WAR OF THE CLASSES

 BY JACK LONDON AUTHOR OF "THE SEA-WOLF, " "CALL OF THE WILD, " ETC. 

 THE REGENT PRESS NEW YORK

 Copyright, 1905, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

 Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1905. Reprinted June, October, November, 1905; January, 1906; May, 1907; April, 1908; March, 19010; April, 1912. 

 Printed and Bound by J. J. Little & Ives Company New York

Contents:

PrefaceThe Class StruggleThe TrampThe ScabThe Question of the MaximumA ReviewWanted: A New Land of DevelopmentHow I Became a Socialist

PREFACE

When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature, because, forsooth, I was a socialist. Reporters from local papersinterviewed me, and the interviews, when published, were pathologicalstudies of a strange and abnormal specimen of man. At that time (nine orten years ago), because I made a stand in my native town for municipalownership of public utilities, I was branded a "red-shirt, " a"dynamiter, " and an "anarchist"; and really decent fellows, who liked mevery well, drew the line at my appearing in public with their sisters. 

But the times changed. There came a day when I heard, in my native town, a Republican mayor publicly proclaim that "municipal ownership was afixed American policy. " And in that day I found myself picking up in theworld. No longer did the pathologist study me, while the really decentfellows did not mind in the least the propinquity of myself and theirsisters in the public eye. My political and sociological ideas wereascribed to the vagaries of youth, and good-natured elderly menpatronized me and told me that I would grow up some day and become anunusually intelligent member of the community. Also they told me that myviews were biassed by my empty pockets, and that some day, when I hadgathered to me a few dollars, my views would be wholly different, --inshort, that my views would be their views. 

And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable, --still a vagaryof youth, it was held, but romantically respectable. Romance, to thebourgeois mind, was respectable because it was not dangerous. As a"red-shirt, " with bombs in all his pockets, I was dangerous. As a youthwith nothing more menacing than a few philosophical ideas, Germanic intheir origin, I was an interesting and pleasing personality. 

Through all this experience I noted one thing. It was not I thatchanged, but the community. In fact, my socialistic views grew soliderand more pronounced. I repeat, it was the community that changed, and tomy chagrin I discovered that the community changed to such purpose thatit was not above stealing my thunder. The community branded me a"red-shirt" because I stood for municipal ownership; a little later itapplauded its mayor when he proclaimed municipal ownership to be a fixedAmerican policy. He stole my thunder, and the community applauded thetheft. And today the community is able to come around and give me pointson municipal ownership. 

What happened to me has been in no wise different from what has happenedto the socialist movement as a whole in the United States. In thebourgeois mind socialism has changed from a terrible disease to ayouthful vagary, and later on had its thunder stolen by the two oldparties, --socialism, like a meek and thrifty workingman, being exploitedbecame respectable. 

Only dangerous things are abhorrent. The thing that is not dangerous isalways respectable. And so with socialism in the United States. Forseveral years it has been very respectable, --a sweet and beautifulUtopian dream, in the bourgeois mind, yet a dream, only a dream. Duringthis period, which has just ended, socialism was tolerated because it wasimpossible and non-menacing. Much of its thunder had been stolen, andthe workingmen had been made happy with full dinner-pails. There wasnothing to fear. The kind old world spun on, coupons were clipped, andlarger profits than ever were extracted from the toilers. Coupon-clipping and profit-extracting would continue to the end of time. These were functions divine in origin and held by divine right. Thenewspapers, the preachers, and the college presidents said so, and whatthey say, of course, is so--to the bourgeois mind. 

Then came the presidential election of 1904. Like a bolt out of a clearsky was the socialist vote of 435, 000, --an increase of nearly 400 percent in four years, the largest third-party vote, with one exception, since the Civil War. Socialism had shown that it was a very live andgrowing revolutionary force, and all its old menace revived. I am afraidthat neither it nor I are any longer respectable. The capitalist pressof the country confirms me in my opinion, and herewith I give a fewpost-election utterances of the capitalist press:--

 "The Democratic party of the constitution is dead. The Social-Democratic party of continental Europe, preaching discontent and class hatred, assailing law, property, and personal rights, and insinuating confiscation and plunder, is here. "--Chicago Chronicle. 

 "That over forty thousand votes should have been cast in this city to make such a person as Eugene V. Debs the President of the United States is about the worst kind of advertising that Chicago could receive. "--Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

 "We cannot blink the fact that socialism is making rapid growth in this country, where, of all others, there would seem to be less inspiration for it. "--Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 

 "Upon the hands of the Republican party an awful responsibility was placed last Tuesday. . . It knows that reforms--great, far-sweeping reforms--are necessary, and it has the power to make them. God help our civilization if it does not! . . . It must repress the trusts or stand before the world responsible for our system of government being changed into a social republic. The arbitrary cutting down of wages must cease, or socialism will seize another lever to lift itself into power. "--The Chicago New World. 

 "Scarcely any phase of the election is more sinisterly interesting than the increase in the socialist vote. Before election we said that we could not afford to give aid and comfort to the socialists in any manner. . . It (socialism) must be fought in all its phases, in its every manifestation. "--San Francisco Argonaut. 

And far be it from me to deny that socialism is a menace. It is itspurpose to wipe out, root and branch, all capitalistic institutions ofpresent-day society. It is distinctly revolutionary, and in scope anddepth is vastly more tremendous than any revolution that has everoccurred in the history of the world. It presents a new spectacle to theastonished world, --that of an _organized_, _international_, _revolutionary movement_. In the bourgeois mind a class struggle is aterrible and hateful thing, and yet that is precisely what socialismis, --a world-wide class struggle between the propertyless workers and thepropertied masters of workers. It is the prime preachment of socialismthat the struggle is a class struggle. The working class, in the processof social evolution, (in the very nature of things), is bound to revoltfrom the sway of the capitalist class and to overthrow the capitalistclass. This is the menace of socialism, and in affirming it and intallying myself an adherent of it, I accept my own consequentunrespectability. 

As yet, to the average bourgeois mind, socialism is merely a menace, vague and formless. The average member of the capitalist class, when hediscusses socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own mouth. Hedoes not know the literature of socialism, its philosophy, nor itspolitics. He wags his head sagely and rattles the dry bones of dead andburied ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, "Men are not bornequal and never can be;" "It is Utopian and impossible;" "Abstinenceshould be rewarded;" "Man will first have to be born again;" "Cooperativecolonies have always failed;" and "What if we do divide up? in ten yearsthere would be rich and poor men such as there are today. "

It surely is time that the capitalists knew something about thissocialism that they feel menaces them. And it is the hope of the writerthat the socialistic studies in this volume may in some slight degreeenlighten a few capitalistic minds. The capitalist must learn, first andfor always, that socialism is based, not upon the equality, but upon theinequality, of men. Next, he must learn that no new birth into spiritualpurity is necessary before socialism becomes possible. He must learnthat socialism deals with what is, not with what ought to be; and thatthe material with which it deals is the "clay of the common road, " thewarm human, fallible and frail, sordid and petty, absurd andcontradictory, even grotesque, and yet, withal, shot through with flashesand glimmerings of something finer and God-like, with here and theresweetnesses of service and unselfishness, desires for goodness, forrenunciation and sacrifice, and with conscience, stern and awful, attimes blazingly imperious, demanding the right, --the right, nothing morenor less than the right. 

 JACK LONDON. 

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. January 12, 1905. 

THE CLASS STRUGGLE

Unfortunately or otherwise, people are prone to believe in the reality ofthe things they think ought to be so. This comes of the cheery optimismwhich is innate with life itself; and, while it may sometimes bedeplored, it must never be censured, for, as a rule, it is productive ofmore good than harm, and of about all the achievement there is in theworld. There are cases where this optimism has been disastrous, as withthe people who lived in Pompeii during its last quivering days; or withthe aristocrats of the time of Louis XVI, who confidently expected theDeluge to overwhelm their children, or their children's children, butnever themselves. But there is small likelihood that the case ofperverse optimism here to be considered will end in such disaster, whilethere is every reason to believe that the great change now manifestingitself in society will be as peaceful and orderly in its culmination asit is in its present development. 

Out of their constitutional optimism, and because a class struggle is anabhorred and dangerous thing, the great American people are unanimous inasserting that there is no class struggle. And by "American people" ismeant the recognized and authoritative mouth-pieces of the Americanpeople, which are the press, the pulpit, and the university. Thejournalists, the preachers, and the professors are practically of onevoice in declaring that there is no such thing as a class struggle nowgoing on, much less that a class struggle will ever go on, in the UnitedStates. And this declaration they continually make in the face of amultitude of facts which impeach, not so much their sincerity, as affirm, rather, their optimism. 

There are two ways of approaching the subject of the class struggle. Theexistence of this struggle can be shown theoretically, and it can beshown actually. For a class struggle to exist in society there must be, first, a class inequality, a superior class and an inferior class (asmeasured by power); and, second, the outlets must be closed whereby thestrength and ferment of the inferior class have been permitted to escape. 

That there are even classes in the United States is vigorously denied bymany; but it is incontrovertible, when a group of individuals is formed, wherein the members are bound together by common interests which arepeculiarly their interests and not the interests of individuals outsidethe group, that such a group is a class. The owners of capital, withtheir dependents, form a class of this nature in the United States; theworking people form a similar class. The interest of the capitalistclass, say, in the matter of income tax, is quite contrary to theinterest of the laboring class; and, _vice versa_, in the matter ofpoll-tax. 

If between these two classes there be a clear and vital conflict ofinterest, all the factors are present which make a class struggle; butthis struggle will lie dormant if the strong and capable members of theinferior class be permitted to leave that class and join the ranks of thesuperior class. The capitalist class and the working class have existedside by side and for a long time in the United States; but hitherto allthe strong, energetic members of the working class have been able to riseout of their class and become owners of capital. They were enabled to dothis because an undeveloped country with an expanding frontier gaveequality of opportunity to all. In the almost lottery-like scramble forthe ownership of vast unowned natural resources, and in the exploitationof which there was little or no competition of capital, (the capitalitself rising out of the exploitation), the capable, intelligent memberof the working class found a field in which to use his brains to his ownadvancement. Instead of being discontented in direct ratio with hisintelligence and ambitions, and of radiating amongst his fellows a spiritof revolt as capable as he was capable, he left them to their fate andcarved his own way to a place in the superior class. 

But the day of an expanding frontier, of a lottery-like scramble for theownership of natural resources, and of the upbuilding of new industries, is past. Farthest West has been reached, and an immense volume ofsurplus capital roams for investment and nips in the bud the patientefforts of the embryo capitalist to rise through slow increment fromsmall beginnings. The gateway of opportunity after opportunity has beenclosed, and closed for all time. Rockefeller has shut the door on oil, the American Tobacco Company on tobacco, and Carnegie on steel. AfterCarnegie came Morgan, who triple-locked the door. These doors will notopen again, and before them pause thousands of ambitious young men toread the placard: NO THOROUGH-FARE. 

And day by day more doors are shut, while the ambitious young mencontinue to be born. It is they, denied the opportunity to rise from theworking class, who preach revolt to the working class. Had he been bornfifty years later, Andrew Carnegie, the poor Scotch boy, might have risento be president of his union, or of a federation of unions; but that hewould never have become the builder of Homestead and the founder ofmultitudinous libraries, is as certain as it is certain that some otherman would have developed the steel industry had Andrew Carnegie neverbeen born. 

Theoretically, then, there exist in the United States all the factorswhich go to make a class struggle. There are the capitalists and workingclasses, the interests of which conflict, while the working class is nolonger being emasculated to the extent it was in the past by having drawnoff from it its best blood and brains. Its more capable members are nolonger able to rise out of it and leave the great mass leaderless andhelpless. They remain to be its leaders. 

But the optimistic mouthpieces of the great American people, who arethemselves deft theoreticians, are not to be convinced by meretheoretics. So it remains to demonstrate the existence of the classstruggle by a marshalling of the facts. 

When nearly two millions of men, finding themselves knit together bycertain interests peculiarly their own, band together in a strongorganization for the aggressive pursuit of those interests, it is evidentthat society has within it a hostile and warring class. But when theinterests which this class aggressively pursues conflict sharply andvitally with the interests of another class, class antagonism arises anda class struggle is the inevitable result. One great organization oflabor alone has a membership of 1, 700, 000 in the United States. This isthe American Federation of Labor, and outside of it are many other largeorganizations. All these men are banded together for the frank purposeof bettering their condition, regardless of the harm worked thereby uponall other classes. They are in open antagonism with the capitalistclass, while the manifestos of their leaders state that the struggle isone which can never end until the capitalist class is exterminated. 

Their leaders will largely deny this last statement, but an examinationof their utterances, their actions, and the situation will forestall suchdenial. In the first place, the conflict between labor and capital isover the division of the join product. Capital and labor applythemselves to raw material and make it into a finished product. Thedifference between the value of the raw material and the value of thefinished product is the value they have added to it by their jointeffort. This added value is, therefore, their joint product, and it isover the division of this joint product that the struggle between laborand capital takes place. Labor takes its share in wages; capital takesits share in profits. It is patent, if capital took in profits the wholejoint product, that labor would perish. And it is equally patent, iflabor took in wages the whole joint product, that capital would perish. Yet this last is the very thing labor aspires to do, and that it willnever be content with anything less than the whole joint product isevidenced by the words of its leaders. 

Mr. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, hassaid: "The workers want more wages; more of the comforts of life; moreleisure; more chance for self-improvement as men, as trade-unionists, ascitizens. _These were the wants of yesterday_; _they are the wants oftoday_; _they will be the wants of tomorrow_, _and of tomorrow's morrow_. The struggle may assume new forms, but the issue is the immemorialone, --an effort of the producers to obtain an increasing measure of thewealth that flows from their production. "

Mr. Henry White, secretary of the United Garment Workers of America and amember of the Industrial Committee of the National Civic Federation, speaking of the National Civic Federation soon after its inception, said:"To fall into one another's arms, to avow friendship, to express regretat the injury which has been done, would not alter the facts of thesituation. Workingmen will continue to demand more pay, and the employerwill naturally oppose them. The readiness and ability of the workmen tofight will, as usual, largely determine the amount of their wages ortheir share in the product. . . But when it comes to dividing theproceeds, there is the rub. We can also agree that the larger theproduct through the employment of labor-saving methods the better, asthere will be more to be divided, but again the question of thedivision. . . . A Conciliation Committee, having the confidence of thecommunity, and composed of men possessing practical knowledge ofindustrial affairs, can therefore aid in mitigating this antagonism, inpreventing avoidable conflicts, in bringing about a _truce_; I use theword 'truce' because understandings can only be temporary. "

Here is a man who might have owned cattle on a thousand hills, been alumber baron or a railroad king, had he been born a few years sooner. Asit is, he remains in his class, is secretary of the United GarmentWorkers of America, and is so thoroughly saturated with the classstruggle that he speaks of the dispute between capital and labor in termsof war, --workmen _fight_ with employers; it is possible to avoid some_conflicts_; in certain cases _truces_ may be, for the time being, effected. 

Man being man and a great deal short of the angels, the quarrel over thedivision of the joint product is irreconcilable. For the last twentyyears in the United States, there has been an average of over a thousandstrikes per year; and year by year these strikes increase in magnitude, and the front of the labor army grows more imposing. And it is a classstruggle, pure and simple. Labor as a class is fighting with capital asa class. 

Workingmen will continue to demand more pay, and employers will continueto oppose them. This is the key-note to _laissez faire_, --everybody forhimself and devil take the hindmost. It is upon this that the rampantindividualist bases his individualism. It is the let-alone policy, thestruggle for existence, which strengthens the strong, destroys the weak, and makes a finer and more capable breed of men. But the individual haspassed away and the group has come, for better or worse, and the strugglehas become, not a struggle between individuals, but a struggle betweengroups. So the query rises: Has the individualist never speculated uponthe labor group becoming strong enough to destroy the capitalist group, and take to itself and run for itself the machinery of industry? And, further, has the individualist never speculated upon this being still atriumphant expression of individualism, --of group individualism, --if theconfusion of terms may be permitted?

But the facts of the class struggle are deeper and more significant thanhave so far been presented. A million or so of workmen may organize forthe pursuit of interests which engender class antagonism and strife, andat the same time be unconscious of what is engendered. But when amillion or so of workmen show unmistakable signs of being conscious oftheir class, --of being, in short, class conscious, --then the situationgrows serious. The uncompromising and terrible hatred of thetrade-unionist for a scab is the hatred of a class for a traitor to thatclass, --while the hatred of a trade-unionist for the militia is thehatred of a class for a weapon wielded by the class with which it isfighting. No workman can be true to his class and at the same time be amember of the militia: this is the dictum of the labor leaders. 

In the town of the writer, the good citizens, when they get up a Fourthof July parade and invite the labor unions to participate, are informedby the unions that they will not march in the parade if the militiamarches. Article 8 of the constitution of the Painters' and Decorators'Union of Schenectady provides that a member must not be a "militiaman, special police officer, or deputy marshal in the employ of corporationsor individuals during strikes, lockouts, or other labor difficulties, andany member occupying any of the above positions will be debarred frommembership. " Mr. William Potter was a member of this union and a memberof the National Guard. As a result, because he obeyed the order of theGovernor when his company was ordered out to suppress rioting, he wasexpelled from his union. Also his union demanded his employers, Shafer &Barry, to discharge him from their service. This they complied with, rather than face the threatened strike. 

Mr. Robert L. Walker, first lieutenant of the Light Guards, a New Havenmilitia company, recently resigned. His reason was, that he was a memberof the Car Builders' Union, and that the two organizations wereantagonistic to each other. During a New Orleans street-car strike notlong ago, a whole company of militia, called out to protect non-unionmen, resigned in a body. Mr. John Mulholland, president of theInternational Association of Allied Metal Mechanics, has stated that hedoes not want the members to join the militia. The Local Trades'Assembly of Syracuse, New York, has passed a resolution, by unanimousvote, requiring union men who are members of the National Guard toresign, under pain of expulsion, from the unions. The Amalgamated SheetMetal Workers' Association has incorporated in its constitution anamendment excluding from membership in its organization "any person amember of the regular army, or of the State militia or naval reserve. "The Illinois State Federation of Labor, at a recent convention, passedwithout a dissenting vote a resolution declaring that membership inmilitary organizations is a violation of labor union obligations, andrequesting all union men to withdraw from the militia. The president ofthe Federation, Mr. Albert Young, declared that the militia was a menacenot only to unions, but to all workers throughout the country. 

These instances may be multiplied a thousand fold. The union workmen arebecoming conscious of their class, and of the struggle their class iswaging with the capitalist class. To be a member of the militia is to bea traitor to the union, for the militia is a weapon wielded by theemployers to crush the workers in the struggle between the warringgroups. 

Another interesting, and even more pregnant, phase of the class struggleis the political aspect of it as displayed by the socialists. Five men, standing together, may perform prodigies; 500 men, marching as marchedthe historic Five Hundred of Marseilles, may sack a palace and destroy aking; while 500, 000 men, passionately preaching the propaganda of a classstruggle, waging a class struggle along political lines, and backed bythe moral and intellectual support of 10, 000, 000 more men of likeconvictions throughout the world, may come pretty close to realizing aclass struggle in these United States of ours. 

In 1900 these men cast 150, 000 votes; two years later, in 1902, they cast300, 000 votes; and in 1904 they cast 450, 000. They have behind them amost imposing philosophic and scientific literature; they own illustratedmagazines and reviews, high in quality, dignity, and restraint; theypossess countless daily and weekly papers which circulate throughout theland, and single papers which have subscribers by the hundreds ofthousands; and they literally swamp the working classes in a vast sea oftracts and pamphlets. No political party in the United States, no churchorganization nor mission effort, has as indefatigable workers as has thesocialist party. They multiply themselves, know of no effort norsacrifice too great to make for the Cause; and "Cause, " with them, isspelled out in capitals. They work for it with a religious zeal, andwould die for it with a willingness similar to that of the Christianmartyrs. 

