of relative advantage to itself; and 
 as all the railroads ship goods in about the same time, 
 and with about the same care, the selection can only be 
 made of the road that offers the lowest rates. 
 
 This forces the freight agent to make concessions. He 
 must get that freight shipment, or lose his position. He 
 must make concessions, or he will not get the shipment. 
 He knows that even if he were to be Spartan and quixotic 
 and refuse to make the concession, no possible good would 
 result. The company would continue to dismiss general 
 freight agents until it found one that would secure the 
 
 193
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 shipment. Therefore, he makes the concession, breaks the 
 law, takes the risk, secures the shipment, and retains his 
 position: which, under existing conditions, is exactly what 
 a reasonable man would expect him to do. 
 
 That is why the latest railroad regulation experiment 
 is a failure, and why every person of the least practical 
 acquaintance with existing conditions must have known 
 from the beginning that it would be a failure. 
 
 Three very simple tests of the extent of its failure can 
 readily be applied by any one interested. 
 
 First, in the first twelve months after it went into opera- 
 tion, the number of complaints against the railroads, filed 
 by citizens with the Inter-State Commerce Commission, 
 did not diminish, but increased. 
 
 Second, a very considerable part of the rebating about 
 which President Roosevelt so earnestly complained was 
 carried on by the private cars before mentioned. These 
 private cars carry on their traffic exactly as before, their 
 number in the last three years has not diminished, but 
 considerably increased, and each private car is at all times 
 a disguise for rebates, and has indeed no other reasons 
 to exist. 
 
 Third, the terminal railroad, as before mentioned, was 
 another prolific and grievous source of rate discrimina- 
 tions and rebates ; and terminal railroads continue to collect 
 toll and disguise rebates. 
 
 From these facts it is sufficiently evident that every 
 attempt to meet the railroad problem and the corporation 
 problem by regulating them must necessarily be a failure, 
 and this no matter how earnestly and conscientiously or 
 skillfully or persistently the attempt may be made. Noth- 
 ing can possibly be gained by regulating an evil, except for 
 those that reap profits from the evil, for such win the 
 
 194
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 advantages that lie in the diverting of public attention 
 and in the prolonging of present conditions. 
 
 I feel moved here to give a little illustration of the 
 actual fruits of this kind of symptomatic treatment that 
 we have elected to waste our time with. One of the preg- 
 nant sources of complaint by shippers and consumers was 
 the form of private freight car to which I have previously 
 referred, the car that carried refrigerating apparatus, and 
 was used for the carrying of perishable commodities. 
 Few persons outside of the trade have any idea of 
 the extent and importance of the functions of this car. 
 I cannot now go into the details, but it is sufficient 
 to say that a very large part of the fruits and the vege- 
 tables consumed everywhere in the United States is carried 
 at some stage in refrigerator cars, and subject to the 
 charges for such carriage; which are, of course, always re- 
 flected in the price paid by the consumer. Since the intro- 
 duction of this car an enormous business has grown up 
 of growing fruits and vegetables in particularly favored 
 regions and shipping them to more northern localities. 
 
 Tbe great majority of these refrigerator cars are owned 
 and operated by the firms composing the Beef Trust. For 
 their owners they gather revenue in two ways. First, they 
 receive from the railroad that hauls them a mileage rate, 
 which alone earns for them an annual average income of 
 about 50 per cent, on the cost of the car. Second, the 
 owners levy upon the shipper what is called the icing 
 charge, which is chiefly an arbitrary tribute extorted ap- 
 parently on the basis of what can be collected. In the 
 investigations that preceded the agitation of 1901, remark- 
 able things were discovered about these icing charges. In- 
 stances were adduced in which the icing charges on a 
 carload of fruit or vegetables from Tennessee to Chicago, 
 
 195
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 for instance, were greater than the freight rate. In- 
 numerable instances were found in which the icing charge 
 was as much as five times the total cost of all the ice used 
 and all the labor employed. One typical instance became 
 famous. Lawton, Michigan, is a center for fruit ship- 
 ments, a hundred and twenty-five miles from Chicago. The 
 time occupied by a carload of fruit from Lawton to Chicago 
 is about twelve hours. A car loaded with grapes at Lawton 
 one evening would be in Chicago the next morning. The 
 icing charge on this car was $25 ; the ice actually consumed 
 in icing the car cost $2.50. The rest of the icing charge 
 represented clear profit to the owners of the car, who also 
 received money from the railroad that hauled the car. 
 
 The extortion in this case was so apparent and so easily 
 understood that widespread attention was called to it. At 
 the height of the agitation the owners of the refrigerator 
 cars admitted that possibly some of their charges might 
 need revision, which they professed a willingness to make. 
 Accordingly, the Lawton charge was selected as the charge 
 to be revised. It was reduced from $25 to $18. Other 
 charges less celebrated, but no less extortionate, were al- 
 lowed to remain. Of all the agitation against the re- 
 frigerator car the net result, therefore, was to save ship- 
 pers of fruit from Lawton to Chicago the sum of $7. 
 There are those that assert that even this reduction in 
 their earnings was made up to the refrigerator car com- 
 panies in other ways, and in other directions, but if 
 this assertion is true, I have no information on the 
 subject. 
 
 What attempts to regulate these evils really mean may 
 be judged again from the familiar instance of the state of 
 Missouri and the Beef Trust. When the Missouri 
 authorities had succeeded in convicting the firms that 
 
 196
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 compose the Beef Trust of operating in defiance of the 
 Missouri law a combination in restraint of trade, a 
 heavy fine was levied upon each of these offending firms. 
 On the day that the Supreme Court of the state affirmed 
 the judgment of the lower court the fines were paid, and 
 the price of meat was advanced so that by nightfall the 
 firms had more than recovered the amounts of the fines 
 they paid, which they continued to recover daily for some 
 weeks. Of course, the true meaning of this proceeding 
 was that the people of Missouri had fined themselves not 
 once but many times for the lawlessness of the Beef Trust, 
 and the lawless Beef Trust not only went unpunished, 
 but from the attempt to punish it for breaking the law 
 actually secured a larger profit. This seems to be a form 
 of vicarious atonement most undesirable for the public 
 welfare. Yet, of course, it is, and always must be, in- 
 separable from every attempt to punish lawbreaking cor- 
 porations by fining them, or every attempt, indeed, to regu- 
 late economic evils and still preserve their cause. Nothing 
 conceivable by man seems so absurd as the recent cam- 
 paign against lawbreaking corporations that sought to 
 punish them by inflicting fines, in one famous case amount- 
 ing to $29,000,000. That the mental operations of the 
 gentlemen directing these prosecutions should have been 
 so limited as their words indicated seems beyond belief. 
 When a corporation is subjected to a fine, of course there 
 is and can be no possible source from which it can draw 
 the money to pay that fine except from the public; there- 
 fore, every fine levied upon any corporation is a fine levied 
 upon the public, and instead of regretting that Judge 
 Landis's fine of $29,000,000 on the Standard Oil Company 
 was overturned by the higher court, the people of the United 
 States should have most heartily rejoiced. By the reversal 
 
 197
 
 Why 1 Am a Socialist 
 
 of Judge Landis's decision they were saved the payment 
 of $29,000,000 not only once but many times. 
 
 Nor has there ever been devised by any human mind 
 anywhere any other means of mitigating the evils of the 
 present system, and at the same time preserving the system. 
 Many times in many countries the attempt has been made, 
 and always with the same result. The reason for its failure 
 is very simple. Under existing conditions the thing that 
 the law forbids the corporation to do is the very thing 
 that it must do, and the thing that it ought to do, and the 
 thing that in existing conditions is right for it to do. Evo- 
 lution is a much greater force than man-made law. Com- 
 binations in so-called restraint of trade did not originate 
 in the peculiar devilry of individual men. They originated 
 in changing conditions, world-wide and irresistible, that 
 marked the successive stages of a vast industrial evolution. 
 The Congress of the United States might as well have 
 passed laws against the glacial period or the old red sand- 
 stone. Trusts are as certainly a product of evolution as 
 any geological epoch has been, and the spectacle of official 
 or other gentlemen fighting the evolutionary windmill by 
 passing railroad rate regulations and tilting valorously in 
 the courts is merely for the laughter of the ages. 
 
 Yet I must not be understood as maintaining that with 
 the passing years, and amid the prodigious and vociferous 
 efforts of reformers, the methods of the railroad have per- 
 sisted without alteration. On the contrary, looking back 
 now, one can see a decided change in the super- 
 ficies of things if not in their essence. I will illustrate 
 what I mean. The people of Davenport, Iowa, where 
 I was born and bred, carried on for years a desultory 
 warfare against the railroad company that supplied them 
 (at a high rate) with transportation, and, I must admit, 
 
 198
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 seemed always to regard them as its vassals and serfs. 
 To secure a measure of relief through the blessed medium 
 of competition, the citizens had formed a company of their 
 own and built a short railroad to the East, providing a 
 new outlet. The money for this enterprise was raised 
 largely by public subscription, and I well remember the 
 general rejoicing when the line was opened, an occasion 
 celebrated in a popular excursion via the new route to 
 Cincinnati. Public satisfaction was of short life; in a 
 year or two it was apparent that the new road was pass- 
 ing into the control of the old, and when the process was 
 complete most of the persons that had, with such excellent 
 motives, invested money for the relief of the community, 
 found that they had lost their investment. Some of these 
 losses were acute; and I particularly recall one enthusi- 
 astic citizen that had put all of his fortune into the new 
 venture, and was glad to obtain a position as letter carrier. 
 A similar attempt to win freedom by blessed competi- 
 tion through a railroad constructed to the north having 
 met with a similar fate, the community next sought relief 
 by water competition. My father, who had been very 
 active in all of these movements, led the campaign for a 
 canal to connect the Mississippi River at Davenport with 
 the Illinois and Michigan canal, and thus secure a water- 
 way to the Great Lakes, a project (since realized) of 
 which he was the originator. To further this enterprise 
 many conventions and meetings were held, and an associa- 
 tion of local merchants was formed, in which one of the 
 prominent members was a wholesale dealer of the city, 
 whom I shall call here Mr. S. His name had a different 
 initial, but he is still in active business, and there is no 
 good reason why lie should be subjected to possible annoy- 
 ance. At one of the first meetings of this business men's 
 
 199
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 association, Mr. S., who had been elected an officer, made 
 an address in which he dealt quite plainly with the un- 
 deniable fact that the town had been throttled and checked 
 of its normal development by the railroad monopoly. The 
 attitude of the railroad company all this time, I should 
 say, was of sullen observation and underhanded antagonism. 
 When next Mr. S. received a shipment of goods he was 
 disconcerted to find that the freight rate on everything had 
 been doubled. By telephone he called up the railroad 
 freight office with the information that there had been 
 an error in his freight bill that he would like to have 
 corrected. The answer, surlily given, was that there was 
 no error. In some alarm, he sought the higher railroad 
 authorities. 
 
 "What does this mean?" he demanded. "Here is my 
 last freight bill, and there is an error in it, and I can't 
 get it corrected." 
 
 " There's no error about it," said the authorities. " That's 
 the correct rate for you now." 
 
 "But why should my rate be doubled?" 
 
 " Your old rate was a rate we make to our friends. For 
 those that go to public meetings and make wild speeches 
 about railroad monopoly, this is the rate we make." 
 
 " What ! Am I to understand that this is to be my rate 
 hereafter? " 
 
 " As long as you feel constrained to be our enemy you 
 can't expect us to be your friend." 
 
 Mr. S. went straight from this interview to my father, to 
 whom he related what had passed and presented his resig- 
 nation from the association. He said: 
 
 " I shall be ruined if I go on. I am with the people 
 of Davenport, but I cannot afford to be ruined." 
 
 So he dropped out, and his old freight rate was restored 
 
 200
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 to him. Those that remember conditions in the old days 
 of what a great railroad president once called " knock 
 down and drag out " can recall, doubtless, scores of the like 
 incidents. I remember that my father once had his coal 
 supply cut off by the railroad company for demanding in 
 his newspaper that the company guard its crossings, and 
 was obliged to haul his coal into town in wagons; and 
 a local grain shipper that made some indiscreet re- 
 marks about the repeal of the Iowa Granger freight rate 
 law (a repeal corruptly obtained by the railroad com- 
 panies) was almost bankrupted because he could not ob- 
 tain cars. I have heard men say that Mr. Frank Norris's 
 descriptions of railroad conditions in " The Octopus " were 
 exaggerated. To those that remember the situation in 
 Iowa thirty years ago they seem much underdrawn. I 
 do not know that I can give a stronger indication of our 
 real situation than to say that we thought nothing of 
 the incident between Mr. S. and the railroad authorities. 
 It was what we had always been accustomed to, and 
 with our American patience, a patience unattainable by 
 any other nation on earth, we endured it all, and seemed 
 to think we were divinely appointed to endure. 
 
 This was in the old days before there had been any 
 attempt at national regulation of the railroads; then it 
 was in this manner that the railroads dealt with recalci- 
 trants. I will now give two illustrations of the New 
 Style. 
 
 Wayzata, Minn., is a pretty little town at the foot of 
 Lake Minnetonka, and about twelve miles from Minneap- 
 olis. It is traversed along its front by Mr. Hill's Great 
 Northern Railroad. A few years ago the town was grow- 
 ing fast and handsomely, and the railroad, operated at 
 grade and with trains passing at high speed, was an in- 
 
 201
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 creasing source of danger. The town council passed an 
 ordinance regulating the speed of railroad trains within 
 the town limits, a regulation that to the average mind 
 seemed perfectly reasonable, and assuredly was needed. 
 The railroad company resented the ordinance, on principle, 
 I suppose, having been long accustomed to do as it pleased 
 with its own property. It closed the station of Wayzata 
 and compelled the people to go a mile and a half to the 
 next station. The Wayzatans were true-blood Americans; 
 they squirmed a little, but, of course, they submitted; suf- 
 ferance is the badge of all our tribe. The situation lasted 
 three or four years. Then Mr. Ray Stannard Baker, writ- 
 ing in 1906 a magazine article on railroad conditions, told 
 the story of Wayzata, and the station was restored. I 
 suppose that if Mr. Baker had not taken up the cause of 
 Wayzata the town would have remained stationless until 
 the end of the chapter. Wayzata, by the way, is not the 
 only place in the United States of which such stories can be 
 told; and, to tell the truth, it got off easily; if Mr. Hill had 
 decided to deprive it of all service I do not know how 
 he could have been prevented from so doing. 
 
 The other incident has a sharper and more subtle sig- 
 nificance. Mr. Hill never cared much for edge tools; his 
 preference is always for the open field, the handy war- 
 club, and his enemy borne away in fragments. Other rail- 
 road managers have a different theory of warfare. At 
 No. 4 South Clark Street, Chicago, Mr. Edward G. Davies 
 is a general consignee with a large business. Mr. Davies 
 is known in railroad circles as a " fighter " ; that is to 
 say, being a Welshman he has not the sweet American 
 virtue of eternal patience. For years he has been pro- 
 testing against railroad extortion, and has frequently ap- 
 peared as a witness before the Inter-State Commerce Com- 
 
 202
 
 The Record of Regulation 
 
 mission relating startling things about conditions as they 
 really are, and not as they are painted in an optimistic 
 press. It was to a certain extent Mr. Davies's testimony 
 that precipitated the excitement about the refrigerator car 
 swindle, and he is the author of powerful pamphlets and 
 speeches dealing with railroad rates and the like matters. 
 Strange to say, being in business, he is not afraid to speak 
 his mind; hence, I suppose, his troubles, for we cannot 
 have lese majeste growing up among us. Mr. Davies's 
 reputation among railroad managers is bad; otherwise it 
 is exceedingly good. He receives large consignments of 
 fruit and vegetables from many parts of the country, and 
 on these he must pay the freight. It is very odd, but his 
 bills for this freight are almost always wrong, and when 
 they are wrong the error is generally against him. If 
 he receives 10,000 pounds of tomatoes he may be charged 
 freight on 12,000 or 16,000 pounds. When he complains 
 he is met first with the suave assurance of a thorough 
 investigation. He waits on this. Hearing nothing, he 
 makes renewed demand. Then he is pleasantly assured that 
 he is quite in error and the bill is correct. No disagree- 
 able word is said to him; there is no bickering on the 
 part of the railroad company, no threats, no violence of 
 speech; but, as a rule, he is obliged to go into court to 
 get that error corrected, and two or three years may elapse 
 before he can recover. The result is that he is incessantly 
 in litigation, and has been since he began to attack the 
 railroads. Long ago the railroads "cut off his credit"; 
 that is to say, they compelled him (although a man of 
 substantial means and high standing) to pay cash for his 
 freight before it is delivered, so that for every overcharge 
 he must sue. 
 
 Overcharges on his way-bills seem only a part of a 
 
 203
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 subtle but relentless persecution. He is continually in- 
 volved in trouble about switching charges and delayed de- 
 livery of his goods, so that he has now from all these causes 
 claims in dispute amounting to more than $12,000. To all 
 his protests the same front of coldly polite denial is main- 
 tained. Railroad officers have assured him that no dis- 
 crimination is practiced against him; they will give the 
 like assurance to anyone that asks them concerning the 
 Davies case; and yet the man has lost annually thousands 
 of dollars through a systematic persecution from which 
 all his competitors are free, except those that have joined 
 him in protesting against rate extortion. From these, also, 
 apt illustrations might be cited. 
 
 One may say, then, with perfect assurance, that the 
 railroads have changed their methods under the new dis- 
 pensation and the triumphant advance of regulative re- 
 form ; also they have changed their weapons, for they 
 have substituted the stiletto for the ax. Yet I submit 
 that as between brutal frankness that tells a merchant 
 he is being punished and suave dissimulation that punishes 
 under cover there is essentially little choice. And I sub- 
 mit further that the power to punish in this way is too 
 vast and perilous a power to be lodged in the irresponsible 
 hands of the gentlemen that conduct the railroad system 
 of the United States for the sole purpose of extracting 
 from it support for their watered stocks and fictitious 
 bonds. 
 
 204-
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 dr. Sherman's celebrated specific 
 
 The existence of the evils we have mentioned here is 
 freely admitted by all persons not profitably interested 
 in concealing them; but for some reason not quite clear, 
 we have determined upon further experiment with regu- 
 lative remedies instead of removing the cause of our dis- 
 ease. No doubt this general and persistent faith in the 
 dosing of symptoms as the true arcanum of economic prac- 
 tice has its best expression in what are called the policies 
 of Mr. Roosevelt, and offers a sufficient explanation of his 
 popularity. And since we resolutely reject the experience 
 of other nations in these matters, heeding only our own, 
 and preferring to walk our way whither it leads, we may 
 find instruction from the history of the grandest of all 
 our efforts with the regulative quacksalver. 
 
 Agitation against the growing power and menace of the 
 great corporations was active as far back as 1884. A 
 few years later it had taken shape in a movement against 
 the trusts, as the greatest and most dangerous of the cor- 
 porations had begun to be called. Many measures seeking 
 to put an end to the trust monster were introduced in 
 and rejected by Congress. Some were held to be clearly 
 unconstitutional (for the constitution is carefully drawn 
 to be a bulwark of property), and some were laughed to 
 scorn by the trust opponents as merely puerile or comic. 
 In 1890 Senator John Sherman devised a law that was 
 
 205
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 believed to obviate all objections, and was much praised by 
 persons sincerely convinced of the terrible nature of 
 the trust. The new act was brief, inclusive, and as clear 
 as any such measure could be made. It defined as a crime 
 new to the legal world " any combination in restraint of 
 trade," and provided severe punishments for persons that 
 engaged in such combinations. 
 
 Of this the essence was a concession to the old familiar 
 and well-rooted American doctrine of economics that held 
 competition to be not only the life of trade but the cure 
 for every evil existing anywhere in trade conditions. The 
 extent of the belief in this doctrine was truly remarkable. 
 For many years it was taught as basic faith in the class- 
 rooms of the college professors of political economy, it 
 was accepted as unquestionable truth by most writers on 
 economic subjects, and seems never to have been doubted 
 by the public at large. Wherever in the United States a 
 railroad was oppressing or overcharging any community 
 the remedy that the community instinctively turned to was 
 competition, and a second railroad was built into that com- 
 munity in order to provide the needed competition with 
 the first. Long after it had been demonstrated that in 
 every such case the second road either joined hands with 
 the first and continued the spoliation, as shown in the 
 preceding chapter, or was purchased by and became a part 
 of the first, people clung with a pathetic fidelity to the com- 
 petitive theory as if it were of their religion ; and I can 
 recall now other Western cities than Davenport in which 
 the citizens expended their own money, time, and effort 
 in providing not merely a second, but when that had been 
 absorbed, a third, and a fourth railroad, only to find each 
 in turn absorbed into some system then engaged in charging 
 what the traffic would bear. 
 
