War of the Classes ...............................................................................................................................................1

When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature, because, forsooth, I was a socialist.

Reporters from local papers interviewed me, and the interviews, when published, were pathological studies of

a strange and abnormal specimen of man. At that time (nine or ten years ago), because I made a stand in my

native town for municipal ownership of public utilities, I was branded a "redshirt," a "dynamiter," and an

"anarchist"; and really decent fellows, who liked me very well, drew the line at my appearing in public with

But the times changed. There came a day when I heard, in my native town, a Republican mayor publicly

proclaim that "municipal ownership was a fixed American policy." And in that day I found myself picking up

in the world. No longer did the pathologist study me, while the really decent fellows did not mind in the least

the propinquity of myself and their sisters in the public eye. My political and sociological ideas were ascribed

to the vagaries of youth, and goodnatured elderly men patronized me and told me that I would grow up

some day and become an unusually intelligent member of the community. Also they told me that my views

were biassed by my empty pockets, and that some day, when I had gathered to me a few dollars, my views

And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable,still a vagary of youth, it was held, but

romantically respectable. Romance, to the bourgeois mind, was respectable because it was not dangerous. As

a "redshirt," with bombs in all his pockets, I was dangerous. As a youth with nothing more menacing than a

few philosophical ideas, Germanic in their origin, I was an interesting and pleasing personality.

Through all this experience I noted one thing. It was not I that changed, but the community. In fact, my

socialistic views grew solider and more pronounced. I repeat, it was the community that changed, and to my

chagrin I discovered that the community changed to such purpose that it was not above stealing my thunder.

The community branded me a "redshirt" because I stood for municipal ownership; a little later it applauded

its mayor when he proclaimed municipal ownership to be a fixed American policy. He stole my thunder, and

the community applauded the theft. And today the community is able to come around and give me points on

What happened to me has been in no wise different from what has happened to the socialist movement as a

whole in the United States. In the bourgeois mind socialism has changed from a terrible disease to a youthful

vagary, and later on had its thunder stolen by the two old parties,socialism, like a meek and thrifty

Only dangerous things are abhorrent. The thing that is not dangerous is always respectable. And so with

socialism in the United States. For several years it has been very respectable,a sweet and beautiful Utopian

dream, in the bourgeois mind, yet a dream, only a dream. During this period, which has just ended, socialism

was tolerated because it was impossible and nonmenacing. Much of its thunder had been stolen, and the

workingmen had been made happy with full dinnerpails. There was nothing to fear. The kind old world

spun on, coupons were clipped, and larger profits than ever were extracted from the toilers. Couponclipping

and profitextracting would continue to the end of time. These were functions divine in origin and held by

divine right. The newspapers, the preachers, and the college presidents said so, and what they say, of course,

Then came the presidential election of 1904. Like a bolt out of a clear sky was the socialist vote of

435,000,an increase of nearly 400 per cent in four years, the largest thirdparty vote, with one exception,

since the Civil War. Socialism had shown that it was a very live and growing revolutionary force, and all its

old menace revived. I am afraid that neither it nor I are any longer respectable. The capitalist press of the

country confirms me in my opinion, and herewith I give a few postelection utterances of the capitalist

"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

"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

"We cannot blink the fact that socialism is making rapid growth in this country, where, of all others, there

"Upon the hands of the Republican party an awful responsibility was placed last Tuesday. . . It knows that

reformsgreat, farsweeping reformsare 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 its purpose to wipe out, root and branch, all

capitalistic institutions of presentday society. It is distinctly revolutionary, and in scope and depth is vastly

more tremendous than any revolution that has ever occurred in the history of the world. It presents a new

spectacle to the astonished world,that of an ORGANIZED, INTERNATIONAL, REVOLUTIONARY

MOVEMENT. In the bourgeois mind a class struggle is a terrible and hateful thing, and yet that is precisely

what socialism is,a worldwide class struggle between the propertyless workers and the propertied masters

of workers. It is the prime preachment of socialism that the struggle is a class struggle. The working class, in

the process of social evolution, (in the very nature of things), is bound to revolt from the sway of the

capitalist class and to overthrow the capitalist class. This is the menace of socialism, and in affirming it and

in tallying myself an adherent of it, I accept my own consequent unrespectability.

As yet, to the average bourgeois mind, socialism is merely a menace, vague and formless. The average

member of the capitalist class, when he discusses socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own

mouth. He does not know the literature of socialism, its philosophy, nor its politics. He wags his head sagely

and rattles the dry bones of dead and buried ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, "Men are not

born equal and never can be;" "It is Utopian and impossible;" "Abstinence should be rewarded;" "Man will

first have to be born again;" "Cooperative colonies have always failed;" and "What if we do divide up? in ten

It surely is time that the capitalists knew something about this socialism that they feel menaces them. And it

is the hope of the writer that the socialistic studies in this volume may in some slight degree enlighten a few

capitalistic minds. The capitalist must learn, first and for always, that socialism is based, not upon the

equality, but upon the inequality, of men. Next, he must learn that no new birth into spiritual purity is

necessary before socialism becomes possible. He must learn that socialism deals with what is, not with what

ought to be; and that the material with which it deals is the "clay of the common road," the warm human,

fallible and frail, sordid and petty, absurd and contradictory, even grotesque, and yet, withal, shot through

with flashes and glimmerings of something finer and Godlike, with here and there sweetnesses of service

and unselfishness, desires for goodness, for renunciation and sacrifice, and with conscience, stern and awful,

at times blazingly imperious, demanding the right,the right, nothing more nor less than the right.

Unfortunately or otherwise, people are prone to believe in the reality of the things they think ought to be so.

This comes of the cheery optimism which is innate with life itself; and, while it may sometimes be deplored,

it must never be censured, for, as a rule, it is productive of more good than harm, and of about all the

achievement there is in the world. There are cases where this optimism has been disastrous, as with the

people who lived in Pompeii during its last quivering days; or with the aristocrats of the time of Louis XVI,

who confidently expected the Deluge to overwhelm their children, or their children's children, but never

themselves. But there is small likelihood that the case of perverse optimism here to be considered will end in

such disaster, while there is every reason to believe that the great change now manifesting itself in society

will be as peaceful and orderly in its culmination as it is in its present development.

Out of their constitutional optimism, and because a class struggle is an abhorred and dangerous thing, the

great American people are unanimous in asserting that there is no class struggle. And by "American people"

is meant the recognized and authoritative mouth pieces of the American people, which are the press, the

pulpit, and the university. The journalists, the preachers, and the professors are practically of one voice in

declaring that there is no such thing as a class struggle now going on, much less that a class struggle will ever

go on, in the United States. And this declaration they continually make in the face of a multitude of facts

There are two ways of approaching the subject of the class struggle. The existence of this struggle can be

shown theoretically, and it can be shown actually. For a class struggle to exist in society there must be, first, a

class inequality, a superior class and an inferior class (as measured by power); and, second, the outlets must

be closed whereby the strength and ferment of the inferior class have been permitted to escape.

That there are even classes in the United States is vigorously denied by many; but it is incontrovertible, when

a group of individuals is formed, wherein the members are bound together by common interests which are

peculiarly their interests and not the interests of individuals outside the group, that such a group is a class.

The owners of capital, with their dependents, form a class of this nature in the United States; the working

people form a similar class. The interest of the capitalist class, say, in the matter of income tax, is quite

contrary to the interest of the laboring class; and, VICE VERSA, in the matter of polltax.

If between these two classes there be a clear and vital conflict of interest, all the factors are present which

make a class struggle; but this struggle will lie dormant if the strong and capable members of the inferior

class be permitted to leave that class and join the ranks of the superior class. The capitalist class and the

working class have existed side by side and for a long time in the United States; but hitherto all the strong,

energetic members of the working class have been able to rise out of their class and become owners of

capital. They were enabled to do this because an undeveloped country with an expanding frontier gave

equality of opportunity to all. In the almost lotterylike scramble for the ownership of vast unowned natural

resources, and in the exploitation of which there was little or no competition of capital, (the capital itself

rising out of the exploitation), the capable, intelligent member of the working class found a field in which to

use his brains to his own advancement. Instead of being discontented in direct ratio with his intelligence and

ambitions, and of radiating amongst his fellows a spirit of revolt as capable as he was capable, he left them to

But the day of an expanding frontier, of a lotterylike scramble for the ownership of natural resources, and of

the upbuilding of new industries, is past. Farthest West has been reached, and an immense volume of surplus

capital roams for investment and nips in the bud the patient efforts of the embryo capitalist to rise through

slow increment from small beginnings. The gateway of opportunity after opportunity has been closed, and

closed for all time. Rockefeller has shut the door on oil, the American Tobacco Company on tobacco, and

Carnegie on steel. After Carnegie came Morgan, who triple locked the door. These doors will not open

again, and before them pause thousands of ambitious young men to read the placard: NO

And day by day more doors are shut, while the ambitious young men continue to be born. It is they, denied

the opportunity to rise from the working class, who preach revolt to the working class. Had he been born fifty

years later, Andrew Carnegie, the poor Scotch boy, might have risen to be president of his union, or of a

federation of unions; but that he would never have become the builder of Homestead and the founder of

multitudinous libraries, is as certain as it is certain that some other man would have developed the steel

Theoretically, then, there exist in the United States all the factors which go to make a class struggle. There

are the capitalists and working classes, the interests of which conflict, while the working class is no longer

being emasculated to the extent it was in the past by having drawn off from it its best blood and brains. Its

more capable members are no longer able to rise out of it and leave the great mass leaderless and helpless.

But the optimistic mouthpieces of the great American people, who are themselves deft theoreticians, are not

to be convinced by mere theoretics. So it remains to demonstrate the existence of the class struggle by a

When nearly two millions of men, finding themselves knit together by certain interests peculiarly their own,

band together in a strong organization for the aggressive pursuit of those interests, it is evident that society

has within it a hostile and warring class. But when the interests which this class aggressively pursues conflict

sharply and vitally with the interests of another class, class antagonism arises and a class struggle is the

inevitable result. One great organization of labor alone has a membership of 1,700,000 in the United States.

This is the American Federation of Labor, and outside of it are many other large organizations. All these men

are banded together for the frank purpose of bettering their condition, regardless of the harm worked thereby

upon all other classes. They are in open antagonism with the capitalist class, while the manifestos of their

leaders state that the struggle is one which can never end until the capitalist class is exterminated.

Their leaders will largely deny this last statement, but an examination of their utterances, their actions, and

the situation will forestall such denial. In the first place, the conflict between labor and capital is over the

division of the join product. Capital and labor apply themselves to raw material and make it into a finished

product. The difference between the value of the raw material and the value of the finished product is the

value they have added to it by their joint effort. This added value is, therefore, their joint product, and it is

over the division of this joint product that the struggle between labor and capital takes place. Labor takes its

share in wages; capital takes its share in profits. It is patent, if capital took in profits the whole joint product,

that labor would perish. And it is equally patent, if labor took in wages the whole joint product, that capital

would perish. Yet this last is the very thing labor aspires to do, and that it will never be content with anything

Mr. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, has said: "The workers want more

wages; more of the comforts of life; more leisure; more chance for selfimprovement as men, as

tradeunionists, as citizens. THESE WERE THE WANTS OF YESTERDAY; THEY ARE THE WANTS

The struggle may assume new forms, but the issue is the immemorial one,an effort of the producers to

Mr. Henry White, secretary of the United Garment Workers of America and a member of the Industrial

Committee of the National Civic Federation, speaking of the National Civic Federation soon after its

inception, said: "To fall into one another's arms, to avow friendship, to express regret at the injury which has

been done, would not alter the facts of the situation. Workingmen will continue to demand more pay, and the

employer will naturally oppose them. The readiness and ability of the workmen to fight will, as usual, largely

determine the amount of their wages or their share in the product. . . But when it comes to dividing the

proceeds, there is the rub. We can also agree that the larger the product through the employment of

laborsaving methods the better, as there will be more to be divided, but again the question of the division. . .

. A Conciliation Committee, having the confidence of the community, and composed of men possessing

practical knowledge of industrial affairs, can therefore aid in mitigating this antagonism, in preventing

avoidable conflicts, in bringing about a TRUCE; I use the word 'truce' because understandings can only be

Here is a man who might have owned cattle on a thousand hills, been a lumber baron or a railroad king, had

he been born a few years sooner. As it is, he remains in his class, is secretary of the United Garment Workers

of America, and is so thoroughly saturated with the class struggle that he speaks of the dispute between

capital and labor in terms of war,workmen FIGHT with employers; it is possible to avoid some

Man being man and a great deal short of the angels, the quarrel over the division of the joint product is

irreconcilable. For the last twenty years in the United States, there has been an average of over a thousand

strikes per year; and year by year these strikes increase in magnitude, and the front of the labor army grows

more imposing. And it is a class struggle, pure and simple. Labor as a class is fighting with capital as a class.

Workingmen will continue to demand more pay, and employers will continue to oppose them. This is the

keynote to LAISSEZ FAIRE, everybody for himself and devil take the hindmost. It is upon this that the

rampant individualist bases his individualism. It is the letalone policy, the struggle for existence, which

strengthens the strong, destroys the weak, and makes a finer and more capable breed of men. But the

individual has passed away and the group has come, for better or worse, and the struggle has become, not a

struggle between individuals, but a struggle between groups. So the query rises: Has the individualist never

speculated upon the labor group becoming strong enough to destroy the capitalist group, and take to itself and

run for itself the machinery of industry? And, further, has the individualist never speculated upon this being

still a triumphant expression of individualism,of group individualism,if the confusion of terms may be

But the facts of the class struggle are deeper and more significant than have so far been presented. A million

or so of workmen may organize for the pursuit of interests which engender class antagonism and strife, and at

the same time be unconscious of what is engendered. But when a million or so of workmen show

unmistakable signs of being conscious of their class,of being, in short, class conscious,then the situation

grows serious. The uncompromising and terrible hatred of the tradeunionist for a scab is the hatred of a

class for a traitor to that class,while the hatred of a tradeunionist for the militia is the hatred of a class for

a weapon wielded by the class with which it is fighting. No workman can be true to his class and at the same

In the town of the writer, the good citizens, when they get up a Fourth of July parade and invite the labor

unions to participate, are informed by the unions that they will not march in the parade if the militia marches.

Article 8 of the constitution of the Painters' and Decorators' Union of Schenectady provides that a member

must not be a "militiaman, special police officer, or deputy marshal in the employ of corporations or

individuals during strikes, lockouts, or other labor difficulties, and any member occupying any of the above

positions will be debarred from membership." Mr. William Potter was a member of this union and a member

of the National Guard. As a result, because he obeyed the order of the Governor when his company was

ordered out to suppress rioting, he was expelled from his union. Also his union demanded his employers,

Shafer Barry, to discharge him from their service. This they complied with, rather than face the threatened

Mr. Robert L. Walker, first lieutenant of the Light Guards, a New Haven militia company, recently resigned.

His reason was, that he was a member of the Car Builders' Union, and that the two organizations were

antagonistic to each other. During a New Orleans streetcar strike not long ago, a whole company of militia,

called out to protect nonunion men, resigned in a body. Mr. John Mulholland, president of the International

Association of Allied Metal Mechanics, has stated that he does not want the members to join the militia. The

Local Trades' Assembly of Syracuse, New York, has passed a resolution, by unanimous vote, requiring union

men who are members of the National Guard to resign, under pain of expulsion, from the unions. The

Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' Association has incorporated in its constitution an amendment excluding

from membership in its organization "any person a member of the regular army, or of the State militia or

naval reserve." The Illinois State Federation of Labor, at a recent convention, passed without a dissenting

vote a resolution declaring that membership in military organizations is a violation of labor union obligations,

and requesting all union men to withdraw from the militia. The president of the Federation, Mr. Albert

Young, declared that the militia was a menace not only to unions, but to all workers throughout the country.

These instances may be multiplied a thousand fold. The union workmen are becoming conscious of their

class, and of the struggle their class is waging with the capitalist class. To be a member of the militia is to be

a traitor to the union, for the militia is a weapon wielded by the employers to crush the workers in the

Another interesting, and even more pregnant, phase of the class struggle is the political aspect of it as

displayed by the socialists. Five men, standing together, may perform prodigies; 500 men, marching as

marched the historic Five Hundred of Marseilles, may sack a palace and destroy a king; while 500,000 men,

passionately preaching the propaganda of a class struggle, waging a class struggle along political lines, and

backed by the moral and intellectual support of 10,000,000 more men of like convictions throughout the

world, may come pretty close to realizing a class struggle in these United States of ours.

In 1900 these men cast 150,000 votes; two years later, in 1902, they cast 300,000 votes; and in 1904 they cast

450,000. They have behind them a most imposing philosophic and scientific literature; they own illustrated

magazines and reviews, high in quality, dignity, and restraint; they possess countless daily and weekly papers

which circulate throughout the land, and single papers which have subscribers by the hundreds of thousands;

and they literally swamp the working classes in a vast sea of tracts and pamphlets. No political party in the

United States, no church organization nor mission effort, has as indefatigable workers as has the socialist

party. They multiply themselves, know of no effort nor sacrifice too great to make for the Cause; and

"Cause," with them, is spelled out in capitals. They work for it with a religious zeal, and would die for it with

These men are preaching an uncompromising and deadly class struggle. In fact, they are organized upon the

basis of a class struggle. "The history of society," they say, "is a history of class struggles. Patrician struggled

with plebeian in early Rome; the king and the burghers, with the nobles in the Middle Ages; later on, the king

and the nobles with the bourgeoisie; and today the struggle is on between the triumphant bourgeoisie and the

rising proletariat. By 'proletariat' is meant the class of people without capital which sells its labor for a living.