These men are preaching an uncompromising and deadly class struggle. Infact, they are organized upon the basis of a class struggle. "Thehistory of society, " they say, "is a history of class struggles. Patrician struggled with plebeian in early Rome; the king and theburghers, with the nobles in the Middle Ages; later on, the king and thenobles with the bourgeoisie; and today the struggle is on between thetriumphant bourgeoisie and the rising proletariat. By 'proletariat' ismeant the class of people without capital which sells its labor for aliving. 

"That the proletariat shall conquer, " (mark the note of fatalism), "is ascertain as the rising sun. Just as the bourgeoisie of the eighteenthcentury wanted democracy applied to politics, so the proletariat of thetwentieth century wants democracy applied to industry. As thebourgeoisie complained against the government being run by and for thenobles, so the proletariat complains against the government and industrybeing run by and for the bourgeoisie; and so, following in the footstepsof its predecessor, the proletariat will possess itself of thegovernment, apply democracy to industry, abolish wages, which are merelylegalized robbery, and run the business of the country in its owninterest. "

"Their aim, " they say, "is to organize the working class, and those insympathy with it, into a political party, with the object of conqueringthe powers of government and of using them for the purpose oftransforming the present system of private ownership of the means ofproduction and distribution into collective ownership by the entirepeople. "

Briefly stated, this is the battle plan of these 450, 000 men who callthemselves "socialists. " And, in the face of the existence of such anaggressive group of men, a class struggle cannot very well be denied bythe optimistic Americans who say: "A class struggle is monstrous. Sir, there is no class struggle. " The class struggle is here, and theoptimistic American had better gird himself for the fray and put a stopto it, rather than sit idly declaiming that what ought not to be is not, and never will be. 

But the socialists, fanatics and dreamers though they may well be, betraya foresight and insight, and a genius for organization, which put toshame the class with which they are openly at war. Failing of rapidsuccess in waging a sheer political propaganda, and finding that theywere alienating the most intelligent and most easily organized portion ofthe voters, the socialists lessoned from the experience and turned theirenergies upon the trade-union movement. To win the trade unions waswell-nigh to win the war, and recent events show that they have done farmore winning in this direction than have the capitalists. 

Instead of antagonizing the unions, which had been their previous policy, the socialists proceeded to conciliate the unions. "Let every goodsocialist join the union of his trade, " the edict went forth. "Bore fromwithin and capture the trade-union movement. " And this policy, onlyseveral years old, has reaped fruits far beyond their fondestexpectations. Today the great labor unions are honeycombed withsocialists, "boring from within, " as they picturesquely term theirundermining labor. At work and at play, at business meeting and council, their insidious propaganda goes on. At the shoulder of thetrade-unionist is the socialist, sympathizing with him, aiding him withhead and hand, suggesting--perpetually suggesting--the necessity forpolitical action. As the _Journal_, of Lansing, Michigan, a republicanpaper, has remarked: "The socialists in the labor unions are tirelessworkers. They are sincere, energetic, and self-sacrificing. . . . Theystick to the union and work all the while, thus making a showing which, reckoned by ordinary standards, is out of all proportion to theirnumbers. Their cause is growing among union laborers, and their longfight, intended to turn the Federation into a political organization, islikely to win. "

They miss no opportunity of driving home the necessity for politicalaction, the necessity for capturing the political machinery of societywhereby they may master society. As an instance of this is the aviditywith which the American socialists seized upon the famous Taft-ValeDecision in England, which was to the effect that an unincorporated unioncould be sued and its treasury rifled by process of law. Throughout theUnited States, the socialists pointed the moral in similar fashion to theway it was pointed by the Social-Democratic Herald, which advised thetrade-unionists, in view of the decision, to stop trying to fight capitalwith money, which they lacked, and to begin fighting with the ballot, which was their strongest weapon. 

Night and day, tireless and unrelenting, they labor at their self-imposedtask of undermining society. Mr. M. G. Cunniff, who lately made anintimate study of trade-unionism, says: "All through the unions socialismfilters. Almost every other man is a socialist, preaching that unionismis but a makeshift. " "Malthus be damned, " they told him, "for the goodtime was coming when every man should be able to rear his family incomfort. " In one union, with two thousand members, Mr. Cunniff foundevery man a socialist, and from his experiences Mr. Cunniff was forced toconfess, "I lived in a world that showed our industrial life a-tremblefrom beneath with a never-ceasing ferment. "

The socialists have already captured the Western Federation of Miners, the Western Hotel and Restaurant Employees' Union, and the Patternmakers'National Association. The Western Federation of Miners, at a recentconvention, declared: "The strike has failed to secure to the workingclasses their liberty; we therefore call upon the workers to strike asone man for their liberties at the ballot box. . . . We put ourselves onrecord as committed to the programme of independent political action. . . . We indorse the platform of the socialist party, and accept it as thedeclaration of principles of our organization. We call upon our membersas individuals to commence immediately the organization of the socialistmovement in their respective towns and states, and to cooperate in everyway for the furtherance of the principles of socialism and of thesocialist party. In states where the socialist party has not perfectedits organization, we advise that every assistance be given by our membersto that end. . . . We therefore call for organizers, capable andwell-versed in the whole programme of the labor movement, to be sent intoeach state to preach the necessity of organization on the political aswell as on the economic field. "

The capitalist class has a glimmering consciousness of the class strugglewhich is shaping itself in the midst of society; but the capitalists, asa class, seem to lack the ability for organizing, for coming together, such as is possessed by the working class. No American capitalist everaids an English capitalist in the common fight, while workmen have formedinternational unions, the socialists a world-wide internationalorganization, and on all sides space and race are bridged in the effortto achieve solidarity. Resolutions of sympathy, and, fully as important, donations of money, pass back and forth across the sea to wherever laboris fighting its pitched battles. 

For divers reasons, the capitalist class lacks this cohesion orsolidarity, chief among which is the optimism bred of past success. And, again, the capitalist class is divided; it has within itself a classstruggle of no mean proportions, which tends to irritate and harass itand to confuse the situation. The small capitalist and the largecapitalist are grappled with each other, struggling over what AchilleLoria calls the "bi-partition of the revenues. " Such a struggle, thoughnot precisely analogous, was waged between the landlords andmanufacturers of England when the one brought about the passage of theFactory Acts and the other the abolition of the Corn Laws. 

Here and there, however, certain members of the capitalist class seeclearly the cleavage in society along which the struggle is beginning toshow itself, while the press and magazines are beginning to raise anoccasional and troubled voice. Two leagues of class-consciouscapitalists have been formed for the purpose of carrying on their side ofthe struggle. Like the socialists, they do not mince matters, but stateboldly and plainly that they are fighting to subjugate the opposingclass. It is the barons against the commons. One of these leagues, theNational Association of Manufacturers, is stopping short of nothing inwhat it conceives to be a life-and-death struggle. Mr. D. M. Parry, whois the president of the league, as well as president of the NationalMetal Trades' Association, is leaving no stone unturned in what he feelsto be a desperate effort to organize his class. He has issued the callto arms in terms everything but ambiguous: "_There is still time in theUnited Stales to head off the socialistic programme_, _which_, _unrestrained_, _is sure to wreck our country_. "

As he says, the work is for "federating employers in order that we maymeet with a united front all issues that affect us. We must come to thissooner or later. . . . The work immediately before the NationalAssociation of Manufacturers is, first, _keep the vicious eight-hour Billoff the books_; second, to _destroy the Anti-injunction Bill_, whichwrests your business from you and places it in the hands of youremployees; third, to secure the _passage of the Department of Commerceand Industry Bill_; the latter would go through with a rush were it notfor the hectoring opposition of Organized Labor. " By this department, hefurther says, "business interests would have direct and sympatheticrepresentation at Washington. "

In a later letter, issued broadcast to the capitalists outside theLeague, President Parry points out the success which is already beginningto attend the efforts of the League at Washington. "We have contributedmore than any other influence to the quick passage of the new Departmentof Commerce Bill. It is said that the activities of this office arenumerous and satisfactory; but of that I must not say too much--oranything. . . . At Washington the Association is not represented toomuch, either directly or indirectly. Sometimes it is known in a mostpowerful way that it is represented vigorously and unitedly. Sometimesit is not known that it is represented at all. "

The second class-conscious capitalist organization is called the NationalEconomic League. It likewise manifests the frankness of men who do notdilly-dally with terms, but who say what they mean, and who mean tosettle down to a long, hard fight. Their letter of invitation toprospective members opens boldly. "We beg to inform you that theNational Economic League will render its services in an impartialeducational movement _to oppose socialism and class hatred_. " Among itsclass-conscious members, men who recognize that the opening guns of theclass struggle have been fired, may be instanced the following names:Hon. Lyman J. Gage, Ex-Secretary U. S. Treasury; Hon. Thomas JeffersonCoolidge, Ex-Minister to France; Rev. Henry C. Potter, Bishop New YorkDiocese; Hon. John D. Long, Ex-Secretary U. S. Navy; Hon. Levi P. Morton, Ex-Vice President United States; Henry Clews; John F. Dryden, PresidentPrudential Life Insurance Co. ; John A. McCall, President New York LifeInsurance Co. ; J. L. Greatsinger, President Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co. ;the shipbuilding firm of William Cramp & Sons, the Southern Railwaysystem, and the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Railway Company. 

Instances of the troubled editorial voice have not been rare during thelast several years. There were many cries from the press during the lastdays of the anthracite coal strike that the mine owners, by theirstubbornness, were sowing the regrettable seeds of socialism. TheWorld's Work for December, 1902, said: "The next significant fact is therecommendation by the Illinois State Federation of Labor that all membersof labor unions who are also members of the state militia shall resignfrom the militia. This proposition has been favorably regarded by someother labor organizations. It has done more than any other single recentdeclaration or action to cause a public distrust of such unions as favorit. _It hints of a class separation that in turn hints of anarchy_. "

The _Outlook_, February 14, 1903, in reference to the rioting atWaterbury, remarks, "That all this disorder should have occurred in acity of the character and intelligence of Waterbury indicates that theindustrial war spirit is by no means confined to the immigrant orignorant working classes. "

That President Roosevelt has smelt the smoke from the firing line of theclass struggle is evidenced by his words, "Above all we need to rememberthat any kind of _class animosity in the political world_ is, ifpossible, even more destructive to national welfare than sectional, race, or religious animosity. " The chief thing to be noted here is PresidentRoosevelt's tacit recognition of class animosity in the industrial world, and his fear, which language cannot portray stronger, that this classanimosity may spread to the political world. Yet this is the very policywhich the socialists have announced in their declaration of war againstpresent-day society--to capture the political machinery of society and bythat machinery destroy present-day society. 

The New York Independent for February 12, 1903, recognized withoutqualification the class struggle. "It is impossible fairly to pass uponthe methods of labor unions, or to devise plans for remedying theirabuses, until it is recognized, to begin with, that unions are based uponclass antagonism and that their policies are dictated by the necessitiesof social warfare. A strike is a rebellion against the owners ofproperty. The rights of property are protected by government. And astrike, under certain provocation, may extend as far as did the generalstrike in Belgium a few years since, when practically the entirewage-earning population stopped work in order to force politicalconcessions from the property-owning classes. This is an extreme case, but it brings out vividly the real nature of labor organization as aspecies of warfare whose object is the coercion of one class by anotherclass. "

It has been shown, theoretically and actually, that there is a classstruggle in the United States. The quarrel over the division of thejoint product is irreconcilable. The working class is no longer losingits strongest and most capable members. These men, denied room for theirambition in the capitalist ranks, remain to be the leaders of theworkers, to spur them to discontent, to make them conscious of theirclass, to lead them to revolt. 

This revolt, appearing spontaneously all over the industrial field in theform of demands for an increased share of the joint product, is beingcarefully and shrewdly shaped for a political assault upon society. Theleaders, with the carelessness of fatalists, do not hesitate for aninstant to publish their intentions to the world. They intend to directthe labor revolt to the capture of the political machinery of society. With the political machinery once in their hands, which will also givethem the control of the police, the army, the navy, and the courts, theywill confiscate, with or without remuneration, all the possessions of thecapitalist class which are used in the production and distribution of thenecessaries and luxuries of life. By this, they mean to apply the law ofeminent domain to the land, and to extend the law of eminent domain tillit embraces the mines, the factories, the railroads, and the oceancarriers. In short, they intend to destroy present-day society, whichthey contend is run in the interest of another class, and from thematerials to construct a new society, which will be run in theirinterest. 

On the other hand, the capitalist class is beginning to grow conscious ofitself and of the struggle which is being waged. It is already formingoffensive and defensive leagues, while some of the most prominent figuresin the nation are preparing to lead it in the attack upon socialism. 

The question to be solved is not one of Malthusianism, "projectedefficiency, " nor ethics. It is a question of might. Whichever class isto win, will win by virtue of superior strength; for the workers arebeginning to say, as they said to Mr. Cunniff, "Malthus be damned. " Intheir own minds they find no sanction for continuing the individualstruggle for the survival of the fittest. As Mr. Gompers has said, theywant more, and more, and more. The ethical import of Mr. Kidd's plan ofthe present generation putting up with less in order that race efficiencymay be projected into a remote future, has no bearing upon their actions. They refuse to be the "glad perishers" so glowingly described byNietzsche. 

It remains to be seen how promptly the capitalist class will respond tothe call to arms. Upon its promptness rests its existence, for if itsits idly by, soothfully proclaiming that what ought not to be cannot be, it will find the roof beams crashing about its head. The capitalistclass is in the numerical minority, and bids fair to be outvoted if itdoes not put a stop to the vast propaganda being waged by its enemy. Itis no longer a question of whether or not there is a class struggle. Thequestion now is, what will be the outcome of the class struggle?

THE TRAMP

Mr. Francis O'Neil, General Superintendent of Police, Chicago, speakingof the tramp, says: "Despite the most stringent police regulations, agreat city will have a certain number of homeless vagrants to shelterthrough the winter. " "Despite, "--mark the word, a confession oforganized helplessness as against unorganized necessity. If policeregulations are stringent and yet fail, then that which makes them fail, namely, the tramp, must have still more stringent reasons for succeeding. This being so, it should be of interest to inquire into these reasons, toattempt to discover why the nameless and homeless vagrant sets at naughtthe right arm of the corporate power of our great cities, why all that isweak and worthless is stronger than all that is strong and of value. 

Mr. O'Neil is a man of wide experience on the subject of tramps. He maybe called a specialist. As he says of himself: "As an old-time desksergeant and police captain, I have had almost unlimited opportunity tostudy and analyze this class of floating population, which seeks the cityin winter and scatters abroad through the country in the spring. " Hethen continues: "This experience reiterated the lesson that the vastmajority of these wanderers are of the class with whom a life of vagrancyis a chosen means of living without work. " Not only is it to be inferredfrom this that there is a large class in society which lives withoutwork, for Mr. O'Neil's testimony further shows that this class is forcedto live without work. 

He says: "I have been astonished at the multitude of those who haveunfortunately engaged in occupations which practically force them tobecome loafers for at least a third of the year. And it is from thisclass that the tramps are largely recruited. I recall a certain winterwhen it seemed to me that a large portion of the inhabitants of Chicagobelonged to this army of unfortunates. I was stationed at a policestation not far from where an ice harvest was ready for the cutters. Theice company advertised for helpers, and the very night this call appearedin the newspapers our station was packed with homeless men, who askedshelter in order to be at hand for the morning's work. Every foot offloor space was given over to these lodgers and scores were stillunaccommodated. "

And again: "And it must be confessed that the man who is willing to dohonest labor for food and shelter is a rare specimen in this vast army ofshabby and tattered wanderers who seek the warmth of the city with thecoming of the first snow. " Taking into consideration the crowd of honestlaborers that swamped Mr. O'Neil's station-house on the way to theice-cutting, it is patent, if all tramps were looking for honest laborinstead of a small minority, that the honest laborers would have a farharder task finding something honest to do for food and shelter. If theopinion of the honest laborers who swamped Mr. O'Neil's station-housewere asked, one could rest confident that each and every man wouldexpress a preference for fewer honest laborers on the morrow when heasked the ice foreman for a job. 

And, finally, Mr. O'Neil says: "The humane and generous treatment whichthis city has accorded the great army of homeless unfortunates has madeit the victim of wholesale imposition, and this well-intended policy ofkindness has resulted in making Chicago the winter Mecca of a vast andundesirable floating population. " That is to say, because of herkindness, Chicago had more than her fair share of tramps; because she washumane and generous she suffered whole-sale imposition. From this wemust conclude that it does not do to be _humane_ and _generous_ to ourfellow-men--when they are tramps. Mr. O'Neil is right, and that this isno sophism it is the intention of this article, among other things, toshow. 

In a general way we may draw the following inferences from the remarks ofMr. O'Neil: (1) The tramp is stronger than organized society and cannotbe put down; (2) The tramp is "shabby, " "tattered, " "homeless, ""unfortunate"; (3) There is a "vast" number of tramps; (4) Very fewtramps are willing to do honest work; (5) Those tramps who are willing todo honest work have to hunt very hard to find it; (6) The tramp isundesirable. 

To this last let the contention be appended that the tramp is only_personally_ undesirable; that he is _negatively_ desirable; that thefunction he performs in society is a negative function; and that he isthe by-product of economic necessity. 

It is very easy to demonstrate that there are more men than there is workfor men to do. For instance, what would happen tomorrow if one hundredthousand tramps should become suddenly inspired with an overmasteringdesire for work? It is a fair question. "Go to work" is preached to thetramp every day of his life. The judge on the bench, the pedestrian inthe street, the housewife at the kitchen door, all unite in advising himto go to work. So what would happen tomorrow if one hundred thousandtramps acted upon this advice and strenuously and indomitably soughtwork? Why, by the end of the week one hundred thousand workers, theirplaces taken by the tramps, would receive their time and be "hitting theroad" for a job. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox unwittingly and uncomfortably demonstrated thedisparity between men and work. {1} She made a casual reference, in anewspaper column she conducts, to the difficulty two business men foundin obtaining good employees. The first morning mail brought herseventy-five applications for the position, and at the end of two weeksover two hundred people had applied. 

Still more strikingly was the same proposition recently demonstrated inSan Francisco. A sympathetic strike called out a whole federation oftrades' unions. Thousands of men, in many branches of trade, quitwork, --draymen, sand teamsters, porters and packers, longshoremen, stevedores, warehousemen, stationary engineers, sailors, marine firemen, stewards, sea-cooks, and so forth, --an interminable list. It was astrike of large proportions. Every Pacific coast shipping city wasinvolved, and the entire coasting service, from San Diego to Puget Sound, was virtually tied up. The time was considered auspicious. ThePhilippines and Alaska had drained the Pacific coast of surplus labor. It was summer-time, when the agricultural demand for laborers was at itsheight, and when the cities were bare of their floating populations. Andyet there remained a body of surplus labor sufficient to take the placesof the strikers. No matter what occupation, sea-cook or stationaryengineer, sand teamster or warehouseman, in every case there was an idleworker ready to do the work. And not only ready but anxious. Theyfought for a chance to work. Men were killed, hundreds of heads werebroken, the hospitals were filled with injured men, and thousands ofassaults were committed. And still surplus laborers, "scabs, " cameforward to replace the strikers. 