 206
 
 Dr. Sherman's Celebrated Specific 
 
 Similar views were universally entertained in regard to 
 commercial matters. Was there complaint that the Stan- 
 dard Oil Company was establishing a monopoly of the 
 oil trade and increasing unfairly the price of oil? The 
 remedy was to start or to support a rival company that there 
 might be competition, and lower prices, or better treatment 
 might result. In pursuit of this idea many of the oil 
 companies that had refused to sell out to the Standard 
 carried on for varying periods bitter and expensive war 
 against their more powerful rival; war not always un- 
 accompanied by violence and even bloodshed. The story 
 of Mr. Daniel Rice, of Marietta, Ohio, who spent the 
 greater part of his life and all of his money in an heroic 
 but in the end a futile effort to maintain the oil refinery 
 that he had built and owned, is one of the most stirring 
 chapters in commercial history, and reveals a courage on 
 Mr. Rice's part at least equal to any ever displayed on 
 the battlefield, and a persistence that will command ad- 
 miration as long as the story survives. Wherever Mr. 
 Rice's struggle was known it was applauded by the people. 
 Men felt that he was upholding the eternal principle of 
 competition and the right of a man to possess his own. 
 Similarly the story of the operations in the South of Chess, 
 Carley & Co. (the alias under which Mr. Rockefeller's con- 
 cern operated in that region), was generally circulated and 
 aroused indignation wherever it was known. The feeling 
 had grown up that such powerful combinations as the 
 Standard Oil Company and the Sugar Trust threatened 
 to overturn the foundation stones of the American govern- 
 ment. The passage of the Sherman Act was, therefore, 
 regarded with satisfaction, and there was some genuine 
 expectation on the part of the public that the problem 
 would now be found to be solved, and the trust monster 
 
 207
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 would be exterminated. The law was passed in the ad- 
 ministration of General Harrison, but up to the close of 
 his term only a few desultory efforts had been made to 
 enforce it. The Presidential campaign of 1892 turned 
 (in the West, at least), to some extent on the trust issue, 
 and when Mr. Cleveland took office he was warmly urged 
 by many Democrats to begin at once a vigorous campaign 
 against the trusts. The New York World, in particular, 
 a paper that had most ably supported Mr. Cleveland in 
 the campaign, presented to him day by day for months 
 the lawless and truly startling record of one trust after 
 another and insisted that these combinations, each of which 
 was most indubitably a violator of the law, should be 
 brought to book. Not only had the trusts been organized 
 in almost every line of business, said the World, but a 
 large number of them had been organized since the pass- 
 ing of the Sherman Act. Therefore, they were in such 
 direct and flagrant defiance of the law as to make some 
 action against them necessary to punish them as combina- 
 tions in restraint of trade, and not less to uphold the 
 dignity and sanctity of all law. 
 
 In spite of these astounding revelations and this un- 
 answerable argument, Mr. Cleveland's Attorney-General, 
 Mr. Olney, declined to make any effort to enforce the law, 
 holding it to be probably unconstitutional, and, in any 
 event, impossible to enforce. This continued to be the 
 general policy of the Cleveland administration. Mr. Cleve- 
 land was succeeded by Mr. McKinley, whose Attorney- 
 General made no effort to secure a conviction under the 
 Sherman Law (which thus in effect remained a dead letter), 
 until the forming of the Northern Securities Company of 
 New York. This was a holding company by which Mr. James 
 J. Hill sought to facilitate his amalgamation of the Great 
 
 208
 
 Dr. Sherman's Celebrated Specific 
 
 Northern and Northern Pacific railroads, an amalgamation, 
 by the way, quite illegal under the laws of some of the 
 states affected. Attorney-General Knox undertook to bring 
 an action under the Sherman law against the Northern 
 Securities Company. It is to be noted, in respect to this 
 action, first, that the Northern Securities Company was 
 not a trust, but a mere financial device. Second, that 
 while the law had been allowed to remain inert upon the 
 statute books, the number, power, arrogance, and extor- 
 tions of the industrial trusts had enormously increased. 
 Only a short time before there had been formed the United 
 States Steel Corporation, one of the greatest trusts ever 
 organized, one of the most oppressive, and certainly one 
 that most clearly violated the law. Against this gigantic 
 combination in restraint of trade no Attorney-General had 
 ever lifted a hand. Third, Mr. Hill represented one of 
 the powerful railroad combinations in the country, and was 
 at the time being fiercely assailed by other great railroad 
 interests so that a governmental attack upon him was a 
 substantial assistance to such hostile interests. And fourth, 
 these interests, thus benefited, had been liberal contributors 
 to political campaign funds. These are facts usually over- 
 looked in considering this famous case, but they may seem 
 pertinent. 
 
 The prosecution of the Northern Securities Company was 
 pushed in the Federal Courts; it was carried to the United 
 States Supreme Court, and by that body the decision was 
 rendered that the Northern Securities Company was a 
 combination in restraint of trade, and that the Sherman 
 law was a perfectly constitutional and feasible prohi- 
 bition of such combinations. This settled definitely all 
 question as to the constitutionality of the Sherman Act, 
 and many persons now expected that after a lapse of 
 
 209
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 thirteen years the law would be applied against the great 
 corporations that had so openly defied it. 
 
 There has been no such application. The trusts have 
 gone on daily increasing in power and wealth. The process 
 that they began of exterminating the small dealer has been 
 carried to a point where the practical passing of manu- 
 facturing and wholesale and even retail trade into the 
 hands of a few great combinations is clearly foreshadowed 
 and on the way. And yet, against these combinations 
 the law designed to prevent them and upheld by the Su- 
 preme Court as a constitutional and valid preventive is 
 as if it had never been written. 
 
 Yet I should err unpardonably if I should seem to imply 
 that the law, thus upheld by the highest authority, become 
 a part of the organic law of the land, as much and as 
 sacred a part of our legal foundation as any other law, 
 was at all times treated with open scorn by the officers 
 appointed and sworn to uphold it. Occasionally a news- 
 paper would break forth into clamor against some par- 
 ticularly offensive illegality by the Tobacco Trust, the 
 Sugar Trust, the Leather Trust, the Flour Trust, the Beef 
 Trust, the Oil Trust, the Woolen Trust, the Rubber Trust, 
 the Asphalt Trust, the Shoe Machinery Trust, the Elevator 
 Trust, or some other flourishing and lawless combination 
 in restraint of trade, and there would follow valorous 
 declarations by some public servant, and the form of a 
 proceeding would flare up, languish, and slowly disappear 
 from view. One of these performances belonged so surely 
 to the comic history of the law that I feel moved to relate 
 it here at length for the refreshing of my readers and 
 the lightening of these pages. 
 
 The Beef Trust was very cleverly organized by a master 
 mind in legal evasion. Unlike the Oil Trust, the Sugar 
 
 210
 
 Dr. Sherman's Celebrated Specific 
 
 Trust, and many other trusts, it had no central governing 
 body that one could lay a finger on. Three firms had 
 gradually absorbed into themselves most of the larger pack- 
 ing houses at Chicago. A small group was left at one 
 side. This was now organized into the National Packing 
 Company, the stock of which was held equally by the three 
 great firms. This, of course, put an end to all competition, 
 for a firm will not compete with a company in which it 
 has invested millions and of which it owns one-third of 
 the stock. Thus the National Packing Company became 
 the clearing house for the trust, and yet, to all superficial 
 observation was a separate institution. By means of this 
 ingenious device it was always possible to assert that there 
 was no Beef Trust, and to deceive some persons into 
 accepting the statement; and even to this day you will 
 find it imposing upon those that ought to know better. 
 
 But the difficulty of getting proof of the " combination 
 in restraint of trade " was only apparent, not real, and 
 seems to have been provided for the benefit of Federal 
 district attorneys that desired to avoid their duty. A Chi- 
 cago newspaper collected a great mass of irrefutable evi- 
 dence showing that the three great firms, the National 
 Packing Company and two other firms allied with these, 
 were acting in perfect concert to depress the price of 
 cattle and to increase the prices of meat. Letters, tele- 
 grams, and extracts from records revealed the exact method 
 of operating the huge machine, which at both ends was 
 clearly a combination in restraint of trade and therefore 
 a lawbreaker. This evidence was placed in the hands of 
 the United States District Attorney at Chicago, and the 
 demand was made that the law be enforced and the per- 
 sons implicated in the evidence be brought to trial. 
 
 The District Attorney brought this evidence into the 
 
 211
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 United States Court and asked for an injunction restrain- 
 ing the firms involved from continuing to violate the law. 
 
 In April, 1903, the Court, having heard the evidence, 
 decided that these firms had been guilty of violating the 
 law and issued an injunction commanding them to refrain 
 from violating the law thereafter. 
 
 The firms contested the validity of this injunction and 
 took an appeal. Meantime, they continued to violate the 
 law exactly as before. After two years, in which no offi- 
 cial hand was raised in any way against the lawbreaking, 
 the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a 
 decision that the injunction commanding the lawbreakers 
 to cease from violating the law was constitutional and 
 just. 
 
 Whereupon preparations were begun (somewhat delib- 
 erately) in Chicago to rear upon the lawbreakers the awful 
 front of justice. Most of the confidential clerks, book- 
 keepers, and managers of the firms involved made hurried 
 exits to Europe. These tourists comprised all persons 
 whose presence on the witness-stand would be particularly 
 undesirable for the trust. About two months later in- 
 dictments were found. When the cases were called the 
 judge ruled that as the evidence presented against the in- 
 dicted persons was in great part evidence that they them- 
 selves had furnished to the government under the promise 
 of immunity it was inadmissible, and he dismissed the 
 suits. 
 
 Nearly four years have since elapsed, and the Beef 
 Trust continues to operate exactly as before. When it 
 forces down too far the buying price of cattle a loud wail 
 arises from the stock growers ; when it advances too rapidly 
 the price of meat a loud wail arises from the consumers. 
 At other times producers and consumers between whom 
 
 212
 
 Dr. Shermans Celebrated Specific 
 
 the Trust stands " a combination in restraint of trade " 
 pleasantly taking toll with both hands endure with a 
 beautiful resignation the exactions that the approved law 
 of the land has been impotent to prevent. Persons that 
 do not believe in law are usually called anarchists; a 
 country wherein law is inert is called an anarchical coun- 
 try; one law must necessarily be the same as another; if 
 we allow one to be trampled upon, all suffer impairment. 
 The gentlemen of the Beef Trust, who are all very respect- 
 able citizens, would bitterly resent the appellation of an- 
 archists; the official gentlemen that are hired to enforce 
 the law and do not enforce it would be much hurt if they 
 were called the abettors of anarchy. But for one, I con- 
 fess I should be relieved and gratified to be informed on 
 these and cognate points. How can a government deter- 
 mine to enforce one law on the statute books and decline 
 to enforce another? How can one law be any less the 
 law than another law? And if we have a law that in 
 nearly twenty years has been thus the subject of humiliat- 
 ing farce and jest, and if it is a law that in the nature 
 of things is absurd, futile, imbecile, and impossible, why 
 not have enough courage to admit the truth and clear the 
 statute books of such degrading rubbish? 
 
 Yet, it is to be admitted, before we cease to consider 
 Dr. Sherman's celebrated specific, that it has not invariably 
 been a failure. Once or twice it has been enforced with 
 undeniable success. Under this law the case was instituted 
 that resulted in the famous decision against the Danbury 
 Hatters that trades unions could be held financially respon- 
 sible for the damage done by a strike. This may seem 
 significant enough of itself, but there is another instance 
 of the law's enforcement even better as an example though 
 it is not nearly so well known. In 1908 a steamship was 
 
 213
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 taking on cargo in a Southern seaport. The sailors were 
 members of the Sailors' Union, which had a contract with 
 the owners of the steamship. The charge was made that 
 the owners had violated this contract. A strike followed. 
 The Longshoremen's Union, members of which had been 
 engaged in loading the vessel, notified the owner that in 
 the judgment of the Union the cause of the sailors was 
 just, and unless the dispute were adjusted the Longshore- 
 men would join the strike. Meantime, the loading of the 
 vessel went on without interruption. The owners and the 
 sailors quickly came to an agreement; the vessel was loaded 
 and proceeded to sea. Four hours after she had sailed 
 seventy-five members of the Longshoremen's Union were 
 arrested under the Sherman Act, charged with a combina- 
 tion in restraint of trade. 
 
 Evidently, therefore, we should go much too far if we 
 said the Sherman Act was a dead letter or was not en- 
 forced. It was designed solely to apply to trusts. It 
 has never been enforced against a trust. It was not de- 
 signed to apply to Labor Unions. It has been enforced 
 against Labor Unions. While this by no possibility could 
 come within the intention or thought of its framers or 
 enactors, enforcement is still enforcement. Far be it from 
 me to comment upon these facts. Comment would be im- 
 proper and might not be safe. We have the highest pos- 
 sible authority for the assertion that in this country there 
 is one law for the rich man and for the poor. The 
 history of the application of the Sherman Act to the 
 rich trust and to the poor labor union must be in some 
 way an illustration of this glorious truth. Exactly how 
 it is an illustration I cannot quite see, but doubtless this 
 is clear enough to my friends of the optimistic philosophy, 
 and they will be glad to make it clear to me. 
 
 214
 
 Dr. Sherman's Celebrated Specific 
 
 Meanwhile, if the law has never reached the trusts, 
 against which alone it was framed, and has punished the 
 Labor Unions, against which it was never designed, one may 
 not deny that the grand old American principle of free 
 competition (which was the mainspring of the law) has 
 been receiving many heavy blows from evolution and ex- 
 perience. Indeed, it appears now that some of its old- 
 time champions have been driven to a doubt whether, 
 in the existing conditions we are yet to speak of, competi- 
 tion is so much a blessing as a bane. I will give of these 
 experiences some examples that passed before my own 
 observation. 
 
 In this Middle West, where I was born, two of the 
 railroads that for years had amiably shared in the plunder 
 of the public, fell out for some reason that I forget; I 
 think it was about the freight rate on bran from Missouri 
 river points, one road wanting more than the other would 
 concede. Anyway, these two railroads, the Chicago, Rock 
 Island & Pacific, and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, 
 fell from co-partnership to quarreling, and then to cutting 
 rates. Here, then, was grand old competition in its plain- 
 est terms. Every day one road or the other would announce 
 a fresh cut in the tariff, until the passenger rate from 
 Mississippi river towns to Chicago had dwindled from 
 $5 to 50 cents. The countryside rejoiced at this windfall, 
 and such swarms of people poured towards Chicago that 
 the railroads could not provide cars for them. The stock- 
 holders wailed aloud, but presently all their complaints 
 were drowned in an outcry far more bitter and insistent. 
 The merchants of the region beheld ruin before them, for 
 their customers were going to Chicago to buy goods. Not 
 only that, but there was yet a sharper grievance in store 
 for the local tradesmen. Their prices were all arranged 
 
 215
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 and their profits calculated on the basis of the freight rates 
 in force before competition began. Now, the freight rates 
 were less than half as much, and rivals were starting up, 
 profiting by the new rates, and selling goods at correspond- 
 ingly reduced figures. This exhibited competition in a new 
 light. Many of these same merchants that now complained 
 so bitterly against it, had spent part of their lives in active 
 labors to secure it. Whenever they had complained of 
 the extortions of one railroad they had thought longingly 
 of the beatific state they would be in if only there were 
 competition in the carrying trade; many of them had, in 
 fact, subscribed liberally for stock in new railroad projects. 
 And now they discovered that competition did not mean 
 relief from railroad extortion, but only such an unsettling of 
 basic conditions that business was practically impossible. 
 
 Thousands of merchants over all the Northwest came 
 simultaneously (and swiftly) to the same conclusion about 
 this, and they uttered protests so fierce, loud, and deter- 
 mined that the railroad warriors were forced to make terms, 
 and the old rates were restored. 
 
 The next year the whole nation had a memorable lesson 
 to the same effect. For a generation the New York Cen- 
 tral & Hudson River Railroad had enjoyed the best of 
 the carrying trade between New York and Buffalo, and 
 a great advantage in the entire traffic between New York 
 and the great West. What we had been taught to believe 
 were the inevitable laws of economics now began to work. 
 The New York Central, as previously related in these 
 pages, had taken advantage of its position to issue great 
 masses of watered securities, and to cut many " melons " 
 among its fortunate owners, who were principally members 
 of the Vanderbilt family. This is that process in the 
 poster phrase of Wall Street called " capitalizing the earn- 
 
 216
 
 Dr. Sherman's Celebrated Specific 
 
 ings." As usual the procedure had necessitated various 
 extortions and frauds upon the public, and the excessive 
 profits to the fortunate melon cutters had attracted much 
 attention from other Capital. Hence, competition was 
 evolved, and a company was formed that constructed the 
 New York, West Shore & Buffalo Railroad, from Wee- 
 hawken (opposite New York City), paralleling the New 
 York Central most of the way and ending at Buffalo. 
 
 This railroad was completed in 1883, whereupon competi- 
 tion swooped down on its wings of healing. Rates were 
 cut on all branches of traffic, until passengers were carried 
 between New York and Chicago for $7.50. 
 
 Then this rivalry, which had upset business east and 
 west, had its natural result. A panic began. Grant & 
 Ward failed with a resounding crash, an era of acute busi- 
 ness depression set in, the bankruptcy totals reached alarm- 
 ing figures, and thousands of firms in remote regions that 
 cared nothing about the fight between the Central and 
 the West Shore went to disaster. There was a universal 
 demand that competition be stopped. Mr. Morgan stepped 
 into the breach, arranged the terms of compromise, brought 
 the warring forces together, and the New York Central 
 was loaded for 999 years with an unprofitable enterprise, 
 on which the public must continue to pay the tribute of 
 maintenance and interest charges. For years there had 
 been no greater business calamity than the installing of 
 competition with the New York Central. The effects of 
 it are still felt; they will continue to be felt as long as 
 the West Shore securities exist for the public to pay. 
 
 Such episodes (on a great or small scale) happening 
 many times in many parts of the country, and enforced 
 by the complaints of Wall Street and of the stockholders, 
 drove the railroad managers into the so-called " gentlemen's 
 
 217
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 agreements," the first of which, by the way, was in- 
 augurated by Mr. Morgan. Their object was to prevent 
 all rate wars everywhere. At first these treaties were 
 received by the general public with much scornful amuse- 
 ment. Later, it was discovered that they were not merely 
 beneficent to the stockholders of the railroads, but of vital 
 importance to the country. Whenever one of these agree- 
 ments was broken and a rate war instituted, hostilities had 
 not proceeded long before all the merchants and tradesmen 
 in the region affected were furiously protesting, and thus 
 the " gentlemen's agreement " came to be regarded as an in- 
 dispensable feature in successful railroad management. 
 Yet, of course, it was a broad denial of the whole principle 
 of free competition, and the thought slowly began to intrude 
 upon reflective men that if competition was a deadly evil 
 in transportation it could hardly be a perfect blessing in 
 production. 
 
 To fit these experiences into their proper place in the 
 history of industrial evolution, we should go back to a con- 
 dition, only seven hundred years ago in Europe, when 
 every man that was in business was in business alone, and 
 every man that made anything, made it alone and with his 
 own tools. The first business co-partnership was formed 
 in Florence about the thirteenth century. There were 
 two men in the same street that were bankers and money- 
 lenders. Naturally, they were rivals; the grand old 
 principle of competition had its full operation between 
 them. But it was also true that they maintained between 
 them two places of business, and two assistants, whereas 
 the total transactions justified but one place of business 
 and no assistants; and it was also true that because of 
 these facts, and because of the rivalry in loan rates and 
 so on, neither prospered. 
 
 218
 
 Dr. Sherman's Celebrated Specific 
 
 Now, there is a force in the world much stronger than 
 law, governments, potentates, newspapers, statesmen, col- 
 lege professors, or pamphleteers. It is the force of econ- 
 omy, and it irresistibly drew together the two money- 
 lenders of Florence. Day after day there stared them 
 in the face the plain facts about the two places of busi- 
 ness, the two assistants, the rivalry in lending rates. When 
 this object lesson had penetrated deeply enough they did 
 the natural thing; they united their establishments and 
 had one place of business, no assistant, and no rivalry in 
 lending rates. 
 
 Then the intellectual progenitors of the gentlemen that 
 favored Dr. Sherman's remedy came around in a fright 
 and withdrew their money. Here was the first " com- 
 bination in restraint of trade," and as it was new and 
 therefore obviously wrong and immoral, I have no doubt 
 they thought the government should suppress it. 
 
 But this same force of evolution, this irresistible tendency 
 towards economy of effort and expense, spread the co- 
 partnership idea in spite of all alarms and forebodings, 
 and a few generations saw them common in many trades. 
 It was the beginning of centralization and of the growth 
 of efficiency. Then there began to be more than one 
 partner. Then there were great " houses " or firms, in 
 which the membership descended from father to son; great 
 banking houses in England and on the continent, great fac- 
 toring houses at Bruges. Then " companies " were estab- 
 lished in Holland and England, the great East Indian 
 Company becoming in effect the government of a vast 
 nation. A craze for the forming of such companies ended 
 in the South Sea bubble in England, and again in the 
 Mississippi bubble in France; yet the general process of 
 development went on for two reasons: the discovery of 
 
 219
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 new worlds and new ways, and the development of new 
 wants by mankind demanded more capital and more com- 
 plex organization than the firm, the co-partnership, or the 
 individual could furnish; and there was the same irresistible 
 force at work in the fact that with all its drawbacks the 
 company was a more economical and more efficient agency 
 towards the things that mankind must have. 
 
 Or to sum up these changes in another way, men were 
 beginning to learn the advantages and economies of united 
 effort. 
 