"That the proletariat shall conquer," (mark the note of fatalism), "is as certain as the rising sun. Just as the

bourgeoisie of the eighteenth century wanted democracy applied to politics, so the proletariat of the twentieth

century wants democracy applied to industry. As the bourgeoisie complained against the government being

run by and for the nobles, so the proletariat complains against the government and industry being run by and

for the bourgeoisie; and so, following in the footsteps of its predecessor, the proletariat will possess itself of

the government, apply democracy to industry, abolish wages, which are merely legalized robbery, and run the

"Their aim," they say, "is to organize the working class, and those in sympathy with it, into a political party,

with the object of conquering the powers of government and of using them for the purpose of transforming

the present system of private ownership of the means of production and distribution into collective ownership

Briefly stated, this is the battle plan of these 450,000 men who call themselves "socialists." And, in the face

of the existence of such an aggressive group of men, a class struggle cannot very well be denied by the

optimistic Americans who say: "A class struggle is monstrous. Sir, there is no class struggle." The class

struggle is here, and the optimistic American had better gird himself for the fray and put a stop to it, rather

But the socialists, fanatics and dreamers though they may well be, betray a foresight and insight, and a genius

for organization, which put to shame the class with which they are openly at war. Failing of rapid success in

waging a sheer political propaganda, and finding that they were alienating the most intelligent and most

easily organized portion of the voters, the socialists lessoned from the experience and turned their energies

upon the tradeunion movement. To win the trade unions was wellnigh to win the war, and recent events

show that they have done far more 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 good socialist join the union of his trade," the edict went forth. "Bore from

within and capture the tradeunion movement." And this policy, only several years old, has reaped fruits far

beyond their fondest expectations. Today the great labor unions are honeycombed with socialists, "boring

from within," as they picturesquely term their undermining labor. At work and at play, at business meeting

and council, their insidious propaganda goes on. At the shoulder of the tradeunionist is the socialist,

sympathizing with him, aiding him with head and hand, suggestingperpetually suggestingthe necessity

for political action. As the JOURNAL, of Lansing, Michigan, a republican paper, has remarked: "The

socialists in the labor unions are tireless workers. They are sincere, energetic, and selfsacrificing. . . . They

stick to the union and work all the while, thus making a showing which, reckoned by ordinary standards, is

out of all proportion to their numbers. Their cause is growing among union laborers, and their long fight,

intended to turn the Federation into a political organization, is likely to win."

They miss no opportunity of driving home the necessity for political action, the necessity for capturing the

political machinery of society whereby they may master society. As an instance of this is the avidity with

which the American socialists seized upon the famous TaftVale Decision in England, which was to the

effect that an unincorporated union could be sued and its treasury rifled by process of law. Throughout the

United States, the socialists pointed the moral in similar fashion to the way it was pointed by the

SocialDemocratic Herald, which advised the tradeunionists, in view of the decision, to stop trying to fight

capital with money, which they lacked, and to begin fighting with the ballot, which was their strongest

Night and day, tireless and unrelenting, they labor at their self imposed task of undermining society. Mr. M.

G. Cunniff, who lately made an intimate study of tradeunionism, says: "All through the unions socialism

filters. Almost every other man is a socialist, preaching that unionism is but a makeshift." "Malthus be

damned," they told him, "for the good time was coming when every man should be able to rear his family in

comfort." In one union, with two thousand members, Mr. Cunniff found every man a socialist, and from his

experiences Mr. Cunniff was forced to confess, "I lived in a world that showed our industrial life atremble

The socialists have already captured the Western Federation of Miners, the Western Hotel and Restaurant

Employees' Union, and the Patternmakers' National Association. The Western Federation of Miners, at a

recent convention, declared: "The strike has failed to secure to the working classes their liberty; we therefore

call upon the workers to strike as one man for their liberties at the ballot box. . . . We put ourselves on record

as committed to the programme of independent political action. . . . We indorse the platform of the socialist

party, and accept it as the declaration of principles of our organization. We call upon our members as

individuals to commence immediately the organization of the socialist movement in their respective towns

and states, and to cooperate in every way for the furtherance of the principles of socialism and of the socialist

party. In states where the socialist party has not perfected its organization, we advise that every assistance be

given by our members to that end. . . . We therefore call for organizers, capable and wellversed in the whole

programme of the labor movement, to be sent into each state to preach the necessity of organization on the

The capitalist class has a glimmering consciousness of the class struggle which is shaping itself in the midst

of society; but the capitalists, as a class, seem to lack the ability for organizing, for coming together, such as

is possessed by the working class. No American capitalist ever aids an English capitalist in the common fight,

while workmen have formed international unions, the socialists a worldwide international organization, and

on all sides space and race are bridged in the effort to achieve solidarity. Resolutions of sympathy, and, fully

as important, donations of money, pass back and forth across the sea to wherever labor is fighting its pitched

For divers reasons, the capitalist class lacks this cohesion or solidarity, chief among which is the optimism

bred of past success. And, again, the capitalist class is divided; it has within itself a class struggle of no mean

proportions, which tends to irritate and harass it and to confuse the situation. The small capitalist and the

large capitalist are grappled with each other, struggling over what Achille Loria calls the "bipartition of the

revenues." Such a struggle, though not precisely analogous, was waged between the landlords and

manufacturers of England when the one brought about the passage of the Factory Acts and the other the

Here and there, however, certain members of the capitalist class see clearly the cleavage in society along

which the struggle is beginning to show itself, while the press and magazines are beginning to raise an

occasional and troubled voice. Two leagues of classconscious capitalists have been formed for the purpose

of carrying on their side of the struggle. Like the socialists, they do not mince matters, but state boldly and

plainly that they are fighting to subjugate the opposing class. It is the barons against the commons. One of

these leagues, the National Association of Manufacturers, is stopping short of nothing in what it conceives to

be a lifeanddeath struggle. Mr. D. M. Parry, who is the president of the league, as well as president of the

National Metal Trades' Association, is leaving no stone unturned in what he feels to be a desperate effort to

organize his class. He has issued the call to arms in terms everything but ambiguous: "THERE IS STILL

As he says, the work is for "federating employers in order that we may meet with a united front all issues that

affect us. We must come to this sooner or later. . . . The work immediately before the National Association of

Manufacturers is, first, KEEP THE VICIOUS EIGHTHOUR BILL OFF THE BOOKS; second, to

DESTROY THE ANTI INJUNCTION BILL, which wrests your business from you and places it in the

hands of your employees; third, to secure the PASSAGE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND

INDUSTRY BILL; the latter would go through with a rush were it not for the hectoring opposition of

Organized Labor." By this department, he further says, "business interests would have direct and sympathetic

In a later letter, issued broadcast to the capitalists outside the League, President Parry points out the success

which is already beginning to attend the efforts of the League at Washington. "We have contributed more

than any other influence to the quick passage of the new Department of Commerce Bill. It is said that the

activities of this office are numerous and satisfactory; but of that I must not say too muchor anything. . . .

At Washington the Association is not represented too much, either directly or indirectly. Sometimes it is

known in a most powerful way that it is represented vigorously and unitedly. Sometimes it is not known that

The second classconscious capitalist organization is called the National Economic League. It likewise

manifests the frankness of men who do not dillydally with terms, but who say what they mean, and who

mean to settle down to a long, hard fight. Their letter of invitation to prospective members opens boldly. "We

beg to inform you that the National Economic League will render its services in an impartial educational

movement TO OPPOSE SOCIALISM AND CLASS HATRED." Among its classconscious members, men

who recognize that the opening guns of the class struggle have been fired, may be instanced the following

names: Hon. Lyman J. Gage, ExSecretary U. S. Treasury; Hon. Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, ExMinister to

France; Rev. Henry C. Potter, Bishop New York Diocese; Hon. John D. Long, ExSecretary U. S. Navy;

Hon. Levi P. Morton, ExVice President United States; Henry Clews; John F. Dryden, President Prudential

Life Insurance Co.; John A. McCall, President New York Life Insurance Co.; J. L. Greatsinger, President

Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co.; the shipbuilding firm of William Cramp Sons, the Southern Railway system,

Instances of the troubled editorial voice have not been rare during the last several years. There were many

cries from the press during the last days of the anthracite coal strike that the mine owners, by their

stubbornness, were sowing the regrettable seeds of socialism. The World's Work for December, 1902, said:

"The next significant fact is the recommendation by the Illinois State Federation of Labor that all members of

labor unions who are also members of the state militia shall resign from the militia. This proposition has been

favorably regarded by some other labor organizations. It has done more than any other single recent

declaration or action to cause a public distrust of such unions as favor it. IT HINTS OF A CLASS

The OUTLOOK, February 14, 1903, in reference to the rioting at Waterbury, remarks, "That all this disorder

should have occurred in a city of the character and intelligence of Waterbury indicates that the industrial war

That President Roosevelt has smelt the smoke from the firing line of the class struggle is evidenced by his

words, "Above all we need to remember that any kind of CLASS ANIMOSITY IN THE POLITICAL

WORLD is, if possible, even more destructive to national welfare than sectional, race, or religious

animosity." The chief thing to be noted here is President Roosevelt's tacit recognition of class animosity in

the industrial world, and his fear, which language cannot portray stronger, that this class animosity may

spread to the political world. Yet this is the very policy which the socialists have announced in their

declaration of war against presentday societyto capture the political machinery of society and by that

The New York Independent for February 12, 1903, recognized without qualification the class struggle. "It is

impossible fairly to pass upon the methods of labor unions, or to devise plans for remedying their abuses,

until it is recognized, to begin with, that unions are based upon class antagonism and that their policies are

dictated by the necessities of social warfare. A strike is a rebellion against the owners of property. The rights

of property are protected by government. And a strike, under certain provocation, may extend as far as did the

general strike in Belgium a few years since, when practically the entire wageearning population stopped

work in order to force political concessions from the propertyowning classes. This is an extreme case, but it

brings out vividly the real nature of labor organization as a species of warfare whose object is the coercion of

It has been shown, theoretically and actually, that there is a class struggle in the United States. The quarrel

over the division of the joint product is irreconcilable. The working class is no longer losing its strongest and

most capable members. These men, denied room for their ambition in the capitalist ranks, remain to be the

leaders of the workers, to spur them to discontent, to make them conscious of their class, to lead them to

This revolt, appearing spontaneously all over the industrial field in the form of demands for an increased

share of the joint product, is being carefully and shrewdly shaped for a political assault upon society. The

leaders, with the carelessness of fatalists, do not hesitate for an instant to publish their intentions to the world.

They intend to direct the labor revolt to the capture of the political machinery of society. With the political

machinery once in their hands, which will also give them the control of the police, the army, the navy, and

the courts, they will confiscate, with or without remuneration, all the possessions of the capitalist class which

are used in the production and distribution of the necessaries and luxuries of life. By this, they mean to apply

the law of eminent domain to the land, and to extend the law of eminent domain till it embraces the mines,

the factories, the railroads, and the ocean carriers. In short, they intend to destroy presentday society, which

they contend is run in the interest of another class, and from the materials to construct a new society, which

On the other hand, the capitalist class is beginning to grow conscious of itself and of the struggle which is

being waged. It is already forming offensive and defensive leagues, while some of the most prominent figures

The question to be solved is not one of Malthusianism, "projected efficiency," nor ethics. It is a question of

might. Whichever class is to win, will win by virtue of superior strength; for the workers are beginning to

say, as they said to Mr. Cunniff, "Malthus be damned." In their own minds they find no sanction for

continuing the individual struggle for the survival of the fittest. As Mr. Gompers has said, they want more,

and more, and more. The ethical import of Mr. Kidd's plan of the present generation putting up with less in

order that race efficiency may be projected into a remote future, has no bearing upon their actions. They

It remains to be seen how promptly the capitalist class will respond to the call to arms. Upon its promptness

rests its existence, for if it sits idly by, soothfully proclaiming that what ought not to be cannot be, it will find

the roof beams crashing about its head. The capitalist class is in the numerical minority, and bids fair to be

outvoted if it does not put a stop to the vast propaganda being waged by its enemy. It is no longer a question

of whether or not there is a class struggle. The question now is, what will be the outcome of the class

Mr. Francis O'Neil, General Superintendent of Police, Chicago, speaking of the tramp, says: "Despite the

most stringent police regulations, a great city will have a certain number of homeless vagrants to shelter

through the winter." "Despite,"mark the word, a confession of organized helplessness as against

unorganized necessity. If police regulations are stringent and yet fail, then that which makes them fail,

namely, the tramp, must have still more stringent reasons for succeeding. This being so, it should be of

interest to inquire into these reasons, to attempt to discover why the nameless and homeless vagrant sets at

naught the right arm of the corporate power of our great cities, why all that is weak and worthless is stronger

Mr. O'Neil is a man of wide experience on the subject of tramps. He may be called a specialist. As he says of

himself: "As an oldtime desk sergeant and police captain, I have had almost unlimited opportunity to study

and analyze this class of floating population, which seeks the city in winter and scatters abroad through the

country in the spring." He then continues: "This experience reiterated the lesson that the vast majority of

these wanderers are of the class with whom a life of vagrancy is a chosen means of living without work." Not

only is it to be inferred from this that there is a large class in society which lives without work, for Mr.

O'Neil's testimony further shows that this class is forced to live without work.

He says: "I have been astonished at the multitude of those who have unfortunately engaged in occupations

which practically force them to become loafers for at least a third of the year. And it is from this class that the

tramps are largely recruited. I recall a certain winter when it seemed to me that a large portion of the

inhabitants of Chicago belonged to this army of unfortunates. I was stationed at a police station not far from

where an ice harvest was ready for the cutters. The ice company advertised for helpers, and the very night this

call appeared in the newspapers our station was packed with homeless men, who asked shelter in order to be

at hand for the morning's work. Every foot of floor space was given over to these lodgers and scores were

And again: "And it must be confessed that the man who is willing to do honest labor for food and shelter is a

rare specimen in this vast army of shabby and tattered wanderers who seek the warmth of the city with the

coming of the first snow." Taking into consideration the crowd of honest laborers that swamped Mr. O'Neil's

stationhouse on the way to the icecutting, it is patent, if all tramps were looking for honest labor instead of

a small minority, that the honest laborers would have a far harder task finding something honest to do for

food and shelter. If the opinion of the honest laborers who swamped Mr. O'Neil's stationhouse were asked,

one could rest confident that each and every man would express a preference for fewer honest laborers on the

And, finally, Mr. O'Neil says: "The humane and generous treatment which this city has accorded the great

army of homeless unfortunates has made it the victim of wholesale imposition, and this well intended policy

of kindness has resulted in making Chicago the winter Mecca of a vast and undesirable floating population."

That is to say, because of her kindness, Chicago had more than her fair share of tramps; because she was

humane and generous she suffered wholesale imposition. From this we must conclude that it does not do to

be HUMANE and GENEROUS to our fellowmenwhen they are tramps. Mr. O'Neil is right, and that this

In a general way we may draw the following inferences from the remarks of Mr. O'Neil: (1) The tramp is

stronger than organized society and cannot be put down; (2) The tramp is "shabby," "tattered," "homeless,"

"unfortunate"; (3) There is a "vast" number of tramps; (4) Very few tramps are willing to do honest work; (5)

Those tramps who are willing to do honest work have to hunt very hard to find it; (6) The tramp is

To this last let the contention be appended that the tramp is only PERSONALLY undesirable; that he is

NEGATIVELY desirable; that the function he performs in society is a negative function; and that he is the

It is very easy to demonstrate that there are more men than there is work for men to do. For instance, what

would happen tomorrow if one hundred thousand tramps should become suddenly inspired with an

overmastering desire for work? It is a fair question. "Go to work" is preached to the tramp every day of his

life. The judge on the bench, the pedestrian in the street, the housewife at the kitchen door, all unite in

advising him to go to work. So what would happen tomorrow if one hundred thousand tramps acted upon this

advice and strenuously and indomitably sought work? Why, by the end of the week one hundred thousand

workers, their places taken by the tramps, would receive their time and be "hitting the road" for a job.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox unwittingly and uncomfortably demonstrated the disparity between men and work. {1}

She made a casual reference, in a newspaper column she conducts, to the difficulty two business men found

in obtaining good employees. The first morning mail brought her seventyfive applications for the position,

Still more strikingly was the same proposition recently demonstrated in San Francisco. A sympathetic strike

called out a whole federation of trades' unions. Thousands of men, in many branches of trade, quit

work,draymen, sand teamsters, porters and packers, longshoremen, stevedores, warehousemen, stationary

engineers, sailors, marine firemen, stewards, seacooks, and so forth,an interminable list. It was a strike of

large proportions. Every Pacific coast shipping city was involved, and the entire coasting service, from San

Diego to Puget Sound, was virtually tied up. The time was considered auspicious. The Philippines and Alaska

had drained the Pacific coast of surplus labor. It was summertime, when the agricultural demand for

laborers was at its height, and when the cities were bare of their floating populations. And yet there remained

a body of surplus labor sufficient to take the places of the strikers. No matter what occupation, seacook or

stationary engineer, sand teamster or warehouseman, in every case there was an idle worker ready to do the

work. And not only ready but anxious. They fought for a chance to work. Men were killed, hundreds of heads

were broken, the hospitals were filled with injured men, and thousands of assaults were committed. And still

The question arises: WHENCE CAME THIS SECOND ARMY OF WORKERS TO REPLACE THE FIRST

ARMY? One thing is certain: the trades' unions did not scab on one another. Another thing is certain: no

industry on the Pacific slope was crippled in the slightest degree by its workers being drawn away to fill the

places of the strikers. A third thing is certain: the agricultural workers did not flock to the cities to replace the

strikers. In this last instance it is worth while to note that the agricultural laborers wailed to High Heaven

when a few of the strikers went into the country to compete with them in unskilled employments. So there is

no accounting for this second army of workers. It simply was. It was there all this time, a surplus labor army

in the year of our Lord 1901, a year adjudged most prosperous in the annals of the United States. {2}

The existence of the surplus labor army being established, there remains to be established the economic

necessity for the surplus labor army. The simplest and most obvious need is that brought about by the

fluctuation of production. If, when production is at low ebb, all men are at work, it necessarily follows that

when production increases there will be no men to do the increased work. This may seem almost childish,

and, if not childish, at least easily remedied. At low ebb let the men work shorter time; at high flood let them

work overtime. The main objection to this is, that it is not done, and that we are considering what is, not what

Then there are great irregular and periodical demands for labor which must be met. Under the first head come

all the big building and engineering enterprises. When a canal is to be dug or a railroad put through, requiring

thousands of laborers, it would be hurtful to withdraw these laborers from the constant industries. And

whether it is a canal to be dug or a cellar, whether five thousand men are required or five, it is well, in society

as at present organized, that they be taken from the surplus labor army. The surplus labor army is the reserve

Under the second head, periodical demands, come the harvests. Throughout the year, huge labor tides sweep

back and forth across the United States. That which is sown and tended by few men, comes to sudden

ripeness and must be gathered by many men; and it is inevitable that these many men form floating

populations. In the late spring the berries must be picked, in the summer the grain garnered, in the fall, the

hops gathered, in the winter the ice harvested. In California a man may pick berries in Siskiyou, peaches in

Santa Clara, grapes in the San Joaquin, and oranges in Los Angeles, going from job to job as the season

advances, and travelling a thousand miles ere the season is done. But the great demand for agricultural labor

is in the summer. In the winter, work is slack, and these floating populations eddy into the cities to eke out a

precarious existence and harrow the souls of the police officers until the return of warm weather and work. If

there were constant work at good wages for every man, who would harvest the crops?