The question arises: _Whence came this second army of workers to replacethe first army_? One thing is certain: the trades' unions did not scabon one another. Another thing is certain: no industry on the Pacificslope was crippled in the slightest degree by its workers being drawnaway to fill the places of the strikers. A third thing is certain: theagricultural workers did not flock to the cities to replace the strikers. In this last instance it is worth while to note that the agriculturallaborers wailed to High Heaven when a few of the strikers went into thecountry to compete with them in unskilled employments. So there is noaccounting for this second army of workers. It simply was. It was thereall this time, a surplus labor army in the year of our Lord 1901, a yearadjudged most prosperous in the annals of the United States. {2}

The existence of the surplus labor army being established, there remainsto be established the economic necessity for the surplus labor army. Thesimplest and most obvious need is that brought about by the fluctuationof production. If, when production is at low ebb, all men are at work, it necessarily follows that when production increases there will be nomen to do the increased work. This may seem almost childish, and, if notchildish, at least easily remedied. At low ebb let the men work shortertime; at high flood let them work overtime. The main objection to thisis, that it is not done, and that we are considering what is, not whatmight be or should be. 

Then there are great irregular and periodical demands for labor whichmust be met. Under the first head come all the big building andengineering enterprises. When a canal is to be dug or a railroad putthrough, requiring thousands of laborers, it would be hurtful to withdrawthese laborers from the constant industries. And whether it is a canalto be dug or a cellar, whether five thousand men are required or five, itis well, in society as at present organized, that they be taken from thesurplus labor army. The surplus labor army is the reserve fund of socialenergy, and this is one of the reasons for its existence. 

Under the second head, periodical demands, come the harvests. Throughoutthe year, huge labor tides sweep back and forth across the United States. That which is sown and tended by few men, comes to sudden ripeness andmust be gathered by many men; and it is inevitable that these many menform floating populations. In the late spring the berries must bepicked, in the summer the grain garnered, in the fall, the hops gathered, in the winter the ice harvested. In California a man may pick berries inSiskiyou, peaches in Santa Clara, grapes in the San Joaquin, and orangesin Los Angeles, going from job to job as the season advances, andtravelling a thousand miles ere the season is done. But the great demandfor agricultural labor is in the summer. In the winter, work is slack, and these floating populations eddy into the cities to eke out aprecarious existence and harrow the souls of the police officers untilthe return of warm weather and work. If there were constant work at goodwages for every man, who would harvest the crops?

But the last and most significant need for the surplus labor army remainsto be stated. This surplus labor acts as a check upon all employedlabor. It is the lash by which the masters hold the workers to theirtasks, or drive them back to their tasks when they have revolted. It isthe goad which forces the workers into the compulsory "free contracts"against which they now and again rebel. There is only one reason underthe sun that strikes fail, and that is because there are always plenty ofmen to take the strikers' places. 

The strength of the union today, other things remaining equal, isproportionate to the skill of the trade, or, in other words, proportionate to the pressure the surplus labor army can put upon it. Ifa thousand ditch-diggers strike, it is easy to replace them, whereforethe ditch-diggers have little or no organized strength. But a thousandhighly skilled machinists are somewhat harder to replace, and inconsequence the machinist unions are strong. The ditch-diggers arewholly at the mercy of the surplus labor army, the machinists onlypartly. To be invincible, a union must be a monopoly. It must controlevery man in its particular trade, and regulate apprentices so that thesupply of skilled workmen may remain constant; this is the dream of the"Labor Trust" on the part of the captains of labor. 

Once, in England, after the Great Plague, labor awoke to find there wasmore work for men than there were men to work. Instead of workerscompeting for favors from employers, employers were competing for favorsfrom the workers. Wages went up and up, and continued to go up, untilthe workers demanded the full product of their toil. Now it is clearthat, when labor receives its full product capital must perish. And sothe pygmy capitalists of that post-Plague day found their existencethreatened by this untoward condition of affairs. To save themselves, they set a maximum wage, restrained the workers from moving about fromplace to place, smashed incipient organization, refused to tolerateidlers, and by most barbarous legal penalties punished those whodisobeyed. After that, things went on as before. 

The point of this, of course, is to demonstrate the need of the surpluslabor army. Without such an army, our present capitalist society wouldbe powerless. Labor would organize as it never organized before, and thelast least worker would be gathered into the unions. The full product oftoil would be demanded, and capitalist society would crumble away. Norcould capitalist society save itself as did the post-Plague capitalistsociety. The time is past when a handful of masters, by imprisonment andbarbarous punishment, can drive the legions of the workers to theirtasks. Without a surplus labor army, the courts, police, and militaryare impotent. In such matters the function of the courts, police, andmilitary is to preserve order, and to fill the places of strikers withsurplus labor. If there be no surplus labor to instate, there is nofunction to perform; for disorder arises only during the process ofinstatement, when the striking labor army and the surplus labor armyclash together. That is to say, that which maintains the integrity ofthe present industrial society more potently than the courts, police, andmilitary is the surplus labor army. 

 * * * * *

It has been shown that there are more men than there is work for men, andthat the surplus labor army is an economic necessity. To show how thetramp is a by-product of this economic necessity, it is necessary toinquire into the composition of the surplus labor army. What men formit? Why are they there? What do they do?

In the first place, since the workers must compete for employment, itinevitably follows that it is the fit and efficient who find employment. The skilled worker holds his place by virtue of his skill and efficiency. Were he less skilled, or were he unreliable or erratic, he would beswiftly replaced by a stronger competitor. The skilled and steadyemployments are not cumbered with clowns and idiots. A man finds hisplace according to his ability and the needs of the system, and thosewithout ability, or incapable of satisfying the needs of the system, haveno place. Thus, the poor telegrapher may develop into an excellentwood-chopper. But if the poor telegrapher cherishes the delusion that heis a good telegrapher, and at the same time disdains all otheremployments, he will have no employment at all, or he will be so poor atall other employments that he will work only now and again in lieu ofbetter men. He will be among the first let off when times are dull, andamong the last taken on when times are good. Or, to the point, he willbe a member of the surplus labor army. 

So the conclusion is reached that the less fit and less efficient, or theunfit and inefficient, compose the surplus labor army. Here are to befound the men who have tried and failed, the men who cannot holdjobs, --the plumber apprentice who could not become a journeyman, and theplumber journeyman too clumsy and dull to retain employment; switchmenwho wreck trains; clerks who cannot balance books; blacksmiths who lamehorses; lawyers who cannot plead; in short, the failures of every tradeand profession, and failures, many of them, in divers trades andprofessions. Failure is writ large, and in their wretchedness they bearthe stamp of social disapprobation. Common work, any kind of work, wherever or however they can obtain it, is their portion. 

But these hereditary inefficients do not alone compose the surplus laborarmy. There are the skilled but unsteady and unreliable men; and the oldmen, once skilled, but, with dwindling powers, no longer skilled. {3}And there are good men, too, splendidly skilled and efficient, but thrustout of the employment of dying or disaster-smitten industries. In thisconnection it is not out of place to note the misfortune of the workersin the British iron trades, who are suffering because of Americaninroads. And, last of all, are the unskilled laborers, the hewers ofwood and drawers of water, the ditch-diggers, the men of pick and shovel, the helpers, lumpers, roustabouts. If trade is slack on a seacoast oftwo thousand miles, or the harvests are light in a great interior valley, myriads of these laborers lie idle, or make life miserable for theirfellows in kindred unskilled employments. 

A constant filtration goes on in the working world, and good material iscontinually drawn from the surplus labor army. Strikes and industrialdislocations shake up the workers, bring good men to the surface and sinkmen as good or not so good. The hope of the skilled striker is in thatthe scabs are less skilled, or less capable of becoming skilled; yet eachstrike attests to the efficiency that lurks beneath. After the Pullmanstrike, a few thousand railroad men were chagrined to find the work theyhad flung down taken up by men as good as themselves. 

But one thing must be considered here. Under the present system, if theweakest and least fit were as strong and fit as the best, and the bestwere correspondingly stronger and fitter, the same condition wouldobtain. There would be the same army of employed labor, the same army ofsurplus labor. The whole thing is relative. There is no absolutestandard of efficiency. 

 * * * * *

Comes now the tramp. And all conclusions may be anticipated by saying atonce that he is a tramp because some one has to be a tramp. If he leftthe "road" and became a _very_ efficient common laborer, some _ordinarilyefficient_ common laborer would have to take to the "road. " The nooksand crannies are crowded by the surplus laborers; and when the first snowflies, and the tramps are driven into the cities, things becomeovercrowded and stringent police regulations are necessary. 

The tramp is one of two kinds of men: he is either a discouraged workeror a discouraged criminal. Now a discouraged criminal, on investigation, proves to be a discouraged worker, or the descendant of discouragedworkers; so that, in the last analysis, the tramp is a discouragedworker. Since there is not work for all, discouragement for some isunavoidable. How, then, does this process of discouragement operate?

The lower the employment in the industrial scale, the harder theconditions. The finer, the more delicate, the more skilled the trade, the higher is it lifted above the struggle. There is less pressure, lesssordidness, less savagery. There are fewer glass-blowers proportionateto the needs of the glass-blowing industry than there are ditch-diggersproportionate to the needs of the ditch-digging industry. And not onlythis, for it requires a glass-blower to take the place of a strikingglass-blower, while any kind of a striker or out-of-work can take theplace of a ditch-digger. So the skilled trades are more independent, have more individuality and latitude. They may confer with theirmasters, make demands, assert themselves. The unskilled laborers, on theother hand, have no voice in their affairs. The settlement of terms isnone of their business. "Free contract" is all that remains to them. They may take what is offered, or leave it. There are plenty more oftheir kind. They do not count. They are members of the surplus laborarmy, and must be content with a hand-to-mouth existence. 

The reward is likewise proportioned. The strong, fit worker in a skilledtrade, where there is little labor pressure, is well compensated. He isa king compared with his less fortunate brothers in the unskilledoccupations where the labor pressure is great. The mediocre worker notonly is forced to be idle a large portion of the time, but when employedis forced to accept a pittance. A dollar a day on some days and nothingon other days will hardly support a man and wife and send children toschool. And not only do the masters bear heavily upon him, and his ownkind struggle for the morsel at his mouth, but all skilled and organizedlabor adds to his woe. Union men do not scab on one another, but instrikes, or when work is slack, it is considered "fair" for them todescend and take away the work of the common laborers. And take it awaythey do; for, as a matter of fact, a well-fed, ambitious machinist or acore-maker will transiently shovel coal better than an ill-fed, spiritless laborer. 

Thus there is no encouragement for the unfit, inefficient, and mediocre. Their very inefficiency and mediocrity make them helpless as cattle andadd to their misery. And the whole tendency for such is downward, until, at the bottom of the social pit, they are wretched, inarticulate beasts, living like beasts, breeding like beasts, dying like beasts. And how dothey fare, these creatures born mediocre, whose heritage is neitherbrains nor brawn nor endurance? They are sweated in the slums in anatmosphere of discouragement and despair. There is no strength inweakness, no encouragement in foul air, vile food, and dank dens. Theyare there because they are so made that they are not fit to be higher up;but filth and obscenity do not strengthen the neck, nor does chronicemptiness of belly stiffen the back. 

For the mediocre there is no hope. Mediocrity is a sin. Poverty is thepenalty of failure, --poverty, from whose loins spring the criminal andthe tramp, both failures, both discouraged workers. Poverty is theinferno where ignorance festers and vice corrodes, and where thephysical, mental, and moral parts of nature are aborted and denied. 

That the charge of rashness in splashing the picture be not incurred, letthe following authoritative evidence be considered: first, the work andwages of mediocrity and inefficiency, and, second, the habitat:

The New York Sun of February 28, 1901, describes the opening of a factoryin New York City by the American Tobacco Company. Cheroots were to bemade in this factory in competition with other factories which refused tobe absorbed by the trust. The trust advertised for girls. The crowd ofmen and boys who wanted work was so great in front of the building thatthe police were forced with their clubs to clear them away. The wagepaid the girls was $2. 50 per week, sixty cents of which went for carfare. {4}

Miss Nellie Mason Auten, a graduate student of the department ofsociology at the University of Chicago, recently made a thoroughinvestigation of the garment trades of Chicago. Her figures werepublished in the American Journal of Sociology, and commented upon by theLiterary Digest. She found women working ten hours a day, six days aweek, for forty cents per week (a rate of two-thirds of a cent an hour). Many women earned less than a dollar a week, and none of them workedevery week. The following table will best summarize Miss Auten'sinvestigations among a portion of the garment-workers:

INDUSTRY AVERAGE AVERAGE NUMBER AVERAGE YEARLY INDIVIDUAL OF WEEKS EARNINGS WEEKLY WAGES EMPLOYEDDressmakers $. 90 42. $37. 00Pants-Finishers 1. 31 27. 58 42. 41Housewives and 1. 58 30. 21 47. 49Pants-FinishersSeamstresses 2. 03 32. 78 64. 10Pants-makers 2. 13 30. 77 75. 61Miscellaneous 2. 77 29. 81. 80Tailors 6. 22 31. 96 211. 92General 2. 48 31. 18 76. 74Averages

Walter A. Wyckoff, who is as great an authority upon the worker as JosiahFlynt is on the tramp, furnishes the following Chicago experience:

 "Many of the men were so weakened by the want and hardship of the winter that they were no longer in condition for effective labor. Some of the bosses who were in need of added hands were obliged to turn men away because of physical incapacity. One instance of this I shall not soon forget. It was when I overheard, early one morning at a factory gate, an interview between a would-be laborer and the boss. I knew the applicant for a Russian Jew, who had at home an old mother and a wife and two young children to support. He had had intermittent employment throughout the winter in a sweater's den, {5} barely enough to keep them all alive, and, after the hardships of the cold season, he was again in desperate straits for work. 

 "The boss had all but agreed to take him on for some sort of unskilled labor, when, struck by the cadaverous look of the man, he told him to bare his arm. Up went the sleeve of his coat and his ragged flannel shirt, exposing a naked arm with the muscles nearly gone, and the blue-white transparent skin stretched over sinews and the outlines of the bones. Pitiful beyond words was his effort to give a semblance of strength to the biceps which rose faintly to the upward movement of the forearm. But the boss sent him off with an oath and a contemptuous laugh; and I watched the fellow as he turned down the street, facing the fact of his starving family with a despair at his heart which only mortal man can feel and no mortal tongue can speak. "

Concerning habitat, Mr. Jacob Riis has stated that in New York City, inthe block bounded by Stanton, Houston, Attorney, and Ridge streets, thesize of which is 200 by 300, there is a warren of 2244 human beings. 

In the block bounded by Sixty-first and Sixty-second streets, andAmsterdam and West End avenues, are over four thousand humancreatures, --quite a comfortable New England village to crowd into onecity block. 

The Rev. Dr. Behrends, speaking of the block bounded by Canal, Hester, Eldridge, and Forsyth streets, says: "In a room 12 by 8 and 5. 5 feethigh, it was found that nine persons slept and prepared their food. . . . In another room, located in a dark cellar, without screens or partitions, were together two men with their wives and a girl of fourteen, two singlemen and a boy of seventeen, two women and four boys, --nine, ten, eleven, and fifteen years old, --fourteen persons in all. "

Here humanity rots. Its victims, with grim humor, call it "tenant-houserot. " Or, as a legislative report puts it: "Here infantile life unfoldsits bud, but perishes before its first anniversary. Here youth is uglywith loathsome disease, and the deformities which follow physicaldegeneration. "

These are the men and women who are what they are because they were notbetter born, or because they happened to be unluckily born in time andspace. Gauged by the needs of the system, they are weak and worthless. The hospital and the pauper's grave await them, and they offer noencouragement to the mediocre worker who has failed higher up in theindustrial structure. Such a worker, conscious that he has failed, conscious from the hard fact that he cannot obtain work in the higheremployments, finds several courses open to him. He may come down and bea beast in the social pit, for instance; but if he be of a certaincaliber, the effect of the social pit will be to discourage him fromwork. In his blood a rebellion will quicken, and he will elect to becomeeither a felon or a tramp. 

If he have fought the hard fight he is not unacquainted with the lure ofthe "road. " When out of work and still undiscouraged, he has been forcedto "hit the road" between large cities in his quest for a job. He hasloafed, seen the country and green things, laughed in joy, lain on hisback and listened to the birds singing overhead, unannoyed by factorywhistles and bosses' harsh commands; and, most significant of all, _hehas lived_! That is the point! He has not starved to death. Not onlyhas he been care-free and happy, but he has lived! And from theknowledge that he has idled and is still alive, he achieves a new outlookon life; and the more he experiences the unenviable lot of the poorworker, the more the blandishments of the "road" take hold of him. Andfinally he flings his challenge in the face of society, imposes avalorous boycott on all work, and joins the far-wanderers of Hoboland, the gypsy folk of this latter day. 

But the tramp does not usually come from the slums. His place of birthis ordinarily a bit above, and sometimes a very great bit above. Aconfessed failure, he yet refuses to accept the punishment, and swervesaside from the slum to vagabondage. The average beast in the social pitis either too much of a beast, or too much of a slave to the bourgeoisethics and ideals of his masters, to manifest this flicker of rebellion. But the social pit, out of its discouragement and viciousness, breedscriminals, men who prefer being beasts of prey to being beasts of work. And the mediocre criminal, in turn, the unfit and inefficient criminal, is discouraged by the strong arm of the law and goes over to trampdom. 

These men, the discouraged worker and the discouraged criminal, voluntarily withdraw themselves from the struggle for work. Industrydoes not need them. There are no factories shut down through lack oflabor, no projected railroads unbuilt for want of pick-and-shovel men. Women are still glad to toil for a dollar a week, and men and boys toclamor and fight for work at the factory gates. No one misses thesediscouraged men, and in going away they have made it somewhat easier forthose that remain. 

 * * * * *

So the case stands thus: There being more men than there is work for mento do, a surplus labor army inevitably results. The surplus labor armyis an economic necessity; without it, present society would fall topieces. Into the surplus labor army are herded the mediocre, theinefficient, the unfit, and those incapable of satisfying the industrialneeds of the system. The struggle for work between the members of thesurplus labor army is sordid and savage, and at the bottom of the socialpit the struggle is vicious and beastly. This struggle tends todiscouragement, and the victims of this discouragement are the criminaland the tramp. The tramp is not an economic necessity such as thesurplus labor army, but he is the by-product of an economic necessity. 

The "road" is one of the safety-valves through which the waste of thesocial organism is given off. And _being given off_ constitutes thenegative function of the tramp. Society, as at present organized, makesmuch waste of human life. This waste must be eliminated. Chloroform orelectrocution would be a simple, merciful solution of this problem ofelimination; but the ruling ethics, while permitting the human waste, will not permit a humane elimination of that waste. This paradoxdemonstrates the irreconcilability of theoretical ethics and industrialneed. 

And so the tramp becomes self-eliminating. And not only self! Since heis manifestly unfit for things as they are, and since kind is prone tobeget kind, it is necessary that his kind cease with him, that hisprogeny shall not be, that he play the eunuch's part in this twentiethcentury after Christ. And he plays it. He does not breed. Sterility ishis portion, as it is the portion of the woman on the street. They mighthave been mates, but society has decreed otherwise. 

And, while it is not nice that these men should die, it is ordained thatthey must die, and we should not quarrel with them if they cumber ourhighways and kitchen stoops with their perambulating carcasses. This isa form of elimination we not only countenance but compel. Therefore letus be cheerful and honest about it. Let us be as stringent as we pleasewith our police regulations, but for goodness' sake let us refrain fromtelling the tramp to go to work. Not only is it unkind, but it is untrueand hypocritical. We know there is no work for him. As the scapegoat toour economic and industrial sinning, or to the plan of things, if youwill, we should give him credit. Let us be just. He is so made. Society made him. He did not make himself. 