 Later there began an even greater revolution in pro- 
 ductive industry. In the days of the individual tradesman, 
 manufacturing was likewise carried on by individual arti- 
 sans. Every shoemaker had his own shop, owned his own 
 tools, and made the complete shoe with his own work and 
 that of his apprentice. Even the cloth weavers had each 
 his own loom, and the armorers had each his own forge. 
 But the invention of the steam engine and of multiplex 
 machinery to be operated by steam, changed all this. A 
 cloth weaver did not have the capital required to buy, 
 set up, and operate a steam engine and a power loom; 
 a shoemaker did not have the capital to set up shoemaking 
 machinery. The complete artisan in any trade largely 
 disappeared; the men that made things no longer owned 
 their tools ; and the " company " organization that had 
 already been developed for trading and exploring purposes 
 became naturally the easy means of providing the capital 
 and owning the tools for production. 
 
 Year after year the results of these innovations were 
 to make the artisan more and more a part of a machine, 
 and to disturb the distribution of the results of industry, 
 so that the worker got less than his share and capital 
 got more. A shoemaker that made an entire shoe had 
 
 220
 
 Dr. Shermans Celebrated Specific 
 
 some mental pleasure, and might take some pride in the 
 work of his skill and taste. The new shoemaker, standing 
 all day before a machine that cut out heels or soles, having 
 never the slightest change of labor, with no chance to 
 exercise skill or taste, with a mechanical and drudging 
 occupation, was subjected to influences that limited his 
 mental development. Confined all day in a great, noisy, 
 and dirty factory, badly ventilated, often badly lighted, 
 usually crowded with his fellows, breathing air contami- 
 nated from many lungs, he was likewise subjected to in- 
 fluences that undermined his physical force. Added to 
 these, and enforcing them, was the fact that too often in the 
 unfair distribution of the results of the enterprise the share 
 he received was too little to provide him with adequate nour- 
 ishment; the quarters in which he was compelled to live 
 were cramped, dark, gloomy, ill-ventilated, and offered 
 little or no relief from the poisonous air of the factory 
 in which he worked; while the terms of his employment 
 kept him from such relaxation as would tend to restore 
 his overdrained nervous force. 
 
 The first result of the new system, then, was to produce 
 a race of men and women inadequately nourished, pain- 
 fully overwrought, deficient in vitality, and with lives the 
 normal boundaries of which were toil and sleep. 
 
 As the new system spread and developed with the multi- 
 plied wants and varied ingenuity of man, the number of 
 persons that fell under its blight increased. It has con- 
 tinued to increase; it will continue to increase, absolutely 
 and relatively, so long as the system endures. At the 
 same time the physical condition of the workers thus af- 
 fected will probably continue to decline. From such con- 
 clusions there seems to be no escape, and if anyone among 
 the fortunate desires to see with his own eyes what these 
 
 221
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 conditions are now, and to gather from his own senses a 
 just conception of what they are to be hereafter in the 
 progress of this system, I do commend to him a tour 
 through certain streets and regions of Fall River, Haver- 
 hill, Lowell, Lawrence, Paterson, Pittsburg, Allegheny, 
 Connellsville, Harrisburg, Deering Station, Homestead, 
 Cleveland, South Chicago, Joliet, Moline, Racine, Fort 
 Wayne, Scranton, South Bend, Belleville, East St. Louis, 
 and other cities and towns I might mention. I am inclined 
 to think he will be much impressed with the truth of 
 these remarks; in any event, he will, if he be of the 
 well-to-do and complacent among us, see sights and go 
 among people the like of which he had never believed to 
 exist. 
 
 It is to be noted carefully here that competition, which, 
 as we have seen, has been condemned in transportation 
 as a curse and a great injury, is the sole basis upon which 
 these conditions are maintained and defended. The cur- 
 rent price of labor, determined by competition, is the ex- 
 pression of the share of the results of the enterprise al- 
 lotted to the laborer. From the continuance of competition 
 in this regard it is evident that Capital (which is every- 
 where the possession of the more fortunate) reaps an 
 advantage; from the continuance of competition in trans- 
 portation it was evident that Capital reaped a disadvantage. 
 Competition has been largely abolished in transportation, 
 and yet is fully maintained in relation to the price of 
 labor. It is evident, therefore, that the present system 
 endows Capital with undue power, as well as undue ad- 
 vantages. 
 
 We come next to the manner in which this power is 
 secured and maintained, which is at the same time the 
 means by which the results of industry are so unfairly 
 
 222
 
 Dr. Sherman's Celebrated Specific 
 
 divided that steadily the wealth of the world is being 
 drawn into the hands of a few men. 
 
 The great pumps and efficient machines to this end are 
 the issued security, whether stock certificate or bond, and 
 the practice of issuing these on the reputed value and pos- 
 sible profits of the enterprise. In the case of bonds, these 
 become actual, and in the case of stocks, essential liens upon 
 the enterprise, which must henceforth make enough of sur- 
 plus to meet the interest and dividends. These added 
 interest and dividend charges can be provided in only 
 two ways, by increasing the price of the product or by 
 reducing the cost of its making. In the case of manu- 
 facturing enterprise the reduced cost of making is usually 
 sought for through reduced wage rates. The bonds and 
 stocks are therefore efficient devices to force increased 
 profits from the enterprise and to reduce the share of the 
 product that the worker receives. They are also a certain 
 force upon the community. There is a general, if tacit, 
 recognition of their right to earn dividends and interest; 
 something almost sacred pertains to them as commercial, 
 obligations; and an enterprise is held to be justified in 
 resorting to almost any expedient to secure the means to 
 pay these dividends and interest charges, no matter how 
 they have been created nor how far in advance of the 
 actual earning power of the enterprise. In their turn 
 the securities have become powerful influences upon the 
 welfare of other enterprises, and even of the general busi- 
 ness public. The failure of any conspicuous enterprise to 
 meet its interest charges might so affect general confidence as 
 to precipitate a disaster, and would almost certainly lower 
 prices and unsettle conditions. Very often the securities 
 have been accepted by banks as collateral for loans ; if 
 there is default in the interest the value of the securities 
 
 223
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 falls; the banks must demand more collateral. It is, there- 
 fore, gravely in the interest of the business world that 
 the value of the securities should be maintained and the 
 interest charges should be met, even if this is done by 
 conditions under which the toilers of the enterprise are 
 insufficiently nourished, badly housed, and so rear their 
 children as to imperil the coming generation. 
 
 The existence of these securities and the vast ramifica- 
 tions of their importance are also a great influence upon 
 legislators and governments probably the greatest in- 
 fluence. Public men hesitate to take any step and law- 
 makers to pass any law that might injuriously affect the 
 price of these securities; and politicians and political con- 
 ventions are always in awe of the stock market. If the 
 election of any candidate would injuriously affect the 
 prices of securities, that fact is held to be a sufficient 
 reason for encompassing his defeat, although the lowering 
 of the prices of the securities would have no effect upon 
 the men whose toil actually makes products, and only 
 upon those that do not toil, but at all times receive an 
 unjustly large share of the fruits of enterprise. 
 
 Yet, under the present system, the securities that thus 
 reap widespread mischief and are in a measure responsible 
 for the transforming of large populations into industrial 
 serfs are always unavoidable; in no other way can the 
 capital be secured on which to conduct the enterprise. 
 We can no more return to the days of the individual 
 artisan, making the whole shoe or the whole bolt of cloth, 
 than we could return to the days of the stagecoach. 
 Surely this is beyond question, and equally sure appears 
 the prospect that just as industrial serfdom has steadily 
 increased year by year from the beginning of the present 
 system to this hour of this day, so it will continue to 
 
 224.
 
 Dr. Sherman's Celebrated Specific 
 
 increase so long as the present system endures. For 
 what can by any possibility check such a world-wide de- 
 velopment founded so evidently upon evolution? Could 
 agitation or argument have prevented the development of 
 the co-partnership from the individual enterprise? Or of 
 the firm from the co-partnership? Or of the company 
 from the firm? Or of the shoe factory from the cobbler's 
 bench? Assuredly, then, nothing will check that develop- 
 ment now, and the one choice given to us is whether 
 we shall recognize the inevitable outcome of all this, or 
 leave our children to find it out, perhaps after a bitter, 
 perhaps after a bloody experience. 
 
 How comic, then, appear the Sherman law, the anti- 
 trust perturbations of Mr. Bryan and others, and the 
 efforts of the various states to turn back this Niagara! 
 The trust is only the natural successor to the company 
 and the next step in the evolution. True, the trust works 
 evil as well as good: to increase arbitrarily and avariciously 
 the price that the poor must pay for meat is a great evil; 
 to bribe legislators and corrupt politicians is a great evil; 
 to interfere with the government of the nation, to thrust 
 corrupt men into office, to interfere with the purity of 
 elections and the sanctity of justice are very great evils. 
 But we in no wise mitigate these evils by trying to abolish 
 the trust any more than we should make travel safe by 
 agitating for the restoration of the stagecoach. The 
 imprisonment of a labor leader for exercising what he 
 believed to be the right of free speech is no contribution 
 to the forward movement, but the failure of the Sherman law 
 to be otherwise enforced is a subject for proper rejoicing. 
 
 The trust will go on and fill its place in the plan of 
 evolution. Just as the co-partnership was an inevitable 
 forerunner of the firm, the firm of the company, and the 
 
 225
 
 Why 1 Am a Socialist 
 
 company of the trust, so the trust is the forerunner of 
 the co-operative commonwealth, towards which all these 
 forces tend, and upon which argument or protest are like 
 pebbles thrown at a battleship. A majority of the race 
 will not be willing to remain industrial serfs when a method 
 of supplying all the wants of men without oppression or 
 injustice, without superfluity on one hand or insufficiency 
 on the other, becomes apparent. 
 
 Of the unequal and unjust distribution of wealth, in- 
 cessantly at work to increase poverty and to make super- 
 fluity more superfluous, many aspects are to be noted. 
 I have mentioned here only one, and that perhaps to be 
 deemed more as an assistant influence than as a cause. 
 Extortionate railroad rates are probably of at least as 
 much effect. When Mr. Morgan and Mr. Hill, having 
 new securities to provide for, decide to increase the coun- 
 try's freight tariff, the results bear in proportion far more 
 heavily upon the poor man than upon the well-to-do. In 
 the case of coal, we saw that an initial increase of 50 
 cents a ton in the price was an increase of $3 a ton when 
 it reached the poorest consumer. It was but an increase 
 of 50 cents to the ordinary purchaser, to whom $1 was 
 of actually less consequence than 5 cents to the tene- 
 ment house dweller. Similarly, if the freight rates on 
 flour are increased 10 per cent, from Minneapolis to New 
 York this increase means an increase of 25 cents a barrel 
 to the well-to-do consumer, who buys a barrel at a time. 
 To the tenement house dweller, whose ordinary purchase 
 is of two or three pounds the increase is not less than 
 $1 a barrel. Yet to the well-to-do the 25 cents of increase 
 is of less significance than 1 cent of increase is to the 
 tenement house dweller. Similar observations pertain to 
 the generality of the tenement house dweller's purchases, 
 
 226
 
 Dr. Sherman's Celebrated Specific 
 
 so that clearly, as society is now organized, the heaviest 
 burdens fall upon those least able to bear them; and when 
 Mr. Hill and Mr. Morgan profit themselves by fresh 
 issues of stock the ultimate payment of these charges falls 
 upon the consumer and most grievously upon the poorest 
 consumer. Because I need hardly point out that when 
 freight rates are increased it is not the dealer, nor the 
 shipper, nor the manufacturer, that pays them. Each in 
 turn passes the charges (augmented for profit) along to 
 the next, until they end with the person that consumes the 
 product. This, again, is an inevitable feature of the 
 present system, not to be in the least affected by any 
 curative nor restrictive legislation, nor by denunciations 
 of " malefactors of great wealth." So long as we have 
 the system we shall have these results, and not the " male- 
 factors," but the system alone, should be blamed. But so 
 long as we have the system, and so long as day by day it 
 increases the burdens borne by the poor, binds on them 
 more firmly the fetters of their poverty, and increases their 
 numbers, shall we not cease to talk of the land of free 
 opportunity and of the chances of wealth here open to 
 all? On the whole, does it not seem rather a sorry jest? 
 Consider the clerk or artisan that now starts out in life 
 weighted down with the slowly increasing cost of living, 
 while all the lines of business that once were held to offer 
 him opportunity are passing into the ownership of great 
 combinations. As a matter of fact, what possible thrift 
 or energy or ability will ever clear him from his environ- 
 ment of poverty? The old days wherein men began poor 
 and became rich have passed from us. We know that they 
 have passed; that we should continue to pretend they have 
 not is a most extraordinary attempt at national self-decep- 
 tion. 
 
 227
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR STOCK WATERING 
 
 One interested in the ruined castles of Europe may have 
 noticed that as a rule these structures stand beside and 
 formerly commanded highways that in the Middle Ages 
 were the lines of through traffic. 
 
 Much merchandise from the Orient was in the old days 
 landed at Venice or Genoa and transported by wagons 
 and pack-trains that followed certain roads to central 
 and western Europe. One of the favorite routes was over 
 the Great St. Bernard Pass to Martigny, and thence down 
 the Rhone valley to Lake Leman and Geneva. In the 
 Rhone valley, accordingly, was a castle every five miles, 
 or thereabouts. Another great thoroughfare was along 
 the Rhine from Bale or Strassburg to the cities of the 
 Low Countries. Therefore, along this route were built 
 those famous castles that are now the wonder and delight 
 both of him that views them in reality and of him whose 
 travels are achieved by means of the lantern slide. Wher- 
 ever was a narrow and much traveled road, hemmed in 
 by a river or a mountain wall, there the castles lowered 
 upon the wayfarer. All the Alpine passes had them; in 
 the roads that threaded the best known valleys, as along 
 the Adige, the Reuss, the Ticino, in the Miinsterthal, and 
 similar regions was what seems now an over-supply. 
 
 The reason for this distribution of strongholds is not 
 clear to us until we learn that each was the possession of 
 
 228
 
 An Apology for Stock Watering 
 
 a feudal chief, count, baron, or duke, and existed for the 
 purpose of enabling its owner to levy upon the highway 
 the toll by which he was supported. Every traveler along 
 the road, every pack-train or merchandise cart must pay a 
 tribute to the lord of each castle, and upon this goodly 
 tilth the baron waxed fat and learned to despise toil, since 
 life could be so easily maintained without it. 
 
 Each count or baron had a body of retainers of a size 
 commensurate with the pickings of the road upon which 
 he had planted himself, and over these retainers he had 
 the power of life and death. He could hang any of them 
 at his pleasure, and as, in the first half of the Middle Ages, 
 the jurisdiction of each noble was chiefly a law unto it- 
 self so far as its internal affairs were concerned, there 
 was neither appeal nor redress for the vassal. In return 
 for fighting the baron's battles, collecting his tolls upon 
 the highway, hewing wood, and drawing water, the hench- 
 man received his support, which was believed by those con- 
 cerned to be all he deserved and more, so that he was 
 urged and commanded to be grateful to his kind, indulgent 
 employer and contented in the lot to which an all-wise 
 Providence had assigned him. As a rule he needed very 
 little exhortation to these pious genuflections ; he seems to 
 have been devoted with canine loyalty to the master that 
 fed and beat him, and was not only willing to endure what- 
 ever hardship might be put upon him, but with enthusiasm 
 and his blood, or even his life, to defend the master to 
 whom he was believed to be bound. It appears that the 
 Church heartily supported these conditions, and that to the 
 minds of priests, barons, lords, ladies, parasites of all 
 degrees, and the henchmen, the existing system was not only 
 right, just, and divinely appointed, but the very best system 
 that possibly could be devised and certain to last forever, 
 
 229
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 without the least change. Of course, it was true that 
 the barons and counts lived at ease and had a superfluity, 
 while the henchmen that collected the tolls and fought 
 the battles and performed the labor dwelt in misery, igno- 
 rance, and insufficiency; but this was the law of things, 
 and so Divine Will had ordained it. 
 
 Sometimes, to be sure, the people of the surrounding 
 country wearied of being robbed, preyed upon, oppressed, 
 and maltreated by the fat baron, and they arose in the 
 night and burned the castle, and chased the fat baron and 
 his family over the border. But this happened rarely, and 
 only in places where dwelt very peculiar people, such as 
 in Graubunden, and the Forest Cantons of Switzerland. 
 Otherwise the barons thrived mightily and lived of the 
 best, and left to their children the business of toll-taking 
 on the highways, which was enormously profitable, and 
 in all ways a pleasant business. 
 
 It appears that the justice of the toll-taking was upheld 
 upon two grounds: first, the piece of highway patrolled and 
 levied upon by the baron was his, he had built it (or 
 seized it), and therefore he was entitled to collect from 
 its use what tolls he pleased ; and second, he had the power 
 to collect the tolls whether he had the right or not. A 
 third reason, that the baron needed the money, is seldom 
 mentioned, but may be believed to have been at least as 
 potent as either of the others. 
 
 The tolls collected from each traveler were small, yet 
 the aggregate for a long journey was great; and the result 
 was that the cost of transporting merchandise for any 
 considerable distance was greater than the original cost 
 of the merchandise itself, and the difficulty of exchanging 
 commodities was in some cases almost prohibitive. Occa- 
 sionally some merchant would protest against this. He 
 
 230
 
 An Apology for Stock Watering 
 
 seems to have been regarded as of unsound mind, a 
 dangerous person, muck-raker, or an apostle of social unrest. 
 
 Some of these old castles are interesting studies to-day. 
 One, of which the wreck left by the indignant countryside 
 may still be traced near Zernetz, in the Engadine, had 
 a wall that crossed the road, so that the only passage was 
 through its doors. This seems to have been an unusually 
 thrifty '.financier; he purposed that no traveler should 
 escape the toll. Another castle excellently preserved, not 
 far from Schlanders, in Tyrol, stood upon a perpendicular 
 rock at the base of which the road wound, so encompassed 
 that it could be barricaded from above. On the lakes, 
 as at Chillon and the famous robber's den on Lake Mag- 
 giore, the castles were equipped to rob with equal facility 
 wayfarers by land or water. The whole system must have 
 been ably managed and operated with great success; but 
 even more interesting than the signs of its prosperity is 
 the very patent fact that in spite of the pathetic confidence 
 of its beneficiaries and its victims alike it no longer exists. 
 
 To this fact belong, also, some other profitable reflec- 
 tions. If there be one proposition that may be regarded 
 as determined by history, it is that in a form of organized 
 society the control of the highways is the most important 
 of all possessions. Whoever has owned the highways of 
 any country has virtually owned that country, no matter 
 how the nominal ownership might be vested. This was a 
 fundamental principle of the Romans, who, upon annexing 
 a province, at once threaded it with new routes, which they 
 jealously guarded, and was the origin of those marvelous 
 roads of theirs that still exist in many parts of Europe. 
 The same principle seems to have been clearly perceived 
 by Hannibal and by every other conqueror whose success 
 was more than momentary; and in a very impressive way, 
 
 231
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 to be described later, the truth of this principle, as the 
 prime necessity of government, has been recognized by 
 every nation of modern Europe. 
 
 All these considerations should render more interesting 
 and significant to us the next phase of the American rail- 
 road problem, which is also the phase of most importance 
 to the masses of people. 
 
 We are rather accustomed to refer to the question of 
 freight rates or tolls upon our railroad highways as if 
 it were a question of opinion, or of doctrine, or of merely 
 academic dispute. I believe one may quite easily show 
 that it is none of these but a question that independently 
 of all opinion, theory, argument, or desire, is steadily mov- 
 ing to a state wherein it will imperatively demand settle- 
 ment on a basis new to us. I believe it can be shown 
 that irresistible forces within the railroads, not outside of 
 them, will drive us to a situation that all men everywhere 
 will admit to be impossible. 
 
 To show this we must have a concrete example, and 
 I take the one that happened to come the closest to my 
 own observations. About one hundred others equally perti- 
 nent can be cited, but I hold here to that of which I per- 
 sonally know the most. 
 
 For several years before 1879 there existed in Minne- 
 sota a corporation called the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad 
 Company and a corporation called the First Division of 
 the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company. These had 
 the same management, and ostensibly the same purpose, 
 but had divided between them the piece of railroad prop- 
 erty called successively the Minnesota & Pacific and the 
 St. Paul & Pacific. By 1873 these two corporations had 
 constructed about 480 miles of railroad from St. Paul to 
 Breckinridge, Minn., and to other points in the Northwest. 
 
 232
 
 An Apology for Stock Watering 
 
 For ostensible purposes of construction the management 
 had loaded the property with bond issues until the earnings 
 would not pay the interest charges. The public history of 
 these transactions is very obscure, but for the initiated 
 enough is doubtless contained in the fact that one of the 
 corporations was a construction company for the other, 
 and that construction worth $10,000 (or less) a mile was 
 charged for at the rate of $30,000 a mile. This speedily 
 brought the concern to its knees, and in the United States 
 Circuit Court a receiver was appointed. 
 
 As a matter of fact the property should never have been 
 in financial difficulties, for it was supported by an enormous 
 grant of public land, it had received from state and local 
 governments many valuable privileges, and it traversed a 
 region of almost unparalleled fertility. But physically 
 and in other ways the management had been so bad that 
 when the receiver took charge he found the property chiefly 
 in the condition of so much junk. 
 