But the last and most significant need for the surplus labor army remains to be stated. This surplus labor acts

as a check upon all employed labor. It is the lash by which the masters hold the workers to their tasks, or

drive them back to their tasks when they have revolted. It is the goad which forces the workers into the

compulsory "free contracts" against which they now and again rebel. There is only one reason under the sun

that strikes fail, and that is because there are always plenty of men to take the strikers' places.

The strength of the union today, other things remaining equal, is proportionate to the skill of the trade, or, in

other words, proportionate to the pressure the surplus labor army can put upon it. If a thousand ditchdiggers

strike, it is easy to replace them, wherefore the ditchdiggers have little or no organized strength. But a

thousand highly skilled machinists are somewhat harder to replace, and in consequence the machinist unions

are strong. The ditchdiggers are wholly at the mercy of the surplus labor army, the machinists only partly.

To be invincible, a union must be a monopoly. It must control every man in its particular trade, and regulate

apprentices so that the supply of skilled workmen may remain constant; this is the dream of the "Labor Trust"

Once, in England, after the Great Plague, labor awoke to find there was more work for men than there were

men to work. Instead of workers competing for favors from employers, employers were competing for favors

from the workers. Wages went up and up, and continued to go up, until the workers demanded the full

product of their toil. Now it is clear that, when labor receives its full product capital must perish. And so the

pygmy capitalists of that postPlague day found their existence threatened by this untoward condition of

affairs. To save themselves, they set a maximum wage, restrained the workers from moving about from place

to place, smashed incipient organization, refused to tolerate idlers, and by most barbarous legal penalties

The point of this, of course, is to demonstrate the need of the surplus labor army. Without such an army, our

present capitalist society would be powerless. Labor would organize as it never organized before, and the last

least worker would be gathered into the unions. The full product of toil would be demanded, and capitalist

society would crumble away. Nor could capitalist society save itself as did the postPlague capitalist society.

The time is past when a handful of masters, by imprisonment and barbarous punishment, can drive the

legions of the workers to their tasks. Without a surplus labor army, the courts, police, and military are

impotent. In such matters the function of the courts, police, and military is to preserve order, and to fill the

places of strikers with surplus labor. If there be no surplus labor to instate, there is no function to perform; for

disorder arises only during the process of instatement, when the striking labor army and the surplus labor

army clash together. That is to say, that which maintains the integrity of the present industrial society more

It has been shown that there are more men than there is work for men, and that the surplus labor army is an

economic necessity. To show how the tramp is a byproduct of this economic necessity, it is necessary to

inquire into the composition of the surplus labor army. What men form it? Why are they there? What do they

In the first place, since the workers must compete for employment, it inevitably follows that it is the fit and

efficient who find employment. The skilled worker holds his place by virtue of his skill and efficiency. Were

he less skilled, or were he unreliable or erratic, he would be swiftly replaced by a stronger competitor. The

skilled and steady employments are not cumbered with clowns and idiots. A man finds his place according to

his ability and the needs of the system, and those without ability, or incapable of satisfying the needs of the

system, have no place. Thus, the poor telegrapher may develop into an excellent woodchopper. But if the

poor telegrapher cherishes the delusion that he is a good telegrapher, and at the same time disdains all other

employments, he will have no employment at all, or he will be so poor at all other employments that he will

work only now and again in lieu of better men. He will be among the first let off when times are dull, and

among the last taken on when times are good. Or, to the point, he will be a member of the surplus labor army.

So the conclusion is reached that the less fit and less efficient, or the unfit and inefficient, compose the

surplus labor army. Here are to be found the men who have tried and failed, the men who cannot hold

jobs,the plumber apprentice who could not become a journeyman, and the plumber journeyman too clumsy

and dull to retain employment; switchmen who wreck trains; clerks who cannot balance books; blacksmiths

who lame horses; lawyers who cannot plead; in short, the failures of every trade and profession, and failures,

many of them, in divers trades and professions. Failure is writ large, and in their wretchedness they bear the

stamp of social disapprobation. Common work, any kind of work, wherever or however they can obtain it, is

But these hereditary inefficients do not alone compose the surplus labor army. There are the skilled but

unsteady and unreliable men; and the old men, once skilled, but, with dwindling powers, no longer skilled.

{3} And there are good men, too, splendidly skilled and efficient, but thrust out of the employment of dying

or disaster smitten industries. In this connection it is not out of place to note the misfortune of the workers

in the British iron trades, who are suffering because of American inroads. And, last of all, are the unskilled

laborers, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, the ditchdiggers, the men of pick and shovel, the

helpers, lumpers, roustabouts. If trade is slack on a seacoast of two thousand miles, or the harvests are light in

a great interior valley, myriads of these laborers lie idle, or make life miserable for their fellows in kindred

A constant filtration goes on in the working world, and good material is continually drawn from the surplus

labor army. Strikes and industrial dislocations shake up the workers, bring good men to the surface and sink

men as good or not so good. The hope of the skilled striker is in that the scabs are less skilled, or less capable

of becoming skilled; yet each strike attests to the efficiency that lurks beneath. After the Pullman strike, a few

thousand railroad men were chagrined to find the work they had flung down taken up by men as good as

But one thing must be considered here. Under the present system, if the weakest and least fit were as strong

and fit as the best, and the best were correspondingly stronger and fitter, the same condition would obtain.

There would be the same army of employed labor, the same army of surplus labor. The whole thing is

Comes now the tramp. And all conclusions may be anticipated by saying at once that he is a tramp because

some one has to be a tramp. If he left the "road" and became a VERY efficient common laborer, some

ORDINARILY EFFICIENT common laborer would have to take to the "road." The nooks and crannies are

crowded by the surplus laborers; and when the first snow flies, and the tramps are driven into the cities,

The tramp is one of two kinds of men: he is either a discouraged worker or a discouraged criminal. Now a

discouraged criminal, on investigation, proves to be a discouraged worker, or the descendant of discouraged

workers; so that, in the last analysis, the tramp is a discouraged worker. Since there is not work for all,

discouragement for some is unavoidable. How, then, does this process of discouragement operate?

The lower the employment in the industrial scale, the harder the conditions. The finer, the more delicate, the

more skilled the trade, the higher is it lifted above the struggle. There is less pressure, less sordidness, less

savagery. There are fewer glass blowers proportionate to the needs of the glassblowing industry than there

are ditchdiggers proportionate to the needs of the ditchdigging industry. And not only this, for it requires a

glass blower to take the place of a striking glassblower, while any kind of a striker or outofwork can

take the place of a ditchdigger. So the skilled trades are more independent, have more individuality and

latitude. They may confer with their masters, make demands, assert themselves. The unskilled laborers, on

the other hand, have no voice in their affairs. The settlement of terms is none of their business. "Free

contract" is all that remains to them. They may take what is offered, or leave it. There are plenty more of their

kind. They do not count. They are members of the surplus labor army, and must be content with a

The reward is likewise proportioned. The strong, fit worker in a skilled trade, where there is little labor

pressure, is well compensated. He is a king compared with his less fortunate brothers in the unskilled

occupations where the labor pressure is great. The mediocre worker not only is forced to be idle a large

portion of the time, but when employed is forced to accept a pittance. A dollar a day on some days and

nothing on other days will hardly support a man and wife and send children to school. And not only do the

masters bear heavily upon him, and his own kind struggle for the morsel at his mouth, but all skilled and

organized labor adds to his woe. Union men do not scab on one another, but in strikes, or when work is slack,

it is considered "fair" for them to descend and take away the work of the common laborers. And take it away

they do; for, as a matter of fact, a wellfed, ambitious machinist or a coremaker will transiently shovel coal

Thus there is no encouragement for the unfit, inefficient, and mediocre. Their very inefficiency and

mediocrity make them helpless as cattle and add to their misery. And the whole tendency for such is

downward, until, at the bottom of the social pit, they are wretched, inarticulate beasts, living like beasts,

breeding like beasts, dying like beasts. And how do they fare, these creatures born mediocre, whose heritage

is neither brains nor brawn nor endurance? They are sweated in the slums in an atmosphere of

discouragement and despair. There is no strength in weakness, no encouragement in foul air, vile food, and

dank dens. They are there because they are so made that they are not fit to be higher up; but filth and

obscenity do not strengthen the neck, nor does chronic emptiness of belly stiffen the back.

For the mediocre there is no hope. Mediocrity is a sin. Poverty is the penalty of failure,poverty, from

whose loins spring the criminal and the tramp, both failures, both discouraged workers. Poverty is the inferno

where ignorance festers and vice corrodes, and where the physical, mental, and moral parts of nature are

That the charge of rashness in splashing the picture be not incurred, let the following authoritative evidence

be considered: first, the work and wages of mediocrity and inefficiency, and, second, the habitat:

The New York Sun of February 28, 1901, describes the opening of a factory in New York City by the

American Tobacco Company. Cheroots were to be made in this factory in competition with other factories

which refused to be absorbed by the trust. The trust advertised for girls. The crowd of men and boys who

wanted work was so great in front of the building that the police were forced with their clubs to clear them

away. The wage paid the girls was $2.50 per week, sixty cents of which went for car fare. {4}

Miss Nellie Mason Auten, a graduate student of the department of sociology at the University of Chicago,

recently made a thorough investigation of the garment trades of Chicago. Her figures were published in the

American Journal of Sociology, and commented upon by the Literary Digest. She found women working ten

hours a day, six days a week, for forty cents per week (a rate of twothirds of a cent an hour). Many women

earned less than a dollar a week, and none of them worked every week. The following table will best

Industry Average Average Average Individual Number of Yearly Weekly Weeks Earnings Wages Employed

Dressmakers $.90 42. $37.00 PantsFinishers 1.31 27.58 42.41 Housewives and 1.58 30.21 47.49

PantsFinishers Seamstresses 2.03 32.78 64.10 Pantsmakers 2.13 30.77 75.61 Miscellaneous 2.77 29. 81.80

Walter A. Wyckoff, who is as great an authority upon the worker as Josiah Flynt is on the tramp, furnishes

"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 wouldbe 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 bluewhite 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, in the block bounded by Stanton,

Houston, Attorney, and Ridge streets, the size of which is 200 by 300, there is a warren of 2244 human

In the block bounded by Sixtyfirst and Sixtysecond streets, and Amsterdam and West End avenues, are

over four thousand human creatures,quite a comfortable New England village to crowd into one city block.

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 feet high, it was found that nine persons slept and prepared their food. . . . In

another room, located in a dark cellar, without screens or partitions, were together two men with their wives

and a girl of fourteen, two single men and a boy of seventeen, two women and four boys,nine, ten, eleven,

Here humanity rots. Its victims, with grim humor, call it "tenant house rot." Or, as a legislative report puts

it: "Here infantile life unfolds its bud, but perishes before its first anniversary. Here youth is ugly with

These are the men and women who are what they are because they were not better born, or because they

happened to be unluckily born in time and space. Gauged by the needs of the system, they are weak and

worthless. The hospital and the pauper's grave await them, and they offer no encouragement to the mediocre

worker who has failed higher up in the industrial structure. Such a worker, conscious that he has failed,

conscious from the hard fact that he cannot obtain work in the higher employments, finds several courses

open to him. He may come down and be a beast in the social pit, for instance; but if he be of a certain caliber,

the effect of the social pit will be to discourage him from work. In his blood a rebellion will quicken, and he

If he have fought the hard fight he is not unacquainted with the lure of the "road." When out of work and still

undiscouraged, he has been forced to "hit the road" between large cities in his quest for a job. He has loafed,

seen the country and green things, laughed in joy, lain on his back and listened to the birds singing overhead,

unannoyed by factory whistles and bosses' harsh commands; and, most significant of all, HE HAS LIVED!

That is the point! He has not starved to death. Not only has he been carefree and happy, but he has lived!

And from the knowledge that he has idled and is still alive, he achieves a new outlook on life; and the more

he experiences the unenviable lot of the poor worker, the more the blandishments of the "road" take hold of

him. And finally he flings his challenge in the face of society, imposes a valorous boycott on all work, and

But the tramp does not usually come from the slums. His place of birth is ordinarily a bit above, and

sometimes a very great bit above. A confessed failure, he yet refuses to accept the punishment, and swerves

aside from the slum to vagabondage. The average beast in the social pit is either too much of a beast, or too

much of a slave to the bourgeois ethics and ideals of his masters, to manifest this flicker of rebellion. But the

social pit, out of its discouragement and viciousness, breeds criminals, men who prefer being beasts of prey

to being beasts of work. And the mediocre criminal, in turn, the unfit and inefficient criminal, is discouraged

These men, the discouraged worker and the discouraged criminal, voluntarily withdraw themselves from the

struggle for work. Industry does not need them. There are no factories shut down through lack of labor, no

projected railroads unbuilt for want of pickandshovel men. Women are still glad to toil for a dollar a week,

and men and boys to clamor and fight for work at the factory gates. No one misses these discouraged men,

So the case stands thus: There being more men than there is work for men to do, a surplus labor army

inevitably results. The surplus labor army is an economic necessity; without it, present society would fall to

pieces. Into the surplus labor army are herded the mediocre, the inefficient, the unfit, and those incapable of

satisfying the industrial needs of the system. The struggle for work between the members of the surplus labor

army is sordid and savage, and at the bottom of the social pit the struggle is vicious and beastly. This struggle

tends to discouragement, and the victims of this discouragement are the criminal and the tramp. The tramp is

not an economic necessity such as the surplus labor army, but he is the byproduct of an economic necessity.

The "road" is one of the safetyvalves through which the waste of the social organism is given off. And

BEING GIVEN OFF constitutes the negative function of the tramp. Society, as at present organized, makes

much waste of human life. This waste must be eliminated. Chloroform or electrocution would be a simple,

merciful solution of this problem of elimination; but the ruling ethics, while permitting the human waste, will

not permit a humane elimination of that waste. This paradox demonstrates the irreconcilability of theoretical

And so the tramp becomes selfeliminating. And not only self! Since he is manifestly unfit for things as they

are, and since kind is prone to beget kind, it is necessary that his kind cease with him, that his progeny shall

not be, that he play the eunuch's part in this twentieth century after Christ. And he plays it. He does not breed.

Sterility is his portion, as it is the portion of the woman on the street. They might have been mates, but

And, while it is not nice that these men should die, it is ordained that they must die, and we should not

quarrel with them if they cumber our highways and kitchen stoops with their perambulating carcasses. This is

a form of elimination we not only countenance but compel. Therefore let us be cheerful and honest about it.

Let us be as stringent as we please with our police regulations, but for goodness' sake let us refrain from

telling the tramp to go to work. Not only is it unkind, but it is untrue and hypocritical. We know there is no

work for him. As the scapegoat to our economic and industrial sinning, or to the plan of things, if you will,

we should give him credit. Let us be just. He is so made. Society made him. He did not make himself.

In a competitive society, where men struggle with one another for food and shelter, what is more natural than

that generosity, when it diminishes the food and shelter of men other than he who is generous, should be held

an accursed thing? Wise old saws to the contrary, he who takes from a man's purse takes from his existence.

