Part 25 (2/2)

Whence it follows, that the nearer the cultivator approaches the pa.s.sive condition of a mercenary, the less industry and activity are to be expected from him; and, on the other hand, the nearer he is to the condition of a free and entire proprietor, the more extension he gives to his own forces, to the produce of his lands, and to the general prosperity of the State.'

”Each co-operative farm, will become a new center of permanent wealth; a new center of social progress; of organized labor; of distribution and exchange. These new centers, by again bringing together the food and the consumer, will save millions for themselves, which under the compet.i.tive system, were thrown away in freights and commissions. As these farm centers continue to increase, they may stretch away in one unbroken chain, perhaps five hundred miles in length. Each link in the chain, will be a five or ten-mile boulevard. Altogether, forming one continuous system of broad, free highways, the finest the world ever saw! Aided by trains of horseless carriages, there will be developed between the centers along this highway, a new system of transportation, distribution, commerce and exchange. With the establishment of each new system, the co-operative movement will gain an added impetus. The centers of exchange, distribution and commerce, located in great cities, will gradually lose their dominancy. The long lines of monopolized railroads, connecting these cities, will as surely lose a large proportion of their traffic. The magnetic wealth and bustle of the great city, will lose its attractive power. As a consequence, and by the action of a natural law, the tide of wealth and population, will flow back to the country; with its meadows and fields, its mountains and streams, its suns.h.i.+ne, blue skies, pure air and wholesome, enjoyable village life. Amid such surroundings, upright and just, fearless and free, the model citizen of a true republic, may find a natural home.”

”Pardon me, Fillmore, for the interruption! I freely concede the desirability of the results, which you have so glowingly pictured.

Nevertheless, I cannot quite agree with you, about the existence of a law, through which the tide of wealth and population will again flow towards the country. I am inclined to think, that facts and figures are against such a result. The statistics of the census of 1890, indicate that about one-third of the population, and over seventy-five per cent of the wealth of the nation, were then located in the cities. A little later, able thinkers and writers of the Josiah Strong type, proclaimed, that by the middle of the twentieth century, this would be a nation of cities, with less than ten per cent of its wealth and population remaining rural. As startling as these predictions are, I very much fear, that the logic of events favor their fulfillment!”

”If you will give me a little more time George, I think I shall be able to show you where these writers erred, in reasoning from wrong premises.

They have judged the trend of events and the probable results that are to follow, from the standpoint of the compet.i.tive system. A system, which they have accepted without question as a permanent one, never to be replaced by another. This was the fatal error, which has robbed their conclusions of all value.

”In discussing the status of our great cities, these writers all agree, that they are a constant menace to the nation; centers of political corruption, which are in every way antagonistic to the letter and spirit of a republican form of government; aggregations of the most dangerous elements of society, which are incapable of self-government. These admissions have a wonderful significance. Let us examine them.

”The question of society, becomes a potent factor in the solution of this problem. Society, like a great leviathan, covers the face of our country. Representing the aggregate of life, it affects all lives. As the social side of the body politic, it has the power to strangle or to nourish, every interest which is dear to those lives. Dominant society, is the support and inspiration of government. The excellence of any government, may be measured by the excellence of the society upon which that government is based. Under the standard of a republic, society may be divided into two cla.s.ses; the true and the false. Reasoning from these premises, we may conclude, that in order to have a true republic, we must first evolve a true society.

”The society representing the compet.i.tive system, has its centers or units in our great cities. Its votaries, are wors.h.i.+ppers of wealth. They are importers of foreign fas.h.i.+ons, and foreign ideas of government. They believe in caste. They detest equality. They have no love and very little respect for the equal rights guaranteed by the Const.i.tution. They despise honest labor. They consider it menial, as a badge of servitude.