 The bonds were held mostly in Holland. Mr. James 
 
 J. Hill was then a small commission merchant in St. Paul. 
 
 He had previously been an employee of the St. Paul & 
 
 Pacific, and knew something of its real foundation, if 
 
 not of its inside and devious history. With three friends 
 
 he entered into an arrangement by which some of the 
 
 Dutch bondholders were induced to surrender their bonds 
 
 in trust, while the bonds of others were bought with money 
 
 secured from the Bank of Montreal by Mr. George Stephen, 
 
 one of Mr. Hill's associates and at that time manager of 
 
 the bank. When on June 1, 1879, the receiver offered 
 
 the road for sale, Mr. Hill and his associates bought it 
 
 for $3,600,000,* and paid for it with the bonds they had 
 
 * See Steenerson vs. Great Northern Railway Company, 69 
 Minnesota, 372. The purchase was subject to a prior lien of 
 
 $186,000. 
 
 233
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 collected. They immediately reorganized the property into 
 the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railroad. On this 
 they issued $8,000,000 of bonds, which they sold to the 
 public at more than par, and $15,000,000 of stock, which 
 they divided among themselves, none of them paying a 
 cent for it. With the proceeds of the bonds they settled 
 with the Dutch bondholders and the Bank of Montreal, 
 and then had (as incidental profits) a remainder of $4,- 
 400,000 of bonds worth 104. They had also the $15,000,- 
 000 of stock, which was worth in the market 140; 2,580- 
 606 acres of land grants, subsequently proved to be worth 
 more than $13,000,000; and a railroad that the receiver 
 had put into good condition and extended until it com- 
 prised 565 miles of track; and all this they secured without 
 the investment of a dollar. 
 
 They now proceeded to issue fresh securities upon this 
 property, usually to themselves, for small prices, 
 although always worth more than par on the market. 
 Sometimes the securities issued had some basis in an im- 
 provement or extension; more often they constituted only 
 what is called in high finance " a melon," or in other 
 words they were merely gifts taken out of the enter- 
 prise by its fortunate managers and presented to them- 
 selves. Each such gift loaded the property with securi- 
 ties on which it must earn every year dividends and interest, 
 so that each bore with it a long trail of annual gifts that 
 stretched into future generations, all to be paid from the 
 charges or tolls imposed upon the public. After ten years 
 of such proceedings, when they had brought the capitaliza- 
 tion of the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba to $80,985,- 
 000, they reorganized it, for their greater convenience in 
 providing these profits, into the Great Northern, issued 
 an entirely new set of stocks and bonds, and extended 
 
 234
 
 An Apology for Stock Watering 
 
 their railroad to the Pacific coast. Thereupon, they began 
 a new course of " melon cutting " even more profitable than 
 the old. Thirty years after they had without capital 
 embarked upon their venture they had cleared from the 
 enterprise $407,000,000 of profits, which they had divided 
 among themselves and those that in the later years they 
 had admitted to share in these goodly matters. The capi- 
 talization of the Great Northern Railroad was now 
 $250,000,000. 
 
 That they might secure money to pay the interest on 
 the bonds and the dividends on the stock comprising this 
 enormous capitalization, a great part of which represented 
 " melons," the managers of the Great Northern made cer- 
 tain freight rates or tolls that by much of the country 
 traversed by the railroad were regarded as unjust and 
 extortionate. After some years of bitter complaint the 
 people in this region revolted, and before the Inter-State 
 Commerce Commission they attacked the toll-takers. They 
 showed to the Commission how the toll-taking affected 
 them in their daily lives and businesses, how it had in- 
 creased for them the cost of living and circumscribed their 
 activities, and revealed as clearly as need be the great 
 and anciently approved truth that the control of the high- 
 ways is to any people their first rational concern. 
 
 Now the stocks and bonds that were the origin of these 
 charges complained of by the people were what are com- 
 monly called " watered securities," and differed in no par- 
 ticular from millions of the like securities issued by other 
 railroads in the country. What Mr. Hill and his associates 
 had done with the old St. Paul & Pacific property had 
 been done with every other railroad property in the United 
 States, so that of the sixteen billion dollars of total capi- 
 talization of such railroads not less than nine billions 
 
 235
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 represented securities issued in the way that Mr. Hill 
 and his associates had issued theirs, and for the same pur- 
 pose. That is to say, they were in no sense investments 
 in the property. They provided for no improvement or 
 expenditure, and were merely securities issued by the own- 
 ers of the railroad for their own profit, and paid for by 
 the tolls collected from the public. The case of Mr. Hill 
 and the Great Northern was only a type and an example 
 of a universal practice. 
 
 So, therefore, if the showing of the rebellious people in 
 this instance was veritable, all the rest of the people of 
 the United States were by other railroad companies sub- 
 jected to similar tolls that had the same results in in- 
 creased cost of living and restricted activities. 
 
 The justice of this form of toll-taking was, and is, up- 
 held upon two chief grounds for we need never suppose 
 that any general condition exists without plausible reasons. 
 
 First, it is urged that what are called " watered securi- 
 ties " are perfectly legitimate and not open to any objec- 
 tion, because they are always based upon actual values 
 (perhaps better called potential values) in the earning 
 power of the property, or in the increased worth of its 
 real estate terminals and right of way or in both. If 
 a railroad is capitalized at $100,000,000, and can be made 
 to earn dividends on $200,000,000, then its capitalization 
 may justly be increased to $200,000,000. If its real 
 estate, terminals and right of way were worth $50,000,000 
 ten years ago, and by the increase of population and the 
 growth of cities have become worth $100,000,000, then 
 the additional $50,000,000 may justly be represented in 
 an additional stock issue of $50,000,000. The value of 
 the property in former years and the amount actually 
 invested in it are not factors in the problem. The only 
 
 236
 
 An Apology for Stock Watering 
 
 question is, What is the property worth now? And what- 
 ever the sum may be, that sum is entitled to be capitalized, 
 nor can any just exception be taken to any tolls levied 
 to support that capitalization. The property is worth so 
 much; then the owners of the property have a right to 
 a return upon so much. 
 
 Second, the stocks and bonds thus issued do not 
 usually remain in the hands of the men that issue them, 
 but are sold by these men to the general public. They 
 thus become investments, made in good faith, and entitled 
 as property to protection and consideration. If the freight 
 rates made in part to support these securities be reduced 
 the value of the securities will also be reduced, and there 
 will result an unjustifiable injury to property and to what 
 is known as the " innocent purchaser." 
 
 Moreover, it is not to be denied that there lingers in 
 the minds of many men a strong belief in the doctrine 
 that the highways belong to the railroad companies, and 
 that therefore the railroad companies may properly deal 
 as they please with their own and levy such tolls as may 
 seem fitting. In many cases the gentlemen that draw the 
 huge profits from these operations are supposed to have 
 built the highways, and their profits to be only a just 
 reward for the benefits they have thereby conferred. To 
 assure ourselves that this is so we need only refer to 
 the eulogies lavished upon Mr. Hill, even by some of those 
 that have fared but ill as a consequence of his proceedings. 
 We are told by these panegyrists that Mr. Hill has de- 
 veloped the Northwest; that the railroads he has built have 
 been of incalculable benefit; and it seems to be assumed 
 both that without him the Northwest would have had no 
 railroads and that for having conferred railroads upon the 
 Northwest the millions he has reaped from his tolls are no 
 
 237
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 excessive reward. Therefore, the people that have paid 
 his tolls have no right to complain; all that a man can 
 make by the use of his own he is entitled to make, say 
 these gentlemen, not, perhaps, aware that with exactly 
 such a phrase the baron of Zernetz castle and his class 
 were wont to justify their toll-taking on the old highway. 
 
 I return now to the defense of what is called " stock- 
 watering," because from the earnestness with which it is 
 repeated in railroad circles and among railroads attorneys 
 we may believe that the issue of this inevitable problem 
 will center first around this defense. 
 
 To make it somewhat clearer. In 1864 the Chicago & 
 Rock Island Railroad bought for about $25,000 certain 
 tracts of land in the city of Chicago. The present value 
 of that land is more than $6,000,000. According to the 
 argument we are considering that land should be reckoned 
 for securities, not on the basis of the investment in it, 
 $25,000, but on the basis of the present value, $6,000,000. 
 It is worth $6,000,000, but it is unproductive of any 
 direct revenue as land because it is used for the railroad's 
 purposes. Nevertheless, there remains the value, and very 
 properly this may be represented in an issue of $6,000,000 
 of securities on which the tolls levied throughout the region 
 traversed by the railroad may be used to pay the interest 
 or dividends. 
 
 Similarly (still pursuing the argument) it is not the 
 money Mr. Hill invested in his railroad property that is 
 the proper basis of his profits, because he never made any 
 such investment. He is entitled to interest on the present 
 value of the property, however he may have obtained it; 
 he is also entitled to capitalize this value, and he is en- 
 titled also to capitalize the earning power of the enter- 
 prise. His terminals at Seattle may have cost him origi- 
 
 238
 
 An Apology for Stock Watering 
 
 nally $1,000,000, let us suppose. Seattle has since then 
 increased much in population and business importance, so 
 that what was worth in 1890 $1,000,000 may be worth 
 $5,000,000. Then he is entitled to draw interest on that 
 $5,000,000, and to secure that interest through the issue 
 of $5,000,000 of bonds or stocks as he may elect. Indeed, 
 it is only by the issuing of such securities that he can 
 get profit from this value, otherwise it is an inert and 
 nominal asset. The public lands bestowed by the people 
 of the United States upon the company that he acquired 
 may have proved to be worth $13,000,000; that, so long 
 as it remained, was available for capitalization, for stocks, 
 bonds, and freight charges, although it was the free gift 
 of the people and cost him nothing. The municipality of 
 Spokane granted him freely a right of way five miles 
 long through the city. If that right of way is now worth 
 $5,000,000 he is entitled to count that as an asset of his 
 railroad, to capitalize it, and to make whatever freight 
 or passenger rates may be necessary to sustain that capi- 
 talization. The people of Spokane may, indeed, point 
 out that when they donated the right of way to Mr. Hill's 
 company they merely added to their own burdens, since 
 it gave to that company an item of capitalization on which 
 they must pay the interest in the shape of increased high- 
 way tolls. To any such contention the reply is that the 
 people of Spokane should have thought of this contingency 
 before they bestowed their gift. The fact that they must 
 pay annually for their benevolence cannot be allowed to 
 interfere with the right of property to earn interest. Even 
 if there were no other consideration, the innocent pur- 
 chaser would be an insuperable barrier to the plea of the 
 Spokane people. The stocks or bonds that represent the 
 additional capitalization must pay their dividends or in- 
 
 239
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 terest; otherwise the innocent purchaser would be defrauded 
 and a precedent established that would make impossible 
 some of our most important financial operations. 
 
 This argument must be just and sound; both the courts 
 and the Inter-State Commerce Commission have refused to 
 interfere with securities issued upon such bases as are here 
 outlined. 
 
 I now call attention to the next steps in this agreeable 
 progression. 
 
 First, the value of all railroad property is increasing. 
 Much of it is increasing very rapidly with the increase 
 of the country's population, and especially with the growth 
 of cities. Property of the Northern Pacific that was worth 
 $50,000,000 twenty years ago is worth $175,000,000 to- 
 day, and will be worth $300,000,000 within the next five or 
 six years. Property in Chicago bought twenty-five years 
 ago by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe must be worth 
 now $14,000,000, probably six times its purchase price. 
 The railroad terminals at Chicago, Jersey City, St. Louis, 
 East St. Louis, Portland (Ore.), St. Paul, Seattle, Atlanta, 
 increase rapidly in value. At most of the railroad stations, 
 great or small, in the United States, the value of the 
 station grounds, switching yards, roundhouses, office 
 buildings, and what not, is subject to continual increase. 
 Nearly all rights of way become more valuable year by 
 year. All such increased value may be capitalized, and the 
 securities thus issued may justly in turn produce an in- 
 crease in rates. 
 
 Where, then, shall the process halt? Or what power on 
 earth shall halt it? And what is the use of debating other 
 phases of the railroad problem, or looking upon it as 
 any matter of opinion so long as we are confronted with 
 this overshadowing prospect? 
 
 240
 
 An Apology for Stock Watering 
 
 Under the present system these conditions are absolutely 
 right and just, nor can they be evaded or mitigated. If 
 we attempt to say that the railroad shall not issue stocks 
 and bonds against the increased value of its possessions, 
 then we are denying a fundamental principle of the right 
 of property. How could the increased value be realized 
 except by the issue of such stocks and bonds? If we were 
 to enact a law forbidding such realizing of value, that 
 would be confiscation, which is strictly forbidden by the 
 Constitution of the United States. Or if we say, by the 
 Inter-State Commerce Commission or otherwise, that a rail- 
 road shall not make the rates that are required to meet 
 the interest charges on such securities, then we shall do 
 to the holders of these securities a wrong that is essen- 
 tially unjustifiable, unconstitutional, and has been repeat- 
 edly condemned by our courts. In good faith these securi- 
 ties have been purchased ; they are property ; they cannot 
 be destroyed; they are entitled to the protection of the 
 law; the persons that purchase them are entitled to fair 
 returns on their investment; and any law that will prevent 
 such returns is clearly wrong, and would be found to be 
 invalid. 
 
 What we face, therefore, is an impossible condition from 
 which no remedy that would maintain the present system 
 offers the slightest escape. The value of railroad property 
 is certain to increase rapidly. The amount of railroad 
 securities is certain to increase still more rapidly. On 
 these securities interest must be paid. To meet the interest 
 the income of the railroad must be increased or its ex- 
 penditures diminished. What then? 
 
 The increase in values and the increase of securities 
 naturally result in augmented transportation cost, the 
 tendency of which is continually upward. On January 1, 
 
 241
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 1909, transcontinental freight rates underwent increases 
 averaging eighteen per cent., and these increases were based 
 upon and defended by the very conditions I have here 
 outlined. In the last fifteen years the average passenger 
 rates between New York and Chicago have been adroitly 
 advanced fifteen per cent. Charges in the freight classi- 
 fications (a fruitful source of extortion) are made so as to 
 provide increased revenue and in reality increased tolls, 
 without apparently increased rates. It is true that in 
 some states the legislatures, under the pressure of growing 
 public complaint, have passed laws reducing passenger or 
 freight rates, or both; but most of these laws have been 
 abolished by the courts, and all of them are doomed. We 
 are also to note that besides increased rates, the tolls 
 can be collected through diminished service or a service 
 that fails to keep pace with the public demand, or 
 by allowing the equipment to deteriorate. The equip- 
 ment phase conceals, as many investigators know, a 
 condition that in itself promises to become appalling. 
 The tracks and roadbeds of many railroads are not main- 
 tained to the demands of either safety or capacity, and in 
 this fact is found the explanation of a large percentage 
 of those railroad accidents, in which our record surpasses 
 that of any other nation on earth. As to the failure 
 to maintain service conditions equal to the demand, I need 
 to refer to only two pregnant facts. One is the wide- 
 spread distress caused in the West in the winter of 1906-7 
 by the inadequate supply of freight cars, and the other 
 is that of the 237,000 miles of railroad in the United States 
 only 18,000 miles are double-tracked. The gravity of the 
 equipment problem has been explicitly admitted by Mr. 
 Hill, himself one of the most conspicuous beneficiaries of 
 the system that has so disastrously impaired the country's 
 
 242
 
 An Apology for Stock Watering 
 
 transportation service. For some reason unknown to me, 
 Mr. Hill's warning, which he has several times repeated, 
 has never had adequate attention. I do not know how 
 it would be possible to frame a stronger indictment of 
 the present system, nor to make an utterance better deserv- 
 ing of the country's gravest attention. Mr. Hill says 
 that to put the railroads of this country into a physical 
 condition in which they can properly meet the present 
 transportation requirements would cost five billion dollars. 
 In other words, under the present system the equipment 
 of the railroads has run behind to the extent of one-third 
 the capitalization. That is a fact of tremendous signifi- 
 cance. The average cost of railroad construction and 
 equipment is about $26,000 a mile. On these 237,000 miles 
 of railroad Mr. Hill proposes an expenditure of more than 
 $21,000 a mile in improvements, which amounts almost to 
 rebuilding and re-equipping. If after the issuing of nine 
 billion dollars of watered capital, on which the country is 
 paying, and must continue to pay the interest charges, the 
 physical condition of the property has been allowed to be- 
 come impaired to the extent of four-fifths the actual 
 cost of building and equipping, I cannot see how Mr. Hill 
 leaves room for one word to be said in favor of the present 
 system. It is the most colossal failure in the history of 
 the world. 
 
 Mr. Hill seems also to be convinced that this is a 
 practical condition and not a theory with which we must 
 shortly deal, for he says that as this work must be done, 
 and as the railroad companies cannot possibly raise the 
 money required for it, the United States Government must 
 come to the rescue of the country and advance the funds 
 for the improvements. 
 
 We can see how just is Mr. Hill's statement (so far as 
 
 243
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 it goes) if we reflect upon the difficulties that railroad 
 companies have recently met in floating extensive financial 
 schemes. Evidently, then, as Mr. Hill says, they would 
 find it impossible to borrow five billion dollars, or any- 
 thing like it. By no possible form of obligation could 
 they raise this sum, and yet one of the greatest railroad 
 authorities in the world declares that they must have it 
 if they are to continue to supply the country's transpor- 
 tation. 
 
 It is most evident, then, that already the present system 
 has practically collapsed. It is broken-backed; it has 
 broken down under the methods of loot that have been 
 practiced upon it; within a comparatively short time the 
 nation must face the great problem that it involves, and 
 there can be no man so foolish as to think the methods 
 that have effected its ruin can ever restore it. 
 
 Of course, when we turn to the other side of the stock- 
 watering trick, the aspect is very different. It has un- 
 deniably been very efficient in swiftly building the fortunes 
 of the gentlemen that have played it so repeatedly, but 
 that Mr. Hill or Mr. Morgan should get rich rapidly is 
 of no conceivable advantage to the public; the public gains 
 absolutely nothing in any way from these fortunes. Mr. 
 Hill builds him a palace and Mr. Morgan a new steam 
 yacht, but neither the palace nor the yacht helps the 
 community; to the community it can be of no concern 
 whether Mr. Morgan has one yacht or one hundred. What 
 concerns the community is that it furnishes the yacht and 
 the palace and gets no return for its expenditure ; for 
 both yacht and palace are wholly extraneous to the public 
 service of transportation, as extraneous as was the baron's 
 castle on the Zernetz road. 
 
 How absolutely true it is that the community (and chiefly 
 
 244
 
 An Apology for Stock Watering 
 
 the poorest part thereof) furnishes these pleasures we 
 can see if we reflect upon a few obvious facts. First, 
 whether the watered stocks and bonds that Mr. Hill and 
 Mr. Morgan issue for their own profit be based nominally 
 on the increased valuation of railroad property or on its 
 earning power, the securities always appear a long time 
 before there is any conceivable warrant for them, and the 
 value or the earning power is estimated solely by the gentle- 
 men that purpose to make profits for themselves from the 
 securities. They assume that the property has taken on 
 another hundred million dollars of value, or that another 
 hundred million dollars of profits can be wrung from it; 
 then they issue and sell the securities, pocketing the profits, 
 and the property must secure from the public the money 
 for the interest charges. 
 
 For instance, Commodore Vanderbilt laid the foundations 
 of the Vanderbilt fortune when he issued $45,000,000 of 
 watered stock upon a property already staggering under 
 a colossal load of such securities. Most of this he took 
 for himself; all of it became a huge machine to draw 
 from the community additional money through additional 
 charges. So far was this increase from an actual founda- 
 tion in increased value that more than twenty years passed 
 before anyone dared to assert an approach to equality 
 between the value of the property and the value of the 
 securities. Yet all this time the securities were steadily 
 drawing from the public money that, even if we accept 
 the entire argument of the railroad attorneys, we must 
 admit to have been money extorted. I have never heard 
 of any defense for this condition, nor heard of anybody 
 that had heard of anybody that had heard of one. 
 
 But at the earliest moment when, with any face the 
 thing could be done, the Vanderbilt interests issued a new 
 
 245
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 flood of securities, and sunk a new pump into the public 
 pocket, and they or their successors have continued this 
 practice ever since. 
 
 In other words, and to change the figure, Commodore 
 Vanderbilt was a new baron lately arrived upon the high- 
 way. The $45,000,000 of watered stock was a new castle 
 that he built with a barrier across the pass and every 
 arrangement for the taking of much toll. This castle is still 
 in operation with its toll-taking. As soon as the people 
 had become accustomed to the sight of the one castle, 
 the baron's son built another farther down the road, which 
 is also still taking toll; and the second baron's sons, and 
 the third baron's sons have continued to build other castles 
 until the poorer travelers are finding that the successive 
 tolls have emptied their purses. They have, however, the 
 pleasure of contemplating the beautiful castles (from a 
 distance), and also occasionally learning where the tolls 
 go. They must have been gratified to learn lately that 
 some of the tolls, changed into a pearl necklace, had been 
 bestowed upon the mistress of a king. 
 
