Part 5 (1/2)

If the aim of the ”progressives” is the overthrow of ”the rule of property” as Mr. Baker claims--if, in the words of Mr. White again, ”America is joining the world movement towards equal opportunity for all men in our modern civilization,” then indeed the greatest political and economic struggle of history, the final conflict between capitalism and Socialism, is at hand.

But when we ask along what lines this great war for a better society is to be waged, and by what methods, we are told that the parties to the conflict are separated, not by practical economic interests, but by ”ideas” and ”ideals,” and that the chief means by which this social revolution is to be accomplished are direct legislation and the recall and their use to extend government owners.h.i.+p or control so as gradually to close one door after another upon the operations of capital until its power for harm is annihilated, _i.e._ democracy and collectivism. In other words, the militant phrases used by Socialists in earnest are adopted by radicals as convenient and popular battle cries in their campaign for ”State Socialism,” as to banking, railroads, mines, and a few industrial ”trusts,” but without the slightest attempt either to end the ”rule of property” or to secure ”equal opportunity” for any but farmers and small business men. They do nothing, moreover, to bring about the new political and cla.s.s alignment that is the very first requirement, if the rule of property in all its forms is to be ended, or equal opportunity secured for the lower as well as the comparatively well-to-do middle cla.s.ses.

Similarly the essential or practical difference between the ”Socialism”

of Mr. Roosevelt's editorial a.s.sociate, Dr. Lyman Abbott, who acknowledges that cla.s.ses exist and says that capitalism must be abolished, and the Socialism of the international movement is this, that Dr. Abbott expects to work, on the whole, with the capitalists who are to be done away with, while Socialists expect to work against them.

Dr. Abbott claims that the ”democratic Socialism” he advocates is directly the opposite of ”State Socialism ... the doctrine of Bismarck,” that it ”aims to abolish the distinction between possessing and non-possessing cla.s.ses,” that our present industrial inst.i.tutions are based on _autocracy_ and _inequality_ instead of liberty, democracy, and equality, that under the _wages system_ or capitalism, the laborers or wage earners are practically unable to earn their daily bread ”except by permission of the capitalists who own the tools by which the labor must be carried on.” He then proceeds to what would be regarded by many as a thoroughly Socialist conclusion:

”The real and radical remedy for the evils of capitalism is the organization of the industrial system in which the laborers or tool users will themselves become the capitalists or tool owners; in which, therefore, the cla.s.s distinction which exists under capitalism will be abolished.”[36]

And what separates the advanced ”State Socialism” of Mr. Hearst's brilliant editor, Mr. Arthur Brisbane, from the Socialism of the organized Socialist movement? Has not Mr. Brisbane hinted repeatedly at a possible revolution in the future? Has he not insisted that the crux of ”the cost of living question” is not so much the control of prices by the private owners.h.i.+p of necessities of life (as some ”State Socialist” reformers say, and even some official publications of the Socialist Party), as the _exploitation_ of the worker _at the point of production_, the fact that he does not get the full product of his labor--phrases which might have been used by Marx himself?

The _New York Evening Journal_ has even predicted an increasing conflict of economic interests on the political field--failing to state only that the people's fight must be won by a cla.s.s struggle, a movement directed against capitalism and excluding capitalists (except in such cases where they have completely abandoned their financial interests).

Asked whether the influence of the Interests (the ”trusts”) would increase or diminish in this country in the near future, the _Journal_ answered:--

”The influence of the interests, which means the power of the trusts, or organized industry and commerce, will go forward steadily without interruption.

”Just as steadily as early military feudalism advanced and grew, UNTIL THE PEOPLE AT LAST CONTROLLED IT AND OWNED IT, JUST SO STEADILY WILL TO-DAY'S INDUSTRIAL FEUDALISM advance and grow without interruption UNTIL THE PEOPLE CONTROL IT and own it.

”The trusts are destined to be infinitely more powerful than now, infinitely more ably organized.

”And that will be a good thing in the long run for the people. The trusts are the people's great teachers, proving that destructive, selfish, unbrotherly compet.i.tion is unnecessary.

”They are proving that the genius of man can free a nation or a world. They are saying to the people: 'You work under our ORDERS.

One power can own and manage industry.'