THE SCAB

In a competitive society, where men struggle with one another for foodand shelter, what is more natural than that generosity, when itdiminishes the food and shelter of men other than he who is generous, should be held an accursed thing? Wise old saws to the contrary, he whotakes from a man's purse takes from his existence. To strike at a man'sfood and shelter is to strike at his life; and in a society organized ona tooth-and-nail basis, such an act, performed though it may be under theguise of generosity, is none the less menacing and terrible. 

It is for this reason that a laborer is so fiercely hostile to anotherlaborer who offers to work for less pay or longer hours. To hold hisplace, (which is to live), he must offset this offer by another equallyliberal, which is equivalent to giving away somewhat from the food andshelter he enjoys. To sell his day's work for $2, instead of $2. 50, means that he, his wife, and his children will not have so good a roofover their heads, so warm clothes on their backs, so substantial food intheir stomachs. Meat will be bought less frequently and it will betougher and less nutritious, stout new shoes will go less often on thechildren's feet, and disease and death will be more imminent in a cheaperhouse and neighborhood. 

Thus the generous laborer, giving more of a day's work for less return, (measured in terms of food and shelter), threatens the life of his lessgenerous brother laborer, and at the best, if he does not destroy thatlife, he diminishes it. Whereupon the less generous laborer looks uponhim as an enemy, and, as men are inclined to do in a tooth-and-nailsociety, he tries to kill the man who is trying to kill him. 

When a striker kills with a brick the man who has taken his place, he hasno sense of wrong-doing. In the deepest holds of his being, though hedoes not reason the impulse, he has an ethical sanction. He feels dimlythat he has justification, just as the home-defending Boer felt, thoughmore sharply, with each bullet he fired at the invading English. Behindevery brick thrown by a striker is the selfish will "to live" of himself, and the slightly altruistic will "to live" of his family. The familygroup came into the world before the State group, and society, beingstill on the primitive basis of tooth and nail, the will "to live" of theState is not so compelling to the striker as is the will "to live" of hisfamily and himself. 

In addition to the use of bricks, clubs, and bullets, the selfish laborerfinds it necessary to express his feelings in speech. Just as thepeaceful country-dweller calls the sea-rover a "pirate, " and the stoutburgher calls the man who breaks into his strong-box a "robber, " so theselfish laborer applies the opprobrious epithet a "scab" to the laborerwho takes from him food and shelter by being more generous in thedisposal of his labor power. The sentimental connotation of "scab" is asterrific as that of "traitor" or "Judas, " and a sentimental definitionwould be as deep and varied as the human heart. It is far easier toarrive at what may be called a technical definition, worded in commercialterms, as, for instance, that _a scab is one who gives more value for thesame price than another_. 

The laborer who gives more time or strength or skill for the same wagethan another, or equal time or strength or skill for a less wage, is ascab. This generousness on his part is hurtful to his fellow-laborers, for it compels them to an equal generousness which is not to theirliking, and which gives them less of food and shelter. But a word may besaid for the scab. Just as his act makes his rivals compulsorilygenerous, so do they, by fortune of birth and training, make compulsoryhis act of generousness. He does not scab because he wants to scab. Nowhim of the spirit, no burgeoning of the heart, leads him to give more ofhis labor power than they for a certain sum. 

It is because he cannot get work on the same terms as they that he is ascab. There is less work than there are men to do work. This is patent, else the scab would not loom so large on the labor-market horizon. Because they are stronger than he, or more skilled, or more energetic, itis impossible for him to take their places at the same wage. To taketheir places he must give more value, must work longer hours or receive asmaller wage. He does so, and he cannot help it, for his will "to live"is driving him on as well as they are being driven on by their will "tolive"; and to live he must win food and shelter, which he can do only byreceiving permission to work from some man who owns a bit of land or apiece of machinery. And to receive permission from this man, he mustmake the transaction profitable for him. 

Viewed in this light, the scab, who gives more labor power for a certainprice than his fellows, is not so generous after all. He is no moregenerous with his energy than the chattel slave and the convict laborer, who, by the way, are the almost perfect scabs. They give their laborpower for about the minimum possible price. But, within limits, they mayloaf and malinger, and, as scabs, are exceeded by the machine, whichnever loafs and malingers and which is the ideally perfect scab. 

It is not nice to be a scab. Not only is it not in good social taste andcomradeship, but, from the standpoint of food and shelter, it is badbusiness policy. Nobody desires to scab, to give most for least. Theambition of every individual is quite the opposite, to give least formost; and, as a result, living in a tooth-and-nail society, battle royalis waged by the ambitious individuals. But in its most salient aspect, that of the struggle over the division of the joint product, it is nolonger a battle between individuals, but between groups of individuals. Capital and labor apply themselves to raw material, make something usefulout of it, add to its value, and then proceed to quarrel over thedivision of the added value. Neither cares to give most for least. Eachis intent on giving less than the other and on receiving more. 

Labor combines into its unions, capital into partnerships, associations, corporations, and trusts. A group-struggle is the result, in which theindividuals, as individuals, play no part. The Brotherhood of Carpentersand Joiners, for instance, serves notice on the Master Builders'Association that it demands an increase of the wage of its members from$3. 50 a day to $4, and a Saturday half-holiday without pay. This meansthat the carpenters are trying to give less for more. Where theyreceived $21 for six full days, they are endeavoring to get $22 for fivedays and a half, --that is, they will work half a day less each week andreceive a dollar more. 

Also, they expect the Saturday half-holiday to give work to oneadditional man for each eleven previously employed. This last affords asplendid example of the development of the group idea. In thisparticular struggle the individual has no chance at all for life. Theindividual carpenter would be crushed like a mote by the Master Builders'Association, and like a mote the individual master builder would becrushed by the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. 

In the group-struggle over the division of the joint product, laborutilizes the union with its two great weapons, the strike and theboycott; while capital utilizes the trust and the association, theweapons of which are the black-list, the lockout, and the scab. The scabis by far the most formidable weapon of the three. He is the man whobreaks strikes and causes all the trouble. Without him there would be notrouble, for the strikers are willing to remain out peacefully andindefinitely so long as other men are not in their places, and so long asthe particular aggregation of capital with which they are fighting iseating its head off in enforced idleness. 

But both warring groups have reserve weapons. Were it not for the scab, these weapons would not be brought into play. But the scab takes theplace of the striker, who begins at once to wield a most powerful weapon, terrorism. The will "to live" of the scab recoils from the menace ofbroken bones and violent death. With all due respect to the laborleaders, who are not to be blamed for volubly asseverating otherwise, terrorism is a well-defined and eminently successful policy of the laborunions. It has probably won them more strikes than all the rest of theweapons in their arsenal. This terrorism, however, must be clearlyunderstood. It is directed solely against the scab, placing him in suchfear for life and limb as to drive him out of the contest. But whenterrorism gets out of hand and inoffensive non-combatants are injured, law and order threatened, and property destroyed, it becomes an edgedtool that cuts both ways. This sort of terrorism is sincerely deploredby the labor leaders, for it has probably lost them as many strikes ashave been lost by any other single cause. 

The scab is powerless under terrorism. As a rule, he is not so good norgritty a man as the men he is displacing, and he lacks their fightingorganization. He stands in dire need of stiffening and backing. Hisemployers, the capitalists, draw their two remaining weapons, theownership of which is debatable, but which they for the time being happento control. These two weapons may be called the political and judicialmachinery of society. When the scab crumples up and is ready to go downbefore the fists, bricks, and bullets of the labor group, the capitalistgroup puts the police and soldiers into the field, and begins a generalbombardment of injunctions. Victory usually follows, for the labor groupcannot withstand the combined assault of gatling guns and injunctions. 

But it has been noted that the ownership of the political and judicialmachinery of society is debatable. In the Titanic struggle over thedivision of the joint product, each group reaches out for every availableweapon. Nor are they blinded by the smoke of conflict. They fight theirbattles as coolly and collectedly as ever battles were fought on paper. The capitalist group has long since realized the immense importance ofcontrolling the political and judicial machinery of society. 

Taught by gatlings and injunctions, which have smashed many an otherwisesuccessful strike, the labor group is beginning to realize that it alldepends upon who is behind and who is before the gatlings and theinjunctions. And he who knows the labor movement knows that there isslowly growing up and being formulated a clear and definite policy forthe capture of the political and judicial machinery. 

This is the terrible spectre which Mr. John Graham Brooks sees loomingportentously over the twentieth century world. No man may boast a moreintimate knowledge of the labor movement than he; and he reiterates againand again the dangerous likelihood of the whole labor group capturing thepolitical machinery of society. As he says in his recent book: {6} "Itis not probable that employers can destroy unionism in the United States. Adroit and desperate attempts will, however, be made, if we mean byunionism the undisciplined and aggressive fact of vigorous and determinedorganizations. If capital should prove too strong in this struggle, theresult is easy to predict. The employers have only to convince organizedlabor that it cannot hold its own against the capitalist manager, and thewhole energy that now goes to the union will turn to an aggressivepolitical socialism. It will not be the harmless sympathy with increasedcity and state functions which trade unions already feel; it will becomea turbulent political force bent upon using every weapon of taxationagainst the rich. "

This struggle not to be a scab, to avoid giving more for less and tosucceed in giving less for more, is more vital than it would appear onthe surface. The capitalist and labor groups are locked together indesperate battle, and neither side is swayed by moral considerations morethan skin-deep. The labor group hires business agents, lawyers, andorganizers, and is beginning to intimidate legislators by the strength ofits solid vote; and more directly, in the near future, it will attempt tocontrol legislation by capturing it bodily through the ballot-box. Onthe other hand, the capitalist group, numerically weaker, hiresnewspapers, universities, and legislatures, and strives to bend to itsneed all the forces which go to mould public opinion. 

The only honest morality displayed by either side is white-hotindignation at the iniquities of the other side. The striking teamstercomplacently takes a scab driver into an alley, and with an iron barbreaks his arms, so that he can drive no more, but cries out to highHeaven for justice when the capitalist breaks his skull by means of aclub in the hands of a policeman. Nay, the members of a union willdeclaim in impassioned rhetoric for the God-given right of an eight-hourday, and at the time be working their own business agent seventeen hoursout of the twenty-four. 

A capitalist such as Collis P. Huntington, and his name is Legion, aftera long life spent in buying the aid of countless legislatures, will waxvirtuously wrathful, and condemn in unmeasured terms "the dangeroustendency of crying out to the Government for aid" in the way of laborlegislation. Without a quiver, a member of the capitalist group will runtens of thousands of pitiful child-laborers through his life-destroyingcotton factories, and weep maudlin and constitutional tears over one scabhit in the back with a brick. He will drive a "compulsory" free contractwith an unorganized laborer on the basis of a starvation wage, saying, "Take it or leave it, " knowing that to leave it means to die of hunger, and in the next breath, when the organizer entices that laborer into aunion, will storm patriotically about the inalienable right of all men towork. In short, the chief moral concern of either side is with themorals of the other side. They are not in the business for their moralwelfare, but to achieve the enviable position of the non-scab who getsmore than he gives. 

But there is more to the question than has yet been discussed. The laborscab is no more detestable to his brother laborers than is the capitalistscab to his brother capitalists. A capitalist may get most for least indealing with his laborers, and in so far be a non-scab; but at the sametime, in his dealings with his fellow-capitalists, he may give most forleast and be the very worst kind of scab. The most heinous crime anemployer of labor can commit is to scab on his fellow-employers of labor. Just as the individual laborers have organized into groups to protectthemselves from the peril of the scab laborer, so have the employersorganized into groups to protect themselves from the peril of the scabemployer. The employers' federations, associations, and trusts arenothing more nor less than unions. They are organized to destroyscabbing amongst themselves and to encourage scabbing amongst others. For this reason they pool interests, determine prices, and present anunbroken and aggressive front to the labor group. 

As has been said before, nobody likes to play the compulsorily generousrole of scab. It is a bad business proposition on the face of it. Andit is patent that there would be no capitalist scabs if there were notmore capital than there is work for capital to do. When there are enoughfactories in existence to supply, with occasional stoppages, a certaincommodity, the building of new factories by a rival concern, for theproduction of that commodity, is plain advertisement that that capital isout of a job. The first act of this new aggregation of capital will beto cut prices, to give more for less, --in short to scab, to strike at thevery existence of the less generous aggregation of capital the work ofwhich it is trying to do. 

No scab capitalist strives to give more for less for any other reasonthan that he hopes, by undercutting a competitor and driving thatcompetitor out of the market, to get that market and its profits forhimself. His ambition is to achieve the day when he shall stand alone inthe field both as buyer and seller, --when he will be the royal non-scab, buying most for least, selling least for most, and reducing all abouthim, the small buyers and sellers, (the consumers and the laborers), to ageneral condition of scabdom. This, for example, has been the history ofMr. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company. Through all the sordidvillanies of scabdom he has passed, until today he is a most regalnon-scab. However, to continue in this enviable position, he must beprepared at a moment's notice to go scabbing again. And he is prepared. Whenever a competitor arises, Mr. Rockefeller changes about from givingleast for most and gives most for least with such a vengeance as to drivethe competitor out of existence. 

The banded capitalists discriminate against a scab capitalist by refusinghim trade advantages, and by combining against him in most relentlessfashion. The banded laborers, discriminating against a scab laborer inmore primitive fashion, with a club, are no more merciless than thebanded capitalists. 

Mr. Casson tells of a New York capitalist who withdrew from the SugarUnion several years ago and became a scab. He was worth something liketwenty millions of dollars. But the Sugar Union, standing shoulder toshoulder with the Railroad Union and several other unions, beat him tohis knees till he cried, "Enough. " So frightfully did they beat him thathe was obliged to turn over to his creditors his home, his chickens, andhis gold watch. In point of fact, he was as thoroughly bludgeoned by theFederation of Capitalist Unions as ever scab workman was bludgeoned by alabor union. The intent in either case is the same, --to destroy thescab's producing power. The labor scab with concussion of the brain isput out of business, and so is the capitalist scab who has lost all hisdollars down to his chickens and his watch. 

But the role of scab passes beyond the individual. Just as individualsscab on other individuals, so do groups scab on other groups. And theprinciple involved is precisely the same as in the case of the simplelabor scab. A group, in the nature of its organization, is oftencompelled to give most for least, and, so doing, to strike at the life ofanother group. At the present moment all Europe is appalled by thatcolossal scab, the United States. And Europe is clamorous with agitationfor a Federation of National Unions to protect her from the UnitedStates. It may be remarked, in passing, that in its prime essentialsthis agitation in no wise differs from the trade-union agitation amongworkmen in any industry. The trouble is caused by the scab who is givingmost for least. The result of the American scab's nefarious actions willbe to strike at the food and shelter of Europe. The way for Europe toprotect herself is to quit bickering among her parts and to form a unionagainst the scab. And if the union is formed, armies and navies may beexpected to be brought into play in fashion similar to the bricks andclubs in ordinary labor struggles. 

In this connection, and as one of many walking delegates for the nations, M. Leroy-Beaulieu, the noted French economist, may well be quoted. In aletter to the Vienna Tageblatt, he advocates an economic alliance amongthe Continental nations for the purpose of barring out American goods, aneconomic alliance, in his own language, "_which may possibly anddesirably develop into a political alliance_. "

It will be noted, in the utterances of the Continental walking delegates, that, one and all, they leave England out of the proposed union. And inEngland herself the feeling is growing that her days are numbered if shecannot unite for offence and defence with the great American scab. AsAndrew Carnegie said some time ago, "The only course for Great Britainseems to be reunion with her grandchild or sure decline to a secondaryplace, and then to comparative insignificance in the future annals of theEnglish-speaking race. "

Cecil Rhodes, speaking of what would have obtained but for thepig-headedness of George III, and of what will obtain when England andthe United States are united, said, "_No cannon would. . . Be fired oneither hemisphere but by permission of The English race_. " It would seemthat England, fronted by the hostile Continental Union and flanked by thegreat American scab, has nothing left but to join with the scab and playthe historic labor role of armed Pinkerton. Granting the words of CecilRhodes, the United States would be enabled to scab without let orhindrance on Europe, while England, as professional strike-breaker andpoliceman, destroyed the unions and kept order. 

All this may appear fantastic and erroneous, but there is in it a soul oftruth vastly more significant than it may seem. Civilization may beexpressed today in terms of trade-unionism. Individual struggles havelargely passed away, but group-struggles increase prodigiously. And thethings for which the groups struggle are the same as of old. Shorn ofall subtleties and complexities, the chief struggle of men, and of groupsof men, is for food and shelter. And, as of old they struggled withtooth and nail, so today they struggle with teeth and nails elongatedinto armies and navies, machines, and economic advantages. 

Under the definition that a scab is _one who gives more value for thesame price than another_, it would seem that society can be generallydivided into the two classes of the scabs and the non-scabs. But oncloser investigation, however, it will be seen that the non-scab is avanishing quantity. In the social jungle, everybody is preying uponeverybody else. As in the case of Mr. Rockefeller, he who was a scabyesterday is a non-scab today, and tomorrow may be a scab again. 

The woman stenographer or book-keeper who receives forty dollars permonth where a man was receiving seventy-five is a scab. So is the womanwho does a man's work at a weaving-machine, and the child who goes intothe mill or factory. And the father, who is scabbed out of work by thewives and children of other men, sends his own wife and children to scabin order to save himself. 

When a publisher offers an author better royalties than other publishershave been paying him, he is scabbing on those other publishers. Thereporter on a newspaper, who feels he should be receiving a larger salaryfor his work, says so, and is shown the door, is replaced by a reporterwho is a scab; whereupon, when the belly-need presses, the displacedreporter goes to another paper and scabs himself. The minister whohardens his heart to a call, and waits for a certain congregation tooffer him say $500 a year more, often finds himself scabbed upon byanother and more impecunious minister; and the next time it is _his_ turnto scab while a brother minister is hardening his heart to a call. Thescab is everywhere. The professional strike-breakers, who as a classreceive large wages, will scab on one another, while scab unions are evenformed to prevent scabbing upon scabs. 

There are non-scabs, but they are usually born so, and are protected bythe whole might of society in the possession of their food and shelter. King Edward is such a type, as are all individuals who receive hereditaryfood-and-shelter privileges, --such as the present Duke of Bedford, forinstance, who yearly receives $75, 000 from the good people of Londonbecause some former king gave some former ancestor of his the marketprivileges of Covent Garden. The irresponsible rich are likewisenon-scabs, --and by them is meant that coupon-clipping class which hiresits managers and brains to invest the money usually left it by itsancestors. 

Outside these lucky creatures, all the rest, at one time or another intheir lives, are scabs, at one time or another are engaged in giving morefor a certain price than any one else. The meek professor in someendowed institution, by his meek suppression of his convictions, isgiving more for his salary than gave the other and more outspokenprofessor whose chair he occupies. And when a political party dangles afull dinner-pail in the eyes of the toiling masses, it is offering morefor a vote than the dubious dollar of the opposing party. Even amoney-lender is not above taking a slightly lower rate of interest andsaying nothing about it. 

Such is the tangle of conflicting interests in a tooth-and-nail societythat people cannot avoid being scabs, are often made so against theirdesires, and are often unconsciously made so. When several trades in acertain locality demand and receive an advance in wages, they areunwittingly making scabs of their fellow-laborers in that district whohave received no advance in wages. In San Francisco the barbers, laundry-workers, and milk-wagon drivers received such an advance inwages. Their employers promptly added the amount of this advance to theselling price of their wares. The price of shaves, of washing, and ofmilk went up. This reduced the purchasing power of the unorganizedlaborers, and, in point of fact, reduced their wages and made themgreater scabs. 

Because the British laborer is disinclined to scab, --that is, because herestricts his output in order to give less for the wage he receives, --itis to a certain extent made possible for the American capitalist, whoreceives a less restricted output from his laborers, to play the scab onthe English capitalist. As a result of this, (of course combined withother causes), the American capitalist and the American laborer arestriking at the food and shelter of the English capitalist and laborer. 