 How sadly true and just and unexaggerated all this 
 really is one can see if one will refer to the case of the 
 bucket of coal, with which we started. Here was the 
 exact and perfect instance of the entire process as at 
 present conducted in all of these railroad enterprises. 
 Follow the successive steps of the practice and see what 
 they mean. The gentlemen that conducted the Philadelphia 
 & Reading Railroad issued for their own profit securities 
 upon that railroad. It appeared that the earnings of the 
 road were insufficient to provide the interest on these 
 securities. They saw that with coal at $5 a ton the annual 
 profits were a certain amount; with coal at $5.50 a ton 
 the annual profits would be so much more. They also 
 
 246
 
 An Apology for Stock Watering 
 
 perceived that by forming a combination with two other 
 railroads they could make the price of coal $5.50 a ton, 
 capitalize an earning capacity, and earn the interest upon 
 the present securities and others. So they formed the com- 
 bination, made the price of coal $5.50, capitalized the 
 earning capacity, and gathered the tolls for the new securi- 
 ties. And for the poor people on the East Side the price 
 of coal rose from $15 to $18 a ton. 
 
 It rose only 50 cents a ton for the well-to-do, but it 
 rose $3 a ton for the poor. 
 
 So is it with all these achievements in finance and all 
 these fortune makings. The palaces rise, the steam yachts 
 sail, the figures of the great fortune mount, and in every 
 city the slums spread, the bread lines grow, and the num- 
 bers of the poor increase. When we contemplate these 
 facts we may rejoice in Mr. Hill's assurance that the 
 present system has broken down. It has existed much 
 too long. The collapse of it will not restore to the people 
 the tolls that have been unjustly taken from them, but 
 we may believe that we are on the imminent verge of the 
 end of our castle system. When the people of Europe 
 wearied of paying toll to the barons for the use of the 
 highways the barons went out of the toll-taking business, 
 and the people's highways were made free. Then it was 
 realized that a highway is always the common possession 
 and cannot rightfully belong to any man, baron or rail- 
 road magnate, the Count of Zernetz or Mr. Morgan; 
 that barons are no more necessary to the building or 
 operating of highways than are mosquitoes or flies; and 
 that the building of the castle or the building of a rail- 
 road magnate's palace confers nothing upon transportation 
 service nor upon any other interest of the public. We 
 shall shortly learn the same lesson here. 
 
 247
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A PLEA FOR THE RICH 
 
 In the excellent art gallery of Sydney, New South 
 Wales, is a bronze bust of a man with a face expressive 
 of cold resolution and powerful will; the short mustaches 
 bristle aggressively, the jaw is thrust forward, the brows 
 are heavy and coarse. My first observation of this work 
 was from a point whence the inscription upon it was not 
 visible. 
 
 " Look ! " I said to my companion, " there is a bust of 
 X ; how do you suppose that came here ? " 
 
 " It does look like X ," said my companion, " but 
 
 it is evidently meant for Y ; that is Y 's pro- 
 jecting jaw, you know. But it certainly seems strange to 
 see him here at the other end of the earth." 
 
 In entire good faith, I had mentioned the name of one 
 famous Wall Street operator, my companion had mentioned 
 another: neither had any doubt that the bust was the 
 likeness of someone well known to us, nor could any ob- 
 servant American fail to perceive that here was some 
 countenance made familiar to him by newspaper por- 
 traiture. 
 
 When we moved down the aisle we read the inscription 
 on the bust. It was a quotation from somebody's history, 
 and ran like this: 
 
 " The founder of Islam was a man conspicuous for 
 cruelty, avarice, selfishness, and cold sensualism." The 
 
 248
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 artist had tried to make a face expressive of these qualities, 
 and had made one that looked like an American million- 
 aire. 
 
 Two years afterwards one of the men whose likeness 
 we thought we had discovered in the bust was at a European 
 summer resort. It was sometimes my fortune to walk down 
 the promenade just after him. I think no one so walking 
 could have failed to notice the impression this man's face 
 made on the people he met. As they gazed upon him I 
 could see wonder and a trace of awe growing upon them; 
 often they would stop still as if they saw something weird 
 or uncanny, and then go on and turn to gaze again, and 
 talk among themselves, shaking their heads ; and I, passing 
 along, would hear ejaculations and questions, for most of 
 them had never seen a face like that, and it seemed to 
 them hardly human. 
 
 Yet I am sure it was a face never much remarked at 
 home, and though more plainly scored and marked than 
 most faces, still in its lines recording a common story. 
 I suppose it would be difficult to pretend that the reading 
 is ever very agreeable. In this case it was of a man 
 that by savage and relentless methods, throwing himself 
 into the confused battle of business as a red Indian might 
 have thrown himself into a desperate affray, had amassed 
 a colossal fortune, wrenched from the hands of other men. 
 Some of his achievements, indeed, had been rather worse 
 than savage, and reported to be beyond the law; but law 
 and the interests of the public, like the rights and welfare 
 of others, he had trampled upon so ruthlessly men said 
 of him that in the seventeenth century he would have been 
 a pirate, and drew parallels between his deeds and those 
 of famous buccaneers. 
 
 Before he had reached middle life this man had gained 
 
 249
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 in these ways one of the greatest fortunes in the world, 
 so that by no possibility could he expend his princely 
 income. He built for himself great houses and bought 
 great estates, he owned a steam yacht; with his family he 
 traveled in state like a royal personage; and by no means 
 could his expenses equal his income. Yet even with this 
 huge accumulation he did not stop; when he went abroad 
 he was always in touch with his schemes to make more 
 money, and when he was at home he arose early and 
 toiled late that he might make more and more. It may 
 be believed that he never had a joy in his life except 
 the reflection that he was daily adding to the vast store 
 of money he could not use. He lived in a world full of 
 beautiful things, and according to those that knew him 
 best he never once experienced the splendid and divine 
 emotions of beauty. I have seen him in the midst of some 
 of the most gorgeous scenery of the Alps, and I am quite 
 certain that he saw none of it. His eyes were always 
 turned inward, and all day long (if reports spoke true 
 of him) his thought dwelt upon that sordid battlefield 
 and the means by which he could wrest from other men 
 more of the substance that he did not need. All men 
 agreed that he had great capacity and a marvelous power 
 of concentration, and the only purpose to which he ever 
 gave his powers was in securing things useless to him. 
 
 He died and hired eulogy balked before the record of 
 his career. It could be said of him that he was the type 
 of the successful American business man, that he had risen 
 from obscure poverty to eminence and colossal wealth, 
 that with skill he had managed his own affairs and added 
 daily to his fortune. No one could suggest wherein he 
 had been of the least use to his generation. He had taken 
 no interest in public affairs, he had cared nothing about 
 
 250
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 the community, he had added not one contribution to the 
 world's store of the beautiful nor even of the useful, he 
 had never lifted a hand for the Common Good nor given 
 to it one thought, in no conceivable respect was the world 
 one whit the better for the life that had been bestowed upon 
 him. He had not even been a good citizen, he had not 
 even the common virtue of patriotism. The chief cor- 
 poration from which he had derived his great wealth had 
 been for many years the greatest of all sources of corrup- 
 tion in American public affairs. It had notoriously defied 
 the law, bribed legislators, bought aldermen, placed its 
 attorneys on the bench, influenced Congress, perverted jus- 
 tice, and corruptly manipulated political parties. More 
 than all other influences together it had lowered the tone 
 and soiled the purity of public life. Against these prac- 
 tices this man had never protested. He had shared the 
 huge profits that this lawless corporation gathered, and 
 whether its general policy were or were not of his con- 
 ceiving, he could not have failed to know that it was 
 criminal, corrupt, and piratical. 
 
 On a dispassionate review of this man's life there ap- 
 peared such a melancholy waste, and such a hideous pursuit 
 of Dead Sea fruit, that his story seemed worth for his 
 own sake only infinite pity. But one good thing could 
 be said of him: he had pride, he was not indifferent to 
 reputation. A former associate of his turned upon him 
 and revealed something of his methods and savage fury 
 in the insatiate grabbing of money. The revelations 
 profoundly impressed the public, and under the manifesta- 
 tions of general disapproval the man's health and spirits 
 broke, and until he died he never regained his old assur- 
 ance. Something tragic pertained to his story. Beyond 
 a doubt, he had an excellent mind, equipped to be of 
 
 251
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 service to his times: he went through life without one 
 worthy or rational achievement, and he died so miserably 
 that even his enemies could hardly exult over his fall. 
 The sum of all his years was a sum of nothing; the very 
 tramp that lives from hand to mouth seemed no more of 
 a failure and no less likely to be remembered. 
 
 Here was one type of a certain condition. A few months 
 later there died a man that as aptly illustrated another 
 phase. The first man having a great fortune had bent 
 all his life and energies to acquire more: the second man 
 having a great fortune set out early in life to gather 
 enjoyment from what he had. Conceiving his great for- 
 tune to be ample, he took no part in business, wronged 
 no man, and wrested no more money from the unfortunate. 
 Social amusements and social distinction were the pursuits 
 of his life; he followed them with undeviating loyalty; 
 he was socially one of the eminent persons of New York. 
 He was charitable and generous, and what is called " a 
 good fellow." And when he came to die eulogy balked 
 as in the other case; there was nothing to be said of him 
 except that he had lived and was now dead. For a time 
 this clay had moved and been animated, and was now 
 cold like any other clod. The funeral was a curious 
 sight. No one seemed to be sorry; there was nothing to 
 be sorry about; no one had cared very much for the dead 
 man, and no one had cherished towards him the least 
 ill-will; he was just "a good fellow" that had lived and 
 died and left no sign. The fruit of the life that had been 
 intrusted to him was some temporary amusement for him- 
 self; he had had what is called " fun." Probably no human 
 being was the worse because he had lived, but assuredly 
 none was the better. The world had no profit of him; 
 he had left nothing, he had enjoyed much, and even those 
 
 252
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 of his own class and kind that gathered at his funeral 
 seemed to feel that here was a life wasted. Because at 
 the grim end of all there is always the sense of an account- 
 ing; let the life be as merry as life can be, there is always 
 at the grave the idea that a balance must be struck, and 
 the showing of this balance sheet was not edifying. 
 
 And I am not quite so sure about the fun; I am obliged 
 to think that is much overrated. Some years before this 
 man died he had a hand in an entertainment provided 
 among his own social caste called " a vegetable party." 
 It was nothing much; it has since, I believe, been rather 
 eclipsed by " monkey dinners," " horseback dinners," and 
 other amusements of polite society. The ladies and gentle- 
 men attended in the characters of vegetables, that was all. 
 One went dressed to portray a carrot, one to portray a 
 turnip, one a cabbage, one a squash, one a parsnip, and 
 so on. As I say, it was not of any great importance, 
 but some of the newspapers sneered at the idea of adults 
 finding entertainment in a way so puerile, and I once made 
 to this man of whom I am now writing a remark in the 
 like vein. He said: 
 
 " Of course, I know it seems silly, but it has its uses. 
 You can't think what a relief it is to me. I have nothing 
 to do with my time, and nothing to take an interest in. 
 Now, to design my costume for this fool thing gives me 
 occupation, and to wear it is something to look forward to. 
 It's a change from the monotony of everyday life. It's 
 a misfortune to have nothing to do. I don't know how 
 to put in my time. You get tired of everything soon or 
 late. You'll say, ' Why don't you travel ? ' Well, I've 
 been everywhere, until one place is just like another. You 
 get bored everywhere, when you haven't anything to do. 
 To tell you the truth, I'm glad of a chance to dress up 
 
 253
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 like a carrot and prance around. It's something to think 
 about." 
 
 I omit from the present consideration the scandals that 
 seem to be so common among people of this caste; it ap- 
 pears that, having nothing to do and no rational interest 
 in life, they are drawn inevitably into vice; but therein, 
 of course, they chiefly injure themselves. I pass to another 
 phase of their condition that is of graver interest to man- 
 kind. A member of the British parliament, a justly famous 
 observer of men and manners in many countries, told me 
 once that of all the persons he had met in the course of 
 a long life the most insolent, the most intensely disagree- 
 able, the most arrogant, and the most overbearing were 
 sons of American millionaires. He said that he traveled 
 about the world year in and year out, holding agreeable 
 intercourse with men of all ranks in all nations, but there 
 was no such thing as enduring the society of a young 
 American nabob. After long experience he had come to 
 avoid instinctively all persons of this class; but sometimes, 
 on the Continent especially, one could not prevent con- 
 tact with them, and whenever he saw them at close range 
 he was convinced that they were the most repulsive per- 
 sons on earth and some of the most dangerous. In 
 his reading about the French revolution he had met 
 with no characters among the nobles of the old regime 
 that seemed to him of so intolerable an arrogance, for 
 these were not content to be arrogant to persons they 
 casually met but went out to seek victims on whom they 
 could exhaust their arrogance. 
 
 Something of the same impression is no doubt familiar to 
 every American that is accustomed to note the significance 
 of things. Mr. David Graham Phillips has made a true 
 and admirable record of it in his " The Second Genera- 
 
 254-
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 tion." The story usually has about the same sequence. 
 First, there is the young man starting forth in life, very 
 poor, but determined to be rich. By methods usually 
 illegal and always dishonest he gathers wealth. He mar- 
 ries and begets children, and still labors incessantly to 
 gather more riches. While his children are growing up 
 they are surrounded with every accompaniment of luxury 
 and great wealth. They go to exclusive schools, or they 
 have private tutors at home; they associate only with the 
 children of other rich men; from their first consciousness 
 they are taught that they belong to a class better than 
 common people. Their fathers' successes they learn to 
 regard as the certain evidence of his superior quality; his 
 wealth is a badge of aristocracy; they learn to despise all 
 poorer men, and acquire an instinct of snobbishness the 
 like of which is not now to be found in any other part 
 of this globe. An Indian maharajah with a hundred thou- 
 sand subjects and ropes of pearls is literally a broad demo- 
 crat compared with the typical son of an American mil- 
 lionaire. 
 
 These young men and young women, having completed 
 their education, go forth into a world of their own. It 
 never occurs to them that the money that supports their 
 state was wrung from the toiling masses they contemn, 
 and, of course, it never occurs to them that they have 
 any duties to the world they live in. Their fathers, having 
 usually a recollection of their own humble origin and a 
 sense of the manner in which their money has been won, 
 retain both instinctively and from policy a great deal of 
 democratic bearing. They know quite well that if the 
 people had ever awakened to the true meaning of privilege 
 there would have been very few great fortunes in America; 
 and they also know that at any time the people may have 
 
 255
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 such an awakening, and how bad that would be for fortune- 
 making. Hence, they are careful to be accessible to em- 
 ployees and to associate on terms of equality with men 
 less fortunate. But their sons have no such impulse. They 
 never move beyond the circle of their own caste, they 
 marry in their own caste, they have no interest outside 
 of that caste, and for the whole great mass of poorer men 
 they feel only contempt or hatred. 
 
 Now, to these facts pertain two observations. First, 
 the power that these men are daily inheriting is colossal. 
 The process of centralization has brought so many in- 
 dustries under the control of a few that the employ- 
 ment, and therefore the existence, of millions of workers 
 depends upon the whim or caprice of a handful of in- 
 dividuals. The same men that control most of the rail- 
 roads of the United States also control the entire iron 
 and steel industry, the oil industry, a great many banks, 
 and a steadily increasing number of other enterprises. 
 Of course, these men for a whim or a caprice are not 
 likely to suspend or to interrupt any of these industries, 
 but they can at any time deprive of employment any man 
 or group of men ; which, in modern conditions, is equivalent 
 to the power of life and death. The mere possession, 
 also, of the channels of capital that are directed through 
 the banks is a power more formidable than any other now 
 on earth, except only the control of the press. 
 
 These great powers are now in the hands of men of 
 the first generation. They will presently pass into the 
 hands of men of the second generation. The sons will 
 inherit what the fathers have made. The fathers have 
 still some democratic sympathies and reminiscences; the 
 sons have none. 
 
 The reason why these sons and no other persons will 
 
 256
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 succeed to the control of these great powers is because, 
 as previously noted, the process of consolidation has reached 
 a point where there is no longer a door to fortune open 
 to any person outside of the present fortunate caste. This 
 seems an extravagant statement, because the belief that 
 our country is the land of free opportunity is still almost 
 universal among us and we are loath to admit the great 
 changes of the last few years. Yet, as a matter of fact, 
 it is no longer possible for a poor man to accumulate a 
 great fortune in America. Instead of every man having 
 the opportunity to get rich, no man has now the oppor- 
 tunity to get rich except by gambling or rarely by specu- 
 lation. No new great fortunes are being formed to-day, 
 and we may safely say that none has been started in the 
 last ten years. The conditions in which a boy could start 
 with nothing and become a multimillionaire have vanished 
 in this country and will not return. How shall the poor 
 boy now start upon the road to fortune? Which way 
 shall he take? Shall he enter a store and plan to become, 
 like A. T. Stewart or Marshall Field, a great merchant? 
 The great stores are now department stores owned by 
 companies affiliated with the Central Interests. Shall he 
 develop an industry as John D. Rockefeller developed oil? 
 To do that requires money, and the money supply is owned 
 by the Central Interests, which reserve all profitable in- 
 dustries for themselves. Shall he develop a railroad enter- 
 prise as Mr. Hill developed the present Great Northern? 
 No man can now build a mile of new railroad nor acquire 
 a mile of old except by the consent of the Central Interests 
 that control all. Shall he hit upon a great invention as 
 Mr. Westinghouse invented the airbrake? Here again, 
 his invention is useless without capital, and all the capital 
 is controlled by the Central Interests, who will take the 
 
 257
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 invention for themselves if it be for their benefit or sup- 
 press it if it threaten their profits. Shall he go into 
 manufacturing and seek to be an independent proprietor 
 content with a modest fortune? In practically all lines 
 the independent manufacturer has been absorbed by or 
 is vanishing before a trust. Shall he try to operate in 
 real estate? In nine cases in ten the future of his real 
 estate investment depends not upon his judgment and 
 foresight, but upon the movements and decisions of the 
 Central Interests. Shall he go into banking and try to 
 become a great financier? In all the country there is no 
 great bank uncontrolled by the Central Interests. 
 
 He has, therefore, if he be ambitious and eager for suc- 
 cess, the prospect of but one career. He can be a hired 
 man for the Interests. He can enter the law and get 
 large fees for showing the Interests how they can evade 
 the statutes. Or he can manage something for the Interests 
 and earn a considerable salary. Otherwise, he must be 
 content to be a small tradesman, an artisan working for 
 wages, a clerk, or a professional man scrambling for a 
 livelihood. Or he can be a gambler. Gambling is always 
 open to ambitious youth. 
 
 It is executive work or legal service for the Interests 
 that is now engaging the best minds, and will more and 
 more engage them. The great railroad systems, banks, 
 mills, factories, foundries, mines, insurance companies, 
 lighting enterprises, street railroads, water powers, steam- 
 ship lines, department stores, restaurants, drug stores, 
 groceries, packing houses, farms, and other properties 
 owned by the Central Interests must be managed. Men 
 must be had to manage them. But they will be men hired 
 for salary. They will not own the property they manage, 
 and will have no chance to own it, and however large 
 
 258
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 their salaries may seem when compared with the wages 
 of artisans, their salaries will never be any approach to 
 the great fortune-making of other days. 
 
 I am quite well aware of the belief held by some ob- 
 servers that the extravagant habits and mental incapacity 
 of the second generation will scatter the fortunes gathered 
 by the first and restore the distribution of wealth. " Only 
 three generations/' men say, " from shirtsleeves to shirt- 
 sleeves." It is singular that this opinion should survive in 
 the face of innumerable demonstrations that it is not justi- 
 fied. No longer does the second generation dissipate its 
 wealth; in truth it cannot. The size of the great for- 
 tune is too great to be much affected by even the mon- 
 strous extravagance of the traditional American heir; more- 
 over, the bulk of the fortune is so invested that it cannot 
 be dissipated, but continues to multiply so fast that its 
 income cannot be spent. You will find it difficult to specify 
 a great American fortune that has been dissipated by 
 its heirs, or one, in fact, that has not grown in spite of 
 incompetence. The Vanderbilt fortune, for instance, is 
 now probably fifty times as great as it was when Com- 
 modore Vanderbilt died. Although it has been shared by 
 many heirs, the total bulk and each individual share have 
 continued to increase. The Astor fortune has steadily 
 mounted until now it has attained to an overshadowing 
 size. The Gould fortune is certainly much greater than 
 it was at the death of Mr. Jay Gould, although the courts 
 have been regaled with accounts of what might be called the 
 desperate efforts of one of the heirs to expend his patri- 
 mony. Mr. Rockefeller's son will assuredly be unable, 
 even if he should desire, to waste the colossal Rocke- 
 feller fortune ; no one supposes that young Mr. Rogers will 
 scatter the Rogers millions; the Whitney fortune remains 
 
 259
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 intact; the Belmonts are all very rich men; Mr. Morgan's 
 estate will be handed down from generation to generation. 
 Some of the old New York fortunes, like the Lispenard 
 and the Goelet, have existed for a century or more. When 
 Marshall Field died his fortune was so left that at the 
 expiration of the trust it will have become, if only an 
 average rate of increase be maintained, five billion dollars, 
 which is more than all the money in the United States. 
 Mr. Armour's son did not scatter the Armour millions, 
 but has greatly increased them. Mr. Gustavus Swift's 
 sons carry on his business with undiminished success. Mr. 
 J. J. Hill has a capable son already in charge of the 
 great Hill interests. Evidently the second generation that 
 is to return to the public the great fortune withdrawn 
 from it is a pure myth. 
 