They believe that wealth is a power which can raise the wealthy few to the dominancy of a privileged cla.s.s. They believe that as members of this cla.s.s, they can treat all other cla.s.ses as servitors and dependents, who may be hired to do anything for money. They view with complacency, the crowded populations of our great cities. The greater and more dense the ma.s.s of people, the larger, more dependent and more obsequious the cla.s.s of servitors. They are naturally, more or less in sympathy with monarchial and despotic inst.i.tutions. They believe that the rulers, judges and law-makers, should come from the ranks of the privileged cla.s.s. They are out of harmony with the republic, because it is the true form of a co-operative government. Co-operation, they hate, it smacks of equality! They are devoted to the compet.i.tive system. They recognize its power to maintain a perpetual warfare among compet.i.tors, which shall forever keep the main host in such abject poverty, that they willingly become slaves to the wealthy. Having lost their independence, the votes of these compet.i.tors are at the command of their financial masters. Than this, nothing could be more harmful to the welfare of a true republic.

”This form of urban society, is the flower of the compet.i.tive system.

The tendency of this society is to so engender selfishness, and to so destroy patriotism, that a multi-millionaire of the William Waldorf Astor type, deliberately achieves the acme of shame, by renouncing his allegiance to a country to which he owes everything. He expatriates himself, and flies to the refuge of a monarchy, to escape the honest burden of a just taxation. A taxation based on an a.s.sessment of less than one-third the rate, which is applied to the average farmer of the republic. One example of such ignominy, ought to teach every patriot, that the true republic must be built on the solid foundation of a society and industrial system, which represents justice and equality.

”Let us now question the co-operative movement, with the purpose of ascertaining its fitness to become the base of a new society, and also the proper foundation for a true republic. In a society growing out of the co-operative system, as our rural and agricultural societies may now do. We find the conditions are reversed. Labor, is the badge of respectability. It is the t.i.tle to an honorable independence. In such a society, both men and women are free. All are co-operators, none are servitors. No beggars! No caste! The units of a co-operative society, are sound and healthy to the core. Co-operation, insures self-employment. Self-employment brings freedom, ambition, independence, self-respect, leisure and education; with all the comforts and refinements of life. With these insured, the co-operator cannot be bought or corrupted by wealth. Each co-operator becomes a citizen, who without fear and without restraint, may speak, write and vote, in accordance with the highest dictates of conscience. A healthful degree of honorable, self-sustaining labor for all, is the key-note of this social organization. Men and women are placed on the same plane of equality, financially, socially and industrially. For woman, this is a matter of the utmost importance.

”Productive co-operative labor, crowns woman with a self-supporting, self-respecting independence, which emphasizes her freedom from every form of bondage. In this, we have a perfect demonstration of the power of labor to bless humanity. Progressive life and invigorating labor, go hand in hand. One is the complement of the other. Labor as naturally promotes grace, strength, virtue and long life; as idleness breeds helplessness, vice, disease and extinction. Here we discover the wisdom, and the universal application of nature's law of labor. This law demands, that women who wish to become mothers of a dominant race, and who desire to secure perpetuity and progress for that race, must take an active part in some useful, productive labor. If we consider the significance of this demand, we shall perceive, that any form of social or industrial organization which denies this right to woman, or which takes from her the opportunity, the necessity, or the desire to labor, becomes her worst enemy, a foe to humanity, that is conspiring to reduce her to the degredation of a helpless dependent, a mere parasite. In her declaration, that 'The human female parasite, is the most deadly microbe which can make its appearance on the surface of any social organism;'

Olive Schreiner has summed up in one sentence, the grave danger from this source which threatens the race.

”The combined and marvelous effects of the co-operative system and society on the woman question, rightfully places that industrial and social system far above all others, in the choice of a secure basis for the foundation of a true republic. In fact, George! After carefully considering the bearings of the questions involved, I feel sure that you will heartily agree with me in the a.s.sertion, that co-operative society, is the very embodiment of even handed justice, in which the rights of all are considered. Furthermore, you will be willing to admit, that it teaches the value of labor, and how to discover its uses and abuses. In eliminating its abuses, it will appear, that true progress, is to so improve and increase the ease and attractiveness of all kinds of labor, that they can no longer be cla.s.sed as toil, or even disagreeable tasks.

This then, is the legitimate field of inventive genius. Success in this field is a.s.sured, because it is in harmony with all laws of progress.

Every hards.h.i.+p, every difficulty and every danger, which is eliminated from physical labor, increases in the same proportion, the opportunity and the demand for mental labor. This demonstrates the action of nature's law of compensation, which in elevating the character of labor, maintains its quant.i.ty.”