To strike at a man's food and shelter is to strike at his life; and in a society organized on a toothandnail

basis, such an act, performed though it may be under the guise of generosity, is none the less menacing and

It is for this reason that a laborer is so fiercely hostile to another laborer who offers to work for less pay or

longer hours. To hold his place, (which is to live), he must offset this offer by another equally liberal, which

is equivalent to giving away somewhat from the food and shelter he enjoys. To sell his day's work for $2,

instead of $2.50, means that he, his wife, and his children will not have so good a roof over their heads, so

warm clothes on their backs, so substantial food in their stomachs. Meat will be bought less frequently and it

will be tougher and less nutritious, stout new shoes will go less often on the children's feet, and disease and

Thus the generous laborer, giving more of a day's work for less return, (measured in terms of food and

shelter), threatens the life of his less generous brother laborer, and at the best, if he does not destroy that life,

he diminishes it. Whereupon the less generous laborer looks upon him as an enemy, and, as men are inclined

to do in a toothandnail society, 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 has no sense of wrongdoing. In the

deepest holds of his being, though he does not reason the impulse, he has an ethical sanction. He feels dimly

that he has justification, just as the homedefending Boer felt, though more sharply, with each bullet he fired

at the invading English. Behind every brick thrown by a striker is the selfish will "to live" of himself, and the

slightly altruistic will "to live" of his family. The family group came into the world before the State group,

and society, being still on the primitive basis of tooth and nail, the will "to live" of the State is not so

In addition to the use of bricks, clubs, and bullets, the selfish laborer finds it necessary to express his feelings

in speech. Just as the peaceful countrydweller calls the searover a "pirate," and the stout burgher calls the

man who breaks into his strongbox a "robber," so the selfish laborer applies the opprobrious epithet a "scab"

to the laborer who takes from him food and shelter by being more generous in the disposal of his labor power.

The sentimental connotation of "scab" is as terrific as that of "traitor" or "Judas," and a sentimental definition

would be as deep and varied as the human heart. It is far easier to arrive at what may be called a technical

definition, worded in commercial terms, as, for instance, that A SCAB IS ONE WHO GIVES MORE

The laborer who gives more time or strength or skill for the same wage than another, or equal time or strength

or skill for a less wage, is a scab. This generousness on his part is hurtful to his fellowlaborers, for it

compels them to an equal generousness which is not to their liking, and which gives them less of food and

shelter. But a word may be said for the scab. Just as his act makes his rivals compulsorily generous, so do

they, by fortune of birth and training, make compulsory his act of generousness. He does not scab because he

wants to scab. No whim of the spirit, no burgeoning of the heart, leads him to give more of his labor power

It is because he cannot get work on the same terms as they that he is a scab. There is less work than there are

men to do work. This is patent, else the scab would not loom so large on the labormarket horizon. Because

they are stronger than he, or more skilled, or more energetic, it is impossible for him to take their places at the

same wage. To take their places he must give more value, must work longer hours or receive a smaller wage.

He does so, and he cannot help it, for his will "to live" is driving him on as well as they are being driven on

by their will "to live"; and to live he must win food and shelter, which he can do only by receiving permission

to work from some man who owns a bit of land or a piece of machinery. And to receive permission from this

Viewed in this light, the scab, who gives more labor power for a certain price than his fellows, is not so

generous after all. He is no more generous with his energy than the chattel slave and the convict laborer, who,

by the way, are the almost perfect scabs. They give their labor power for about the minimum possible price.

But, within limits, they may loaf and malinger, and, as scabs, are exceeded by the machine, which never loafs

It is not nice to be a scab. Not only is it not in good social taste and comradeship, but, from the standpoint of

food and shelter, it is bad business policy. Nobody desires to scab, to give most for least. The ambition of

every individual is quite the opposite, to give least for most; and, as a result, living in a toothandnail

society, battle royal is waged by the ambitious individuals. But in its most salient aspect, that of the struggle

over the division of the joint product, it is no longer a battle between individuals, but between groups of

individuals. Capital and labor apply themselves to raw material, make something useful out of it, add to its

value, and then proceed to quarrel over the division of the added value. Neither cares to give most for least.

Labor combines into its unions, capital into partnerships, associations, corporations, and trusts. A

groupstruggle is the result, in which the individuals, as individuals, play no part. The Brotherhood of

Carpenters and Joiners, for instance, serves notice on the Master Builders' Association that it demands an

increase of the wage of its members from $3.50 a day to $4, and a Saturday half holiday without pay. This

means that the carpenters are trying to give less for more. Where they received $21 for six full days, they are

endeavoring to get $22 for five days and a half,that is, they will work half a day less each week and

Also, they expect the Saturday halfholiday to give work to one additional man for each eleven previously

employed. This last affords a splendid example of the development of the group idea. In this particular

struggle the individual has no chance at all for life. The individual carpenter would be crushed like a mote by

the Master Builders' Association, and like a mote the individual master builder would be crushed by the

In the groupstruggle over the division of the joint product, labor utilizes the union with its two great

weapons, the strike and the boycott; while capital utilizes the trust and the association, the weapons of which

are the blacklist, the lockout, and the scab. The scab is by far the most formidable weapon of the three. He is

the man who breaks strikes and causes all the trouble. Without him there would be no trouble, for the strikers

are willing to remain out peacefully and indefinitely so long as other men are not in their places, and so long

as the particular aggregation of capital with which they are fighting is eating its head off in enforced idleness.

But both warring groups have reserve weapons. Were it not for the scab, these weapons would not be brought

into play. But the scab takes the place of the striker, who begins at once to wield a most powerful weapon,

terrorism. The will "to live" of the scab recoils from the menace of broken bones and violent death. With all

due respect to the labor leaders, who are not to be blamed for volubly asseverating otherwise, terrorism is a

welldefined and eminently successful policy of the labor unions. It has probably won them more strikes than

all the rest of the weapons in their arsenal. This terrorism, however, must be clearly understood. It is directed

solely against the scab, placing him in such fear for life and limb as to drive him out of the contest. But when

terrorism gets out of hand and inoffensive noncombatants are injured, law and order threatened, and

property destroyed, it becomes an edged tool that cuts both ways. This sort of terrorism is sincerely deplored

by the labor leaders, for it has probably lost them as many strikes as have been lost by any other single cause.

The scab is powerless under terrorism. As a rule, he is not so good nor gritty a man as the men he is

displacing, and he lacks their fighting organization. He stands in dire need of stiffening and backing. His

employers, the capitalists, draw their two remaining weapons, the ownership of which is debatable, but which

they for the time being happen to control. These two weapons may be called the political and judicial

machinery of society. When the scab crumples up and is ready to go down before the fists, bricks, and bullets

of the labor group, the capitalist group puts the police and soldiers into the field, and begins a general

bombardment of injunctions. Victory usually follows, for the labor group cannot withstand the combined

But it has been noted that the ownership of the political and judicial machinery of society is debatable. In the

Titanic struggle over the division of the joint product, each group reaches out for every available weapon.

Nor are they blinded by the smoke of conflict. They fight their battles as coolly and collectedly as ever battles

were fought on paper. The capitalist group has long since realized the immense importance of controlling the

Taught by gatlings and injunctions, which have smashed many an otherwise successful strike, the labor group

is beginning to realize that it all depends upon who is behind and who is before the gatlings and the

injunctions. And he who knows the labor movement knows that there is slowly growing up and being

formulated a clear and definite policy for the capture of the political and judicial machinery.

This is the terrible spectre which Mr. John Graham Brooks sees looming portentously over the twentieth

century world. No man may boast a more intimate knowledge of the labor movement than he; and he

reiterates again and again the dangerous likelihood of the whole labor group capturing the political machinery

of society. As he says in his recent book: {6} "It is not probable that employers can destroy unionism in the

United States. Adroit and desperate attempts will, however, be made, if we mean by unionism the

undisciplined and aggressive fact of vigorous and determined organizations. If capital should prove too strong

in this struggle, the result is easy to predict. The employers have only to convince organized labor that it

cannot hold its own against the capitalist manager, and the whole energy that now goes to the union will turn

to an aggressive political socialism. It will not be the harmless sympathy with increased city and state

functions which trade unions already feel; it will become a turbulent political force bent upon using every

This struggle not to be a scab, to avoid giving more for less and to succeed in giving less for more, is more

vital than it would appear on the surface. The capitalist and labor groups are locked together in desperate

battle, and neither side is swayed by moral considerations more than skindeep. The labor group hires

business agents, lawyers, and organizers, and is beginning to intimidate legislators by the strength of its solid

vote; and more directly, in the near future, it will attempt to control legislation by capturing it bodily through

the ballotbox. On the other hand, the capitalist group, numerically weaker, hires newspapers, universities,

and legislatures, and strives to bend to its need all the forces which go to mould public opinion.

The only honest morality displayed by either side is whitehot indignation at the iniquities of the other side.

The striking teamster complacently takes a scab driver into an alley, and with an iron bar breaks his arms, so

that he can drive no more, but cries out to high Heaven for justice when the capitalist breaks his skull by

means of a club in the hands of a policeman. Nay, the members of a union will declaim in impassioned

rhetoric for the Godgiven right of an eighthour day, and at the time be working their own business agent

A capitalist such as Collis P. Huntington, and his name is Legion, after a long life spent in buying the aid of

countless legislatures, will wax virtuously wrathful, and condemn in unmeasured terms "the dangerous

tendency of crying out to the Government for aid" in the way of labor legislation. Without a quiver, a

member of the capitalist group will run tens of thousands of pitiful child laborers through his

lifedestroying cotton factories, and weep maudlin and constitutional tears over one scab hit in the back with

a brick. He will drive a "compulsory" free contract with an unorganized laborer on the basis of a starvation

wage, saying, "Take it or leave it," knowing that to leave it means to die of hunger, and in the next breath,

when the organizer entices that laborer into a union, will storm patriotically about the inalienable right of all

men to work. In short, the chief moral concern of either side is with the morals of the other side. They are not

in the business for their moral welfare, but to achieve the enviable position of the nonscab who gets more

But there is more to the question than has yet been discussed. The labor scab is no more detestable to his

brother laborers than is the capitalist scab to his brother capitalists. A capitalist may get most for least in

dealing with his laborers, and in so far be a non scab; but at the same time, in his dealings with his fellow

capitalists, he may give most for least and be the very worst kind of scab. The most heinous crime an

employer of labor can commit is to scab on his fellowemployers of labor. Just as the individual laborers

have organized into groups to protect themselves from the peril of the scab laborer, so have the employers

organized into groups to protect themselves from the peril of the scab employer. The employers' federations,

associations, and trusts are nothing more nor less than unions. They are organized to destroy scabbing

amongst themselves and to encourage scabbing amongst others. For this reason they pool interests, determine

As has been said before, nobody likes to play the compulsorily generous role of scab. It is a bad business

proposition on the face of it. And it is patent that there would be no capitalist scabs if there were not more

capital than there is work for capital to do. When there are enough factories in existence to supply, with

occasional stoppages, a certain commodity, the building of new factories by a rival concern, for the

production of that commodity, is plain advertisement that that capital is out of a job. The first act of this new

aggregation of capital will be to cut prices, to give more for less,in short to scab, to strike at the very

existence of the less generous aggregation of capital the work of which it is trying to do.

No scab capitalist strives to give more for less for any other reason than that he hopes, by undercutting a

competitor and driving that competitor out of the market, to get that market and its profits for himself. His

ambition is to achieve the day when he shall stand alone in the field both as buyer and seller,when he will

be the royal nonscab, buying most for least, selling least for most, and reducing all about him, the small

buyers and sellers, (the consumers and the laborers), to a general condition of scabdom. This, for example,

has been the history of Mr. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company. Through all the sordid villanies of

scabdom he has passed, until today he is a most regal nonscab. However, to continue in this enviable

position, he must be prepared at a moment's notice to go scabbing again. And he is prepared. Whenever a

competitor arises, Mr. Rockefeller changes about from giving least for most and gives most for least with

The banded capitalists discriminate against a scab capitalist by refusing him trade advantages, and by

combining against him in most relentless fashion. The banded laborers, discriminating against a scab laborer

in more primitive fashion, with a club, are no more merciless than the banded capitalists.

Mr. Casson tells of a New York capitalist who withdrew from the Sugar Union several years ago and became

a scab. He was worth something like twenty millions of dollars. But the Sugar Union, standing shoulder to

shoulder with the Railroad Union and several other unions, beat him to his knees till he cried, "Enough." So

frightfully did they beat him that he was obliged to turn over to his creditors his home, his chickens, and his

gold watch. In point of fact, he was as thoroughly bludgeoned by the Federation of Capitalist Unions as ever

scab workman was bludgeoned by a labor union. The intent in either case is the same,to destroy the scab's

producing power. The labor scab with concussion of the brain is put out of business, and so is the capitalist

But the role of scab passes beyond the individual. Just as individuals scab on other individuals, so do groups

scab on other groups. And the principle involved is precisely the same as in the case of the simple labor scab.

A group, in the nature of its organization, is often compelled to give most for least, and, so doing, to strike at

the life of another group. At the present moment all Europe is appalled by that colossal scab, the United

States. And Europe is clamorous with agitation for a Federation of National Unions to protect her from the

United States. It may be remarked, in passing, that in its prime essentials this agitation in no wise differs from

the tradeunion agitation among workmen in any industry. The trouble is caused by the scab who is giving

most for least. The result of the American scab's nefarious actions will be to strike at the food and shelter of

Europe. The way for Europe to protect herself is to quit bickering among her parts and to form a union

against the scab. And if the union is formed, armies and navies may be expected to be brought into play in

In this connection, and as one of many walking delegates for the nations, M. LeroyBeaulieu, the noted

French economist, may well be quoted. In a letter to the Vienna Tageblatt, he advocates an economic alliance

among the Continental nations for the purpose of barring out American goods, an economic alliance, in his

It will be noted, in the utterances of the Continental walking delegates, that, one and all, they leave England

out of the proposed union. And in England herself the feeling is growing that her days are numbered if she

cannot unite for offence and defence with the great American scab. As Andrew Carnegie said some time ago,

"The only course for Great Britain seems to be reunion with her grandchild or sure decline to a secondary

place, and then to comparative insignificance in the future annals of the English speaking race."

Cecil Rhodes, speaking of what would have obtained but for the pig headedness of George III, and of what

will obtain when England and the United States are united, said, "NO CANNON WOULD. . . BE FIRED ON

EITHER HEMISPHERE BUT BY PERMISSION OF THE ENGLISH RACE." It would seem that England,

fronted by the hostile Continental Union and flanked by the great American scab, has nothing left but to join

with the scab and play the historic labor role of armed Pinkerton. Granting the words of Cecil Rhodes, the

United States would be enabled to scab without let or hindrance on Europe, while England, as professional

All this may appear fantastic and erroneous, but there is in it a soul of truth vastly more significant than it

may seem. Civilization may be expressed today in terms of tradeunionism. Individual struggles have largely

passed away, but groupstruggles increase prodigiously. And the things for which the groups struggle are the

same as of old. Shorn of all subtleties and complexities, the chief struggle of men, and of groups of men, is

for food and shelter. And, as of old they struggled with tooth and nail, so today they struggle with teeth and

Under the definition that a scab is ONE WHO GIVES MORE VALUE FOR THE SAME PRICE THAN

ANOTHER, it would seem that society can be generally divided into the two classes of the scabs and the

nonscabs. But on closer investigation, however, it will be seen that the nonscab is a vanishing quantity. In

the social jungle, everybody is preying upon everybody else. As in the case of Mr. Rockefeller, he who was a

The woman stenographer or bookkeeper who receives forty dollars per month where a man was receiving

seventyfive is a scab. So is the woman who does a man's work at a weavingmachine, and the child who

goes into the mill or factory. And the father, who is scabbed out of work by the wives and children of other

When a publisher offers an author better royalties than other publishers have been paying him, he is scabbing

on those other publishers. The reporter on a newspaper, who feels he should be receiving a larger salary for

his work, says so, and is shown the door, is replaced by a reporter who is a scab; whereupon, when the

bellyneed presses, the displaced reporter goes to another paper and scabs himself. The minister who hardens

his heart to a call, and waits for a certain congregation to offer him say $500 a year more, often finds himself

scabbed upon by another and more impecunious minister; and the next time it is HIS turn to scab while a

brother minister is hardening his heart to a call. The scab is everywhere. The professional strikebreakers,

who as a class receive large wages, will scab on one another, while scab unions are even formed to prevent

There are nonscabs, but they are usually born so, and are protected by the whole might of society in the

possession of their food and shelter. King Edward is such a type, as are all individuals who receive hereditary

foodandshelter privileges,such as the present Duke of Bedford, for instance, who yearly receives

$75,000 from the good people of London because some former king gave some former ancestor of his the

market privileges of Covent Garden. The irresponsible rich are likewise nonscabs,and by them is meant

that couponclipping class which hires its managers and brains to invest the money usually left it by its

Outside these lucky creatures, all the rest, at one time or another in their lives, are scabs, at one time or

another are engaged in giving more for a certain price than any one else. The meek professor in some

endowed institution, by his meek suppression of his convictions, is giving more for his salary than gave the

other and more outspoken professor whose chair he occupies. And when a political party dangles a full

dinnerpail in the eyes of the toiling masses, it is offering more for a vote than the dubious dollar of the

opposing party. Even a moneylender is not above taking a slightly lower rate of interest and saying nothing

Such is the tangle of conflicting interests in a toothandnail society that people cannot avoid being scabs,

are often made so against their desires, and are often unconsciously made so. When several trades in a certain

locality demand and receive an advance in wages, they are unwittingly making scabs of their fellowlaborers

in that district who have received no advance in wages. In San Francisco the barbers, laundryworkers, and

milkwagon drivers received such an advance in wages. Their employers promptly added the amount of this

advance to the selling price of their wares. The price of shaves, of washing, and of milk went up. This

reduced the purchasing power of the unorganized laborers, and, in point of fact, reduced their wages and

Because the British laborer is disinclined to scab,that is, because he restricts his output in order to give less

for the wage he receives,it is to a certain extent made possible for the American capitalist, who receives a

less restricted output from his laborers, to play the scab on the English capitalist. As a result of this, (of

course combined with other causes), the American capitalist and the American laborer are striking at the food

The English laborer is starving today because, among other things, he is not a scab. He practises the policy of

"ca' canny," which may be defined as "go easy." In order to get most for least, in many trades he performs but

from onefourth to onesixth of the labor he is well able to perform. An instance of this is found in the

building of the Westinghouse Electric Works at Manchester. The British limit per man was 400 bricks per

day. The Westinghouse Company imported a "driving" American contractor, aided by half a dozen "driving"

American foremen, and the British bricklayer swiftly attained an average of 1800 bricks per day, with a

But, the British laborer's policy of "ca' canny," which is the very honorable one of giving least for most, and

which is likewise the policy of the English capitalist, is nevertheless frowned upon by the English capitalist,

whose business existence is threatened by the great American scab. From the rise of the factory system, the

English capitalist gladly embraced the opportunity, wherever he found it, of giving least for most. He did it

all over the world whenever he enjoyed a market monopoly, and he did it at home with the laborers employed

in his mills, destroying them like flies till prevented, within limits, by the passage of the Factory Acts. Some

of the proudest fortunes of England today may trace their origin to the giving of least for most to the

miserable slaves of the factory towns. But at the present time the English capitalist is outraged because his

laborers are employing against him precisely the same policy he employed against them, and which he would

Yet "ca' canny" is a disastrous thing to the British laborer. It has driven shipbuilding from England to

Scotland, bottlemaking from Scotland to Belgium, flintglassmaking from England to Germany, and today

is steadily driving industry after industry to other countries. A correspondent from Northampton wrote not

long ago: "Factories are working half and third time. . . . There is no strike, there is no real labor trouble, but

the masters and men are alike suffering from sheer lack of employment. Markets which were once theirs are

now American." It would seem that the unfortunate British laborer is 'twixt the devil and the deep sea. If he

gives most for least, he faces a frightful slavery such as marked the beginning of the factory system. If he

gives least for most, he drives industry away to other countries and has no work at all.