 What does happen sometimes is the loss of the immediate 
 and active direction of the property that made the fortune. 
 Thus, the Vanderbilts no longer control the New York 
 Central, by the scandalous manipulation of which the 
 Vanderbilt fortune was created, but that has not affected 
 the Vanderbilt incomes nor in any way benefited the 
 community, which furnishes the interest on the Vanderbilt 
 stocks and bonds. Within the last few years Mr. George 
 Gould has ceased to be reckoned as one of the powers 
 that control the railroad business of the United States, 
 but his retirement has not affected the Gould fortunes. 
 All of these great fortunes are now enduring institutions, 
 and the only change that has been or, in the present 
 organization of society, can be observed in them is that 
 they become more efficient as suction pumps to gather the 
 country's available wealth into the hands of a few and to 
 leave the many with small means and a constantly diminish- 
 ing share of opportunity. 
 
 260
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 The point then is that since money is only another name 
 for power, the preponderance of power in America is 
 before long to pass into the hands of men of reactionary 
 instinct and more extreme and more truly aristocratic 
 tendencies than any other class on the earth; and the alarm 
 of the British member of Parliament as he contemplated 
 this fact seems not in the least unreasonable. Thoughtful 
 men of all shades of fundamental faith have agreed that 
 the existing conditions cannot be allowed to remain un- 
 changed. Mr. Rockefeller tells us that in the last twelve 
 years he has given no direct attention to business, and 
 yet, if current report be true, in that time, without his 
 direction or effort, his fortune has more than doubled. 
 If it shall continue to grow at the present ratio, within 
 an appreciable time it will absorb all the wealth in the 
 United States; for one can demonstrate without difficulty 
 that its present rate of increase is greater than the rate 
 of increase of the total wealth of the nation. This, of 
 course, would be an intolerable outcome, and no doubt 
 the imminent prospect of some such result spurred Mr. 
 Roosevelt to demand income and inheritance taxes. But 
 those that profit by existing connections will bitterly oppose 
 any interference with their privileges; that is a cleavage 
 already plainly evident, for such persons have so far 
 defeated every effort to modify these conditions; and it is 
 well to contemplate the kind of opposition we may expect 
 from the Second Generation. 
 
 But aside from all this, which is only one of the evil 
 products of the present system of Society, we ought to 
 abolish that system for the benefit of those that profit 
 by it as well as for the sake of those that it impoverishes. 
 The life spent in the pursuit of gain is a very pitiable 
 life. Not so pitiable as the life spent in drudging toil, 
 
 261
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 but still pitiable and wasted. This life of ours is so 
 capable of infinitely better things, the struggle of man 
 with man to wrench away the fruits of the earth that 
 should be for all is so vile and so degrading, the callous 
 heart is so great a misfortune, the spirit within that is 
 strangled by greed is so naturally fine, the inner eyes 
 that greed blinds might see so much, that the life given 
 over to aggrandizement ought to fill every observer with 
 commiseration. We pity the poor prostitute driven by 
 the present system down the slope to perdition, and we 
 pity the tenement house family dispossessed for lack of 
 rent money. We might well pity also the rich idler that 
 can find no use of his faculties above dressing to look like a 
 carrot, or the money-grubber that wastes his life in despoil- 
 ing his fellow-men. It is true that the rich idler and 
 the money-grubber are in a measure voluntary sufferers, 
 and the prostitute and the tenement family have no re- 
 course. It is also true that the wretched state of the poor 
 is a hard, material fact of the first importance to the 
 future of the race, while the wasted lives of the rich are 
 for merely sentimental pity, and compared with the vast 
 numbers of the poor the rich are so few they are not 
 worth thinking about until we shall have dealt adequately 
 with the overwhelming problem of insufficiency. Yet, in a 
 broad view, and as a matter of principle, a wasted life 
 is a wasted life, whether of poor or rich, and the proper 
 function of organized Society is to prevent the waste of 
 life. In truth, the joyless dweller in a slum tenement 
 and the rich idler and rake are alike products of the 
 one vile system of Capitalism. So long as that system 
 endures there will be for men no object in life but gain; 
 the poor must center all thought and life upon gaining 
 daily bread, the fortunate will center all thought upon 
 
 262
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 increasing their store or live in intellectual sloth and de- 
 generacy. Both results deny the godlike possibilities of 
 man, which find their highest realization in Brotherhood 
 and Service. 
 
 Here we might do well to consider for a moment an- 
 other foolish trick of ours in relation to these matters. 
 I mean the habit (for which we have, it is true, eminent 
 authority) of turning upon and rending the men that are 
 conspicuous examples of the fruits of the present system. 
 " Malefactors of great wealth," we are pleased to call 
 them. Well but why? Why malefactors? Do but think 
 for a moment how poor a spectacle we make of ourselves 
 when we give way to this form of hysteria. Under the 
 present system we have set up a certain object of life 
 and a certain standard of achievement. The object is 
 aggrandizement; the standard is the extent to which ag- 
 grandizement has been carried. Upon him that has grubbed 
 much money we bestow much honor; upon him that has 
 grubbed the most money we bestow the most honor. In 
 every walk of life the amount of honor we bestow is 
 apportioned to the amount of money grubbed. Nor do we 
 ordinarily weigh the manner of the grubbing. " To get 
 money by whatsoever means " has been our national motto. 
 What should we expect? 
 
 To this pursuit all our social arrangements openly or 
 insidiously contribute. Our schools, and especially our 
 colleges, hold up the business career and the gaining of 
 wealth as the proper avenues of ambition and utter no 
 word of warning against the inevitable consequences. Most 
 of our colleges fawn in a sickening way at the feet of 
 wealth and habitually laud the " captains of industry," 
 whose hands are stained with blood and mire. Who shall 
 deny that this is so? Nay, they do themselves often 
 
 263
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 give examples of the true business instinct. Many a col- 
 lege president and college faculty in America would be 
 glad to abolish the brutal and demoralizing game of 
 football, and yet maintain it against their consciences be- 
 cause they believe that a strong or winning football team 
 attracts students. From their earliest years our children 
 are taught that business success, wealth, the piling of dollar 
 upon dollar, constitutes life; to honor wealth, to give it 
 place above service, knowledge, discovery, scholarship, art, 
 is therefore the national instinct. Again, what should we 
 expect ? 
 
 Under this influence men that are now old started out in 
 life with the one ambition to win the prizes that we 
 held out for the man of wealth. With our incessant 
 applause they grubbed and grabbed until they reached 
 the glittering pinnacle at the top of the social pyramid. 
 They were faithful in all respects to the code of the 
 present system; they observed the rules of competitive 
 warfare; they did exactly what all others do under that 
 system, only they did it more assiduously and more ex- 
 tensively. They grubbed and grabbed; they wrested 
 money from the fingers and bread from the lips of others ; 
 they trampled their competitors to death or led them into 
 cunningly devised ambushes; they toiled and schemed, early 
 and late, with zeal and fervor; they threw themselves upon 
 what the baccalaureate habitually calls " the battlefield 
 of life," and wrought there in the manner of savages, 
 exactly as we had taught them. 
 
 And now when under the encouragement, and even the 
 mandate of this our system, they have won the victory, we 
 are invited to turn upon them and prosecute them as " male- 
 factors of great wealth " for doing exactly what Society 
 told them to do. 
 
 264
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 It is, of course, hard for some of us to contemplate a 
 career like that of John D. Rockefeller without an impulse 
 of wrath, and impossible to contemplate it or him without 
 loathing. But even John D. Rockefeller is a mere creature 
 of the system, and its most perfect and ideal exponent. 
 If we believe in competition at all, why berate the man 
 that has simply carried the competitive idea to its logical 
 conclusion? This is the perfect example of that survival 
 of the fittest that is the sole foundation of the competitive 
 system. Why object to him? He was the fittest; he had 
 bigger paws and longer arms and sharper claws than any 
 other gorilla in the jungle; therefore, he had an unassail- 
 able right to all that he could grab, and if we are to main- 
 tain the system, instead of denouncing this man we should 
 eulogize him as the system's best product. 
 
 Similar observations apply to all the other like " male- 
 factors " whom we are invited to pursue with legal venge- 
 ance. Why pursue them? None of them has done any- 
 thing not sanctioned and approved by the system under 
 which we operate. " They have broken the laws," says 
 an eminent authority. Why, to be sure. And if you were 
 to put in jail all the men that under the present system 
 have broken the laws you would depopulate some of our 
 most admired regions. Take all the laws that are vio- 
 lated by the men that practice underbilling, that seize the 
 public land under the sidewalks, that fence in the public 
 domain, that illegally manage their banks, that sell goods 
 and obtain money under false pretenses, that bribe legis- 
 lators and aldermen, that issue fraudulent warehouse re- 
 ceipts, that make and sell poisons for patent medicines, 
 that steal the public streets, that adulterate food. What 
 shall we do about all these cases? Is it not evident that 
 under the present system the breaking of laws and the 
 
 265
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 perpetrating of fraud are inevitable? Then why turn 
 upon one creature of this system and make him a scape- 
 goat of our wrath if we are to continue the system of 
 which he is merely a product? 
 
 Of course, it is not to be denied that the laws nullified 
 by Mr. Rockefeller and his class are enforced with great 
 rigor upon men less fortunate. For the theft of a public 
 franchise worth a hundred million dollars no man has 
 ever been sent to jail, while every day men are punished 
 in our courts for stealing bread when they are hungry. 
 We had in New York some years ago a case in which 
 it was admitted that five wealthy men had stolen about 
 $600,000, and all efforts to secure the indictment of these 
 men failed, although scores of men were being indicted, 
 convicted, and sent to prison for stealing a few cents. 
 And this state of affairs is, of course, the hardest of all 
 to bear with equanimity and the only excuse (although it 
 is seldom urged) for pursuing the " malefactors of great 
 wealth." Yet, even this monstrous injustice is only a 
 product of our system, and one for which there is no 
 remedy so long as we maintain the system. In no corner 
 of this world is the rich offender punished like the poor, 
 nor by any possibility can there be justice on earth so 
 long as we hold to a social organization that puts a premium 
 upon greed and transforms cruelty into a virtue. And 
 here, as before, I invite you that like the system to like 
 also its products. 
 
 It is one of the innumerable curses of this Capitalism 
 " dripping with blood " that it totally reverses thus the 
 normal value of life. Aggrandizement is not normally an 
 object of human endeavor; selfishness and indifference to 
 the rights of others are not part of the normal state of 
 man. Only Capitalism makes them so, exactly as Capi- 
 
 266
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 talism, turning men into beasts, pays the greatest honor 
 to force and brutality and the least to Use. An heir 
 of one of the great fortunes, lolling about the world in 
 a steam yacht, employing his time in the seducing of 
 his friends' wives, or with one of his mistresses scattering 
 on the tables of Monte Carlo the tribute exacted by watered 
 railroad stocks, is of no use in the world; he is doing 
 nothing that society needs to have done. The man that 
 digs in a water trench is of great use; he is doing some- 
 thing that society needs to have done. Under the existing 
 system the idler at Monte Carlo has great honor, the 
 digger in the water trench has none. As a matter of 
 fact, the digger in the water trench, no matter what his 
 condition, hard-handed, ill-clothed, denied by the existing 
 system his birthright of education and sufficiency, rude of 
 speech, and ungainly of manner is infinitely more than 
 the other deserving of the world's respect and of the 
 world's rewards. This perversion is inseparable from 
 Capitalism, which offers only unreasonable and unworthy 
 objects to life. The life of man, if deprived of the joys 
 of the sense of Brotherhood and the sense of Use, is more 
 melancholy than his death, and there appears now from 
 any survey of the world's progress the fact that the waste 
 of life is as unnecessary as it is hideous. For of all 
 the indictments of this wretched system the most grievous 
 is that the world has no need of it. Everything the world 
 needs can be better provided without Capitalism than with 
 it, and for the whole system that is thus dark with crime 
 and productive everywhere of fathomless misery there ap- 
 pears on impartial examination not one good excuse. 
 
 But, of course, if it is to be upheld by force and not 
 by reason, and if, in the interest of its beneficiaries, armies 
 and the police are to maintain it against the will of 
 
 267
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 majorities, that is another matter. Such conditions seem 
 on the face of the proposition extremely improbable, and 
 yet we cannot, unfortunately, be sure that they are im- 
 possible. In the winter of 1907-8 the unemployed men 
 in New York City numbered something like 200,000. The 
 resources of the charity societies were unable to provide for 
 so large a number, and the actual suffering was very great. 
 Some persons well aware of the facts tried to call to them 
 the attention of the city authorities in the hope that the 
 municipality would institute public works and thus provide 
 relief. These men were met with a denial that the number 
 of unemployed was unusually large. That they might 
 prove their contention well-founded some of them called 
 for a public meeting of the unemployed in Union Square. 
 The north end of that Square has been for generations 
 a place of free assemblage; it was, in fact, designed and 
 constructed for that purpose, and permission to meet there 
 had never been denied. On this occasion the Park Com- 
 missioner issued on request the usual permit. Subsequently, 
 on what demand or for what reason was not revealed, the 
 permit was revoked a few hours before the hour appointed 
 for the meeting. As very few could learn of the rev- 
 ocation, some thousands of people assembled at the 
 designated place. They found the square in the pos- 
 session of policemen, mounted and on foot. These charged 
 upon the unresisting people, riding their horses upon them 
 and beating them with clubs. When protesting citizens 
 called the attention of the police commander to the fact 
 that he was violating a right guaranteed by the Constitu- 
 tion to the people of the United States, he replied: 
 " The club is mightier than the Constitution." 
 By " club " he meant the weapon of the policeman. 
 In the midst of the disturbance a bomb was exploded. 
 268
 
 A Plea for the Rich 
 
 A man that was supposed to have exploded it was fatally 
 hurt by the concussion; whether it was really his bomb 
 was never made clear, but he was assumed to be an An- 
 archist, and the whole meeting, organized for merely hu- 
 manitarian reasons, was so adroitly denounced as an An- 
 archist assembly that, in the public mind, it was endowed 
 with a wholly undeserved odium. On the explosion of 
 the bomb the attack by the police was redoubled and some 
 very shocking scenes ensued. Policemen rode their horses 
 up the front steps of buildings in pursuit of citizens that 
 had in no way offended, and clattered up and down the 
 sidewalks assaulting others, so that persons that had been 
 in Russia were irresistibly reminded of a charge of Cos- 
 sacks, and many that had no sympathy with the meeting 
 or its organizers were moved to vehement protest. 
 
 No one of judicial temperament witnessing that day's 
 work could fail to be impressed with the thought that the 
 police had been used, as much in defiance of law as of 
 right, to suppress a legitimate meeting merely because the 
 significance of that meeting was repugnant to persons in 
 power. Nor is it possible to deny that when the fact is 
 viewed in connection with the habitual use of the police, 
 the courts, and the militia to suppress strikes, or with such 
 an exhibition of the drunkenness of power as the kidnap- 
 ing of Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone; it is likely to 
 arouse a certain foreboding. Yet evolution tends but one 
 way and indicates but one end to all this, and there is no 
 adequate reason to think it will work through any other 
 means than those of peace and man's innate sense of 
 justice that not even greed and Capitalism can quite 
 crush out. 
 
 269
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SOME THINGS THAT MIGHT EASILY BE 
 
 These are the fruits of the present industrial system 
 of the world war, poverty, slums, child labor, prostitu- 
 tion, the slow degradation of the masses, insufficiency on 
 one hand and superfluity on the other, caste and aristoc- 
 racy, hatred instead of love, and so many million lives 
 led without the chance of decency, comfort, and happiness 
 that belong of right to every human being; national bank- 
 ruptcy impending, and before us the eventual collapse 
 of the whole industrial machinery. 
 
 Yet all these things are unnecessary. Every good and 
 desirable thing badly supplied by the present organiza- 
 tion we can secure without one of the multitudinous and 
 complex ills now inflicted upon us. 
 
 Let us see how. First, we will suppose, if you please, 
 an organization that fundamentally reverses the purpose 
 and methods of the present system and puts the comfort, 
 happiness, health, sufficiency, and protection of all the 
 people above every other consideration. Let us suppose 
 men to say that they need certain things, food, shelter, 
 clothing, artificial light and heat, transportation, and the 
 means of communication. All men need these things; they 
 are primal necessities. Hitherto, they say, these things 
 have been supplied to us through the interposition of 
 Capital. The result has been that Capital, possessing 
 the supplies of the things that all men need, and therefore 
 
 270
 
 Some Things that Might Easily Be 
 
 having us at its mercy, has enriched itself at our expense, 
 gathered to itself the fruits of the earth and of labor, fruits 
 that it has not earned and cannot consume. It has cor- 
 rupted and controlled governments, monopolized the money 
 supply, obstructed democracy, supported autocracy, erected 
 artificial barriers between men and their brother men, im- 
 posed upon the world a false and degrading object of life, 
 impoverished the majority for the benefit of a few, doomed 
 the majority of lives to drudging toil for the price of bare 
 existence, instigated war, and maintained costly and useless 
 armaments. Henceforth, therefore, the things we need shall 
 be supplied to us not by Capital, which does all badly and 
 is no more than a wolf hungering for profits, but what 
 we need shall be supplied to us by the community for 
 the community's good. 
 
 That would be very different, would it not? 
 
 Suppose, then, that in accordance with this resolution 
 the community should take over all the banks and the 
 money supply, operating banks not for individual profits 
 but for the welfare and convenience of the public. That 
 would put an end to the money monopoly, would it not? 
 And to all the evils that flow from the money monopoly. 
 Banks would no longer dictate legislation nor supply cor- 
 ruption funds nor be the means of coercing men nor the 
 means of precipitating panics. And why should this not 
 be done? The purpose of a bank, and the one reason for 
 chartering it and allowing it to exist, is to secure a money 
 supply for the community's use. That groups of bankers 
 should make profits and accumulate fortunes is of no 
 advantage to the community; it has no gain from these 
 fortunes and profits and abnormal powers, which are 
 merely a price extorted for a supply that can be had 
 without any such price. 
 
 271
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 Let us suppose, next, the community to operate for the 
 community's good all the supplies of transportation and 
 communication. That would put an end to the railroad 
 monopoly, would it not? And to the fatal process of 
 stock watering that the railroads must now pursue, to 
 the corrupting of public officers by the railroad companies, 
 to their interference with government, their constant break- 
 ing of laws, the annoyances and extortions the community 
 now suffers at their hands, the inadequate service, the 
 arbitrary rates, the failing equipment, the physical condi- 
 tion that Mr. Hill assures us is breaking down, to rebates 
 and discriminations, to private cars and terminal railroads. 
 Why should this not be done? The purpose of a railroad 
 is to supply the community with transportation; for this 
 alone railroads are chartered and allowed. That a few 
 fortunate men should be able to accumulate great fortunes 
 and build beautiful homes is of no benefit to the com- 
 munity. What the community needs is transportation; it 
 gains nothing from these fortunes and palaces, which are 
 merely the extravagant tribute extorted for a service that 
 can be had without any such tribute. 
 
 Let us suppose the community to operate next for the 
 community's good all the coal mines. That would put 
 an end to the Coal Trust, would it not? And to the high 
 prices for coal extorted to pay the interest on watered 
 stock and needless bonds, to the oppression of the coal 
 miner at one end of the industry and of the coal consumer 
 at the other, to the control of an indispensable necessity 
 for the profit of a few. Why should this not be done? 
 The object of a coal mine is to supply coal to the com- 
 munity; it is for this purpose and none other that mining 
 companies are chartered and mining operations allowed. 
 That fortunate speculators should be able to gather great 
 
 272
 
 Some Things that Might Easily Be 
 
 wealth from the needs of the coal consumers and coal 
 producers is of no benefit to the community. What it 
 wants is coal, and it gains nothing from the fortunes and 
 yachts and amusements of the mine owners, which are 
 simply the unreasonable tribute extorted for a supply that 
 can be had without any such tribute. 
 
 Let us suppose the community to operate for the com- 
 munity's good all the packing and slaughter-houses. That 
 would put an end forever to the Beef Trust, would it 
 not? And to the conditions revealed by " The Jungle," 
 and confirmed by President Roosevelt's commission, to the 
 arbitrary increase of the price of meat and arbitrary 
 manipulation of the cattle market. Why should not this 
 be done? The object of a packing-house is to supply 
 meat to the community. That Mr. Armour and Mr. Swift 
 should get rich and build handsome residences is of no 
 benefit to the community ; it has no gain from these for- 
 tunes and residences, which are merely an artificial price 
 exacted for a supply that can be had without any such 
 price. 
 
 Let us suppose the community to operate for the com- 
 munity's good all the shoe factories. That would put an 
 end to the making of shoes with paper soles, would it not? 
 And to the Shoe Machinery Trust, one of the most odious 
 and dangerous trusts on earth; also to the tribute that this 
 trust levies upon every person that wears shoes. Why 
 should this not be done? The object of a shoe factory 
 is to supply the community with shoes. That a few rich 
 men should grow richer from the manipulation of the 
 shoe industry is of no benefit to the community. What it 
 wants is shoes ; it gains nothing from these fortunes, which 
 are merely an artificial price extorted for a supply that 
 can be had without any such price. 
 