The English laborer is starving today because, among other things, he isnot a scab. He practises the policy of "ca' canny, " which may be definedas "go easy. " In order to get most for least, in many trades he performsbut from one-fourth to one-sixth of the labor he is well able to perform. An instance of this is found in the building of the Westinghouse ElectricWorks at Manchester. The British limit per man was 400 bricks per day. The Westinghouse Company imported a "driving" American contractor, aidedby half a dozen "driving" American foremen, and the British bricklayerswiftly attained an average of 1800 bricks per day, with a maximum of2500 bricks for the plainest work. 

But, the British laborer's policy of "ca' canny, " which is the veryhonorable one of giving least for most, and which is likewise the policyof the English capitalist, is nevertheless frowned upon by the Englishcapitalist, whose business existence is threatened by the great Americanscab. From the rise of the factory system, the English capitalist gladlyembraced the opportunity, wherever he found it, of giving least for most. He did it all over the world whenever he enjoyed a market monopoly, andhe did it at home with the laborers employed in his mills, destroyingthem like flies till prevented, within limits, by the passage of theFactory Acts. Some of the proudest fortunes of England today may tracetheir origin to the giving of least for most to the miserable slaves ofthe factory towns. But at the present time the English capitalist isoutraged because his laborers are employing against him precisely thesame policy he employed against them, and which he would employ again didthe chance present itself. 

Yet "ca' canny" is a disastrous thing to the British laborer. It hasdriven ship-building from England to Scotland, bottle-making fromScotland to Belgium, flint-glass-making from England to Germany, andtoday is steadily driving industry after industry to other countries. Acorrespondent from Northampton wrote not long ago: "Factories are workinghalf and third time. . . . There is no strike, there is no real labortrouble, but the masters and men are alike suffering from sheer lack ofemployment. Markets which were once theirs are now American. " It wouldseem that the unfortunate British laborer is 'twixt the devil and thedeep sea. If he gives most for least, he faces a frightful slavery suchas marked the beginning of the factory system. If he gives least formost, he drives industry away to other countries and has no work at all. 

But the union laborers of the United States have nothing of which toboast, while, according to their trade-union ethics, they have a greatdeal of which to be ashamed. They passionately preach short hours andbig wages, the shorter the hours and the bigger the wages the better. Their hatred for a scab is as terrible as the hatred of a patriot for atraitor, of a Christian for a Judas. And in the face of all this, theyare as colossal scabs as the United States is a colossal scab. For allof their boasted unions and high labor ideals, they are about the mostthoroughgoing scabs on the planet. 

Receiving $4. 50 per day, because of his proficiency and immense workingpower, the American laborer has been known to scab upon scabs (so called)who took his place and received only $0. 90 per day for a longer day. Inthis particular instance, five Chinese coolies, working longer hours, gave less value for the price received from their employer than did oneAmerican laborer. 

It is upon his brother laborers overseas that the American laborer mostoutrageously scabs. As Mr. Casson has shown, an English nail-maker gets$3 per week, while an American nail-maker gets $30. But the Englishworker turns out 200 pounds of nails per week, while the American turnsout 5500 pounds. If he were as "fair" as his English brother, otherthings being equal, he would be receiving, at the English worker's rateof pay, $82. 50. As it is, he is scabbing upon his English brother to thetune of $79. 50 per week. Dr. Schultze-Gaevernitz has shown that a Germanweaver produces 466 yards of cotton a week at a cost of . 303 per yard, while an American weaver produces 1200 yards at a cost of . 02 per yard. 

But, it may be objected, a great part of this is due to the more improvedAmerican machinery. Very true, but none the less a great part is stilldue to the superior energy, skill, and willingness of the Americanlaborer. The English laborer is faithful to the policy of "ca' canny. "He refuses point-blank to get the work out of a machine that the NewWorld scab gets out of a machine. Mr. Maxim, observing a wastefulhand-labor process in his English factory, invented a machine which heproved capable of displacing several men. But workman after workman wasput at the machine, and without exception they turned out neither morenor less than a workman turned out by hand. They obeyed the mandate ofthe union and went easy, while Mr. Maxim gave up in despair. Nor willthe British workman run machines at as high speed as the American, norwill he run so many. An American workman will "give equal attentionsimultaneously to three, four, or six machines or tools, while theBritish workman is compelled by his trade union to limit his attention toone, so that employment may be given to half a dozen men. "

But for scabbing, no blame attaches itself anywhere. With rareexceptions, all the people in the world are scabs. The strong, capableworkman gets a job and holds it because of his strength and capacity. And he holds it because out of his strength and capacity he gives abetter value for his wage than does the weaker and less capable workman. Therefore he is scabbing upon his weaker and less capable brotherworkman. He is giving more value for the price paid by the employer. 

The superior workman scabs upon the inferior workman because he is soconstituted and cannot help it. The one, by fortune of birth andupbringing, is strong and capable; the other, by fortune of birth andupbringing, is not so strong nor capable. It is for the same reason thatone country scabs upon another. That country which has the good fortuneto possess great natural resources, a finer sun and soil, unhamperinginstitutions, and a deft and intelligent labor class and capitalist classis bound to scab upon a country less fortunately situated. It is thegood fortune of the United States that is making her the colossal scab, just as it is the good fortune of one man to be born with a straight backwhile his brother is born with a hump. 

It is not good to give most for least, not good to be a scab. The wordhas gained universal opprobrium. On the other hand, to be a non-scab, togive least for most, is universally branded as stingy, selfish, andunchristian-like. So all the world, like the British workman, is 'twixtthe devil and the deep sea. It is treason to one's fellows to scab, itis unchristian-like not to scab. 

Since to give least for most, and to give most for least, are universallybad, what remains? Equity remains, which is to give like for like, thesame for the same, neither more nor less. But this equity, society, asat present constituted, cannot give. It is not in the nature ofpresent-day society for men to give like for like, the same for the same. And so long as men continue to live in this competitive society, struggling tooth and nail with one another for food and shelter, (whichis to struggle tooth and nail with one another for life), that long willthe scab continue to exist. His will "to live" will force him to exist. He may be flouted and jeered by his brothers, he may be beaten withbricks and clubs by the men who by superior strength and capacity scabupon him as he scabs upon them by longer hours and smaller wages, butthrough it all he will persist, giving a bit more of most for least thanthey are giving. 

THE QUESTION OF THE MAXIMUM

For any social movement or development there must be a maximum limitbeyond which it cannot proceed. That civilization which does not advancemust decline, and so, when the maximum of development has been reached inany given direction, society must either retrograde or change thedirection of its advance. There are many families of men that havefailed, in the critical period of their economic evolution, to effect achange in direction, and were forced to fall back. Vanquished at themoment of their maximum, they have dropped out of the whirl of the world. There was no room for them. Stronger competitors have taken theirplaces, and they have either rotted into oblivion or remain to be crushedunder the iron heel of the dominant races in as remorseless a struggle asthe world has yet witnessed. But in this struggle fair women andchivalrous men will play no part. Types and ideals have changed. Helensand Launcelots are anachronisms. Blows will be given and taken, and menfight and die, but not for faiths and altars. Shrines will bedesecrated, but they will be the shrines, not of temples, butmarket-places. Prophets will arise, but they will be the prophets ofprices and products. Battles will be waged, not for honor and glory, norfor thrones and sceptres, but for dollars and cents and for marts andexchanges. Brain and not brawn will endure, and the captains of war willbe commanded by the captains of industry. In short, it will be a contestfor the mastery of the world's commerce and for industrial supremacy. 

It is more significant, this struggle into which we have plunged, for thefact that it is the first struggle to involve the globe. No generalmovement of man has been so wide-spreading, so far-reaching. Quite localwas the supremacy of any ancient people; likewise the rise to empire ofMacedonia and Rome, the waves of Arabian valor and fanaticism, and themediaeval crusades to the Holy Sepulchre. But since those times theplanet has undergone a unique shrinkage. 

The world of Homer, limited by the coast-lines of the Mediterranean andBlack seas, was a far vaster world than ours of today, which we weigh, measure, and compute as accurately and as easily as if it were a child'splay-ball. Steam has made its parts accessible and drawn them closertogether. The telegraph annihilates space and time. Each morning, everypart knows what every other part is thinking, contemplating, or doing. Adiscovery in a German laboratory is being demonstrated in San Franciscowithin twenty-four hours. A book written in South Africa is published bysimultaneous copyright in every English-speaking country, and on the dayfollowing is in the hands of the translators. The death of an obscuremissionary in China, or of a whiskey-smuggler in the South Seas, isserved, the world over, with the morning toast. The wheat output ofArgentine or the gold of Klondike are known wherever men meet and trade. Shrinkage, or centralization, has become such that the humblest clerk inany metropolis may place his hand on the pulse of the world. The planethas indeed grown very small; and because of this, no vital movement canremain in the clime or country where it takes its rise. 

And so today the economic and industrial impulse is world-wide. It is amatter of import to every people. None may be careless of it. To do sois to perish. It is become a battle, the fruits of which are to thestrong, and to none but the strongest of the strong. As the movementapproaches its maximum, centralization accelerates and competition growskeener and closer. The competitor nations cannot all succeed. So longas the movement continues its present direction, not only will there notbe room for all, but the room that is will become less and less; and whenthe moment of the maximum is at hand, there will be no room at all. Capitalistic production will have overreached itself, and a change ofdirection will then be inevitable. 

Divers queries arise: What is the maximum of commercial development theworld can sustain? How far can it be exploited? How much capital isnecessary? Can sufficient capital be accumulated? A brief resume of theindustrial history of the last one hundred years or so will be relevantat this stage of the discussion. Capitalistic production, in its modernsignificance, was born of the industrial revolution in England in thelatter half of the eighteenth century. The great inventions of thatperiod were both its father and its mother, while, as Mr. Brooks Adamshas shown, the looted treasure of India was the potent midwife. Hadthere not been an unwonted increase of capital, the impetus would nothave been given to invention, while even steam might have languished forgenerations instead of at once becoming, as it did, the most prominentfactor in the new method of production. The improved application ofthese inventions in the first decades of the nineteenth century mark thetransition from the domestic to the factory system of manufacture andinaugurated the era of capitalism. The magnitude of this revolution ismanifested by the fact that England alone had invented the means andequipped herself with the machinery whereby she could overstock theworld's markets. The home market could not consume a tithe of the homeproduct. To manufacture this home product she had sacrificed heragriculture. She must buy her food from abroad, and to do so she mustsell her goods abroad. 

But the struggle for commercial supremacy had not yet really begun. England was without a rival. Her navies controlled the sea. Her armiesand her insular position gave her peace at home. The world was hers toexploit. For nearly fifty years she dominated the European, American, and Indian trade, while the great wars then convulsing society weredestroying possible competitive capital and straining consumption to itsutmost. The pioneer of the industrial nations, she thus received such astart in the new race for wealth that it is only today the other nationshave succeeded in overtaking her. In 1820 the volume of her trade(imports and exports) was 68, 000, 000 pounds. In 1899 it had increased to815, 000, 000 pounds, --an increase of 1200 per cent in the volume of trade. 

For nearly one hundred years England has been producing surplus value. She has been producing far more than she consumes, and this excess hasswelled the volume of her capital. This capital has been invested in herenterprises at home and abroad, and in her shipping. In 1898 the StockExchange estimated British capital invested abroad at 1, 900, 000, 000pounds. But hand in hand with her foreign investments have grown heradverse balances of trade. For the ten years ending with 1868, heraverage yearly adverse balance was 52, 000, 000 pounds; ending with 1878, 81, 000, 000 pounds; ending with 1888, 101, 000, 000 pounds; and ending with1898, 133, 000, 000 pounds. In the single year of 1897 it reached theportentous sum of 157, 000, 000 pounds. 

But England's adverse balances of trade in themselves are nothing atwhich to be frightened. Hitherto they have been paid from out theearnings of her shipping and the interest on her foreign investments. But what does cause anxiety, however, is that, relative to the tradedevelopment of other countries, her export trade is falling off, withouta corresponding diminution of her imports, and that her securities andforeign holdings do not seem able to stand the added strain. These sheis being forced to sell in order to pull even. As the London Timesgloomily remarks, "We are entering the twentieth century on the downgrade, after a prolonged period of business activity, high wages, highprofits, and overflowing revenue. " In other words, the mighty graspEngland held over the resources and capital of the world is beingrelaxed. The control of its commerce and banking is slipping through herfingers. The sale of her foreign holdings advertises the fact that othernations are capable of buying them, and, further, that these othernations are busily producing surplus value. 

The movement has become general. Today, passing from country to country, an ever-increasing tide of capital is welling up. Production is doublingand quadrupling upon itself. It used to be that the impoverished orundeveloped nations turned to England when it came to borrowing, but nowGermany is competing keenly with her in this matter. France is notaverse to lending great sums to Russia, and Austria-Hungary has capitaland to spare for foreign holdings. 

Nor has the United States failed to pass from the side of the debtor tothat of the creditor nations. She, too, has become wise in the way ofproducing surplus value. She has been successful in her efforts tosecure economic emancipation. Possessing but 5 per cent of the world'spopulation and producing 32 per cent of the world's food supply, she hasbeen looked upon as the world's farmer; but now, amidst generalconsternation, she comes forward as the world's manufacturer. In 1888her manufactured exports amounted to $130, 300, 087; in 1896, to$253, 681, 541; in 1897, to $279, 652, 721; in 1898, to $307, 924, 994; in1899, to $338, 667, 794; and in 1900, to $432, 000, 000. Regarding hergrowing favorable balances of trade, it may be noted that not only areher imports not increasing, but they are actually falling off, while herexports in the last decade have increased 72. 4 per cent. In ten yearsher imports from Europe have been reduced from $474, 000, 000 to$439, 000, 000; while in the same time her exports have increased from$682, 000, 000 to $1, 111, 000, 000. Her balance of trade in her favor in1895 was $75, 000, 000; in 1896, over $100, 000, 000; in 1897, nearly$300, 000, 000; in 1898, $615, 000, 000; in 1899, $530, 000, 000; and in 1900, $648, 000, 000. 

In the matter of iron, the United States, which in 1840 had not dreamedof entering the field of international competition, in 1897, as much toher own surprise as any one else's, undersold the English in their ownLondon market. In 1899 there was but one American locomotive in GreatBritain; but, of the five hundred locomotives sold abroad by the UnitedStates in 1902, England bought more than any other country. Russia isoperating a thousand of them on her own roads today. In one instance theAmerican manufacturers contracted to deliver a locomotive in four andone-half months for $9250, the English manufacturers requiringtwenty-four months for delivery at $14, 000. The Clyde shipbuildersrecently placed orders for 150, 000 tons of plates at a saving of$250, 000, and the American steel going into the making of the new Londonsubway is taken as a matter of course. American tools stand abovecompetition the world over. Ready-made boots and shoes are beginning toflood Europe, --the same with machinery, bicycles, agriculturalimplements, and all kinds of manufactured goods. A correspondent fromHamburg, speaking of the invasion of American trade, says: "Incidentally, it may be remarked that the typewriting machine with which this articleis written, as well as the thousands--nay, hundreds of thousands--ofothers that are in use throughout the world, were made in America; thatit stands on an American table, in an office furnished with Americandesks, bookcases, and chairs, which cannot be made in Europe of equalquality, so practical and convenient, for a similar price. "

In 1893 and 1894, because of the distrust of foreign capital, the UnitedStates was forced to buy back American securities held abroad; but in1897 and 1898 she bought back American securities held abroad, notbecause she had to, but because she chose to. And not only has shebought back her own securities, but in the last eight years she hasbecome a buyer of the securities of other countries. In the moneymarkets of London, Paris, and Berlin she is a lender of money. Carryingthe largest stock of gold in the world, the world, in moments of danger, when crises of international finance loom large, looks to her vastlending ability for safety. 

Thus, in a few swift years, has the United States drawn up to the vanwhere the great industrial nations are fighting for commercial andfinancial empire. The figures of the race, in which she passed England, are interesting:

Year United States Exports United Kingdom Exports1875 $497, 263, 737 $1, 087, 497, 0001885 673, 593, 506 1, 037, 124, 0001895 807, 742, 415 1, 100, 452, 0001896 986, 830, 080 1, 168, 671, 0001897 1, 079, 834, 296 1, 139, 882, 0001898 1, 233, 564, 828 1, 135, 642, 0001899 1, 253, 466, 000 1, 287, 971, 0001900 1, 453, 013, 659 1, 418, 348, 000

As Mr. Henry Demarest Lloyd has noted, "When the news reached Germany ofthe new steel trust in America, the stocks of the iron and steel millslisted on the Berlin Bourse fell. " While Europe has been talking anddreaming of the greatness which was, the United States has been thinkingand planning and doing for the greatness to be. Her captains of industryand kings of finance have toiled and sweated at organizing andconsolidating production and transportation. But this has been merelythe developmental stage, the tuning-up of the orchestra. With thetwentieth century rises the curtain on the play, --a play which shall havemuch in it of comedy and a vast deal of tragedy, and which has been wellnamed The Capitalistic Conquest of Europe by America. Nations do not dieeasily, and one of the first moves of Europe will be the erection oftariff walls. America, however, will fittingly reply, for already hermanufacturers are establishing works in France and Germany. And when theGerman trade journals refused to accept American advertisements, theyfound their country flamingly bill-boarded in buccaneer American fashion. 

M. Leroy-Beaulieu, the French economist, is passionately preaching acommercial combination of the whole Continent against the UnitedStates, --a commercial alliance which, he boldly declares, should become apolitical alliance. And in this he is not alone, finding ready sympathyand ardent support in Austria, Italy, and Germany. Lord Rosebery said, in a recent speech before the Wolverhampton Chamber of Commerce: "TheAmericans, with their vast and almost incalculable resources, theiracuteness and enterprise, and their huge population, which will probablybe 100, 000, 000 in twenty years, together with the plan they have adoptedfor putting accumulated wealth into great cooperative syndicates ortrusts for the purpose of carrying on this great commercial warfare, arethe most formidable . . . Rivals to be feared. "

The London Times says: "It is useless to disguise the fact that GreatBritain is being outdistanced. The competition does not come from theglut caused by miscalculation as to the home demand. Our ownsteel-makers know better and are alarmed. The threatened competition inmarkets hitherto our own comes from efficiency in production such asnever before has been seen. " Even the British naval supremacy is indanger, continues the same paper, "for, if we lose our engineeringsupremacy, our naval supremacy will follow, unless held on sufferance byour successful rivals. "

And the Edinburgh Evening News says, with editorial gloom: "The iron andsteel trades have gone from us. When the fictitious prosperity caused bythe expenditure of our own Government and that of European nations onarmaments ceases, half of the men employed in these industries will beturned into the streets. The outlook is appalling. What suffering willhave to be endured before the workers realize that there is nothing leftfor them but emigration!"

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That there must be a limit to the accumulation of capital is obvious. The downward course of the rate of interest, notwithstanding that manynew employments have been made possible for capital, indicates how largeis the increase of surplus value. This decline of the interest rate isin accord with Bohm-Bawerk's law of "diminishing returns. " That is, whencapital, like anything else, has become over-plentiful, less lucrativeuse can only be found for the excess. This excess, not being able toearn so much as when capital was less plentiful, competes for safeinvestments and forces down the interest rate on all capital. Mr. Charles A. Conant has well described the keenness of the scramble forsafe investments, even at the prevailing low rates of interest. At theclose of the war with Turkey, the Greek loan, guaranteed by GreatBritain, France, and Russia, was floated with striking ease. Regardlessof the small return, the amount offered at Paris, (41, 000, 000 francs), was subscribed for twenty-three times over. Great Britain, France, Germany, Holland, and the Scandinavian States, of recent years, have allengaged in converting their securities from 5 per cents to 4 per cents, from 4. 5 per cents to 3. 5 per cents, and the 3. 5 per cents into 3 percents. 