But the union laborers of the United States have nothing of which to boast, while, according to their

tradeunion ethics, they have a great deal of which to be ashamed. They passionately preach short hours and

big wages, the shorter the hours and the bigger the wages the better. Their hatred for a scab is as terrible as

the hatred of a patriot for a traitor, of a Christian for a Judas. And in the face of all this, they are as colossal

scabs as the United States is a colossal scab. For all of their boasted unions and high labor ideals, they are

Receiving $4.50 per day, because of his proficiency and immense working power, the American laborer has

been known to scab upon scabs (so called) who took his place and received only $0.90 per day for a longer

day. In this particular instance, five Chinese coolies, working longer hours, gave less value for the price

It is upon his brother laborers overseas that the American laborer most outrageously scabs. As Mr. Casson

has shown, an English nail maker gets $3 per week, while an American nailmaker gets $30. But the

English worker turns out 200 pounds of nails per week, while the American turns out 5500 pounds. If he were

as "fair" as his English brother, other things being equal, he would be receiving, at the English worker's rate

of pay, $82.50. As it is, he is scabbing upon his English brother to the tune of $79.50 per week. Dr. Schultze

Gaevernitz has shown that a German weaver produces 466 yards of cotton a week at a cost of .303 per yard,

But, it may be objected, a great part of this is due to the more improved American machinery. Very true, but

none the less a great part is still due to the superior energy, skill, and willingness of the American laborer.

The English laborer is faithful to the policy of "ca' canny." He refuses pointblank to get the work out of a

machine that the New World scab gets out of a machine. Mr. Maxim, observing a wasteful handlabor

process in his English factory, invented a machine which he proved capable of displacing several men. But

workman after workman was put at the machine, and without exception they turned out neither more nor less

than a workman turned out by hand. They obeyed the mandate of the union and went easy, while Mr. Maxim

gave up in despair. Nor will the British workman run machines at as high speed as the American, nor will he

run so many. An American workman will "give equal attention simultaneously to three, four, or six machines

or tools, while the British workman is compelled by his trade union to limit his attention to one, so that

But for scabbing, no blame attaches itself anywhere. With rare exceptions, all the people in the world are

scabs. The strong, capable workman gets a job and holds it because of his strength and capacity. And he

holds it because out of his strength and capacity he gives a better value for his wage than does the weaker and

less capable workman. Therefore he is scabbing upon his weaker and less capable brother workman. He is

The superior workman scabs upon the inferior workman because he is so constituted and cannot help it. The

one, by fortune of birth and upbringing, is strong and capable; the other, by fortune of birth and upbringing, is

not so strong nor capable. It is for the same reason that one country scabs upon another. That country which

has the good fortune to possess great natural resources, a finer sun and soil, unhampering institutions, and a

deft and intelligent labor class and capitalist class is bound to scab upon a country less fortunately situated. It

is the good fortune of the United States that is making her the colossal scab, just as it is the good fortune of

It is not good to give most for least, not good to be a scab. The word has gained universal opprobrium. On the

other hand, to be a nonscab, to give least for most, is universally branded as stingy, selfish, and

unchristianlike. So all the world, like the British workman, is 'twixt the devil and the deep sea. It is treason

Since to give least for most, and to give most for least, are universally bad, what remains? Equity remains,

which is to give like for like, the same for the same, neither more nor less. But this equity, society, as at

present constituted, cannot give. It is not in the nature of presentday society for men to give like for like, the

same for the same. And so long as men continue to live in this competitive society, struggling tooth and nail

with one another for food and shelter, (which is to struggle tooth and nail with one another for life), that long

will the scab continue to exist. His will "to live" will force him to exist. He may be flouted and jeered by his

brothers, he may be beaten with bricks and clubs by the men who by superior strength and capacity scab upon

him as he scabs upon them by longer hours and smaller wages, but through it all he will persist, giving a bit

For any social movement or development there must be a maximum limit beyond which it cannot proceed.

That civilization which does not advance must decline, and so, when the maximum of development has been

reached in any given direction, society must either retrograde or change the direction of its advance. There

are many families of men that have failed, in the critical period of their economic evolution, to effect a

change in direction, and were forced to fall back. Vanquished at the moment of their maximum, they have

dropped out of the whirl of the world. There was no room for them. Stronger competitors have taken their

places, and they have either rotted into oblivion or remain to be crushed under the iron heel of the dominant

races in as remorseless a struggle as the world has yet witnessed. But in this struggle fair women and

chivalrous men will play no part. Types and ideals have changed. Helens and Launcelots are anachronisms.

Blows will be given and taken, and men fight and die, but not for faiths and altars. Shrines will be desecrated,

but they will be the shrines, not of temples, but marketplaces. Prophets will arise, but they will be the

prophets of prices and products. Battles will be waged, not for honor and glory, nor for thrones and sceptres,

but for dollars and cents and for marts and exchanges. Brain and not brawn will endure, and the captains of

war will be commanded by the captains of industry. In short, it will be a contest for the mastery of the world's

It is more significant, this struggle into which we have plunged, for the fact that it is the first struggle to

involve the globe. No general movement of man has been so widespreading, so farreaching. Quite local

was the supremacy of any ancient people; likewise the rise to empire of Macedonia and Rome, the waves of

Arabian valor and fanaticism, and the mediaeval crusades to the Holy Sepulchre. But since those times the

The world of Homer, limited by the coastlines of the Mediterranean and Black seas, was a far vaster world

than ours of today, which we weigh, measure, and compute as accurately and as easily as if it were a child's

playball. Steam has made its parts accessible and drawn them closer together. The telegraph annihilates

space and time. Each morning, every part knows what every other part is thinking, contemplating, or doing.

A discovery in a German laboratory is being demonstrated in San Francisco within twentyfour hours. A

book written in South Africa is published by simultaneous copyright in every Englishspeaking country, and

on the day following is in the hands of the translators. The death of an obscure missionary in China, or of a

whiskeysmuggler in the South Seas, is served, the world over, with the morning toast. The wheat output of

Argentine or the gold of Klondike are known wherever men meet and trade. Shrinkage, or centralization, has

become such that the humblest clerk in any metropolis may place his hand on the pulse of the world. The

planet has indeed grown very small; and because of this, no vital movement can remain in the clime or

And so today the economic and industrial impulse is worldwide. It is a matter of import to every people.

None may be careless of it. To do so is to perish. It is become a battle, the fruits of which are to the strong,

and to none but the strongest of the strong. As the movement approaches its maximum, centralization

accelerates and competition grows keener and closer. The competitor nations cannot all succeed. So long as

the movement continues its present direction, not only will there not be room for all, but the room that is will

become less and less; and when the moment of the maximum is at hand, there will be no room at all.

Capitalistic production will have overreached itself, and a change of direction will then be inevitable.

Divers queries arise: What is the maximum of commercial development the world can sustain? How far can it

be exploited? How much capital is necessary? Can sufficient capital be accumulated? A brief resume of the

industrial history of the last one hundred years or so will be relevant at this stage of the discussion.

Capitalistic production, in its modern significance, was born of the industrial revolution in England in the

latter half of the eighteenth century. The great inventions of that period were both its father and its mother,

while, as Mr. Brooks Adams has shown, the looted treasure of India was the potent midwife. Had there not

been an unwonted increase of capital, the impetus would not have been given to invention, while even steam

might have languished for generations instead of at once becoming, as it did, the most prominent factor in the

new method of production. The improved application of these inventions in the first decades of the nineteenth

century mark the transition from the domestic to the factory system of manufacture and inaugurated the era of

capitalism. The magnitude of this revolution is manifested by the fact that England alone had invented the

means and equipped herself with the machinery whereby she could overstock the world's markets. The home

market could not consume a tithe of the home product. To manufacture this home product she had sacrificed

her agriculture. She must buy her food from abroad, and to do so she must sell her goods abroad.

But the struggle for commercial supremacy had not yet really begun. England was without a rival. Her navies

controlled the sea. Her armies and her insular position gave her peace at home. The world was hers to exploit.

For nearly fifty years she dominated the European, American, and Indian trade, while the great wars then

convulsing society were destroying possible competitive capital and straining consumption to its utmost. The

pioneer of the industrial nations, she thus received such a start in the new race for wealth that it is only today

the other nations have succeeded in overtaking her. In 1820 the volume of her trade (imports and exports)

was 68,000,000 pounds. In 1899 it had increased to 815,000,000 pounds, an increase of 1200 per cent in

For nearly one hundred years England has been producing surplus value. She has been producing far more

than she consumes, and this excess has swelled the volume of her capital. This capital has been invested in

her enterprises at home and abroad, and in her shipping. In 1898 the Stock Exchange estimated British capital

invested abroad at 1,900,000,000 pounds. But hand in hand with her foreign investments have grown her

adverse balances of trade. For the ten years ending with 1868, her average yearly adverse balance was

52,000,000 pounds; ending with 1878, 81,000,000 pounds; ending with 1888, 101,000,000 pounds; and

ending with 1898, 133,000,000 pounds. In the single year of 1897 it reached the portentous sum of

But England's adverse balances of trade in themselves are nothing at which to be frightened. Hitherto they

have been paid from out the earnings of her shipping and the interest on her foreign investments. But what

does cause anxiety, however, is that, relative to the trade development of other countries, her export trade is

falling off, without a corresponding diminution of her imports, and that her securities and foreign holdings do

not seem able to stand the added strain. These she is being forced to sell in order to pull even. As the London

Times gloomily remarks, "We are entering the twentieth century on the down grade, after a prolonged period

of business activity, high wages, high profits, and overflowing revenue." In other words, the mighty grasp

England held over the resources and capital of the world is being relaxed. The control of its commerce and

banking is slipping through her fingers. The sale of her foreign holdings advertises the fact that other nations

are capable of buying them, and, further, that these other nations are busily producing surplus value.

The movement has become general. Today, passing from country to country, an everincreasing tide of

capital is welling up. Production is doubling and quadrupling upon itself. It used to be that the impoverished

or undeveloped nations turned to England when it came to borrowing, but now Germany is competing keenly

with her in this matter. France is not averse to lending great sums to Russia, and AustriaHungary has capital

Nor has the United States failed to pass from the side of the debtor to that of the creditor nations. She, too,

has become wise in the way of producing surplus value. She has been successful in her efforts to secure

economic emancipation. Possessing but 5 per cent of the world's population and producing 32 per cent of the

world's food supply, she has been looked upon as the world's farmer; but now, amidst general consternation,

she comes forward as the world's manufacturer. In 1888 her manufactured exports amounted to

$130,300,087; in 1896, to $253,681,541; in 1897, to $279,652,721; in 1898, to $307,924,994; in 1899, to

$338,667,794; and in 1900, to $432,000,000. Regarding her growing favorable balances of trade, it may be

noted that not only are her imports not increasing, but they are actually falling off, while her exports in the

last decade have increased 72.4 per cent. In ten years her imports from Europe have been reduced from

$474,000,000 to $439,000,000; while in the same time her exports have increased from $682,000,000 to

$1,111,000,000. Her balance of trade in her favor in 1895 was $75,000,000; in 1896, over $100,000,000; in

1897, nearly $300,000,000; in 1898, $615,000,000; in 1899, $530,000,000; and in 1900, $648,000,000.

In the matter of iron, the United States, which in 1840 had not dreamed of entering the field of international

competition, in 1897, as much to her own surprise as any one else's, undersold the English in their own

London market. In 1899 there was but one American locomotive in Great Britain; but, of the five hundred

locomotives sold abroad by the United States in 1902, England bought more than any other country. Russia is

operating a thousand of them on her own roads today. In one instance the American manufacturers contracted

to deliver a locomotive in four and onehalf months for $9250, the English manufacturers requiring

twentyfour months for delivery at $14,000. The Clyde shipbuilders recently placed orders for 150,000 tons

of plates at a saving of $250,000, and the American steel going into the making of the new London subway is

taken as a matter of course. American tools stand above competition the world over. Readymade boots and

shoes are beginning to flood Europe, the same with machinery, bicycles, agricultural implements, and all

kinds of manufactured goods. A correspondent from Hamburg, speaking of the invasion of American trade,

says: "Incidentally, it may be remarked that the typewriting machine with which this article is written, as well

as the thousandsnay, hundreds of thousandsof others that are in use throughout the world, were made in

America; that it stands on an American table, in an office furnished with American desks, bookcases, and

chairs, which cannot be made in Europe of equal quality, so practical and convenient, for a similar price."

In 1893 and 1894, because of the distrust of foreign capital, the United States was forced to buy back

American securities held abroad; but in 1897 and 1898 she bought back American securities held abroad, not

because she had to, but because she chose to. And not only has she bought back her own securities, but in the

last eight years she has become a buyer of the securities of other countries. In the money markets of London,

Paris, and Berlin she is a lender of money. Carrying the largest stock of gold in the world, the world, in

moments of danger, when crises of international finance loom large, looks to her vast lending ability for

Thus, in a few swift years, has the United States drawn up to the van where the great industrial nations are

fighting for commercial and financial empire. The figures of the race, in which she passed England, are

Year United States Exports United Kingdom Exports 1875 $497,263,737 $1,087,497,000 1885 673,593,506

1,037,124,000 1895 807,742,415 1,100,452,000 1896 986,830,080 1,168,671,000 1897 1,079,834,296

1,139,882,000 1898 1,233,564,828 1,135,642,000 1899 1,253,466,000 1,287,971,000 1900 1,453,013,659

As Mr. Henry Demarest Lloyd has noted, "When the news reached Germany of the new steel trust in

America, the stocks of the iron and steel mills listed on the Berlin Bourse fell." While Europe has been

talking and dreaming of the greatness which was, the United States has been thinking and planning and doing

for the greatness to be. Her captains of industry and kings of finance have toiled and sweated at organizing

and consolidating production and transportation. But this has been merely the developmental stage, the

tuningup of the orchestra. With the twentieth century rises the curtain on the play,a play which shall have

much in it of comedy and a vast deal of tragedy, and which has been well named The Capitalistic Conquest of

Europe by America. Nations do not die easily, and one of the first moves of Europe will be the erection of

tariff walls. America, however, will fittingly reply, for already her manufacturers are establishing works in

France and Germany. And when the German trade journals refused to accept American advertisements, they

M. LeroyBeaulieu, the French economist, is passionately preaching a commercial combination of the whole

Continent against the United States,a commercial alliance which, he boldly declares, should become a

political alliance. And in this he is not alone, finding ready sympathy and ardent support in Austria, Italy, and

Germany. Lord Rosebery said, in a recent speech before the Wolverhampton Chamber of Commerce: "The

Americans, with their vast and almost incalculable resources, their acuteness and enterprise, and their huge

population, which will probably be 100,000,000 in twenty years, together with the plan they have adopted for

putting accumulated wealth into great cooperative syndicates or trusts for the purpose of carrying on this

The London Times says: "It is useless to disguise the fact that Great Britain is being outdistanced. The

competition does not come from the glut caused by miscalculation as to the home demand. Our own

steelmakers know better and are alarmed. The threatened competition in markets hitherto our own comes

from efficiency in production such as never before has been seen." Even the British naval supremacy is in

danger, continues the same paper, "for, if we lose our engineering supremacy, our naval supremacy will

And the Edinburgh Evening News says, with editorial gloom: "The iron and steel trades have gone from us.