 273
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 Let us suppose the community to operate for the com- 
 munity's good the oil wells and oil refineries. That would 
 put an end to the Standard Oil Company, would it not? 
 And to the appointment of judges of the Standard Oil 
 Company's selection, its influence over the government and 
 in politics, its purchase of legislatures, its huge power for 
 evil in so many ways. Why should this not be done? 
 The objects of an oil well and of an oil refinery are to 
 supply the community with oil; they have no other reason 
 to exist. That Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Flagler, and Mr. 
 Archbold should annually count so many more millions 
 in their store is of no advantage to the community. It 
 has no profit from the present arrangement, which is merely 
 a device to extort an artificial tribute for a supply that can 
 be had without any such tribute. 
 
 Let us suppose the community, in the same way, to own 
 and operate for the Common Good the production and 
 distribution of all the other things that all men must 
 have. It will then have abolished a very large part of 
 the evils that we have described, will it not? It need 
 interfere in no way with the supply of articles of taste. 
 No great harm can ever come from monopolies of the things 
 that nobody needs ; a trust in pate de fois gras or truffles 
 could hardly ever become a menace to the liberty or wel- 
 fare of the community; but the private control of the 
 supplies of the primal necessities is the greatest misfor- 
 tune that ever befell the race. The kind of community 
 that we have been supposing would certainly bring that 
 misfortune to a sudden end. 
 
 Next, let us suppose this community to say: "Work is 
 not rightfully a privilege to be given or withheld at the 
 caprice of a few men. Work is a right and a necessity, 
 as well as a duty; it is as much a necessity as fresh air; 
 
 274
 
 Some Things that Might Easily Be 
 
 no man can be healthy without it. All men must work 
 for the Common Good, for thereby they are also in the 
 highest sense working for themselves; henceforth there are 
 to be no more unemployed. Since the community now 
 owns the supply of necessities it will furnish necessities 
 only to those that perform their quota of work for the 
 Common Good. If a man do no work he shall not eat, 
 but for all men that work the supply of necessities shall 
 be the same. And since there are now no idlers, no shirk- 
 ers, fewer hours of toil will suffice to supply the world's 
 need, and four hours * of manual labor will be the limit for 
 each man. The rest of his time he can devote to improving 
 his poor little mind (for which purpose the community 
 will provide every facility), to rest, recreation, culture, 
 to learning something about the world in which he is 
 placed, and to the enjoyment of its beauties." Under 
 those conditions life would be quite different, would it 
 not? 
 
 Suppose it next to say that since productive industry is 
 now carried on by the community for the Common Good 
 and not for individual profit, all places wherein men work 
 shall be clean, spacious, sanitary, and well-lighted; all 
 places where men live shall be airy, clean, quiet, sanitary, 
 full of sunlight and comfort; all men that work shall have 
 enough of food, clothing, shelter, and rest. To these ends 
 the community will own the land and use it for the Common 
 Good and abolish from it all unfit habitations, and put 
 it to human use wherever it is now idle. 
 
 Suppose it to say, further, that all children without 
 exception, if of average health and strength, shall have 
 
 * One of the greatest economists of America estimated long ago 
 that, if all men were at work, four hours a day of labor would 
 produce all that the world needs. 
 
 275
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 the very best attainable education, shall have every pos- 
 sible opportunity for acquiring knowledge, shall be care- 
 fully trained and developed physically and mentally, shall 
 be reared in beautiful environments, shall always have a 
 sufficiency of nourishment and comfort, shall not until 
 sufficiently matured go forth to daily toil, and shall have 
 a rational and satisfying object of life. That would work 
 a difference, would it not? 
 
 Suppose it to say that in the place of aggrandizement 
 it purposes to substitute the pursuit of knowledge, happi- 
 ness, and beauty; that men shall no longer spend their 
 lives either in brutish toil or in gathering the dead leaves 
 of wealth, nor women in barbaric display; that the human 
 spirit is too noble and fine to be wasted upon unworthy 
 objects, and henceforth it shall have a chance to be its 
 true self after the image of a god. That would work 
 a difference, would it not? 
 
 Suppose it to say, further, that human life is the most 
 sacred thing upon this earth, that neither individuals nor 
 nations can ever have any right to take it; that all the 
 children of earth are of one race and brothers, with com- 
 mon interests, a common origin, and a common destiny; 
 that as Capitalism was the source of war and Capitalism 
 is now abolished forever, we will break up the arma- 
 ments, disband the armies, and all the idlers now wasting 
 time in preparing for war shall turn to work for the 
 Common Good and their own. 
 
 Suppose it to decide that at last it will have on 
 earth a genuine democracy, that all authority shall rest 
 with the people, that in the conduct of all affairs there 
 shall be no power, will, nor control, except the power, 
 will, and control of all the people upon one common plane, 
 with exactly equal rank, rights, privileges, and station. 
 
 276
 
 Some Things that Might Easily Be 
 
 Suppose it to say that women have been long enough 
 the slaves of men. Suppose it to declare that the idea 
 of woman as in any way inferior to man belongs to the 
 jungle and the dark ages; that henceforth women are 
 to be the equals and companions of men, with the same 
 rights in the state and equal duties. This world would 
 be a fairly decent world to live in, would it not? For 
 the first time a man could take his way through it without 
 apologies for his race or himself. 
 
 Dwell for a moment on some of the advantages that 
 would result. It is perfectly evident that in such an 
 organization of society there would be no undue aggrega- 
 tions of wealth, and no great inequalities in the material 
 conditions of men. All the channels by which individuals 
 now gather for themselves the wealth that should be for 
 all would be closed, and the community would be using 
 production for the Common Good. Land, the money supply, 
 transportation, mining, and the manufacture of all articles 
 of necessity having ceased to be instruments of greed, 
 there would be left no possible way by which considerable 
 numbers of men could be oppressed or placed under unjust 
 tribute. No great fortune was ever made from controlling 
 the supplies of things that men did not want. 
 
 It is equally evident that in such a society there would 
 be no poverty. The products of the earth being sufficient 
 for the children of the earth, this system would insure 
 the just distribution of the products and their develop- 
 ment to the full extent of men's needs. Vast areas of 
 uncultivated land, now held in idleness for speculative 
 purposes or as hunting preserves, would be put to use. 
 The strange spectacle of men asking for bread in the face 
 of uncultivated land would come to an end. There could be 
 no such thing as insufficiency for any person willing to 
 
 277
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 work. For those incapacitated by age or disease the com- 
 munity would care so that at last there would be lifted 
 from human life the shadow of the fear that has lain 
 upon it so many generations, the fear of penury and 
 want. 
 
 Likewise, under this system there would be no slums. 
 As the community would own the land and the houses, it 
 would insist for its own protection upon wholesome dwell- 
 ings. In such a city as New York, for instance, the many 
 tracts of unimproved land that are now so strange a 
 monument of cupidity, would be built over with modern 
 houses arranged for light and fresh air. Such frightful 
 regions as the East Side and the district now occupied 
 by the tenements of Trinity Church would be swept clean 
 of their present abominations and rebuilt with wide streets, 
 separate houses, parks, and playgrounds. As the city 
 would own the transportation system, it would extend this 
 so as to develop new and attractive suburbs wherever they 
 might be needed. The community would do this because, 
 to mention but one reason, in no other way could it pro- 
 tect itself against epidemics. It is in the slums that most 
 bacterial diseases are bred or developed. The overwhelm- 
 ing menace of the slum as a source of disease, expressed, 
 for example, in the spread of tuberculosis, has had the 
 gravest attention of the best civic authorities in Europe, 
 and perhaps we can study nothing more valuable to us 
 than the war on slums in the cities of England, where 
 the net result so far, as we have seen, has been 
 only the destruction of one slum and the creation of 
 another. 
 
 Under this system we should abolish that curious anomaly 
 and heavy curse known among us as a lack of employment. 
 The idea that there should be in the community men asking 
 
 278
 
 Some Things that Might Easily Be 
 
 in vain for work we now tolerate merely because the present 
 system has reversed the natural sense of values and ob- 
 scured our normal perceptions. There is no community 
 that has not at all times much work it needs to have done. 
 To see how stupidly we deal with this matter we have only 
 to refer again to New York City in the winter of 1907-8, 
 when, with 200,000 men out of work, very many of them 
 destitute and without shelter, every resource of charity was 
 taxed to the utmost to keep men from starving or freezing 
 in the streets, and thousands of men whose only offense was 
 misfortune were committed to the workhouses and im- 
 prisoned with felons. Yet, while this was going on, the 
 community was suffering an acute need of public im- 
 provements. The transportation facilities were shockingly 
 inadequate; new subways, new bridges, new surface 
 roads were imperatively needed. Every morning and 
 every evening the scenes to be witnessed in the overcrowded 
 subway and elevated railway trains were a denial of civili- 
 zation, and of a nature not to be equaled anywhere on 
 earth outside of America. All sense of personal decency 
 and respect for self or for others was necessarily thrown 
 away in that crowd, and men and women struggled with 
 one another like beasts in a pit, often at the imminent 
 risk of life and limb. Yet, while this need of increased 
 transportation facilities was so urgent that it amounted 
 to a public scandal, 200,000 men marched the streets ask- 
 ing in vain for work. It is difficult to imagine any excuse 
 for a condition so absurd and imbecile. 
 
 But under the system before outlined, all capable men 
 would be at work; the needs of the community would be 
 progressively supplied. The new subways so badly needed 
 in New York were denied that the Traction Trust might 
 secure from the city the terms it demanded; in other 
 
 279
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 words, the community was made to suffer, and the un- 
 employed were unprovided with work, because the system 
 of private profits required these conditions. The end of 
 the system of private profits would be likewise the end of 
 this anomaly. 
 
 Again, under the new organization of society, the human 
 mind would have at last a chance to develop and to learn 
 some of the essential facts of existence. So far in its 
 history it has learned almost nothing. Of the sciences, 
 for instance, hardly one can be said to be more than in 
 its infancy. We know next to nothing about geology, 
 astronomy, biology, or the way to use the forces with 
 which we are surrounded. Through ignorance alone, the 
 race has not yet begun to live. We do not even know 
 how to keep fairly well. Thirty per cent, of the diseases 
 catalogued in the medical text-books are called incurable, 
 and yet it is apparent that in reality there should be no 
 such thing as an incurable disease; if man can incur a 
 disease, man can cure it. In the last few generations the 
 normal span of human life has been lengthened enough to 
 make us understand that if we only knew how we could 
 easily live twice as long. We are beginning to use elec- 
 tricity as our servant, but we have not yet learned what 
 it is, nor what it can do for us. In the midst of a free 
 and inexhaustible supply of natural forces of which we 
 make no use, we are rapidly exhausting our coal supplies, 
 obtained only with great effort and waste of time and of 
 human life. We turn our wheels and drive our steam- 
 ships with the most stupid and costly motive power, 
 because we have never yet learned to do anything more 
 rational. 
 
 Now and then some investigator, usually one that has 
 been relieved of the burden of " making his living," dis- 
 
 280
 
 Some Things that Might Easily Be 
 
 covers some simple fact that transfers a malady from the 
 incurable to the curable column. It is reasonable to hold 
 that, with sufficient study and concentration, all the other 
 diseases now mysterious could in time be similarly trans- 
 ferred, if investigators only had a chance. Every good 
 physician understands this perfectly, for he has himself 
 felt, and continually feels, the impulse to study and re- 
 search that are made impossible to him by the necessity of 
 earning his bread. It is not right that the world should lose 
 all of this great possibility of discoveries. Two of the 
 ablest physicians of my acquaintance, both young men, have 
 often assured me that if by any possibility they could be as- 
 sured of a bare subsistence for themselves and their families, 
 they would devote all the rest of their lives to laboratory 
 and research work. One of these has won a recognized 
 standing as a learned authority on the most difficult and 
 baffling nervous diseases. He can almost see before him 
 the solution of problems that oppress him if he can only 
 secure the time to pursue certain lines of study and ex- 
 periment; but he is debarred from these by the exigencies 
 of the practice he must assiduously build, if he and his 
 family are not to starve. No doubt many other observers 
 have often noted the same situation, for it is one of the 
 countless indictments of the present system that it deprives 
 us of the natural and best product of all our good minds. 
 The time and energy that should be devoted to solving 
 the riddles by which we are surrounded are now wasted 
 in the senseless struggle with other men to secure fruits 
 of the earth that should be common to all. 
 
 Under the new order, education and art would, for the 
 first time, have a fair chance on earth. The artists that 
 now grope under the deadly fear of want, or debase their 
 talents for sustenance, would be secure of their livelihood, 
 
 281
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 free to express their ideas, and free to attain their ideals. 
 No man can be at his best when the shape of fear sits 
 upon his shoulder. Fear is man's greatest enemy, and 
 the most degrading influence that assails man's life; and 
 of all fears, the fear of penury is the most common, the 
 most persistent, and the parent of the largest progeny of 
 evil. Under this system there would be no fear of 
 penury. 
 
 Literature, again, with all the other products of culture, 
 would have for the first time its normal function on earth. 
 Men would write, teach, and study, not for gain, but for 
 the love of achievement, for a noble instead of an ignoble 
 motive. Beauty, which is now everywhere sacrificed to 
 commercialism, would have its normal opportunity to ap- 
 peal to men and to save them. Emulation would take the 
 place of competition; life would be sane instead of insane, 
 and led for a rational object instead of being expended 
 upon nothing. 
 
 If against this system of industry there be raised the 
 cant objection that it is Utopian or chimerical, I desire to 
 ask, Why? What can be chimerical in a practical faith 
 in the natural goodness of men, instead of faith in the 
 evil that false conditions have forced upon his life? What 
 is chimerical in the idea of a practical application of the 
 idea of brotherhood, or in the practical substitution of love 
 for hate, or in the practical acceptance of the idea that 
 man is something better than a beast? There is nothing 
 in Socialism beyond the easy reach of humanity. If you 
 think that men cannot live without preying upon one an- 
 other, look you how poor a thing you make of Man ! If 
 he be, indeed, not otherwise than the wolf and the tiger, 
 how then will you account for the noble and heroic deeds, 
 the self-sacrifice, tenderness, and lofty aspirations of which 
 
 282
 
 Some Things that Might Easily Be 
 
 he is capable. If any man be capable of sympathy for 
 another's welfare, the society of men is capable of Social- 
 ism. Every act of kindness, charity, good will, courtesy, 
 every recognition of the claims of brotherhood, is a refuta- 
 tion of the theory that men are beasts and must neces- 
 sarily rend and tear one another. It is Capitalism and a 
 false system of society that makes enemies of men that 
 otherwise would be friends. And if we think evil of 
 men, shall they not do evil? So long as we hold to dis- 
 belief in the essential goodness of man we deprive our- 
 selves of the best that is in us and the best that is in 
 our fellows. 
 
 It is usually urged at this point that without the em- 
 ployment of greed and the gainful appetite as social factors, 
 there would be no incentive to effort, and the world's work 
 would come to an end. This is, of course, to take the 
 lowest possible view of man, and to deny all that is good 
 in him. But even if we can conceive the heart of man 
 to be bad, and if we can put aside all the physical facts 
 concerning the necessity of work and its relations to health, 
 and if we can believe that nothing appeals to men except 
 their stomachs, we need but refer again to a very sig- 
 nificant fact previously pointed out in these discussions. 
 What is ordinarily meant by the term " incentive to effort " 
 can be disregarded so far as this country is concerned, 
 because it has already ceased to exist. The process of 
 evolution has attended to that, and quite effectually. By 
 " incentive to effort " is meant the ambition to improve 
 one's position, to rise from poverty to wealth, to ascend 
 from the state of a clerk to that of a proprietor, to join 
 the men at the top of the ladder of fortune, and the like. 
 We can see how much of this " incentive " is left if we 
 once more consider the extent to which the consolidation 
 
 283
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 of industry has been carried. What chance to rise has 
 a young man now entering the service of the United States 
 Steel Corporation? What chance to become an independ- 
 ent owner? What chance to make a great fortune? By 
 rare good luck, combined with diligence, he may pos- 
 sibly get his wages raised; he may rise from one clerkship 
 to another; but he can never be anything but the Corpora- 
 tion's hired man, dependent for his employment upon some- 
 body's good will or somebody's caprice. Of the great 
 army of Standard Oil employees, what one can be said 
 to have " incentive to effort " in the sense in which the 
 term is employed by Socialism's critics? By no possibility 
 can he hope to be a proprietor and independent; by no 
 possibility accumulate a fortune. His horizon of life is 
 limited by his daily toil and some remote prospect that 
 some day, if all goes well, the pittance he earns may be 
 increased. He is become a human machine, revolving daily 
 in his allotted place until worn out, and then to be replaced 
 by another. More and more, as consolidation and con- 
 centration increase, this becomes the condition of the whole 
 great middle-class in this country. How absurd, then, to 
 talk about " incentive to effort " in such a class ! The only 
 incentive to effort there is the sheer necessity of selling 
 the best of their lives for mere subsistence. In their state, 
 the cardinal fact is that life is all drudging toil, and as 
 we have already seen, this condition, in successive genera- 
 tions, has only one result. 
 
 But all this is an unnecessary consideration. The real 
 incentive to effort is something very different. We should 
 not overlook the fact that the important discoveries, in- 
 ventions, and worthy achievements in the world's history 
 have been made by men that reaped no money from their 
 labors, and could reap none. The physicians that spend 
 
 284
 
 Some Things that Might Easily Be 
 
 the best of their lives in laboratory research know well 
 enough they can never earn money by such work, and 
 they desire to earn none. Their reward is sufficient to 
 them if they add something to the total of human knowledge. 
 I doubt if there be any man imbued with the genuine in- 
 spiration of the medical profession that would be deterred 
 from research work by the fact that it would never be 
 profitable to him. Men that spend their lives in the service 
 of science never dream of getting rich from what they 
 may discover; the suggestion would seem to them infinitely 
 abhorrent, they would believe it impossible for any man 
 to be a true or worthy student if he allowed the thought 
 of gain to possess his mind. Yet, recall the great and 
 tireless labors of some of these men; Darwin, Tyndall, 
 Huxley, Agassiz, Gray, Lubbock how absurd it would be 
 to suggest money-making to any of these ! They lived for 
 science; that was reward enough. And will you tell me 
 that with these splendid careers crowding history so that 
 one could fill pages with their names, all of men that 
 toiled their lives through for Service and not for 
 money, will you say that gain is the only incentive 
 that appeals to men, and without it nothing would be 
 done? 
 
 To that question I confess I should very much like 
 an answer, for thus far I have heard of none. How can 
 we gather the figs of decency from the thistles of bestiality? 
 How can greed, that is essentially a vice and the worker 
 of infinite evil, be also a virtue and the source of good? 
 How can we really believe that the world of men can 
 proceed and supply its needs only by a series of com- 
 promises with conscience? 
 
 Moreover, these contentions that the gainful impulse is 
 an indispensable adjunct to Service are refuted again by 
 
 285
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 daily experience. Consider for a moment the vast labors 
 performed without compensation by members of such bodies 
 as the London Municipal Council, the local councils in 
 many other cities, the various boards of education and 
 boards of health that commonly serve without pay. No 
 money could secure the conscientious and unremitting labors 
 that are performed by the London County Councilmen for 
 nothing. Wherever around this world public service for 
 the Common Good has been substituted for public service 
 for gain there has been an increase of zeal and a decrease 
 of scandal. It is not true that men are unwilling to do 
 anything except for their personal gain; the truth is, that 
 most men, if they have any chance, will do more for others 
 and more for the Common Good than they will do for 
 themselves. 
 
 And in this is the noblest profit. We cannot change 
 the essential principles of human existence; after all, the 
 truth remains that the greatest joy that life affords is 
 something done for somebody else. The man that lives 
 for himself dies within himself. All that is proposed here 
 is to build practically upon these fundamental truths of 
 being. In such a project how can there be any- 
 thing chimerical? How can there be anything that 
 is in the least unreasonable, or, if we come to that, 
 improbable ? 
 
 One of the curses of the existing system is that it de- 
 prives life of the normal opportunities for this joy of 
 service. I believe it to be the invariable human testimony 
 that nothing in this world softens the melancholy fact of 
 increasing years and approaching death except the reflec- 
 tion that one has been of use, one has served one's times, 
 helped one's fellows, brightened some lives, contributed 
 some service that Society required, made some return for the 
 
 286
 
 Some Things that Might Easily Be 
 
 life intrusted to one. What better prospect could be for life 
 than life without cruelty, oppression, greed, penury, or 
 insufficiency, and life devoted to service and the growth 
 of the spirit within? Of all this, man that looks at the 
 stars and walks with the angels is capable as surely as 
 he is Man. 
 