”It is hard for individual ambition just now. But in time THE PEOPLE WILL LEARN THE LESSON AND WILL SAY TO THE TRUST OWNERS:--

”'THANK YOU VERY MUCH. WE HAVE LEARNED THE LESSON. WE SEE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ONE POWER TO OWN AND CONTROL ALL INDUSTRY, ALL MANUFACTURES, ALL COMMERCE, AND WE, THE PEOPLE, WILL BE THAT ONE POWER.'

”Just as the individual feudal lords organized their little armies in France, and just as the French people themselves have all the armies in one--UNDER THE PEOPLE'S POWER--so the industries organized NOW by the barons of industrial feudalism, one by one, will be taken and put together by the people, UNDER THE PEOPLE'S OWNERs.h.i.+P.”[37]

Yet we find the _Journal_, like all the vehicles and mouthpieces of radicalism, other than those of the Socialists, unready to take the first step necessary in any conflict; namely, to decide who is the enemy. Unless defended by definite groups in the community, ”the rule of property,” could be ended in a single election. Nor can the group that maintains capitalist government consist, as radicals suggest, merely of a handful of large capitalists, nor of these aided by certain cohorts of hired political mercenaries--nor yet of these two groups supported by the deceived and ignorant among the ma.s.ses. Unimportant elections may be fought with such support, but not revolutionary ”civil wars” or ”the upheavals of the centuries.” _In every historical instance such struggles were supported on both sides by powerful, and at the same time numerically important, social cla.s.ses, acting on the solid basis of economic interest._

Yet non-Socialist reformers persist in claiming that they represent all cla.s.ses with the exception of a handful of monopolists, the bought, and the ignorant; and many a.s.sert flatly that their movement is altruistic, which can only mean that they intend to bestow such benefits as they think proper on some social cla.s.s that they expect to remain powerless to help itself. Here, then, in the att.i.tude of non-Socialist reformers towards various social cla.s.ses, we begin to see the inner structure of their movement. They do not propose to attack any ”vested interests”

except those of the financial magnates, and they expect the lower cla.s.ses to remain politically impotent, which they as democrats, know means that these cla.s.ses are only going to receive such secondary consideration as the interests of the other cla.s.ses require.

Whether the radical of to-day, the ”State Socialist,” favors political democracy or not, depends on whether these ”pa.s.sive beneficiaries” of the new ”altruistic” system are in a majority. If they are not in a majority, certain political objects may be gained (without giving the non-capitalist ma.s.ses any real power) by allowing them all to vote, by removing undemocratic const.i.tutional restrictions, and by introducing direct legislation, the recall, and similar measures. If they are a majority, it is generally agreed that it is unsafe to allow them an equal voice in government, as they almost universally fail to rest satisfied with the benefits they secure from collectivist capitalism and press on immediately to a far more radical policy.

So in agricultural communities like New Zealand, Australia, and some of our Western States, where there is a prosperous property-holding majority, the most complete political democracy has come to prevail.

Judging everything by local conditions, the progressive small capitalists of our West sometimes even favor the extension of this democracy to the nation and the whole world, as when the Wisconsin legislature proposes direct legislation and the recall in our national government. But they are being warned against this ”extremist” stand by conservative progressive leaders of the industrial sections like Ex-President Roosevelt or Governor Woodrow Wilson.

This latter type of progressive not only opposes the extension of radical democracy to districts like our South and East, numerically dominated by agricultural or industrial laborers, but often wants to restrict the ballot in those regions. Professor E. A. Ross, for example, writes in _La Follette's Weekly_ that ”no one ought to be given the ballot unless he can give proof of ability to read and write the English language,” which would disqualify a large part, if not the majority, of the working people in many industrial centers; while Dr. Abbott concluded a lengthy series of articles with the suggestion that the Southern States have ”set an example which it would be well, if it were possible, for all the States to follow.”

”Many of them have adopted in their const.i.tutions,” Dr. Abbott continues, ”a qualified suffrage. The qualifications are not the same in all the States, but there is not one of those States in which every man, black or white, has not a legal right to vote, provided he can read and write the English language, owns three hundred dollars' worth of property, and has paid his taxes. A provision that no man should vote unless he has intelligence enough to read and write, thrift enough to have laid up three hundred dollars' worth of property, and patriotism enough to have paid his taxes, would not be a bad provision for any State in the Union to incorporate in its const.i.tution.”[38]

Such a provision accompanied by the customary Southern poll tax, which, Dr. Abbott overlooked (evidently inadvertently), would add several million more white workingmen to the millions (colored and white) that are already without a vote.[39]