When the fictitious prosperity caused by the expenditure of our own Government and that of European

nations on armaments ceases, half of the men employed in these industries will be turned into the streets. The

outlook is appalling. What suffering will have to be endured before the workers realize that there is nothing

That there must be a limit to the accumulation of capital is obvious. The downward course of the rate of

interest, notwithstanding that many new employments have been made possible for capital, indicates how

large is the increase of surplus value. This decline of the interest rate is in accord with BohmBawerk's law

of "diminishing returns." That is, when capital, like anything else, has become overplentiful, less lucrative

use can only be found for the excess. This excess, not being able to earn so much as when capital was less

plentiful, competes for safe investments and forces down the interest rate on all capital. Mr. Charles A.

Conant has well described the keenness of the scramble for safe investments, even at the prevailing low rates

of interest. At the close of the war with Turkey, the Greek loan, guaranteed by Great Britain, France, and

Russia, was floated with striking ease. Regardless of the small return, the amount offered at Paris,

(41,000,000 francs), was subscribed for twentythree times over. Great Britain, France, Germany, Holland,

and the Scandinavian States, of recent years, have all engaged in converting their securities from 5 per cents

to 4 per cents, from 4.5 per cents to 3.5 per cents, and the 3.5 per cents into 3 per cents.

Great Britain, France, Germany, and AustriaHungary, according to the calculation taken in 1895 by the

International Statistical Institute, hold fortysix billions of capital invested in negotiable securities alone. Yet

Paris subscribed for her portion of the Greek loan twentythree times over! In short, money is cheap. Andrew

Carnegie and his brother bourgeois kings give away millions annually, but still the tide wells up. These vast

accumulations have made possible "wildcatting," fraudulent combinations, fake enterprises, Hooleyism; but

such stealings, great though they be, have little or no effect in reducing the volume. The time is past when

startling inventions, or revolutions in the method of production, can break up the growing congestion; yet this

When a great nation has equipped itself to produce far more than it can, under the present division of the

product, consume, it seeks other markets for its surplus products. When a second nation finds itself similarly

circumstanced, competition for these other markets naturally follows. With the advent of a third, a fourth, a

fifth, and of divers other nations, the question of the disposal of surplus products grows serious. And with

each of these nations possessing, over and beyond its active capital, great and growing masses of idle capital,

and when the very foreign markets for which they are competing are beginning to produce similar wares for

Never has the struggle for foreign markets been sharper than at the present. They are the one great outlet for

congested accumulations. Predatory capital wanders the world over, seeking where it may establish itself.

This urgent need for foreign markets is forcing upon the worldstage an era of great colonial empire. But this

does not stand, as in the past, for the subjugation of peoples and countries for the sake of gaining their

products, but for the privilege of selling them products. The theory once was, that the colony owed its

existence and prosperity to the mother country; but today it is the mother country that owes its existence and

prosperity to the colony. And in the future, when that supporting colony becomes wise in the way of

producing surplus value and sends its goods back to sell to the mother country, what then? Then the world

will have been exploited, and capitalistic production will have attained its maximum development.

Foreign markets and undeveloped countries largely retard that moment. The favored portions of the earth's

surface are already occupied, though the resources of many are yet virgin. That they have not long since been

wrested from the hands of the barbarous and decadent peoples who possess them is due, not to the military

prowess of such peoples, but to the jealous vigilance of the industrial nations. The powers hold one another

back. The Turk lives because the way is not yet clear to an amicable division of him among the powers. And

the United States, supreme though she is, opposes the partition of China, and intervenes her huge bulk

between the hungry nations and the mongrel Spanish republics. Capital stands in its own way, welling up and

welling up against the inevitable moment when it shall burst all bonds and sweep resistlessly across such vast

stretches as China and South America. And then there will be no more worlds to exploit, and capitalism will

either fall back, crushed under its own weight, or a change of direction will take place which will mark a new

The Far East affords an illuminating spectacle. While the Western nations are crowding hungrily in, while the

Partition of China is commingled with the clamor for the Spheres of Influence and the Open Door, other

forces are none the less potently at work. Not only are the young Western peoples pressing the older ones to

the wall, but the East itself is beginning to awake. American trade is advancing, and British trade is losing

In 1893, 100,000 pieces of American drills were imported into China; in 1897, 349,000. In 1893, 252,000

pieces of American sheetings were imported against 71,000 British; but in 1897, 566,000 pieces of American

sheetings were imported against only 10,000 British. The cotton goods and yarn trade (which forms 40 per

cent of the whole trade with China) shows a remarkable advance on the part of the United States. During the

last ten years America has increased her importation of plain goods by 121 per cent in quantity and 59.5 per

cent in value, while that of England and India combined has decreased 13.75 per cent in quantity and 8 per

cent in value. Lord Charles Beresford, from whose "Breakup of China" these figures are taken, states that

English yarn has receded and Indian yarn advanced to the front. In 1897, 140,000 piculs of Indian yarn were

Japan, who but yesterday emerged from the mediaeval rule of the Shogunate and seized in one fell swoop the

scientific knowledge and culture of the Occident, is already today showing what wisdom she has acquired in

the production of surplus value, and is preparing herself that she may tomorrow play the part to Asia that

England did to Europe one hundred years ago. That the difference in the world's affairs wrought by those one

hundred years will prevent her succeeding is manifest; but it is equally manifest that they cannot prevent her

playing a leading part in the industrial drama which has commenced on the Eastern stage. Her imports into

the port of Newchang in 1891 amounted to but 22,000 taels; but in 1897 they had increased to 280,000 taels.

In manufactured goods, from matches, watches, and clocks to the rolling stock of railways, she has already

given stiff shocks to her competitors in the Asiatic markets; and this while she is virtually yet in the

equipment stage of production. Erelong she, too, will be furnishing her share to the growing mass of the

As regards Great Britain, the giant trader who has so long overshadowed Asiatic commerce, Lord Charles

Beresford says: "But competition is telling adversely; the energy of the British merchant is being equalled by

other nationals. . . The competition of the Chinese and the introduction of steam into the country are also

combining to produce changed conditions in China." But far more ominous is the plaintive note he sounds

when he says: "New industries must be opened up, and I would especially direct the attention of the

Chambers of Commerce (British) to . . . the fact that the more the native competes with the British

manufacturer in certain classes of trade, the more machinery he will need, and the orders for such machinery

will come to this country if our machinery manufacturers are enterprising enough."

The Orient is beginning to show what an important factor it will become, under Western supervision, in the

creation of surplus value. Even before the barriers which restrain Western capital are removed, the East will

be in a fair way toward being exploited. An analysis of Lord Beresford's message to the Chambers of

Commerce discloses, first, that the East is beginning to manufacture for itself; and, second, that there is a

promise of keen competition in the West for the privilege of selling the required machinery. The inexorable

when not only the East, but all the now undeveloped countries, confront, with surplus products in their hands,

the old industrial nations, capitalistic production will have attained its maximum development.

But before that time must intervene a period which bids one pause for breath. A new romance, like unto none

in all the past, the economic romance, will be born. For the dazzling prize of world empire will the nations

of the earth go up in harness. Powers will rise and fall, and mighty coalitions shape and dissolve in the swift

whirl of events. Vassal nations and subject territories will be bandied back and forth like so many articles of

trade. And with the inevitable displacement of economic centres, it is fair to presume that populations will

shift to and fro, as they once did from the South to the North of England on the rise of the factory towns, or

from the Old World to the New. Colossal enterprises will be projected and carried through, and combinations

of capital and federations of labor be effected on a cyclopean scale. Concentration and organization will be

perfected in ways hitherto undreamed. The nation which would keep its head above the tide must accurately

adjust supply to demand, and eliminate waste to the last least particle. Standards of living will most likely

descend for millions of people. With the increase of capital, the competition for safe investments, and the

consequent fall of the interest rate, the principal which today earns a comfortable income would not then

support a bare existence. Saving toward old age would cease among the working classes. And as the

merchant cities of Italy crashed when trade slipped from their hands on the discovery of the new route to the

Indies by way of the Cape of Good Hope, so will there come times of trembling for such nations as have

failed to grasp the prize of worldempire. In that given direction they will have attained their maximum

development, before the whole world, in the same direction, has attained its. There will no longer be room for

them. But if they can survive the shock of being flung out of the world's industrial orbit, a change in direction

may then be easily effected. That the decadent and barbarous peoples will be crushed is a fair presumption;

likewise that the stronger breeds will survive, entering upon the transition stage to which all the world must

This change of direction must be either toward industrial oligarchies or socialism. Either the functions of

private corporations will increase till they absorb the central government, or the functions of government will

increase till it absorbs the corporations. Much may be said on the chance of the oligarchy. Should an old

manufacturing nation lose its foreign trade, it is safe to predict that a strong effort would be made to build a

socialistic government, but it does not follow that this effort would be successful. With the moneyed class

controlling the State and its revenues and all the means of subsistence, and guarding its own interests with

jealous care, it is not at all impossible that a strong curb could be put upon the masses till the crisis were past.

It has been done before. There is no reason why it should not be done again. At the close of the last century,

such a movement was crushed by its own folly and immaturity. In 1871 the soldiers of the economic rulers

Once the crisis were past, the ruling class, still holding the curb in order to make itself more secure, would

proceed to readjust things and to balance consumption with production. Having a monopoly of the safe

investments, the great masses of unremunerative capital would be directed, not to the production of more

surplus value, but to the making of permanent improvements, which would give employment to the people,

and make them content with the new order of things. Highways, parks, public buildings, monuments, could

be builded; nor would it be out of place to give better factories and homes to the workers. Such in itself

would be socialistic, save that it would be done by the oligarchs, a class apart. With the interest rate down to

zero, and no field for the investment of sporadic capital, savings among the people would utterly cease, and

oldage pensions be granted as a matter of course. It is also a logical necessity of such a system that, when

the population began to press against the means of subsistence, (expansion being impossible), the birth rate of

the lower classes would be lessened. Whether by their own initiative, or by the interference of the rulers, it

would have to be done, and it would be done. In other words, the oligarchy would mean the capitalization of

labor and the enslavement of the whole population. But it would be a fairer, juster form of slavery than any

the world has yet seen. The per capita wage and consumption would be increased, and, with a stringent

control of the birth rate, there is no reason why such a country should not be so ruled through many

On the other hand, as the capitalistic exploitation of the planet approaches its maximum, and countries are

crowded out of the field of foreign exchanges, there is a large likelihood that their change in direction will be

toward socialism. Were the theory of collective ownership and operation then to arise for the first time, such

a movement would stand small chance of success. But such is not the case. The doctrine of socialism has

flourished and grown throughout the nineteenth century; its tenets have been preached wherever the interests

of labor and capital have clashed; and it has received exemplification time and again by the State's

When capitalistic production has attained its maximum development, it must confront a dividing of the ways;

and the strength of capital on the one hand, and the education and wisdom of the workers on the other, will

determine which path society is to travel. It is possible, considering the inertia of the masses, that the whole

world might in time come to be dominated by a group of industrial oligarchies, or by one great oligarchy, but

it is not probable. That sporadic oligarchies may flourish for definite periods of time is highly possible; that

they may continue to do so is as highly improbable. The procession of the ages has marked not only the rise

of man, but the rise of the common man. From the chattel slave, or the serf chained to the soil, to the highest

seats in modern society, he has risen, rung by rung, amid the crumbling of the divine right of kings and the

crash of falling sceptres. That he has done this, only in the end to pass into the perpetual slavery of the

industrial oligarch, is something at which his whole past cries in protest. The common man is worthy of a

NOTE.The above article was written as long ago as 1898. The only alteration has been the bringing up to

1900 of a few of its statistics. As a commercial venture of an author, it has an interesting history. It was

promptly accepted by one of the leading magazines and paid for. The editor confessed that it was "one of

those articles one could not possibly let go of after it was once in his possession." Publication was voluntarily

promised to be immediate. Then the editor became afraid of its too radical nature, forfeited the sum paid for

it, and did not publish it. Nor, offered far and wide, could any other editor of bourgeois periodicals be found

who was rash enough to publish it. Thus, for the first time, after seven years, it appears in print.

Two remarkable books are Ghent's "Our Benevolent Feudalism" {7} and Brooks's "The Social Unrest." {8}

In these two books the opposite sides of the labor problem are expounded, each writer devoting himself with

apprehension to the side he fears and views with disfavor. It would appear that they have set themselves the

task of collating, as a warning, the phenomena of two counter social forces. Mr. Ghent, who is sympathetic

with the socialist movement, follows with cynic fear every aggressive act of the capitalist class. Mr. Brooks,

who yearns for the perpetuation of the capitalist system as long as possible, follows with grave dismay each

aggressive act of the labor and socialist organizations. Mr. Ghent traces the emasculation of labor by capital,

and Mr. Brooks traces the emasculation of independent competing capital by labor. In short, each marshals

the facts of a side in the two sides which go to make a struggle so great that even the French Revolution is

insignificant beside it; for this later struggle, for the first time in the history of struggles, is not confined to

Starting on the assumption that society is at present in a state of flux, Mr. Ghent sees it rapidly crystallizing

into a status which can best be described as something in the nature of a benevolent feudalism. He laughs to

scorn any immediate realization of the Marxian dream, while Tolstoyan utopias and Kropotkinian

communistic unions of shop and farm are too wild to merit consideration. The coming status which Mr.

Ghent depicts is a class domination by the capitalists. Labor will take its definite place as a dependent class,

living in a condition of machine servitude fairly analogous to the land servitude of the Middle Ages. That is

to say, labor will be bound to the machine, though less harshly, in fashion somewhat similar to that in which

the earlier serf was bound to the soil. As he says, "Bondage to the land was the basis of villeinage in the old

At the top of the new society will tower the magnate, the new feudal baron; at the bottom will be found the

"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

"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

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

"VII. The villeins of the cities and towns who do unskilled work and are unprotected by organization. They

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

"IX. The smallunit farmers (landowning), the petty tradesmen, and manufacturers.

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

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

"The new Feudalism, like most autocracies, will foster not only the arts, but also certain kinds of

learningparticularly 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 contrived and arrayed. They must be read to

be appreciated. As an example of his style, which at the same time generalizes a portion of his argument, the

"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 Idemanother yet the samehe 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

And in conclusion, to show how benevolent and beautiful this new feudalism of ours will be, Mr. Ghent says:

"Peace and stability it will maintain at all hazards; and the mass, remembering the chaos, the turmoil, the

insecurity of the past, will bless its reign. . . . Efficiencythe faculty of getting thingsis at last rewarded as

it should be, for the efficient have inherited the earth and its fulness. The lowly, whose happiness is greater

and whose welfare is more thoroughly conserved when governed than when governing, as a

twentiethcentury philosopher said of them, are settled and happy in the state which reason and experience

teach is their Godappointed lot. They are comfortable too; and if the patriarchal ideal of a vine and fig tree

for each is not yet attained, at least each has his rented patch in the country or his rented cell in a city

building. Bread and the circus are freely given to the deserving, and as for the undeserving, they are merely

reaping the rewards of their contumacy and pride. Order reigns, each has his justly appointed share, and the

Mr. Brooks, on the other hand, sees rising and dissolving and rising again in the social flux the ominous

forms of a new society which is the direct antithesis of a benevolent feudalism. He trembles at the rash

intrepidity of the capitalists who fight the labor unions, for by such rashness he greatly fears that labor will be

driven to express its aims and strength in political terms, which terms will inevitably be socialistic terms.

To keep down the rising tide of socialism, he preaches greater meekness and benevolence to the capitalists.

No longer may they claim the right to run their own business, to beat down the laborer's standard of living for

the sake of increased profits, to dictate terms of employment to individual workers, to wax righteously

indignant when organized labor takes a hand in their business. No longer may the capitalist say "my"

business, or even think "my" business; he must say "our" business, and think "our" business as well,

accepting labor as a partner whose voice must be heard. And if the capitalists do not become more meek and

benevolent in their dealings with labor, labor will be antagonized and will proceed to wreak terrible political

Mr. Brooks dreams of a society at which Mr. Ghent sneers as "a slightly modified individualism, wherein

each unit secures the just reward of his capacity and service." To attain this happy state, Mr. Brooks imposes

circumspection upon the capitalists in their relations with labor. "If the socialistic spirit is to be held in

abeyance in this country, businesses of this character (anthracite coal mining) must be handled with

extraordinary caution." Which is to say, that to withstand the advance of socialism, a great and greater

Again and again, Mr. Brooks reiterates the danger he sees in harshly treating labor. "It is not probable that

employers can destroy unionism in the United States. Adroit and desperate attempts will, however, be made,

if we mean by unionism the undisciplined and aggressive fact of vigorous and determined organizations. If

capital should prove too strong in this struggle, the result is easy to predict. The employers have only to

convince organized labor that it cannot hold its own against the capitalist manager, and the whole energy that

now goes to the union will turn to an aggressive political socialism. It will not be the harmless sympathy with

increased city and state functions which trade unions already feel; it will become a turbulent political force

"The most concrete impulse that now favors socialism in this country is the insane purpose to deprive labor

"That which teaches a union that it cannot succeed as a union turns it toward socialism. In long strikes in

towns like Marlboro and Brookfield strong unions are defeated. Hundreds of men leave these towns for

shoecentres like Brockton, where they are now voting the socialist ticket. The socialist mayor of this city

tells me, 'The men who come to us now from towns where they have been thoroughly whipped in a strike are

among our most active working socialists.' The bitterness engendered by this sense of defeat is turned to

politics, as it will throughout the whole country, if organization of labor is deprived of its rights."

"This enmity of capital to the trade union is watched with glee by every intelligent socialist in our midst.

Every union that is beaten or discouraged in its struggle is ripening fruit for socialism."