 287
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 
 
 We can very well lay aside consideration of theory or 
 opinion concerning all these matters, and face the fact 
 that, whether we approve or disapprove of such an or- 
 ganization, the whole world is moving towards it. We 
 can see now, if we care to look, that many of the new con- 
 ditions (here roughly and briefly outlined) are already 
 established in faultless operation, and we can observe the 
 beginning of many others. The next step in the progress 
 of the race is so clearly revealed in these innovations that 
 the conclusion is not to be escaped by any mind that will 
 weigh carefully the industrial conditions of to-day with the 
 industrial conditions of twenty-five years ago; and he will 
 find in the same consideration the reasonable way by which 
 evolution is bringing about every change that we have here 
 discussed. 
 
 To make this clear, we will now take, if you like, one 
 of the typical and primary needs of society and observe 
 how it was supplied under the old or Capitalistic system, 
 and how it is supplied in progressive regions of the world 
 under the beginning of Socialism. Let us take transporta- 
 tion. 
 
 I go back to 1887. In Chicago that year, Mr. Charles 
 T. Yerkes, a financial adventurer of little means, secured 
 with a deposit of $25,000 of borrowed money the control 
 of a street car line called the North Chicago Railroad. 
 
 288
 
 The Way of the World 
 
 Having the control, he issued upon the property masses 
 of additional securities (stocks and bonds) until with these 
 he had paid for the road and returned the money he had 
 borrowed. He now proceeded on various pretexts to issue 
 more securities, and with these he purchased another street 
 railroad. Upon this he issued still other securities and 
 made additional purchases, until in a few years and with- 
 out the investment of a dollar, he controlled all the street 
 railroads of Chicago, except those owned by one company 
 on the South Side. 
 
 These he continued at intervals to load with more securi- 
 ties, until the system became one of the most heavily capi- 
 talized enterprises in the country. Some of the stocks 
 and bonds that Mr. Yerkes manufactured so readily he 
 kept for himself; others he sold at high prices. All of 
 the stocks and bonds of whatsoever description that he 
 issued became charges upon the enterprise. The bonds 
 were mortgages, and if the interest upon them were not 
 paid the owners of the bonds could foreclose and seize 
 the property; the stocks were in reality hardly less than 
 a mortgage, for if dividends were not paid upon them, 
 stockholders could go into court and demand a receiver. 
 That the dividends and interest should be paid on the vast 
 issues of stocks and bonds of Mr. Yerkes's making (for 
 his own profit) it was necessary to increase the revenue 
 of the enterprise and decrease the expenses. These results 
 were achieved by crowding a great many persons into each 
 car, by reducing the service, by neglecting to maintain 
 the equipment, and refusing to make needed repairs. As 
 a consequence, Chicago soon had the worst transportation 
 service in the world. The cars were infrequent, small, 
 old, unsafe, dirty, slow, and brutally overcrowded; the 
 roadbed and track were scandalously out of repair, so that 
 
 289
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 the physical sufferings of the passengers became acute, 
 and there were frequent accidents, some of them fatal. 
 The motive power was of a kind obsolete elsewhere, and 
 quite inadequate to the service. Before long the defects 
 of the transportation facilities became so notorious that 
 it was a burden on business, and many persons believed 
 it to be retarding the city's growth. Certainly it produced 
 daily scenes that would disgrace a community of bar- 
 barians. In the busy hours of the evening men fought 
 for a chance to get into the cars, where finally they were 
 grossly packed together on platforms, steps, railings, and 
 even the couplings, at the imminent risk of their lives. 
 
 Meantime, Mr. Yerkes continued to issue and absorb 
 securities. When it was evident that the system could 
 stand no more and the crash was not far off, he sold his 
 interests and retired to London with $40,000,000, made in 
 fifteen years on an investment of nothing. In accordance 
 with the approved methods of the present system, he had 
 " capitalized the earning power " of the lines, and the 
 wretched and inadequate service was the means by which 
 the public paid for the capitalization. 
 
 Almost immediately upon his withdrawal the collapse 
 followed, and a receiver was appointed. About five years 
 of litigation followed, in which the city vainly tried to 
 recover the streets that the system had continued to use 
 after its franchise had expired. In that time the service 
 continued to be abominable, for the duty of the receiver 
 was naturally to try to wring from the wreck enough 
 money to pay the interest on the excessive securities and 
 not at all to regard public complaint. 
 
 Mr. Yerkes was a close friend and business ally of Mr. 
 W. L. Elkins and Mr. P. A. B. Widener, of Philadelphia, 
 and while he was engaged in building his great fortune 
 
 290
 
 The Way of the World 
 
 by " capitalizing the earning power " of the Chicago street 
 railroads, Mr. Elkins and Mr. Widener were busy with 
 the like operations in Philadelphia, where they achieved 
 in all respects a like result. That is to say, they accumu- 
 lated for themselves great fortunes, and the people of 
 Philadelphia paid for these fortunes year after year in 
 unnecessary fares, deficient accommodations, and finally in 
 the wreck of their transportation system. Mr. Elkins and 
 Mr. Widener were closely associated with Mr. William C. 
 Whitney and Mr. Thomas F. Ryan, of New York. To- 
 gether they secured control of the street railroad system 
 of New York City, they applied methods used in Chicago 
 and Philadelphia, and again they secured enormous profits 
 at the community's expense. 
 
 Most of these transportation systems were ruined and 
 thrown into the hands of receivers, because their earning 
 power had been capitalized for the benefit of the gentle- 
 men in control. In each instance the public not only 
 suffered great discomfort and extortion for the time being, 
 but must continue to suffer for a long time to come. How 
 this came about may be seen in one concrete illustration 
 from the history of the syndicate in New York. 
 
 Its operations began with the purchase for $50,000 of 
 one railroad, which was immediately " reorganized " (in the 
 cant phrase), and bonded for the purchase of additional 
 railroads, the $50,000 being the only money ever invested 
 in the enterprise. With securities issued upon one rail- 
 road the syndicate bought another, until it controlled 
 the entire street railroad system of New York county and 
 had heavily loaded it with stocks and bonds. At intervals 
 it reorganized under a new name, and each reorganization 
 was accompanied by the issue of new securities. At last 
 this process reached a point where the earnings could not 
 
 291
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 be made to pay the fixed charges and for a year or two 
 these were paid out of the receipts from securities. Mean- 
 while, the original members of the Syndicate dropped out. 
 As soon as the inability of the property to earn the interest 
 charges was apparent, the collapse followed and receivers 
 were appointed. It was the duty of the receivers to obtain 
 the interest money if they possibly could. To that end 
 they cut off transfers and changed the routing of certain 
 cars, and thereby secured from the public in payment for 
 transportation an increased toll that has been estimated at 
 $25,000 a day. This additional payment was in the face 
 of the fact that the service afforded was, and for many 
 years had been, very inadequate, while the overcrowding 
 of the cars was almost intolerable. 
 
 It is to be noted that the $25,000 of additional daily 
 tribute thus secured principally affected the poor. The 
 transfers now abolished had been used almost exclusively 
 by the working class. Well-to-do persons paid little at- 
 tention to the transfer system. It was not of moment to 
 them. But to thousands upon thousands of workingmen 
 and workingwomen, already preyed upon in so many dif- 
 ferent ways, transfers were of a very real importance. 
 Often they made the difference between a ride and a long 
 walk on their way to and from their work. With street 
 car transfers many working girls could secure an addi- 
 tional half hour of rest every day. The taking away of 
 the transfers meant, that of the scanty wages earned by 
 these girls, $4, $5, or $6 a week, they must pay to the 
 street railroad $1.20 for transportation, or they must walk 
 long distances and arise earlier in the morning. 
 
 All this was solely the result of the process of " capi- 
 talizing the earning power " of the railroads. In this 
 instance the term seems to have been a misnomer. What 
 
 292
 
 The Way of the World 
 
 was really capitalized was the health, time, comfort, and 
 pitiable wages of the shop girls of New York. 
 
 We may note with some interest, also, that if there had 
 been none of this process; if the enterprise had been re- 
 quired to earn interest on the actual investment, and to 
 earn no more than this, passengers could have been carried 
 profitably at 3 cents each. This statement is equally true 
 of the street railroad system of Chicago and Philadelphia, 
 so that in all these places of every 5 cents paid by the 
 public to the company 3 cents was for transportation and a 
 reasonable profit and 2 cents for the securities that had been 
 piled upon the system. 
 
 On a large scale or a small scale, what happened in 
 Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York happened in many 
 other cities of the United States. Everywhere the earning 
 power of the street railroads has been capitalized for the 
 benefit of the men in control, leaving a huge load of in- 
 terest to be borne for many years by the community and 
 to be paid in impaired service or unjust charges, or both; 
 for in no other way can the interest be paid. 
 
 These are familiar and admitted facts. I now beg leave 
 to ask attention to the following simple propositions: 
 
 1. That the highways in which these men operated the 
 railroads belonged to the community and not to the men 
 that made the profits from them. 
 
 2. That the securities they issued on highways thus 
 operated were and are burdens that the community must 
 
 pay- 
 
 3. That the men that thus possessed themselves of the 
 community's highways and gathered great wealth by levy- 
 ing tribute upon the community rendered to the community 
 no service of any kind. 
 
 4. That it was not at any time nor in any degree any 
 
 293
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 concern of the public that these gentlemen should make 
 money; the public derived nothing from the money thus 
 made. The only concern of the public was to secure 
 transportation, and these gentlemen were of no assistance 
 to transportation, but only a great hindrance. 
 
 5. That these conditions are a part of the present system 
 and cannot possibly be checked, prevented, or controlled 
 so long as the system exists. 
 
 6. That they are in no way a necessary evil. Trans- 
 portation can be secured and maintained without such 
 afflictions. 
 
 Let us put by the side of the wretched and inadequate 
 transportation service in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, 
 and most American cities, the street railroad system of 
 London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Dresden, Munich, 
 Vienna, Cologne, Zurich, Berne, Antwerp, or Lugano, or 
 of any one of a hundred other cities of Europe, great 
 or small. Instead of bad service we shall find good service; 
 instead of dirty cars, infrequent and uncomfortable, we 
 shall find clean cars of the latest pattern, comfortable, 
 smoothly riding, and frequent; instead of overcrowding 
 we shall find accommodations for all; instead of manifest 
 inefficiency we shall find efficiency; instead of an equip- 
 ment in some stage of decay we shall find every modern 
 device for comfort and security; and we shall find 
 all this furnished at the minimum price to the public. 
 In these cities there is no problem about the capitalized 
 earning power, no device to levy upon the community an 
 abnormal tribute for the benefit of a few grasping and 
 unscrupulous men. We shall find an adequate transporta- 
 tion service furnished by the community to the community 
 for the community's sole profit. 
 
 In the one case there is a public service in public streets 
 294
 
 The Way of the World 
 
 for private gain; in the other a public service in the public 
 streets for the public benefit. 
 
 Here is one broad finger-post plainly pointing the way. 
 In recent years the cities of Europe have begun to take 
 over one public service after another, and to operate all 
 for the Common Good. Nearly all the considerable cities 
 of Europe now own their street railroad systems; many 
 own their gas and electric lighting plants, some own their 
 markets and cemeteries. Year by year the circle of munici- 
 pal trading is increasing everywhere in Europe. 
 
 In these respects the cities are but following the trend 
 of a widespread evolution. The nations are assuming more 
 and more the duty of supplying the primal necessities. 
 Communication is everywhere in Europe a service supplied 
 by the community for the community's good. Transporta- 
 tion is rapidly ceasing to be a service supplied by indi- 
 viduals for individual profit. Switzerland began to take 
 over its railroads on January 1, 1901, and acquired the 
 last of them on January 1, 1909- Italy nationalized its 
 railroads in 1905, Japan in 1906, and Mexico in 1907- 
 All the railroads of Hungary, and most of those of Austria, 
 are operated by the State. France in 1908 added to its 
 national railroads the great Western system, and is to 
 acquire all the rest. Germany owns and operates its rail- 
 roads and derives therefrom large profits for the govern- 
 ment and the Common Good. The railroads of Belgium, 
 Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Servia, and Turkey 
 are owned and operated by the government. In all these 
 countries the telegraph and telephone services are furnished 
 by and for the public. 
 
 As to Great Britain, all persons that know the actual 
 condition of the British railroads, to what straits private 
 ownership has brought them, how the earning power has 
 
 295
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 been capitalized and recapitalized, until it has been strained 
 to the utmost limit, know that nationalization is close at 
 hand. For these enterprises there is no other rescue, 
 and it is probable that if the government should move 
 to-day towards the purchase of the lines, the present 
 owners, far from offering objection, would be actually 
 relieved. 
 
 In Australia the government owns and operates the rail- 
 roads, the telegraph and telephone lines, and has con- 
 sidered the operating of the tobacco industry and even of a 
 line of steamships. In Sydney one of the best street 
 railroad systems in the world is publicly owned, and returns 
 to the community a handsome profit. In New Zealand, 
 where the new order has been carried farther than any- 
 where else in the world, the community owns and oper- 
 ates railroads, telegraphs, telephones, life and fire insur- 
 ance, coal mines, and a system of providing labor for the 
 unemployed. The city of Wellington, owning its street 
 railroad system, recently gave an illustration of what life 
 will be like under Socialism by extending the road and 
 building a new and handsome suburb of sanitary separate 
 dwellings. 
 
 In France, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Turkey the gov- 
 ernment is in the tobacco business. In France it makes 
 matches. In Japan, the rising commercial giant, whose 
 progress gives some of us so much uneasiness, the govern- 
 ment owns or directly or indirectly controls the banks 
 and the money supply, prepares and sells tobacco, has a 
 monopoly of the camphor trade, and has a share in flour 
 mills, breweries, steamship lines, and other ventures. In 
 Germany the government owns and operates coal mines, 
 furnishes insurance, and furthers the Common Good by 
 lending its money for the building of sanitary dwellings. 
 
 296
 
 The Way of the World 
 
 Is it possible to escape the significance of all this move- 
 ment in the one direction? 
 
 The rapid spread over all Europe of what is called 
 Cooperation keeps pace with this movement, and is a part 
 of the same evolution. Justly the Cooperative society may 
 be looked upon as a first step towards the Cooperative 
 Commonwealth. It eliminates competition, it is conducted 
 solely for the benefit of its members, it looks toward their 
 intellectual as well as their material welfare, it is con- 
 ducted on democratic lines; so far as it goes it checks the 
 unequal distribution of wealth by which one man gets too 
 much and a thousand men get far too little; it incul- 
 cates something of the basic principle of common interest 
 upon which Socialism rests. In view of these facts, we 
 should carefully note that the Cooperative societies have 
 grown until they have become a great factor in the eco- 
 nomics of Europe and threatened the Capitalistic system 
 in more than one country. 
 
 The growth of the old age pension, a purely Socialistic 
 device, is another indication of the same general movement. 
 Germany has an old age pension in admirable working, 
 so have some of the Australian states, and New Zealand. 
 Great Britain has lately adopted one, and France is soon 
 in this respect to follow the example of these nations. 
 
 So then the conclusion is that if these nations can with 
 the greatest success supply some of the primal necessities, 
 other nations can supply the same necessities and others. 
 If most of the nations, aside from the United States, are 
 now supplying transportation and communication, the 
 United States can supply transportation and communica- 
 tion. If Germany and New Zealand can supply coal, so 
 can other nations. If a government can supply coal and 
 electricity, it can supply oil and iron. If it can own 
 
 297
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 land for the purpose of digging a canal, it can own land 
 for the purpose of providing its citizens with decent houses. 
 These propositions are incontestable. They prove that the 
 work done in the world by Capital can be done without 
 Capital. Wherever Capital does the work, it does it badly, 
 with waste of human life and sickening conditions of human 
 misery. Wherever the work is done by the community, it 
 is well done, and to the advancement of human happiness. 
 Therefore, this institution of Capital is not only savage 
 and fatal, but wholly superfluous. Not one service does it 
 perform that cannot be better performed without it. Long 
 enough it has darkened the world; it should now take its 
 proper place with other clumsy and outworn devices of 
 the past. 
 
 For all the evils of the present system, Socialism is the 
 only remedy that really promises a cure. To waste further 
 time with the quacksalvers of regulation and restriction 
 is merely childish. Capitalism can evade any regulation 
 and break over any restriction. So long as we regulate we 
 only perpetuate the terrible conditions of modern life. 
 
 If it be objected that in this country great obstacles 
 lie in the way of reaching such an organization of society 
 as Socialism indicates, the sufficient answer is that the 
 collapse of the existing system will force us to find the 
 way to overcome all these obstacles. Between the present 
 system and Socialism there is no choice except Anarchism, 
 which is, indeed, the culmination and ultimate perfection of 
 the present system. To maintain some form of Capitalism 
 and strip it of its horrors and evil products has been for 
 many years the object of able thinkers and investigators, 
 and nobody has yet devised any possible plan to that end. 
 Until men can create new continents and fill them with 
 undeveloped people there will be no answer to the problem 
 
 298
 
 The Way of the World 
 
 of the Unconsumed Surplus, and that problem will con- 
 tinue to grow upon and plague and undo us. Until men 
 can encompass the impossible, they can find no answer 
 to the problem of the Capitalized Earning Power, and 
 that problem will go on until the transportation systems 
 are forced into the hands of the government, whereupon 
 the rest of the work will be simplified. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the difficulties in the way are not 
 very great; many of them will solve themselves, others are 
 being solved. For instance, twenty-five years ago the 
 railroad system of the United States was controlled by 
 probably two hundred men. To-day it is controlled by 
 five. Two years ago there were seven in control. Five 
 years ago there were ten. In a few years there will be 
 one. For the control of the railroads to pass from one 
 man to the government is not very difficult. Similarly, 
 the process of consolidation that is going on in all lines 
 of industry is making Socialism not only inevitable, but 
 easy. Every trust is a mighty power for Socialism; every 
 department store is working incessantly towards the same 
 end; every company that opens restaurants, drug stores, 
 or grocery stores under one ownership is doing our work 
 for us. It is eliminating waste and the small owner and 
 organizing industry on such a basis that with a single 
 change it will cease to be operated for the profit of a few, 
 and begin to be operated for the profit of all. 
 
 It is, of course, undeniable, that the present system 
 of government in the United States, designed to keep the 
 popular will from having its just influence, seems very re- 
 mote from the Socialistic ideal. Before we can have Social- 
 ism we must introduce the machinery of a genuine democ- 
 racy. But there is nothing impossible about this task. 
 The defects of our present system are now so apparent 
 
 299
 
 Why I Am a Socialist 
 
 that we shall probably be driven to change them before 
 we are ready for the adoption of Socialism, and to change 
 them in such a way that thereafter, whenever the people 
 desire Socialism, they can have it without delay and with- 
 out friction. If, for example, we should abolish all the 
 medieval and clumsy devices with which Hamilton and his 
 fellow-monarchists loaded the Constitution, devices to pro- 
 vide " checks on the popular will," and if we should adopt 
 in their stead such arrangements as other nations now have 
 to carry into effect every decision the people may reach, no 
 other change would be necessary. At present, of course, we 
 are cursed with the very worst forms of that representative 
 government that all about the world has proved a failure; 
 but it is inconceivable that these anomalies should continue. 
 Democracy and progress have long gone beyond them, and 
 we are left so far in the rear that the national self-respect, 
 if there were no other cause, would prove a sufficient im- 
 pulse to reform. 
 
 But a multiplicity of great obstacles has always been 
 foreseen in the path of every great advance of the race, 
 and when they have been met face to face, lo, evolution 
 has brushed them aside like dead leaves. While we are 
 weighing mighty obstacles, the vast changes in our in- 
 dustrial system are working incessantly in the one direc- 
 tion. We could no more go back now to the old days 
 of competition in the trust-owned lines of industry than 
 we could abolish steamships and return to sailing vessels. 
 Fifty years ago it would have been held impossible that 
 one family should have a monopoly of the sugar in- 
 dustry, or a group of three or four control the iron in- 
 dustry, or another own the oil business. One generation 
 has seen a change in our industrial methods so great that, 
 on looking back, it seems stupendous. Yet, does any per- 
 
 300
 
 The Way of the World 
 
 son suppose that the era of trusts is the final state of 
 man, or that the process of consolidating, simplifying, and 
 improving production is to stop when all the country is 
 engaged in augmenting the incomparable fortunes of six 
 men? 
 
 Clearly the next stage in the evolutionary process is 
 the substitution of the community for the individual as 
 the beneficiary of consolidated and economized production. 
 And this is the end towards which the slow development 
 of democracy has steadfastly tended; the human revolt 
 against political autocracy only foreshadowed the revolt 
 against industrial autocracy; as surely as men were destined 
 to democratize government, they were destined to democra- 
 tize industry. Industrial serfdom is doomed as surely as 
 political serfdom, and it is inconceivable that any man 
 that really believes in political freedom should fail to 
 believe equally in industrial freedom, of so much greater 
 importance to the race. 
 
 This is the offer of Socialism: the righting of the cen- 
 turies of wrong the producers have suffered, the dawn of 
 a genuine democracy, peace instead of war, sufficiency in- 
 stead of suffering, life raised above the level of appetite, 
 a chance at last for the good in men to attain its normal 
 development. In view of the opposition it has aroused in 
 some quarters, we may profitably remind ourselves that 
 it has about it nothing new nor alarming, and instead of 
 being rejected by men, it should be welcomed; for the 
 essence of its doctrine is merely the practical application 
 of the doctrine of Jesus Christ. 
 
 301
 
 3 11 58 01080 8912 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A A 000 085 855 5