Great Britain, France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, according to thecalculation taken in 1895 by the International Statistical Institute, hold forty-six billions of capital invested in negotiable securitiesalone. Yet Paris subscribed for her portion of the Greek loantwenty-three times over! In short, money is cheap. Andrew Carnegie andhis brother bourgeois kings give away millions annually, but still thetide wells up. These vast accumulations have made possible"wild-catting, " fraudulent combinations, fake enterprises, Hooleyism; butsuch stealings, great though they be, have little or no effect inreducing the volume. The time is past when startling inventions, orrevolutions in the method of production, can break up the growingcongestion; yet this saved capital demands an outlet, somewhere, somehow. 

When a great nation has equipped itself to produce far more than it can, under the present division of the product, consume, it seeks othermarkets for its surplus products. When a second nation finds itselfsimilarly circumstanced, competition for these other markets naturallyfollows. With the advent of a third, a fourth, a fifth, and of diversother nations, the question of the disposal of surplus products growsserious. And with each of these nations possessing, over and beyond itsactive capital, great and growing masses of idle capital, and when thevery foreign markets for which they are competing are beginning toproduce similar wares for themselves, the question passes the seriousstage and becomes critical. 

Never has the struggle for foreign markets been sharper than at thepresent. They are the one great outlet for congested accumulations. Predatory capital wanders the world over, seeking where it may establishitself. This urgent need for foreign markets is forcing upon theworld-stage an era of great colonial empire. But this does not stand, asin the past, for the subjugation of peoples and countries for the sake ofgaining their products, but for the privilege of selling them products. The theory once was, that the colony owed its existence and prosperity tothe mother country; but today it is the mother country that owes itsexistence and prosperity to the colony. And in the future, when thatsupporting colony becomes wise in the way of producing surplus value andsends its goods back to sell to the mother country, what then? Then theworld will have been exploited, and capitalistic production will haveattained its maximum development. 

Foreign markets and undeveloped countries largely retard that moment. The favored portions of the earth's surface are already occupied, thoughthe resources of many are yet virgin. That they have not long since beenwrested from the hands of the barbarous and decadent peoples who possessthem is due, not to the military prowess of such peoples, but to thejealous vigilance of the industrial nations. The powers hold one anotherback. The Turk lives because the way is not yet clear to an amicabledivision of him among the powers. And the United States, supreme thoughshe is, opposes the partition of China, and intervenes her huge bulkbetween the hungry nations and the mongrel Spanish republics. Capitalstands in its own way, welling up and welling up against the inevitablemoment when it shall burst all bonds and sweep resistlessly across suchvast stretches as China and South America. And then there will be nomore worlds to exploit, and capitalism will either fall back, crushedunder its own weight, or a change of direction will take place which willmark a new era in history. 

The Far East affords an illuminating spectacle. While the Westernnations are crowding hungrily in, while the Partition of China iscommingled with the clamor for the Spheres of Influence and the OpenDoor, other forces are none the less potently at work. Not only are theyoung Western peoples pressing the older ones to the wall, but the Eastitself is beginning to awake. American trade is advancing, and Britishtrade is losing ground, while Japan, China, and India are taking a handin the game themselves. 

In 1893, 100, 000 pieces of American drills were imported into China; in1897, 349, 000. In 1893, 252, 000 pieces of American sheetings wereimported against 71, 000 British; but in 1897, 566, 000 pieces of Americansheetings were imported against only 10, 000 British. The cotton goodsand yarn trade (which forms 40 per cent of the whole trade with China)shows a remarkable advance on the part of the United States. During thelast ten years America has increased her importation of plain goods by121 per cent in quantity and 59. 5 per cent in value, while that ofEngland and India combined has decreased 13. 75 per cent in quantity and 8per cent in value. Lord Charles Beresford, from whose "Break-up ofChina" these figures are taken, states that English yarn has receded andIndian yarn advanced to the front. In 1897, 140, 000 piculs of Indianyarn were imported, 18, 000 of Japanese, 4500 of Shanghai-manufactured, and 700 of English. 

Japan, who but yesterday emerged from the mediaeval rule of the Shogunateand seized in one fell swoop the scientific knowledge and culture of theOccident, is already today showing what wisdom she has acquired in theproduction of surplus value, and is preparing herself that she maytomorrow play the part to Asia that England did to Europe one hundredyears ago. That the difference in the world's affairs wrought by thoseone hundred years will prevent her succeeding is manifest; but it isequally manifest that they cannot prevent her playing a leading part inthe industrial drama which has commenced on the Eastern stage. Herimports into the port of Newchang in 1891 amounted to but 22, 000 taels;but in 1897 they had increased to 280, 000 taels. In manufactured goods, from matches, watches, and clocks to the rolling stock of railways, shehas already given stiff shocks to her competitors in the Asiatic markets;and this while she is virtually yet in the equipment stage of production. Erelong she, too, will be furnishing her share to the growing mass of theworld's capital. 

As regards Great Britain, the giant trader who has so long overshadowedAsiatic commerce, Lord Charles Beresford says: "But competition istelling adversely; the energy of the British merchant is being equalledby other nationals. . . The competition of the Chinese and theintroduction of steam into the country are also combining to producechanged conditions in China. " But far more ominous is the plaintive notehe sounds when he says: "New industries must be opened up, and I wouldespecially direct the attention of the Chambers of Commerce (British) to. . . The fact that the more the native competes with the Britishmanufacturer in certain classes of trade, the more machinery he willneed, and the orders for such machinery will come to this country if ourmachinery manufacturers are enterprising enough. "

The Orient is beginning to show what an important factor it will become, under Western supervision, in the creation of surplus value. Even beforethe barriers which restrain Western capital are removed, the East will bein a fair way toward being exploited. An analysis of Lord Beresford'smessage to the Chambers of Commerce discloses, first, that the East isbeginning to manufacture for itself; and, second, that there is a promiseof keen competition in the West for the privilege of selling the requiredmachinery. The inexorable query arises: _What is the West to do when ithas furnished this machinery_? And when not only the East, but all thenow undeveloped countries, confront, with surplus products in theirhands, the old industrial nations, capitalistic production will haveattained its maximum development. 

But before that time must intervene a period which bids one pause forbreath. A new romance, like unto none in all the past, the economicromance, will be born. For the dazzling prize of world-empire will thenations of the earth go up in harness. Powers will rise and fall, andmighty coalitions shape and dissolve in the swift whirl of events. Vassal nations and subject territories will be bandied back and forthlike so many articles of trade. And with the inevitable displacement ofeconomic centres, it is fair to presume that populations will shift toand fro, as they once did from the South to the North of England on therise of the factory towns, or from the Old World to the New. Colossalenterprises will be projected and carried through, and combinations ofcapital and federations of labor be effected on a cyclopean scale. Concentration and organization will be perfected in ways hithertoundreamed. The nation which would keep its head above the tide mustaccurately adjust supply to demand, and eliminate waste to the last leastparticle. Standards of living will most likely descend for millions ofpeople. With the increase of capital, the competition for safeinvestments, and the consequent fall of the interest rate, the principalwhich today earns a comfortable income would not then support a bareexistence. Saving toward old age would cease among the working classes. And as the merchant cities of Italy crashed when trade slipped from theirhands on the discovery of the new route to the Indies by way of the Capeof Good Hope, so will there come times of trembling for such nations ashave failed to grasp the prize of world-empire. In that given directionthey will have attained their maximum development, before the wholeworld, in the same direction, has attained its. There will no longer beroom for them. But if they can survive the shock of being flung out ofthe world's industrial orbit, a change in direction may then be easilyeffected. That the decadent and barbarous peoples will be crushed is afair presumption; likewise that the stronger breeds will survive, entering upon the transition stage to which all the world must ultimatelycome. 

This change of direction must be either toward industrial oligarchies orsocialism. Either the functions of private corporations will increasetill they absorb the central government, or the functions of governmentwill increase till it absorbs the corporations. Much may be said on thechance of the oligarchy. Should an old manufacturing nation lose itsforeign trade, it is safe to predict that a strong effort would be madeto build a socialistic government, but it does not follow that thiseffort would be successful. With the moneyed class controlling the Stateand its revenues and all the means of subsistence, and guarding its owninterests with jealous care, it is not at all impossible that a strongcurb could be put upon the masses till the crisis were past. It has beendone before. There is no reason why it should not be done again. At theclose of the last century, such a movement was crushed by its own follyand immaturity. In 1871 the soldiers of the economic rulers stamped out, root and branch, a whole generation of militant socialists. 

Once the crisis were past, the ruling class, still holding the curb inorder to make itself more secure, would proceed to readjust things and tobalance consumption with production. Having a monopoly of the safeinvestments, the great masses of unremunerative capital would bedirected, not to the production of more surplus value, but to the makingof permanent improvements, which would give employment to the people, andmake them content with the new order of things. Highways, parks, publicbuildings, monuments, could be builded; nor would it be out of place togive better factories and homes to the workers. Such in itself would besocialistic, save that it would be done by the oligarchs, a class apart. With the interest rate down to zero, and no field for the investment ofsporadic capital, savings among the people would utterly cease, andold-age pensions be granted as a matter of course. It is also a logicalnecessity of such a system that, when the population began to pressagainst the means of subsistence, (expansion being impossible), the birthrate of the lower classes would be lessened. Whether by their owninitiative, or by the interference of the rulers, it would have to bedone, and it would be done. In other words, the oligarchy would mean thecapitalization of labor and the enslavement of the whole population. Butit would be a fairer, juster form of slavery than any the world has yetseen. The per capita wage and consumption would be increased, and, witha stringent control of the birth rate, there is no reason why such acountry should not be so ruled through many generations. 

On the other hand, as the capitalistic exploitation of the planetapproaches its maximum, and countries are crowded out of the field offoreign exchanges, there is a large likelihood that their change indirection will be toward socialism. Were the theory of collectiveownership and operation then to arise for the first time, such a movementwould stand small chance of success. But such is not the case. Thedoctrine of socialism has flourished and grown throughout the nineteenthcentury; its tenets have been preached wherever the interests of laborand capital have clashed; and it has received exemplification time andagain by the State's assumption of functions which had always belongedsolely to the individual. 

When capitalistic production has attained its maximum development, itmust confront a dividing of the ways; and the strength of capital on theone hand, and the education and wisdom of the workers on the other, willdetermine which path society is to travel. It is possible, consideringthe inertia of the masses, that the whole world might in time come to bedominated by a group of industrial oligarchies, or by one greatoligarchy, but it is not probable. That sporadic oligarchies mayflourish for definite periods of time is highly possible; that they maycontinue to do so is as highly improbable. The procession of the ageshas marked not only the rise of man, but the rise of the common man. From the chattel slave, or the serf chained to the soil, to the highestseats in modern society, he has risen, rung by rung, amid the crumblingof the divine right of kings and the crash of falling sceptres. That hehas done this, only in the end to pass into the perpetual slavery of theindustrial oligarch, is something at which his whole past cries inprotest. The common man is worthy of a better future, or else he is notworthy of his past. 

 * * * * *

NOTE. --The above article was written as long ago as 1898. The onlyalteration has been the bringing up to 1900 of a few of its statistics. As a commercial venture of an author, it has an interesting history. Itwas promptly accepted by one of the leading magazines and paid for. Theeditor confessed that it was "one of those articles one could notpossibly let go of after it was once in his possession. " Publication wasvoluntarily promised to be immediate. Then the editor became afraid ofits too radical nature, forfeited the sum paid for it, and did notpublish it. Nor, offered far and wide, could any other editor ofbourgeois periodicals be found who was rash enough to publish it. Thus, for the first time, after seven years, it appears in print. 

A REVIEW

Two remarkable books are Ghent's "Our Benevolent Feudalism" {7} andBrooks's "The Social Unrest. " {8} In these two books the opposite sidesof the labor problem are expounded, each writer devoting himself withapprehension to the side he fears and views with disfavor. It wouldappear that they have set themselves the task of collating, as a warning, the phenomena of two counter social forces. Mr. Ghent, who issympathetic with the socialist movement, follows with cynic fear everyaggressive act of the capitalist class. Mr. Brooks, who yearns for theperpetuation of the capitalist system as long as possible, follows withgrave dismay each aggressive act of the labor and socialistorganizations. Mr. Ghent traces the emasculation of labor by capital, and Mr. Brooks traces the emasculation of independent competing capitalby labor. In short, each marshals the facts of a side in the two sideswhich go to make a struggle so great that even the French Revolution isinsignificant beside it; for this later struggle, for the first time inthe history of struggles, is not confined to any particular portion ofthe globe, but involves the whole of it. 

Starting on the assumption that society is at present in a state of flux, Mr. Ghent sees it rapidly crystallizing into a status which can best bedescribed as something in the nature of a benevolent feudalism. Helaughs to scorn any immediate realization of the Marxian dream, whileTolstoyan utopias and Kropotkinian communistic unions of shop and farmare too wild to merit consideration. The coming status which Mr. Ghentdepicts is a class domination by the capitalists. Labor will take itsdefinite place as a dependent class, living in a condition of machineservitude fairly analogous to the land servitude of the Middle Ages. That is to say, labor will be bound to the machine, though less harshly, in fashion somewhat similar to that in which the earlier serf was boundto the soil. As he says, "Bondage to the land was the basis ofvilleinage in the old regime; bondage to the job will be the basis ofvilleinage in the new. "

At the top of the new society will tower the magnate, the new feudalbaron; at the bottom will be found the wastrels and the inefficients. The new society he grades as follows:

 "I. The barons, graded on the basis of possessions. 

 "II. The court agents and retainers. (This class will include the editors of 'respectable' and 'safe' newspapers, the pastors of 'conservative' and 'wealthy' churches, the professors and teachers in endowed colleges and schools, lawyers generally, and most judges and politicians). 

 "III. The workers in pure and applied science, artists, and physicians. 

 "IV. The entrepreneurs, the managers of the great industries, transformed into a salaried class. 

 "V. The foremen and superintendents. This class has heretofore been recruited largely from the skilled workers, but with the growth of technical education in schools and colleges, and the development of fixed caste, it is likely to become entirely differentiated. 

 "VI. The villeins of the cities and towns, more or less regularly employed, who do skilled work and are partially protected by organization. 

 "VII. The villeins of the cities and towns who do unskilled work and are unprotected by organization. They will comprise the laborers, domestics, and clerks. 

 "VIII. The villeins of the manorial estates, of the great farms, the mines, and the forests. 

 "IX. The small-unit farmers (land-owning), the petty tradesmen, and manufacturers. 

 "X. The subtenants of the manorial estates and great farms (corresponding to the class of 'free tenants' in the old Feudalism). 

 "XI. The cotters. 

 "XII. The tramps, the occasionally employed, the unemployed--the wastrels of the city and country. "

 "The new Feudalism, like most autocracies, will foster not only the arts, but also certain kinds of learning--particularly the kinds which are unlikely to disturb the minds of the multitude. A future Marsh, or Cope, or Le Comte will be liberally patronized and left free to discover what he will; and so, too, an Edison or a Marconi. Only they must not meddle with anything relating to social science. "

It must be confessed that Mr. Ghent's arguments are cunningly contrivedand arrayed. They must be read to be appreciated. As an example of hisstyle, which at the same time generalizes a portion of his argument, thefollowing may well be given:

 "The new Feudalism will be but an orderly outgrowth of present tendencies and conditions. All societies evolve naturally out of their predecessors. In sociology, as in biology, there is no cell without a parent cell. The society of each generation develops a multitude of spontaneous and acquired variations, and out of these, by a blending process of natural and conscious selection, the succeeding society is evolved. The new order will differ in no important respects from the present, except in the completer development of its more salient features. The visitor from another planet who had known the old and should see the new would note but few changes. Alter et Idem--another yet the same--he would say. From magnate to baron, from workman to villein, from publicist to court agent and retainer, will be changes of state and function so slight as to elude all but the keenest eyes. "

And in conclusion, to show how benevolent and beautiful this newfeudalism of ours will be, Mr. Ghent says: "Peace and stability it willmaintain at all hazards; and the mass, remembering the chaos, theturmoil, the insecurity of the past, will bless its reign. . . . Efficiency--the faculty of getting things--is at last rewarded as itshould be, for the efficient have inherited the earth and its fulness. The lowly, whose happiness is greater and whose welfare is morethoroughly conserved when governed than when governing, as atwentieth-century philosopher said of them, are settled and happy in thestate which reason and experience teach is their God-appointed lot. Theyare comfortable too; and if the patriarchal ideal of a vine and fig treefor each is not yet attained, at least each has his rented patch in thecountry or his rented cell in a city building. Bread and the circus arefreely given to the deserving, and as for the undeserving, they aremerely reaping the rewards of their contumacy and pride. Order reigns, each has his justly appointed share, and the state rests, in security, 'lapt in universal law. '"

Mr. Brooks, on the other hand, sees rising and dissolving and risingagain in the social flux the ominous forms of a new society which is thedirect antithesis of a benevolent feudalism. He trembles at the rashintrepidity of the capitalists who fight the labor unions, for by suchrashness he greatly fears that labor will be driven to express its aimsand strength in political terms, which terms will inevitably besocialistic terms. 

To keep down the rising tide of socialism, he preaches greater meeknessand benevolence to the capitalists. No longer may they claim the rightto run their own business, to beat down the laborer's standard of livingfor the sake of increased profits, to dictate terms of employment toindividual workers, to wax righteously indignant when organized labortakes a hand in their business. No longer may the capitalist say "my"business, or even think "my" business; he must say "our" business, andthink "our" business as well, accepting labor as a partner whose voicemust be heard. And if the capitalists do not become more meek andbenevolent in their dealings with labor, labor will be antagonized andwill proceed to wreak terrible political vengeance, and the presentsocial flux will harden into a status of socialism. 

Mr. Brooks dreams of a society at which Mr. Ghent sneers as "a slightlymodified individualism, wherein each unit secures the just reward of hiscapacity and service. " To attain this happy state, Mr. Brooks imposescircumspection upon the capitalists in their relations with labor. "Ifthe socialistic spirit is to be held in abeyance in this country, businesses of this character (anthracite coal mining) must be handledwith extraordinary caution. " Which is to say, that to withstand theadvance of socialism, a great and greater measure of Mr. Ghent's_benevolence_ will be required. 

Again and again, Mr. Brooks reiterates the danger he sees in harshlytreating labor. "It is not probable that employers can destroy unionismin the United States. Adroit and desperate attempts will, however, bemade, if we mean by unionism the undisciplined and aggressive fact ofvigorous and determined organizations. If capital should prove toostrong in this struggle, the result is easy to predict. The employershave only to convince organized labor that it cannot hold its own againstthe capitalist manager, and the whole energy that now goes to the unionwill turn to an aggressive political socialism. It will not be theharmless sympathy with increased city and state functions which tradeunions already feel; it will become a turbulent political force bent uponusing every weapon of taxation against the rich. "

"The most concrete impulse that now favors socialism in this country isthe insane purpose to deprive labor organizations of the full andcomplete rights that go with federated unionism. "

"That which teaches a union that it cannot succeed as a union turns ittoward socialism. In long strikes in towns like Marlboro and Brookfieldstrong unions are defeated. Hundreds of men leave these towns forshoe-centres like Brockton, where they are now voting the socialistticket. The socialist mayor of this city tells me, 'The men who come tous now from towns where they have been thoroughly whipped in a strike areamong our most active working socialists. ' The bitterness engendered bythis sense of defeat is turned to politics, as it will throughout thewhole country, if organization of labor is deprived of its rights. "

"This enmity of capital to the trade union is watched with glee by everyintelligent socialist in our midst. Every union that is beaten ordiscouraged in its struggle is ripening fruit for socialism. "

"The real peril which we now face is the threat of a class conflict. Ifcapitalism insists upon the policy of outraging the saving aspiration ofthe American workman to raise his standard of comfort and leisure, everyelement of class conflict will strengthen among us. "

"We have only to humiliate what is best in the trade union, and thenevery worst feature of socialism is fastened upon us. "

This strong tendency in the ranks of the workers toward socialism is whatMr. Brooks characterizes the "social unrest"; and he hopes to see theRepublican, the Cleveland Democrat, and the conservative and largeproperty interests "band together against this common foe, " which issocialism. And he is not above feeling grave and well-containedsatisfaction wherever the socialist doctrinaire has been contradicted bymen attempting to practise cooperation in the midst of the competitivesystem, as in Belgium. 