"The real peril which we now face is the threat of a class conflict. If capitalism insists upon the policy of

outraging the saving aspiration of the American workman to raise his standard of comfort and leisure, every

"We have only to humiliate what is best in the trade union, and then every worst feature of socialism is

This strong tendency in the ranks of the workers toward socialism is what Mr. Brooks characterizes the

"social unrest"; and he hopes to see the Republican, the Cleveland Democrat, and the conservative and large

property interests "band together against this common foe," which is socialism. And he is not above feeling

grave and well contained satisfaction wherever the socialist doctrinaire has been contradicted by men

attempting to practise cooperation in the midst of the competitive system, as in Belgium.

Nevertheless, he catches fleeting glimpses of an extreme and tyrannically benevolent feudalism very like to

"I asked one of the largest employers of labor in the South if he feared the coming of the trade union. 'No,' he

said, 'it is one good result of race prejudice, that the negro will enable us in the long run to weaken the trade

union so that it cannot harm us. We can keep wages down with the negro and we can prevent too much

"It is in this spirit that the lower standards are to be used. If this purpose should succeed, it has but one

issue,the immense strengthening of a plutocratic administration at the top, served by an army of

highsalaried helpers, with an elite of skilled and well paid workmen, but all resting on what would

essentially be a serf class of lowpaid labor 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 great social restfulness in the community, which is permitting the capitalists to form

the new society to their liking; and that Mr. Brooks is alarmed, (and he flatly says so), at the social unrest

which threatens the modified individualism into which he would like to see society evolve. Mr. Ghent

beholds the capitalist class rising to dominate the state and the working class; Mr. Brooks beholds the

working class rising to dominate the state and the capitalist class. One fears the paternalism of a class; the

Evolution is no longer a mere tentative hypothesis. One by one, step by step, each division and subdivision of

science has contributed its evidence, until now the case is complete and the verdict rendered. While there is

still discussion as to the method of evolution, none the less, as a process sufficient to explain all biological

phenomena, all differentiations of life into widely diverse species, families, and even kingdoms, evolution is

flatly accepted. Likewise has been accepted its law of development: THAT, IN THE STRUGGLE FOR

It is in the struggle of the species with other species and against all other hostile forces in the environment,

that this law operates; also in the struggle between the individuals of the same species. In this struggle, which

is for food and shelter, the weak individuals must obviously win less food and shelter than the strong.

Because of this, their hold on life relaxes and they are eliminated. And for the same reason that they may not

win for themselves adequate food and shelter, the weak cannot give to their progeny the chance for survival

that the strong give. And thus, since the weak are prone to beget weakness, the species is constantly purged of

Because of this, a premium is placed upon strength, and so long as the struggle for food and shelter obtains,

just so long will the average strength of each generation increase. On the other hand, should conditions so

change that all, and the progeny of all, the weak as well as the strong, have an equal chance for survival, then,

at once, the average strength of each generation will begin to diminish. Never yet, however, in animal life,

has there been such a state of affairs. Natural selection has always obtained. The strong and their progeny, at

the expense of the weak, have always survived. This law of development has operated down all the past upon

all life; it so operates today, and it is not rash to say that it will continue to operate in the futureat least

Man, preeminent though he is in the animal kingdom, capable of reacting upon and making suitable an

unsuitable environment, nevertheless remains the creature of this same law of development. The social

selection to which he is subject is merely another form of natural selection. True, within certain narrow limits

he modifies the struggle for existence and renders less precarious the tenure of life for the weak. The

extremely weak, diseased, and inefficient are housed in hospitals and asylums. The strength of the viciously

strong, when inimical to society, is tempered by penal institutions and by the gallows. The shortsighted are

provided with spectacles, and the sickly (when they can pay for it) with sanitariums. Pestilential marshes are

drained, plagues are checked, and disasters averted. Yet, for all that, the strong and the progeny of the strong

survive, and the weak are crushed out. The men strong of brain are masters as of yore. They dominate society

and gather to themselves the wealth of society. With this wealth they maintain themselves and equip their

progeny for the struggle. They build their homes in healthful places, purchase the best fruits, meats, and

vegetables the market affords, and buy themselves the ministrations of the most brilliant and learned of the

professional classes. The weak man, as of yore, is the servant, the doer of things at the master's call. The

weaker and less efficient he is, the poorer is his reward. The weakest work for a living wage, (when they can

get work), live in unsanitary slums, on vile and insufficient food, at the lowest depths of human degradation.

Their grasp on life is indeed precarious, their mortality excessive, their infant deathrate appalling.

That some should be born to preferment and others to ignominy in order that the race may progress, is cruel

and sad; but none the less they are so born. The weeding out of human souls, some for fatness and smiles,

some for leanness and tears, is surely a heartless selective processas heartless as it is natural. And the

human family, for all its wonderful record of adventure and achievement, has not yet succeeded in avoiding

this process. That it is incapable of doing this is not to be hazarded. Not only is it capable, but the whole trend

of society is in that direction. All the social forces are driving man on to a time when the old selective law

will be annulled. There is no escaping it, save by the intervention of catastrophes and cataclysms quite

unthinkable. It is inexorable. It is inexorable because the common man demands it. The twentieth century, the

common man says, is his day; the common man's day, or, rather, the dawning of the common man's day.

Nor can it be denied. The evidence is with him. The previous centuries, and more notably the nineteenth,

have marked the rise of the common man. From chattel slavery to serfdom, and from serfdom to what he

bitterly terms "wage slavery," he has risen. Never was he so strong as he is today, and never so menacing. He

does the work of the world, and he is beginning to know it. The world cannot get along without him, and this

also he is beginning to know. All the human knowledge of the past, all the scientific discovery, governmental

experiment, and invention of machinery, have tended to his advancement. His standard of living is higher.

His common school education would shame princes ten centuries past. His civil and religious liberty makes

him a free man, and his ballot the peer of his betters. And all this has tended to make him conscious,

conscious of himself, conscious of his class. He looks about him and questions that ancient law of

development. It is cruel and wrong, he is beginning to declare. It is an anachronism. Let it be abolished. Why

should there be one empty belly in all the world, when the work of ten men can feed a hundred? What if my

brother be not so strong as I? He has not sinned. Wherefore should he hunger he and his sinless little ones?

Away with the old law. There is food and shelter for all, therefore let all receive food and shelter.

As fast as labor has become conscious it has organized. The ambition of these classconscious men is that the

movement shall become general, that all labor shall become conscious of itself and its class interests. And the

day that witnesses the solidarity of labor, they triumphantly affirm, will be a day when labor dominates the

world. This growing consciousness has led to the organization of two movements, both separate and distinct,

but both converging toward a common goalone, the labor movement, known as Trade Unionism; the other,

the political movement, known as Socialism. Both are grim and silent forces, unheralded and virtually

unknown to the general public save in moments of stress. The sleeping labor giant receives little notice from

the capitalistic press, and when he stirs uneasily, a column of surprise, indignation, and horror suffices.

It is only now and then, after long periods of silence, that the labor movement puts in its claim for notice. All

is quiet. The kind old world spins on, and the bourgeois masters clip their coupons in smug complacency. But

Suddenly, like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, comes a disruption of industry. From ocean to ocean the

wheels of a great chain of railroads cease to run. A quarter of a million miners throw down pick and shovel

and outrage the sun with their pale, bleached faces. The street railways of a swarming metropolis stand idle,

or the rumble of machinery in vast manufactories dies away to silence. There is alarm and panic. Arson and

homicide stalk forth. There is a cry in the night, and quick anger and sudden death. Peaceful cities are

affrighted by the crack of rifles and the snarl of machineguns, and the hearts of the shuddering are shaken

by the roar of dynamite. There is hurrying and skurrying. The wires are kept hot between the centre of

government and the seat of trouble. The chiefs of state ponder gravely and advise, and governors of states

implore. There is assembling of militia and massing of troops, and the streets resound to the tramp of armed

men. There are separate and joint conferences between the captains of industry and the captains of labor. And

then, finally, all is quiet again, and the memory of it is like the memory of a bad dream.

But these strikes become olympiads, things to date from; and common on the lips of men become such

phrases as "The Great Dock Strike," "The Great Coal Strike," "The Great Railroad Strike." Never before did

labor do these things. After the Great Plague in England, labor, finding itself in demand and innocently

obeying the economic law, asked higher wages. But the masters set a maximum wage, restrained

workingmen from moving about from place to place, refused to tolerate idlers, and by most barbarous legal

methods punished those who disobeyed. But labor is accorded greater respect today. Such a policy, put into

effect in this the first decade of the twentieth century, would sweep the masters from their seats in one mighty

A fair instance of the growing solidarity of labor is afforded by an unimportant recent strike in San Francisco.

The restaurant cooks and waiters were completely unorganized, working at any and all hours for whatever

wages they could get. A representative of the American Federation of Labor went among them and organized

them. Within a few weeks nearly two thousand men were enrolled, and they had five thousand dollars on

deposit. Then they put in their demand for increased wages and shorter hours. Forthwith their employers

All organized employers stood back of the restaurant owners, in sympathy with them and willing to aid them

if they dared. And at the back of the Cooks' and Waiters' Union stood the organized labor of the city, 40,000

strong. If a business man was caught patronizing an "unfair" restaurant, he was boycotted; if a union man was

caught, he was fined heavily by his union or expelled. The oyster companies and the slaughter houses made

an attempt to refuse to sell oysters and meat to union restaurants. The Butchers and Meat Cutters, and the

Teamsters, in retaliation, refused to work for or to deliver to nonunion restaurants. Upon this the oyster

companies and slaughter houses acknowledged themselves beaten and peace reigned. But the Restaurant

Bakers in nonunion places were ordered out, and the Bakery Wagon Drivers declined to deliver to unfair

Every American Federation of Labor union in the city was prepared to strike, and waited only the word. And

behind all, a handful of men, known as the Labor Council, directed the fight. One by one, blow upon blow,

they were able if they deemed it necessary to call out the unionsthe Laundry Workers, who do the

washing; the Hackmen, who haul men to and from restaurants; the Butchers, Meat Cutters, and Teamsters;

and the Milkers, Milk Drivers, and Chicken Pickers; and after that, in pure sympathy, the Retail Clerks, the

Horse Shoers, the Gas and Electrical Fixture Hangers, the Metal Roofers, the Blacksmiths, the Blacksmiths'

Helpers, the Stablemen, the Machinists, the Brewers, the Coast Seamen, the Varnishers and Polishers, the

Confectioners, the Upholsterers, the Paper Hangers and Fresco Painters, the Drug Clerks, the Fitters and

Helpers, the Metal Workers, the Boiler Makers and Iron Ship Builders, the Assistant Undertakers, the

For, over all these trades, over all these thousands of men, is the Labor Council. When it speaks its voice is

heard, and when it orders it is obeyed. But it, in turn, is dominated by the National Labor Council, with which

it is constantly in touch. In this wholly unimportant little local strike it is of interest to note the stands taken

by the different sides. The legal representative and official mouthpiece of the Employers' Association said:

"This organization is formed for defensive purposes, and it may be driven to take offensive steps, and if so,

will be strong enough to follow them up. Labor cannot be allowed to dictate to capital and say how business

shall be conducted. There is no objection to the formation of unions and trades councils, but membership

must not be compulsory. It is repugnant to the American idea of liberty and cannot be tolerated."

On the other hand, the president of the Team Drivers' Union said: "The employers of labor in this city are

generally against the tradeunion movement and there seems to be a concerted effort on their part to check

the progress of organized labor. Such action as has been taken by them in sympathy with the present labor

troubles may, if continued, lead to a serious conflict, the outcome of which might be most calamitous for the

And the secretary of the United Brewery Workmen: "I regard a sympathetic strike as the last weapon which

organized labor should use in its defence. When, however, associations of employers band together to defeat

organized labor, or one of its branches, then we should not and will not hesitate ourselves to employ the same

Thus, in a little corner of the world, is exemplified the growing solidarity of labor. The organization of labor

has not only kept pace with the organization of industry, but it has gained upon it. In one winter, in the

anthracite coal region, $160,000,000 in mines and $600,000,000 in transportation and distribution

consolidated its ownership and control. And at once, arrayed as solidly on the other side, were the 150,000

anthracite miners. The bituminous mines, however, were not consolidated; yet the 250,000 men employed

therein were already combined. And not only that, but they were also combined with the anthracite miners,

these 400,000 men being under the control and direction of one supreme labor council. And in this and the

other great councils are to be found captains of labor of splendid abilities, who, in understanding of economic

and industrial conditions, are undeniably the equals of their opponents, the captains of industry.

The United States is honeycombed with labor organizations. And the big federations which these go to

compose aggregate millions of members, and in their various branches handle millions of dollars yearly. And

not only this; for the international brotherhoods and unions are forming, and moneys for the aid of strikers

pass back and forth across the seas. The Machinists, in their demand for a nine hour day, affected 500,000

men in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. In England the membership of workingclass organizations is

approximated by Keir Hardie at 2,500,000, with reserve funds of $18,000,000. There the cooperative

movement has a membership of 1,500,000, and every year turns over in distribution more than $100,000,000.

In France, oneeighth of the whole working class is unionized. In Belgium the unions are very rich and

powerful, and so able to defy the masters that many of the smaller manufacturers, unable to resist, "are

removing their works to other countries where the workmen's organizations are not so potential." And in all

other countries, according to the stage of their economic and political development, like figures obtain. And

Europe, today, confesses that her greatest social problem is the labor problem, and that it is the one most

The organization of labor is one of the chief acknowledged factors in the retrogression of British trade. The

workers have become class conscious as never before. The wrong of one is the wrong of all. They have come

to realize, in a shortsighted way, that their masters' interests are not their interests. The harder they work,

they believe, the more wealth they create for their masters. Further, the more work they do in one day, the

fewer men will be needed to do the work. So the unions place a day's stint upon their members, beyond which

they are not permitted to go. In "A Study of Trade Unionism," by Benjamin Taylor in the "Nineteenth

Century" of April, 1898, are furnished some interesting corroborations. The facts here set forth were collected

by the Executive Board of the Employers' Federation, the documentary proofs of which are in the hands of

the secretaries. In a certain firm the union workmen made eight ammunition boxes a day. Nor could they be

persuaded into making more. A young Swiss, who could not speak English, was set to work, and in the first

day he made fifty boxes. In the same firm the skilled union hands filed up the outside handles of one

machine gun a day. That was their stint. No one was known ever to do more. A nonunion filer came into

the shop and did twelve a day. A Manchester firm found that to plane a large bedcasting took union

workmen one hundred and ninety hours, and nonunion workmen one hundred and thirtyfive hours. In

another instance a man, resigning from his union, day by day did double the amount of work he had done

formerly. And to cap it all, an English gentleman, going out to look at a wall being put up for him by union

bricklayers, found one of their number with his right arm strapped to his body, doing all the work with his left

arm forsooth, because he was such an energetic fellow that otherwise he would involuntarily lay more

All England resounds to the cry, "Wake up, England!" But the sulky giant is not stirred. "Let England's trade

go to pot," he says; "what have I to lose?" And England is powerless. The capacity of her workmen is

represented by 1, in comparison with the 2.25 capacity of the American workman. And because of the

solidarity of labor and the destructiveness of strikes, British capitalists dare not even strive to emulate the

enterprise of American capitalists. So England watches trade slipping through her fingers and wails

unavailingly. As a correspondent writes: "The enormous power of the trade unions hangs, a sullen cloud, over

The political movement known as Socialism is, perhaps, even less realized by the general public. The great

strides it has taken and the portentous front it today exhibits are not comprehended; and, fastened though it is

in every land, it is given little space by the capitalistic press. For all its plea and passion and warmth, it wells

upward like a great, cold tidal wave, irresistible, inexorable, ingulfing presentday society level by level. By

its own preachment it is inexorable. Just as societies have sprung into existence, fulfilled their function, and

passed away, it claims, just as surely is present society hastening on to its dissolution. This is a transition

periodand destined to be a very short one. Barely a century old, capitalism is ripening so rapidly that it can

never live to see a second birthday. There is no hope for it, the Socialists say. It is doomed.

The cardinal tenet of Socialism is that forbidding doctrine, the materialistic conception of history. Men are

not the masters of their souls. They are the puppets of great, blind forces. The lives they live and the deaths

they die are compulsory. All social codes are but the reflexes of existing economic conditions, plus certain

survivals of past economic conditions. The institutions men build they are compelled to build. Economic laws

determine at any given time what these institutions shall be, how long they shall operate, and by what they

shall be replaced. And so, through the economic process, the Socialist preaches the ripening of the capitalistic

The second great tenet of Socialism, itself a phase of the materialistic conception of history, is the class

struggle. In the social struggle for existence, men are forced into classes. "The history of all society thus far is

the history of class strife." In existing society the capitalist class exploits the working class, the proletariat.

The interests of the exploiter are not the interests of the exploited. "Profits are legitimate," says the one.

"Profits are unpaid wages," replies the other, when he has become conscious of his class, "therefore profits

are robbery." The capitalist enforces his profits because he is the legal owner of all the means of production.

He is the legal owner because he controls the political machinery of society. The Socialist sets to work to

capture the political machinery, so that he may make illegal the capitalist's ownership of the means of

production, and make legal his own ownership of the means of production. And it is this struggle, between

Scientific Socialism is very young. Only yesterday it was in swaddling clothes. But today it is a vigorous

young giant, well braced to battle for what it wants, and knowing precisely what it wants. It holds its

international conventions, where worldpolicies are formulated by the representatives of millions of

Socialists. In little Belgium there are threequarters of a million of men who work for the cause; in Germany,

3,000,000; Austria, between 1895 and 1897, raised her socialist vote from 90,000 to 750,000. France in 1871

had a whole generation of Socialists wiped out; yet in 1885 there were 30,000, and in 1898, 1,000,000.