Nevertheless, he catches fleeting glimpses of an extreme and tyrannicallybenevolent feudalism very like to Mr. Ghent's, as witness the following:

"I asked one of the largest employers of labor in the South if he fearedthe coming of the trade union. 'No, ' he said, 'it is one good result ofrace prejudice, that the negro will enable us in the long run to weakenthe trade union so that it cannot harm us. We can keep wages down withthe negro and we can prevent too much organization. '

"It is in this spirit that the lower standards are to be used. If thispurpose should succeed, it has but one issue, --the immense strengtheningof a plutocratic administration at the top, served by an army ofhigh-salaried helpers, with an elite of skilled and well-paid workmen, but all resting on what would essentially be a serf class of low-paidlabor and this mass kept in order by an increased use of military force. "

In brief summary of these two notable books, it may be said that Mr. Ghent is alarmed, (though he does not flatly say so), at the too greatsocial restfulness in the community, which is permitting the capitaliststo form the new society to their liking; and that Mr. Brooks is alarmed, (and he flatly says so), at the social unrest which threatens themodified individualism into which he would like to see society evolve. Mr. Ghent beholds the capitalist class rising to dominate the state andthe working class; Mr. Brooks beholds the working class rising todominate the state and the capitalist class. One fears the paternalismof a class; the other, the tyranny of the mass. 

WANTED: A NEW LAW OF DEVELOPMENT

Evolution is no longer a mere tentative hypothesis. One by one, step bystep, each division and subdivision of science has contributed itsevidence, until now the case is complete and the verdict rendered. Whilethere is still discussion as to the method of evolution, none the less, as a process sufficient to explain all biological phenomena, alldifferentiations of life into widely diverse species, families, and evenkingdoms, evolution is flatly accepted. Likewise has been accepted itslaw of development: _That_, _in the struggle for existence_, _the strongand fit and the progeny of the strong and fit have a better opportunityfor survival than the weak and less fit and the progeny of the weak andless fit_. 

It is in the struggle of the species with other species and against allother hostile forces in the environment, that this law operates; also inthe struggle between the individuals of the same species. In thisstruggle, which is for food and shelter, the weak individuals mustobviously win less food and shelter than the strong. Because of this, their hold on life relaxes and they are eliminated. And for the samereason that they may not win for themselves adequate food and shelter, the weak cannot give to their progeny the chance for survival that thestrong give. And thus, since the weak are prone to beget weakness, thespecies is constantly purged of its inefficient members. 

Because of this, a premium is placed upon strength, and so long as thestruggle for food and shelter obtains, just so long will the averagestrength of each generation increase. On the other hand, shouldconditions so change that all, and the progeny of all, the weak as wellas the strong, have an equal chance for survival, then, at once, theaverage strength of each generation will begin to diminish. Never yet, however, in animal life, has there been such a state of affairs. Naturalselection has always obtained. The strong and their progeny, at theexpense of the weak, have always survived. This law of development hasoperated down all the past upon all life; it so operates today, and it isnot rash to say that it will continue to operate in the future--at leastupon all life existing in a state of nature. 

Man, preeminent though he is in the animal kingdom, capable of reactingupon and making suitable an unsuitable environment, nevertheless remainsthe creature of this same law of development. The social selection towhich he is subject is merely another form of natural selection. True, within certain narrow limits he modifies the struggle for existence andrenders less precarious the tenure of life for the weak. The extremelyweak, diseased, and inefficient are housed in hospitals and asylums. Thestrength of the viciously strong, when inimical to society, is temperedby penal institutions and by the gallows. The short-sighted are providedwith spectacles, and the sickly (when they can pay for it) withsanitariums. Pestilential marshes are drained, plagues are checked, anddisasters averted. Yet, for all that, the strong and the progeny of thestrong survive, and the weak are crushed out. The men strong of brainare masters as of yore. They dominate society and gather to themselvesthe wealth of society. With this wealth they maintain themselves andequip their progeny for the struggle. They build their homes inhealthful places, purchase the best fruits, meats, and vegetables themarket affords, and buy themselves the ministrations of the mostbrilliant and learned of the professional classes. The weak man, as ofyore, is the servant, the doer of things at the master's call. Theweaker and less efficient he is, the poorer is his reward. The weakestwork for a living wage, (when they can get work), live in unsanitaryslums, on vile and insufficient food, at the lowest depths of humandegradation. Their grasp on life is indeed precarious, their mortalityexcessive, their infant death-rate appalling. 

That some should be born to preferment and others to ignominy in orderthat the race may progress, is cruel and sad; but none the less they areso born. The weeding out of human souls, some for fatness and smiles, some for leanness and tears, is surely a heartless selective process--asheartless as it is natural. And the human family, for all its wonderfulrecord of adventure and achievement, has not yet succeeded in avoidingthis process. That it is incapable of doing this is not to be hazarded. Not only is it capable, but the whole trend of society is in thatdirection. All the social forces are driving man on to a time when theold selective law will be annulled. There is no escaping it, save by theintervention of catastrophes and cataclysms quite unthinkable. It isinexorable. It is inexorable because the common man demands it. Thetwentieth century, the common man says, is his day; the common man's day, or, rather, the dawning of the common man's day. 

Nor can it be denied. The evidence is with him. The previous centuries, and more notably the nineteenth, have marked the rise of the common man. From chattel slavery to serfdom, and from serfdom to what he bitterlyterms "wage slavery, " he has risen. Never was he so strong as he istoday, and never so menacing. He does the work of the world, and he isbeginning to know it. The world cannot get along without him, and thisalso he is beginning to know. All the human knowledge of the past, allthe scientific discovery, governmental experiment, and invention ofmachinery, have tended to his advancement. His standard of living ishigher. His common school education would shame princes ten centuriespast. His civil and religious liberty makes him a free man, and hisballot the peer of his betters. And all this has tended to make himconscious, conscious of himself, conscious of his class. He looks abouthim and questions that ancient law of development. It is cruel andwrong, he is beginning to declare. It is an anachronism. Let it beabolished. Why should there be one empty belly in all the world, whenthe work of ten men can feed a hundred? What if my brother be not sostrong as I? He has not sinned. Wherefore should he hunger--he and hissinless little ones? Away with the old law. There is food and shelterfor all, therefore let all receive food and shelter. 

As fast as labor has become conscious it has organized. The ambition ofthese class-conscious men is that the movement shall become general, thatall labor shall become conscious of itself and its class interests. Andthe day that witnesses the solidarity of labor, they triumphantly affirm, will be a day when labor dominates the world. This growing consciousnesshas led to the organization of two movements, both separate and distinct, but both converging toward a common goal--one, the labor movement, knownas Trade Unionism; the other, the political movement, known as Socialism. Both are grim and silent forces, unheralded and virtually unknown to thegeneral public save in moments of stress. The sleeping labor giantreceives little notice from the capitalistic press, and when he stirsuneasily, a column of surprise, indignation, and horror suffices. 

It is only now and then, after long periods of silence, that the labormovement puts in its claim for notice. All is quiet. The kind old worldspins on, and the bourgeois masters clip their coupons in smugcomplacency. But the grim and silent forces are at work. 

Suddenly, like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, comes a disruption ofindustry. From ocean to ocean the wheels of a great chain of railroadscease to run. A quarter of a million miners throw down pick and shoveland outrage the sun with their pale, bleached faces. The street railwaysof a swarming metropolis stand idle, or the rumble of machinery in vastmanufactories dies away to silence. There is alarm and panic. Arson andhomicide stalk forth. There is a cry in the night, and quick anger andsudden death. Peaceful cities are affrighted by the crack of rifles andthe snarl of machine-guns, and the hearts of the shuddering are shaken bythe roar of dynamite. There is hurrying and skurrying. The wires arekept hot between the centre of government and the seat of trouble. Thechiefs of state ponder gravely and advise, and governors of statesimplore. There is assembling of militia and massing of troops, and thestreets resound to the tramp of armed men. There are separate and jointconferences between the captains of industry and the captains of labor. And then, finally, all is quiet again, and the memory of it is like thememory of a bad dream. 

But these strikes become olympiads, things to date from; and common onthe lips of men become such phrases as "The Great Dock Strike, " "TheGreat Coal Strike, " "The Great Railroad Strike. " Never before did labordo these things. After the Great Plague in England, labor, findingitself in demand and innocently obeying the economic law, asked higherwages. But the masters set a maximum wage, restrained workingmen frommoving about from place to place, refused to tolerate idlers, and by mostbarbarous legal methods punished those who disobeyed. But labor isaccorded greater respect today. Such a policy, put into effect in thisthe first decade of the twentieth century, would sweep the masters fromtheir seats in one mighty crash. And the masters know it and arerespectful. 

A fair instance of the growing solidarity of labor is afforded by anunimportant recent strike in San Francisco. The restaurant cooks andwaiters were completely unorganized, working at any and all hours forwhatever wages they could get. A representative of the AmericanFederation of Labor went among them and organized them. Within a fewweeks nearly two thousand men were enrolled, and they had five thousanddollars on deposit. Then they put in their demand for increased wagesand shorter hours. Forthwith their employers organized. The demand wasdenied, and the Cooks' and Waiters' Union walked out. 

All organized employers stood back of the restaurant owners, in sympathywith them and willing to aid them if they dared. And at the back of theCooks' and Waiters' Union stood the organized labor of the city, 40, 000strong. If a business man was caught patronizing an "unfair" restaurant, he was boycotted; if a union man was caught, he was fined heavily by hisunion or expelled. The oyster companies and the slaughter houses made anattempt to refuse to sell oysters and meat to union restaurants. TheButchers and Meat Cutters, and the Teamsters, in retaliation, refused towork for or to deliver to non-union restaurants. Upon this the oystercompanies and slaughter houses acknowledged themselves beaten and peacereigned. But the Restaurant Bakers in non-union places were ordered out, and the Bakery Wagon Drivers declined to deliver to unfair houses. 

Every American Federation of Labor union in the city was prepared tostrike, and waited only the word. And behind all, a handful of men, known as the Labor Council, directed the fight. One by one, blow uponblow, they were able if they deemed it necessary to call out theunions--the Laundry Workers, who do the washing; the Hackmen, who haulmen to and from restaurants; the Butchers, Meat Cutters, and Teamsters;and the Milkers, Milk Drivers, and Chicken Pickers; and after that, inpure sympathy, the Retail Clerks, the Horse Shoers, the Gas andElectrical Fixture Hangers, the Metal Roofers, the Blacksmiths, theBlacksmiths' Helpers, the Stablemen, the Machinists, the Brewers, theCoast Seamen, the Varnishers and Polishers, the Confectioners, theUpholsterers, the Paper Hangers and Fresco Painters, the Drug Clerks, theFitters and Helpers, the Metal Workers, the Boiler Makers and Iron ShipBuilders, the Assistant Undertakers, the Carriage and Wagon Workers, andso on down the lengthy list of organizations. 

For, over all these trades, over all these thousands of men, is the LaborCouncil. When it speaks its voice is heard, and when it orders it isobeyed. But it, in turn, is dominated by the National Labor Council, with which it is constantly in touch. In this wholly unimportant littlelocal strike it is of interest to note the stands taken by the differentsides. The legal representative and official mouthpiece of theEmployers' Association said: "This organization is formed for defensivepurposes, and it may be driven to take offensive steps, and if so, willbe strong enough to follow them up. Labor cannot be allowed to dictateto capital and say how business shall be conducted. There is noobjection to the formation of unions and trades councils, but membershipmust not be compulsory. It is repugnant to the American idea of libertyand cannot be tolerated. "

On the other hand, the president of the Team Drivers' Union said: "Theemployers of labor in this city are generally against the trade-unionmovement and there seems to be a concerted effort on their part to checkthe progress of organized labor. Such action as has been taken by themin sympathy with the present labor troubles may, if continued, lead to aserious conflict, the outcome of which might be most calamitous for thebusiness and industrial interests of San Francisco. "

And the secretary of the United Brewery Workmen: "I regard a sympatheticstrike as the last weapon which organized labor should use in itsdefence. When, however, associations of employers band together todefeat organized labor, or one of its branches, then we should not andwill not hesitate ourselves to employ the same instrument inretaliation. "

Thus, in a little corner of the world, is exemplified the growingsolidarity of labor. The organization of labor has not only kept pacewith the organization of industry, but it has gained upon it. In onewinter, in the anthracite coal region, $160, 000, 000 in mines and$600, 000, 000 in transportation and distribution consolidated itsownership and control. And at once, arrayed as solidly on the otherside, were the 150, 000 anthracite miners. The bituminous mines, however, were not consolidated; yet the 250, 000 men employed therein were alreadycombined. And not only that, but they were also combined with theanthracite miners, these 400, 000 men being under the control anddirection of one supreme labor council. And in this and the other greatcouncils are to be found captains of labor of splendid abilities, who, inunderstanding of economic and industrial conditions, are undeniably theequals of their opponents, the captains of industry. 

The United States is honeycombed with labor organizations. And the bigfederations which these go to compose aggregate millions of members, andin their various branches handle millions of dollars yearly. And notonly this; for the international brotherhoods and unions are forming, andmoneys for the aid of strikers pass back and forth across the seas. TheMachinists, in their demand for a nine-hour day, affected 500, 000 men inthe United States, Mexico, and Canada. In England the membership ofworking-class organizations is approximated by Keir Hardie at 2, 500, 000, with reserve funds of $18, 000, 000. There the cooperative movement has amembership of 1, 500, 000, and every year turns over in distribution morethan $100, 000, 000. In France, one-eighth of the whole working class isunionized. In Belgium the unions are very rich and powerful, and so ableto defy the masters that many of the smaller manufacturers, unable toresist, "are removing their works to other countries where the workmen'sorganizations are not so potential. " And in all other countries, according to the stage of their economic and political development, likefigures obtain. And Europe, today, confesses that her greatest socialproblem is the labor problem, and that it is the one most closelyengrossing the attention of her statesmen. 

The organization of labor is one of the chief acknowledged factors in theretrogression of British trade. The workers have become class consciousas never before. The wrong of one is the wrong of all. They have cometo realize, in a short-sighted way, that their masters' interests are nottheir interests. The harder they work, they believe, the more wealththey create for their masters. Further, the more work they do in oneday, the fewer men will be needed to do the work. So the unions place aday's stint upon their members, beyond which they are not permitted togo. In "A Study of Trade Unionism, " by Benjamin Taylor in the"Nineteenth Century" of April, 1898, are furnished some interestingcorroborations. The facts here set forth were collected by the ExecutiveBoard of the Employers' Federation, the documentary proofs of which arein the hands of the secretaries. In a certain firm the union workmenmade eight ammunition boxes a day. Nor could they be persuaded intomaking more. A young Swiss, who could not speak English, was set towork, and in the first day he made fifty boxes. In the same firm theskilled union hands filed up the outside handles of one machine-gun aday. That was their stint. No one was known ever to do more. Anon-union filer came into the shop and did twelve a day. A Manchesterfirm found that to plane a large bed-casting took union workmen onehundred and ninety hours, and non-union workmen one hundred andthirty-five hours. In another instance a man, resigning from his union, day by day did double the amount of work he had done formerly. And tocap it all, an English gentleman, going out to look at a wall being putup for him by union bricklayers, found one of their number with his rightarm strapped to his body, doing all the work with his left arm--forsooth, because he was such an energetic fellow that otherwise he wouldinvoluntarily lay more bricks than his union permitted. 

All England resounds to the cry, "Wake up, England!" But the sulky giantis not stirred. "Let England's trade go to pot, " he says; "what have Ito lose?" And England is powerless. The capacity of her workmen isrepresented by 1, in comparison with the 2. 25 capacity of the Americanworkman. And because of the solidarity of labor and the destructivenessof strikes, British capitalists dare not even strive to emulate theenterprise of American capitalists. So England watches trade slippingthrough her fingers and wails unavailingly. As a correspondent writes:"The enormous power of the trade unions hangs, a sullen cloud, over thewhole industrial world here, affecting men and masters alike. "

The political movement known as Socialism is, perhaps, even less realizedby the general public. The great strides it has taken and the portentousfront it today exhibits are not comprehended; and, fastened though it isin every land, it is given little space by the capitalistic press. Forall its plea and passion and warmth, it wells upward like a great, coldtidal wave, irresistible, inexorable, ingulfing present-day society levelby level. By its own preachment it is inexorable. Just as societieshave sprung into existence, fulfilled their function, and passed away, itclaims, just as surely is present society hastening on to itsdissolution. This is a transition period--and destined to be a veryshort one. Barely a century old, capitalism is ripening so rapidly thatit can never live to see a second birthday. There is no hope for it, theSocialists say. It is doomed. 

The cardinal tenet of Socialism is that forbidding doctrine, thematerialistic conception of history. Men are not the masters of theirsouls. They are the puppets of great, blind forces. The lives they liveand the deaths they die are compulsory. All social codes are but thereflexes of existing economic conditions, plus certain survivals of pasteconomic conditions. The institutions men build they are compelled tobuild. Economic laws determine at any given time what these institutionsshall be, how long they shall operate, and by what they shall bereplaced. And so, through the economic process, the Socialist preachesthe ripening of the capitalistic society and the coming of the newcooperative society. 

The second great tenet of Socialism, itself a phase of the materialisticconception of history, is the class struggle. In the social struggle forexistence, men are forced into classes. "The history of all society thusfar is the history of class strife. " In existing society the capitalistclass exploits the working class, the proletariat. The interests of theexploiter are not the interests of the exploited. "Profits arelegitimate, " says the one. "Profits are unpaid wages, " replies theother, when he has become conscious of his class, "therefore profits arerobbery. " The capitalist enforces his profits because he is the legalowner of all the means of production. He is the legal owner because hecontrols the political machinery of society. The Socialist sets to workto capture the political machinery, so that he may make illegal thecapitalist's ownership of the means of production, and make legal his ownownership of the means of production. And it is this struggle, betweenthese two classes, upon which the world has at last entered. 

Scientific Socialism is very young. Only yesterday it was in swaddlingclothes. But today it is a vigorous young giant, well braced to battlefor what it wants, and knowing precisely what it wants. It holds itsinternational conventions, where world-policies are formulated by therepresentatives of millions of Socialists. In little Belgium there arethree-quarters of a million of men who work for the cause; in Germany, 3, 000, 000; Austria, between 1895 and 1897, raised her socialist vote from90, 000 to 750, 000. France in 1871 had a whole generation of Socialistswiped out; yet in 1885 there were 30, 000, and in 1898, 1, 000, 000. 