Ere the last Spaniard had evacuated Cuba, Socialist groups were forming. And from far Japan, in these first

days of the twentieth century, writes one Tomoyoshi Murai: "The interest of our people on Socialism has

been greatly awakened these days, especially among our laboring people on one hand and young students'

circle on the other, as much as we can draw an earnest and enthusiastic audience and fill our hall, which holds

two thousand. . . . It is gratifying to say that we have a number of fine and welltrained public orators among

our leaders of Socialism in Japan. The first speaker tonight is Mr. Kiyoshi Kawakami, editor of one of our

city (Tokyo) dailies, a strong, independent, and decidedly socialistic paper, circulated far and wide. Mr.

Kawakami is a scholar as well as a popular writer. He is going to speak tonight on the subject, 'The Essence

of Socialismthe Fundamental Principles.' The next speaker is Professor Iso Abe, president of our

association, whose subject of address is, 'Socialism and the Existing Social System.' The third speaker is Mr.

Naoe Kinosita, the editor of another strong journal of the city. He speaks on the subject, 'How to Realize the

Socialist Ideals and Plans.' Next is Mr. Shigeyoshi Sugiyama, a graduate of Hartford Theological Seminary

and an advocate of Social Christianity, who is to speak on 'Socialism and Municipal Problems.' And the last

speaker is the editor of the 'Labor World,' the foremost leader of the laborunion movement in our country,

Mr. Sen Katayama, who speaks on the subject, 'The Outlook of Socialism in Europe and America.' These

addresses are going to be published in book form and to be distributed among our people to enlighten their

And in the struggle for the political machinery of society, Socialism is no longer confined to mere

propaganda. Italy, Austria, Belgium, England, have Socialist members in their national bodies. Out of the one

hundred and thirtytwo members of the London County Council, ninetyone are denounced by the

conservative element as Socialists. The Emperor of Germany grows anxious and angry at the increasing

numbers which are returned to the Reichstag. In France, many of the large cities, such as Marseilles, are in

the hands of the Socialists. A large body of them is in the Chamber of Deputies, and Millerand, Socialist, sits

in the cabinet. Of him M. Leroy Beaulieu says with horror: "M. Millerand is the open enemy of private

property, private capital, the resolute advocate of the socialization of production . . . a constant incitement to

violence . . . a collectivist, avowed and militant, taking part in the government, dominating the departments of

commerce and industry, preparing all the laws and presiding at the passage of all measures which should be

In the United States there are already Socialist mayors of towns and members of State legislatures, a vast

literature, and single Socialist papers with subscription lists running up into the hundreds of thousands. In

1896, 36,000 votes were cast for the Socialist candidate for President; in 1900, nearly 200,000; in 1904,

450,000. And the United States, young as it is, is ripening rapidly, and the Socialists claim, according to the

materialistic conception of history, that the United States will be the first country in the world wherein the

But the Socialist and labor movements have recently entered upon a new phase. There has been a remarkable

change in attitude on both sides. For a long time the labor unions refrained from going in for political action.

On the other hand, the Socialists claimed that without political action labor was powerless. And because of

this there was much ill feeling between them, even open hostilities, and no concerted action. But now the

Socialists grant that the labor movement has held up wages and decreased the hours of labor, and the labor

unions find that political action is necessary. Today both parties have drawn closely together in the common

fight. In the United States this friendly feeling grows. The Socialist papers espouse the cause of labor, and the

unions have opened their ears once more to the wiles of the Socialists. They are all leavened with Socialist

workmen, "boring from within," and many of their leaders have already succumbed. In England, where class

consciousness is more developed, the name "Unionism" has been replaced by "The New Unionism," the main

object of which is "to capture existing social structures in the interests of the wage earners." There the

Socialist, the tradeunion, and other working class organizations are beginning to cooperate in securing the

return of representatives to the House of Commons. And in France, where the city councils and mayors of

Marseilles and Monteaules Mines are Socialistic, thousands of francs of municipal money were voted for

For centuries the world has been preparing for the coming of the common man. And the period of preparation

virtually past, labor, conscious of itself and its desires, has begun a definite movement toward solidarity. It

believes the time is not far distant when the historian will speak not only of the dark ages of feudalism, but of

the dark ages of capitalism. And labor sincerely believes itself justified in this by the terrible indictment it

brings against capitalistic society. In the face of its enormous wealth, capitalistic society forfeits its right to

existence when it permits widespread, bestial poverty. The philosophy of the survival of the fittest does not

soothe the classconscious worker when he learns through his class literature that among the Italian

pantsfinishers of Chicago {9} the average weekly wage is $1.31, and the average number of weeks

employed in the year is 27.85. Likewise when he reads:{10} "Every room in these reeking tenements houses

a family or two. In one room a missionary found a man ill with smallpox, his wife just recovering from her

confinement, and the children running about half naked and covered with dirt. Here are seven people living in

one underground kitchen, and a little dead child lying in the same room. Here live a widow and her six

children, two of whom are ill with scarlet fever. In another, nine brothers and sisters, from twentynine years

of age downward, live, eat, and sleep together." And likewise, when he reads:{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 another

man, fifty years old, can give ten million dollars to enable his daughter to live in luxury and bolster up a

And on the other hand, the classconscious worker reads the statistics of the wealthy classes, knows what

their incomes are, and how they get them. True, down all the past he has known his own material misery and

the material comfort of the dominant classes, and often has this knowledge led him to intemperate acts and

unwise rebellion. But today, and for the first time, because both society and he have evolved, he is beginning

to see a possible way out. His ears are opening to the propaganda of Socialism, the passionate gospel of the

dispossessed. But it does not inculcate a turning back. The way through is the way out, he understands, and

It is quite simple, this programme. Everything is moving in his direction, toward the day when he will take

charge. The trust? Ah, no. Unlike the trembling middleclass man and the small capitalist, he sees nothing at

which to be frightened. He likes the trust. He exults in the trust, for it is largely doing the task for him. It

socializes production; this done, there remains nothing for him to do but socialize distribution, and all is

accomplished. The trust? "It organizes industry on an enormous, laborsaving scale, and abolishes childish,

wasteful competition." It is a gigantic object lesson, and it preaches his political economy far more potently

than he can preach it. He points to the trust, laughing scornfully in the face of the orthodox economists. "You

He sees competition in the realm of production passing away. When the captains of industry have thoroughly

organized production, and got everything running smoothly, it will be very easy for him to eliminate the

profits by stepping in and having the thing run for himself. And the captain of industry, if he be good, may be

given the privilege of continuing the management on a fair salary. The sixty millions of dividends which the

Standard Oil Company annually declares will be distributed among the workers. The same with the great

United States Steel Corporation. The president of that corporation knows his business. Very good. Let him

become Secretary of the Department of Iron and Steel of the United States. But, since the chief executive of a

nation of seventyodd millions works for $50,000 a year, the Secretary of the Department of Iron and Steel

must expect to have his salary cut accordingly. And not only will the workers take to themselves the profits

of national and municipal monopolies, but also the immense revenues which the dominant classes today draw

All this would seem very like a dream, even to the worker, if it were not for the fact that like things have been

done before. He points triumphantly to the aristocrat of the eighteenth century, who fought, legislated,

governed, and dominated society, but who was shorn of power and displaced by the rising bourgeoisie. Ay,

the thing was done, he holds. And it shall be done again, but this time it is the proletariat who does the

shearing. Sociology has taught him that might spells "right." Every society has been ruled by classes,

and the classes have ruled by sheer strength, and have been overthrown by sheer strength. The bourgeoisie,

because it was the stronger, dragged down the nobility of the sword; and the proletariat, because it is the

And in that day, for better or worse, the common man becomes the masterfor better, he believes. It is his

intention to make the sum of human happiness far greater. No man shall work for a bare living wage, which

is degradation. Every man shall have work to do, and shall be paid exceedingly well for doing it. There shall

be no slum classes, no beggars. Nor shall there be hundreds of thousands of men and women condemned, for

economic reasons, to lives of celibacy or sexual infertility. Every man shall be able to marry, to live in

healthy, comfortable quarters, and to have all he wants to eat as many times a day as he wishes. There shall

no longer be a lifeanddeath struggle for food and shelter. The old heartless law of development shall be

All of which is very good and very fine. And when these things have come to pass, what then? Of old, by

virtue of their weakness and inefficiency in the struggle for food and shelter, the race was purged of its weak

and inefficient members. But this will no longer obtain. Under the new order the weak and the progeny of the

weak will have a chance for survival equal to that of the strong and the progeny of the strong. This being so,

the premium upon strength will have been withdrawn, and on the face of it the average strength of each

When the common man's day shall have arrived, the new social institutions of that day will prevent the

weeding out of weakness and inefficiency. All, the weak and the strong, will have an equal chance for

procreation. And the progeny of all, of the weak as well as the strong, will have an equal chance for survival.

This being so, and if no new effective law of development be put into operation, then progress must cease.

And not only progress, for deterioration would at once set in. It is a pregnant problem. What will be the

nature of this new and most necessary law of development? Can the common man pause long enough from

his undermining labors to answer? Since he is bent upon dragging down the bourgeoisie and reconstructing

society, can he so reconstruct that a premium, in some unguessed way or other, will still be laid upon the

strong and efficient so that the human type will continue to develop? Can the common man, or the

uncommon men who are allied with him, devise such a law? Or have they already devised one? And if so,

It is quite fair to say that I became a Socialist in a fashion somewhat similar to the way in which the Teutonic

pagans became Christiansit was hammered into me. Not only was I not looking for Socialism at the time

of my conversion, but I was fighting it. I was very young and callow, did not know much of anything, and

though I had never even heard of a school called "Individualism," I sang the paean of the strong with all my

This was because I was strong myself. By strong I mean that I had good health and hard muscles, both of

which possessions are easily accounted for. I had lived my childhood on California ranches, my boyhood

hustling newspapers on the streets of a healthy Western city, and my youth on the ozoneladen waters of San

Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. I loved life in the open, and I toiled in the open, at the hardest kinds of

work. Learning no trade, but drifting along from job to job, I looked on the world and called it good, every bit

of it. Let me repeat, this optimism was because I was healthy and strong, bothered with neither aches nor

weaknesses, never turned down by the boss because I did not look fit, able always to get a job at shovelling

And because of all this, exulting in my young life, able to hold my own at work or fight, I was a rampant

individualist. It was very natural. I was a winner. Wherefore I called the game, as I saw it played, or thought I

saw it played, a very proper game for MEN. To be a MAN was to write man in large capitals on my heart. To

adventure like a man, and fight like a man, and do a man's work (even for a boy's pay)these were things

that reached right in and gripped hold of me as no other thing could. And I looked ahead into long vistas of a

hazy and interminable future, into which, playing what I conceived to be MAN'S game, I should continue to

travel with unfailing health, without accidents, and with muscles ever vigorous. As I say, this future was

interminable. I could see myself only raging through life without end like one of Nietzsche's BLOND

As for the unfortunates, the sick, and ailing, and old, and maimed, I must confess I hardly thought of them at

all, save that I vaguely felt that they, barring accidents, could be as good as I if they wanted to real hard, and

could work just as well. Accidents? Well, they represented FATE, also spelled out in capitals, and there was

no getting around FATE. Napoleon had had an accident at Waterloo, but that did not dampen my desire to be

another and later Napoleon. Further, the optimism bred of a stomach which could digest scrap iron and a

body which flourished on hardships did not permit me to consider accidents as even remotely related to my

I hope I have made it clear that I was proud to be one of Nature's strongarmed noblemen. The dignity of

labor was to me the most impressive thing in the world. Without having read Carlyle, or Kipling, I

formulated a gospel of work which put theirs in the shade. Work was everything. It was sanctification and

salvation. The pride I took in a hard day's work well done would be inconceivable to you. It is almost

inconceivable to me as I look back upon it. I was as faithful a wage slave as ever capitalist exploited. To shirk

or malinger on the man who paid me my wages was a sin, first, against myself, and second, against him. I

In short, my joyous individualism was dominated by the orthodox bourgeois ethics. I read the bourgeois

papers, listened to the bourgeois preachers, and shouted at the sonorous platitudes of the bourgeois

politicians. And I doubt not, if other events had not changed my career, that I should have evolved into a

professional strikebreaker, (one of President Eliot's American heroes), and had my head and my earning

power irrevocably smashed by a club in the hands of some militant tradesunionist.

Just about this time, returning from a seven months' voyage before the mast, and just turned eighteen, I took it

into my head to go tramping. On rods and blind baggages I fought my way from the open West where men

bucked big and the job hunted the man, to the congested labor centres of the East, where men were small

potatoes and hunted the job for all they were worth. And on this new BLOND BEAST adventure I found

myself looking upon life from a new and totally different angle. I had dropped down from the proletariat into

what sociologists love to call the "submerged tenth," and I was startled to discover the way in which that

I found there all sorts of men, many of whom had once been as good as myself and just as BLONDBEAST;

sailormen, soldiermen, labor men, all wrenched and distorted and twisted out of shape by toil and

hardship and accident, and cast adrift by their masters like so many old horses. I battered on the drag and

slammed back gates with them, or shivered with them in box cars and city parks, listening the while to

lifehistories which began under auspices as fair as mine, with digestions and bodies equal to and better than

mine, and which ended there before my eyes in the shambles at the bottom of the Social Pit.

And as I listened my brain began to work. The woman of the streets and the man of the gutter drew very close

to me. I saw the picture of the Social Pit as vividly as though it were a concrete thing, and at the bottom of the

Pit I saw them, myself above them, not far, and hanging on to the slippery wall by main strength and sweat.

And I confess a terror seized me. What when my strength failed? when I should be unable to work shoulder

to shoulder with the strong men who were as yet babes unborn? And there and then I swore a great oath. It

ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO DO. And I have been busy ever since running away from hard work.

Incidentally, while tramping some ten thousand miles through the United States and Canada, I strayed into

Niagara Falls, was nabbed by a feehunting constable, denied the right to plead guilty or not guilty,

sentenced out of hand to thirty days' imprisonment for having no fixed abode and no visible means of

support, handcuffed and chained to a bunch of men similarly circumstanced, carted down country to Buffalo,

registered at the Erie County Penitentiary, had my head clipped and my budding mustache shaved, was

dressed in convict stripes, compulsorily vaccinated by a medical student who practised on such as we, made

to march the lockstep, and put to work under the eyes of guards armed with Winchester riflesall for

adventuring in BLONDBEASTLY fashion. Concerning further details deponent sayeth not, though he may

hint that some of his plethoric national patriotism simmered down and leaked out of the bottom of his soul

somewhereat least, since that experience he finds that he cares more for men and women and little children

To return to my conversion. I think it is apparent that my rampant individualism was pretty effectively

hammered out of me, and something else as effectively hammered in. But, just as I had been an individualist

without knowing it, I was now a Socialist without knowing it, withal, an unscientific one. I had been reborn,

but not renamed, and I was running around to find out what manner of thing I was. I ran back to California

and opened the books. I do not remember which ones I opened first. It is an unimportant detail anyway. I was

already It, whatever It was, and by aid of the books I discovered that It was a Socialist. Since that day I have

opened many books, but no economic argument, no lucid demonstration of the logic and inevitableness of

Socialism affects me as profoundly and convincingly as I was affected on the day when I first saw the walls

of the Social Pit rise around me and felt myself slipping down, down, into the shambles at the bottom.

{1} "From 43 to 52 per cent of all applicants need work rather than relief."Report of the Charity

{2} Mr. Leiter, who owns a coal mine at the town of Zeigler, Illinois, in an interview printed in the Chicago

RecordHerald of December 6, 1904, said: "When I go into the market to purchase labor, I propose to retain

just as much freedom as does a purchaser in any other kind of a market. . . . There is no difficulty whatever in

{3} "Despondent and weary with vain attempts to struggle against an unsympathetic world, two old men

were brought before Police Judge McHugh this afternoon to see whether some means could not be provided

"George Westlake was the first one to receive the consideration of the court. Westlake is seventytwo years

old. A charge of habitual drunkenness was placed against him, and he was sentenced to a term in the county

jail, though it is more than probable that he was never under the influence of intoxicating liquor in his life.

The act on the part of the authorities was one of kindness for him, as in the county jail he will be provided

"Joe Coat, aged sixtynine years, will serve ninety days in the county jail for much the same reason as

Westlake. He states that, if given a chance to do so, he will go out to a woodcamp and cut timber during the

winter, but the police authorities realize that he could not long survive such a task."From the Butte

"'I end my life because I have reached the age limit, and there is no place for me in this world. Please notify

my wife, No. 222 West 129th Street, New York.' Having summed up the cause of his despondency in this

final message, James Hollander, fiftysix years old, shot himself through the left temple, in his room at the

{4} In the San Francisco Examiner of November 16, 1904, there is an account of the use of firehose to drive

away three hundred men who wanted work at unloading a vessel in the harbor. So anxious were the men to

get the two or three hours' job that they made a veritable mob and had to be driven off.

{5} "It was no uncommon thing in these sweatshops for men to sit bent over a sewingmachine continuously

from eleven to fifteen hours a day in July weather, operating a sewingmachine by footpower, and often so

driven that they could not stop for lunch. The seasonal character of the work meant demoralizing toil for a

few months in the year, and a not less demoralizing idleness for the remainder of the time. Consumption, the

plague of the tenements and the especial plague of the garment industry, carried off many of these workers;

{9} From figures presented by Miss Nellie Mason Auten in the American Journal of Sociology, and copied

{11} An item from the Social Democratic Herald. Hundreds of these items, culled from current happenings,

{12} Karl Marx, the great Socialist, worked out the trust development forty years ago, for which he was