Ere the last Spaniard had evacuated Cuba, Socialist groups were forming. And from far Japan, in these first days of the twentieth century, writesone Tomoyoshi Murai: "The interest of our people on Socialism has beengreatly awakened these days, especially among our laboring people on onehand and young students' circle on the other, as much as we can draw anearnest and enthusiastic audience and fill our hall, which holds twothousand. . . . It is gratifying to say that we have a number of fine andwell-trained public orators among our leaders of Socialism in Japan. Thefirst speaker tonight is Mr. Kiyoshi Kawakami, editor of one of our city(Tokyo) dailies, a strong, independent, and decidedly socialistic paper, circulated far and wide. Mr. Kawakami is a scholar as well as a popularwriter. He is going to speak tonight on the subject, 'The Essence ofSocialism--the Fundamental Principles. ' The next speaker is ProfessorIso Abe, president of our association, whose subject of address is, 'Socialism and the Existing Social System. ' The third speaker is Mr. Naoe Kinosita, the editor of another strong journal of the city. Hespeaks on the subject, 'How to Realize the Socialist Ideals and Plans. 'Next is Mr. Shigeyoshi Sugiyama, a graduate of Hartford TheologicalSeminary and an advocate of Social Christianity, who is to speak on'Socialism and Municipal Problems. ' And the last speaker is the editorof the 'Labor World, ' the foremost leader of the labor-union movement inour country, Mr. Sen Katayama, who speaks on the subject, 'The Outlook ofSocialism in Europe and America. ' These addresses are going to bepublished in book form and to be distributed among our people toenlighten their minds on the subject. "

And in the struggle for the political machinery of society, Socialism isno longer confined to mere propaganda. Italy, Austria, Belgium, England, have Socialist members in their national bodies. Out of the one hundredand thirty-two members of the London County Council, ninety-one aredenounced by the conservative element as Socialists. The Emperor ofGermany grows anxious and angry at the increasing numbers which arereturned to the Reichstag. In France, many of the large cities, such asMarseilles, are in the hands of the Socialists. A large body of them isin the Chamber of Deputies, and Millerand, Socialist, sits in thecabinet. Of him M. Leroy-Beaulieu says with horror: "M. Millerand is theopen enemy of private property, private capital, the resolute advocate ofthe socialization of production . . . A constant incitement to violence . . . A collectivist, avowed and militant, taking part in the government, dominating the departments of commerce and industry, preparing all thelaws and presiding at the passage of all measures which should besubmitted to merchants and tradesmen. "

In the United States there are already Socialist mayors of towns andmembers of State legislatures, a vast literature, and single Socialistpapers with subscription lists running up into the hundreds of thousands. In 1896, 36, 000 votes were cast for the Socialist candidate forPresident; in 1900, nearly 200, 000; in 1904, 450, 000. And the UnitedStates, young as it is, is ripening rapidly, and the Socialists claim, according to the materialistic conception of history, that the UnitedStates will be the first country in the world wherein the toilers willcapture the political machinery and expropriate the bourgeoisie. 

 * * * * *

But the Socialist and labor movements have recently entered upon a newphase. There has been a remarkable change in attitude on both sides. For a long time the labor unions refrained from going in for politicalaction. On the other hand, the Socialists claimed that without politicalaction labor was powerless. And because of this there was much illfeeling between them, even open hostilities, and no concerted action. But now the Socialists grant that the labor movement has held up wagesand decreased the hours of labor, and the labor unions find thatpolitical action is necessary. Today both parties have drawn closelytogether in the common fight. In the United States this friendly feelinggrows. The Socialist papers espouse the cause of labor, and the unionshave opened their ears once more to the wiles of the Socialists. Theyare all leavened with Socialist workmen, "boring from within, " and manyof their leaders have already succumbed. In England, where classconsciousness is more developed, the name "Unionism" has been replaced by"The New Unionism, " the main object of which is "to capture existingsocial structures in the interests of the wage-earners. " There theSocialist, the trade-union, and other working-class organizations arebeginning to cooperate in securing the return of representatives to theHouse of Commons. And in France, where the city councils and mayors ofMarseilles and Monteaules-Mines are Socialistic, thousands of francs ofmunicipal money were voted for the aid of the unions in the recent greatstrikes. 

For centuries the world has been preparing for the coming of the commonman. And the period of preparation virtually past, labor, conscious ofitself and its desires, has begun a definite movement toward solidarity. It believes the time is not far distant when the historian will speak notonly of the dark ages of feudalism, but of the dark ages of capitalism. And labor sincerely believes itself justified in this by the terribleindictment it brings against capitalistic society. In the face of itsenormous wealth, capitalistic society forfeits its right to existencewhen it permits widespread, bestial poverty. The philosophy of thesurvival of the fittest does not soothe the class-conscious worker whenhe learns through his class literature that among the Italianpants-finishers of Chicago {9} the average weekly wage is $1. 31, and theaverage number of weeks employed in the year is 27. 85. Likewise when hereads: {10} "Every room in these reeking tenements houses a family ortwo. In one room a missionary found a man ill with small-pox, his wifejust recovering from her confinement, and the children running about halfnaked and covered with dirt. Here are seven people living in oneunderground kitchen, and a little dead child lying in the same room. Here live a widow and her six children, two of whom are ill with scarletfever. In another, nine brothers and sisters, from twenty-nine years ofage downward, live, eat, and sleep together. " And likewise, when hereads: {11} "When one man, fifty years old, who has worked all his life, is compelled to beg a little money to bury his dead baby, and anotherman, fifty years old, can give ten million dollars to enable his daughterto live in luxury and bolster up a decaying foreign aristocracy, do yousee nothing amiss?"

And on the other hand, the class-conscious worker reads the statistics ofthe wealthy classes, knows what their incomes are, and how they get them. True, down all the past he has known his own material misery and thematerial comfort of the dominant classes, and often has this knowledgeled him to intemperate acts and unwise rebellion. But today, and for thefirst time, because both society and he have evolved, he is beginning tosee a possible way out. His ears are opening to the propaganda ofSocialism, the passionate gospel of the dispossessed. But it does notinculcate a turning back. The way through is the way out, heunderstands, and with this in mind he draws up the programme. 

It is quite simple, this programme. Everything is moving in hisdirection, toward the day when he will take charge. The trust? Ah, no. Unlike the trembling middle-class man and the small capitalist, he seesnothing at which to be frightened. He likes the trust. He exults in thetrust, for it is largely doing the task for him. It socializesproduction; this done, there remains nothing for him to do but socializedistribution, and all is accomplished. The trust? "It organizesindustry on an enormous, labor-saving scale, and abolishes childish, wasteful competition. " It is a gigantic object lesson, and it preacheshis political economy far more potently than he can preach it. He pointsto the trust, laughing scornfully in the face of the orthodox economists. "You told me this thing could not be, " {12} he thunders. "Behold, thething is!"

He sees competition in the realm of production passing away. When thecaptains of industry have thoroughly organized production, and goteverything running smoothly, it will be very easy for him to eliminatethe profits by stepping in and having the thing run for himself. And thecaptain of industry, if he be good, may be given the privilege ofcontinuing the management on a fair salary. The sixty millions ofdividends which the Standard Oil Company annually declares will bedistributed among the workers. The same with the great United StatesSteel Corporation. The president of that corporation knows his business. Very good. Let him become Secretary of the Department of Iron and Steelof the United States. But, since the chief executive of a nation ofseventy-odd millions works for $50, 000 a year, the Secretary of theDepartment of Iron and Steel must expect to have his salary cutaccordingly. And not only will the workers take to themselves theprofits of national and municipal monopolies, but also the immenserevenues which the dominant classes today draw from rents, and mines, andfactories, and all manner of enterprises. 

 * * * * *

All this would seem very like a dream, even to the worker, if it were notfor the fact that like things have been done before. He pointstriumphantly to the aristocrat of the eighteenth century, who fought, legislated, governed, and dominated society, but who was shorn of powerand displaced by the rising bourgeoisie. Ay, the thing was done, heholds. And it shall be done again, but this time it is the proletariatwho does the shearing. Sociology has taught him that m-i-g-h-t spells"right. " Every society has been ruled by classes, and the classes haveruled by sheer strength, and have been overthrown by sheer strength. Thebourgeoisie, because it was the stronger, dragged down the nobility ofthe sword; and the proletariat, because it is the strongest of all, canand will drag down the bourgeoisie. 

And in that day, for better or worse, the common man becomes themaster--for better, he believes. It is his intention to make the sum ofhuman happiness far greater. No man shall work for a bare living wage, which is degradation. Every man shall have work to do, and shall be paidexceedingly well for doing it. There shall be no slum classes, nobeggars. Nor shall there be hundreds of thousands of men and womencondemned, for economic reasons, to lives of celibacy or sexualinfertility. Every man shall be able to marry, to live in healthy, comfortable quarters, and to have all he wants to eat as many times a dayas he wishes. There shall no longer be a life-and-death struggle forfood and shelter. The old heartless law of development shall beannulled. 

All of which is very good and very fine. And when these things have cometo pass, what then? Of old, by virtue of their weakness and inefficiencyin the struggle for food and shelter, the race was purged of its weak andinefficient members. But this will no longer obtain. Under the neworder the weak and the progeny of the weak will have a chance forsurvival equal to that of the strong and the progeny of the strong. Thisbeing so, the premium upon strength will have been withdrawn, and on theface of it the average strength of each generation, instead of continuingto rise, will begin to decline. 

When the common man's day shall have arrived, the new social institutionsof that day will prevent the weeding out of weakness and inefficiency. All, the weak and the strong, will have an equal chance for procreation. And the progeny of all, of the weak as well as the strong, will have anequal chance for survival. This being so, and if no new effective law ofdevelopment be put into operation, then progress must cease. And notonly progress, for deterioration would at once set in. It is a pregnantproblem. What will be the nature of this new and most necessary law ofdevelopment? Can the common man pause long enough from his undermininglabors to answer? Since he is bent upon dragging down the bourgeoisieand reconstructing society, can he so reconstruct that a premium, in someunguessed way or other, will still be laid upon the strong and efficientso that the human type will continue to develop? Can the common man, orthe uncommon men who are allied with him, devise such a law? Or havethey already devised one? And if so, what is it?

HOW I BECAME A SOCIALIST

It is quite fair to say that I became a Socialist in a fashion somewhatsimilar to the way in which the Teutonic pagans became Christians--it washammered into me. Not only was I not looking for Socialism at the timeof my conversion, but I was fighting it. I was very young and callow, did not know much of anything, and though I had never even heard of aschool called "Individualism, " I sang the paean of the strong with all myheart. 

This was because I was strong myself. By strong I mean that I had goodhealth and hard muscles, both of which possessions are easily accountedfor. I had lived my childhood on California ranches, my boyhood hustlingnewspapers on the streets of a healthy Western city, and my youth on theozone-laden waters of San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. I lovedlife in the open, and I toiled in the open, at the hardest kinds of work. Learning no trade, but drifting along from job to job, I looked on theworld and called it good, every bit of it. Let me repeat, this optimismwas because I was healthy and strong, bothered with neither aches norweaknesses, never turned down by the boss because I did not look fit, able always to get a job at shovelling coal, sailorizing, or manual laborof some sort. 

And because of all this, exulting in my young life, able to hold my ownat work or fight, I was a rampant individualist. It was very natural. Iwas a winner. Wherefore I called the game, as I saw it played, orthought I saw it played, a very proper game for MEN. To be a MAN was towrite man in large capitals on my heart. To adventure like a man, andfight like a man, and do a man's work (even for a boy's pay)--these werethings that reached right in and gripped hold of me as no other thingcould. And I looked ahead into long vistas of a hazy and interminablefuture, into which, playing what I conceived to be MAN'S game, I shouldcontinue to travel with unfailing health, without accidents, and withmuscles ever vigorous. As I say, this future was interminable. I couldsee myself only raging through life without end like one of Nietzsche's_blond-beasts_, lustfully roving and conquering by sheer superiority andstrength. 

As for the unfortunates, the sick, and ailing, and old, and maimed, Imust confess I hardly thought of them at all, save that I vaguely feltthat they, barring accidents, could be as good as I if they wanted toreal hard, and could work just as well. Accidents? Well, theyrepresented FATE, also spelled out in capitals, and there was no gettingaround FATE. Napoleon had had an accident at Waterloo, but that did notdampen my desire to be another and later Napoleon. Further, the optimismbred of a stomach which could digest scrap iron and a body whichflourished on hardships did not permit me to consider accidents as evenremotely related to my glorious personality. 

I hope I have made it clear that I was proud to be one of Nature'sstrong-armed noblemen. The dignity of labor was to me the mostimpressive thing in the world. Without having read Carlyle, or Kipling, I formulated a gospel of work which put theirs in the shade. Work waseverything. It was sanctification and salvation. The pride I took in ahard day's work well done would be inconceivable to you. It is almostinconceivable to me as I look back upon it. I was as faithful a wageslave as ever capitalist exploited. To shirk or malinger on the man whopaid me my wages was a sin, first, against myself, and second, againsthim. I considered it a crime second only to treason and just about asbad. 

In short, my joyous individualism was dominated by the orthodox bourgeoisethics. I read the bourgeois papers, listened to the bourgeoispreachers, and shouted at the sonorous platitudes of the bourgeoispoliticians. And I doubt not, if other events had not changed my career, that I should have evolved into a professional strike-breaker, (one ofPresident Eliot's American heroes), and had my head and my earning powerirrevocably smashed by a club in the hands of some militanttrades-unionist. 

Just about this time, returning from a seven months' voyage before themast, and just turned eighteen, I took it into my head to go tramping. On rods and blind baggages I fought my way from the open West where menbucked big and the job hunted the man, to the congested labor centres ofthe East, where men were small potatoes and hunted the job for all theywere worth. And on this new _blond-beast_ adventure I found myselflooking upon life from a new and totally different angle. I had droppeddown from the proletariat into what sociologists love to call the"submerged tenth, " and I was startled to discover the way in which thatsubmerged tenth was recruited. 

I found there all sorts of men, many of whom had once been as good asmyself and just as _blond-beast_; sailor-men, soldier-men, labor-men, allwrenched and distorted and twisted out of shape by toil and hardship andaccident, and cast adrift by their masters like so many old horses. Ibattered on the drag and slammed back gates with them, or shivered withthem in box cars and city parks, listening the while to life-historieswhich began under auspices as fair as mine, with digestions and bodiesequal to and better than mine, and which ended there before my eyes inthe shambles at the bottom of the Social Pit. 

And as I listened my brain began to work. The woman of the streets andthe man of the gutter drew very close to me. I saw the picture of theSocial Pit as vividly as though it were a concrete thing, and at thebottom of the Pit I saw them, myself above them, not far, and hanging onto the slippery wall by main strength and sweat. And I confess a terrorseized me. What when my strength failed? when I should be unable to workshoulder to shoulder with the strong men who were as yet babes unborn?And there and then I swore a great oath. It ran something like this:_All my days I have worked hard with my body_, _and according to thenumber of days I have worked_, _by just that much am I nearer the bottomof the Pit_. _I shall climb out of the Pit_, _but not by the muscles ofmy body shall I climb out_. _I shall do no more hard work_, _and may Godstrike me dead if I do another day's hard work with my body more than Iabsolutely have to do_. And I have been busy ever since running awayfrom hard work. 

Incidentally, while tramping some ten thousand miles through the UnitedStates and Canada, I strayed into Niagara Falls, was nabbed by afee-hunting constable, denied the right to plead guilty or not guilty, sentenced out of hand to thirty days' imprisonment for having no fixedabode and no visible means of support, handcuffed and chained to a bunchof men similarly circumstanced, carted down country to Buffalo, registered at the Erie County Penitentiary, had my head clipped and mybudding mustache shaved, was dressed in convict stripes, compulsorilyvaccinated by a medical student who practised on such as we, made tomarch the lock-step, and put to work under the eyes of guards armed withWinchester rifles--all for adventuring in _blond-beastly_ fashion. Concerning further details deponent sayeth not, though he may hint thatsome of his plethoric national patriotism simmered down and leaked out ofthe bottom of his soul somewhere--at least, since that experience hefinds that he cares more for men and women and little children than forimaginary geographical lines. 

 * * * * *

To return to my conversion. I think it is apparent that my rampantindividualism was pretty effectively hammered out of me, and somethingelse as effectively hammered in. But, just as I had been anindividualist without knowing it, I was now a Socialist without knowingit, withal, an unscientific one. I had been reborn, but not renamed, andI was running around to find out what manner of thing I was. I ran backto California and opened the books. I do not remember which ones Iopened first. It is an unimportant detail anyway. I was already It, whatever It was, and by aid of the books I discovered that It was aSocialist. Since that day I have opened many books, but no economicargument, no lucid demonstration of the logic and inevitableness ofSocialism affects me as profoundly and convincingly as I was affected onthe day when I first saw the walls of the Social Pit rise around me andfelt myself slipping down, down, into the shambles at the bottom. 

FOOTNOTES:

{1} "From 43 to 52 per cent of all applicants need work rather thanrelief. "--Report of the Charity Organization Society of New York City. 

{2} Mr. Leiter, who owns a coal mine at the town of Zeigler, Illinois, in an interview printed in the Chicago Record-Herald of December 6, 1904, said: "When I go into the market to purchase labor, I propose to retainjust as much freedom as does a purchaser in any other kind of a market. . . . There is no difficulty whatever in obtaining labor, _for the countryis full of unemployed men_. "

{3} "Despondent and weary with vain attempts to struggle against anunsympathetic world, two old men were brought before Police Judge McHughthis afternoon to see whether some means could not be provided for theirsupport, at least until springtime. 

"George Westlake was the first one to receive the consideration of thecourt. Westlake is seventy-two years old. A charge of habitualdrunkenness was placed against him, and he was sentenced to a term in thecounty jail, though it is more than probable that he was never under theinfluence of intoxicating liquor in his life. The act on the part of theauthorities was one of kindness for him, as in the county jail he will beprovided with a good place to sleep and plenty to eat. 

"Joe Coat, aged sixty-nine years, will serve ninety days in the countyjail for much the same reason as Westlake. He states that, if given achance to do so, he will go out to a wood-camp and cut timber during thewinter, but the police authorities realize that he could not long survivesuch a task. "--From the Butte (Montana) Miner, December 7th, 1904. 

"'I end my life because I have reached the age limit, and there is noplace for me in this world. Please notify my wife, No. 222 West 129thStreet, New York. ' Having summed up the cause of his despondency in thisfinal message, James Hollander, fifty-six years old, shot himself throughthe left temple, in his room at the Stafford Hotel today. "--New YorkHerald. 

{4} In the San Francisco Examiner of November 16, 1904, there is anaccount of the use of fire-hose to drive away three hundred men whowanted work at unloading a vessel in the harbor. So anxious were the mento get the two or three hours' job that they made a veritable mob and hadto be driven off. 

{5} "It was no uncommon thing in these sweatshops for men to sit bentover a sewing-machine continuously from eleven to fifteen hours a day inJuly weather, operating a sewing-machine by foot-power, and often sodriven that they could not stop for lunch. The seasonal character of thework meant demoralizing toil for a few months in the year, and a not lessdemoralizing idleness for the remainder of the time. Consumption, theplague of the tenements and the especial plague of the garment industry, carried off many of these workers; poor nutrition and exhaustion, manymore. "--From McClure's Magazine. 

{6} The Social Unrest. Macmillan Company. 

{7} "Our Benevolent Feudalism. " By W. J. Ghent. The Macmillan Company. 

{8} "The Social Unrest. " By John Graham Brooks. The Macmillan Company. 

{9} From figures presented by Miss Nellie Mason Auten in the AmericanJournal of Sociology, and copied extensively by the trade-union andSocialist press. 

{10} "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London. "

{11} An item from the Social Democratic Herald. Hundreds of theseitems, culled from current happenings, are published weekly in the papersof the workers. 

{12} Karl Marx, the great Socialist, worked out the trust developmentforty years ago, for which he was laughed at by the orthodox economists.