”Yes Fillmore, I am convinced! I am willing to admit the truth of the a.s.sertions, which you have made concerning co-operative society, as the result of the co-operative movement. No doubt, they are destined in the near future to supersede the compet.i.tive system and the city society which grew out of it. As I view the situation now, that time cannot come too quickly! Yet, there is one point which still puzzles me. It is in connection with the rapid improvement of labor saving agricultural machinery, which, as Josiah Strong says, will soon enable a few farmers to do all the farm work, forcing all other agriculturalists to seek employment in manufacturing cities. How can you answer that argument, from the co-operative standpoint?”

”That is a pertinent question George, to which co-operation can furnish many conclusive answers. Let us consider the significance, and the conclusiveness, of some of the following:

”Under the co-operative system, every new labor-saving machine applied to agriculture, means just so much added wealth for the farm colony. It affords that much additional income, for active workers; so much more money to swell the annuity fund, for the retired members; so much more cash capital, for the sinking fund, with which to purchase, and to retain the permanent control, of an ever-increasing series of co-operative farms, for the lasting benefit of their people. With co-operative genius to invent, and an abundance of capital with which to buy, the advent of any conceivable quant.i.ty of improved machinery on the co-operative farm, would only serve to increase the wealth, leisure and independence of the co-operators.

”Such well-conditioned people could not, under any circ.u.mstances, be forced to leave homes of luxury and refinement in the country, to become the working slaves of a manufacturing syndicate in the city. Indeed! Why should they? Why should these co-operators, or any one with the opportunity to become such, go to the city to accept an insufficient and uncertain wage; to be compelled to pay five prices for food, when a better and more abundant supply, could be raised on lands of their own, with less than one-half the exertion? Having good homes of their own, why should these people pay exorbitant rents to owners of tenement houses, for the poor privilege of living in stuffy rooms, choked with smoke and filth, and surrounded by the clatter, the strife, the poverty and the soul-wearing compet.i.tion of the great city.

”Why should they rob their children of health and happiness, by depriving them of a natural birthright, healthful exercise, free access to the pure air, the bright suns.h.i.+ne, the blue sky and the unnumbered charms of country life, with its fascination of ever changing landscape, a picturesque mingling of verdure clad hills, green meadows, shady forests, clear lakes and bold mountains? Why should these children be compelled to live a cramped, unnatural life, confined to the narrow streets, poisoned both mentally and physically, by the foul air, disease, corruption, crime and misery of the densely populated city? Why should agriculturists, who are independent co-operative owners of the soil, humiliate themselves by joining the vast army of struggling compet.i.tors, who throng the already overcrowded labor market in our great cities? Why should they be eager to become the financial and political slaves of the leaders of the compet.i.tive system; the social autocrats, who form the society of the 'Four Hundred?'”

”Can a Josiah Strong answer these questions? No! Why not? Because, in blindly reasoning and writing from the compet.i.tive standpoint, he has quite overlooked the fact that agriculture is the base of all wealth. He has forgotten, that as a cla.s.s, agricultural people who own the farming lands of the country, hold the key to the situation. Made conscious of their strength by co-operation, they are the most independent people living. They are in a position to dictate terms to all other cla.s.ses.

They cannot be forced to do anything, which they do not wish to do. In arriving at his conclusions, it seems quite probable that Josiah Strong has made the serious mistake of accepting as true, a very prevalent idea, that in due course of business, (compet.i.tive business) all lands everywhere, would belong to the city capitalist; therefore, that all farmers would then be tenants at will, who could be turned off the land at the caprice of the owner. In this fatal mistake, we discover the error which has vitiated all premises from which he has been reasoning.

”Thanks to the forceful lessons, taught by Henry George, to which our agricultural people have given two decades of careful study. They have learned, that free access to land, is absolutely necessary to a natural enjoyment of life. They have learned, that for this reason, those who own land are masters of those who do not. With a st.u.r.dy independence which should characterize all citizens of a true republic, they have an intense antipathy towards all forms of slavery. Determined to remain free; they have redoubled their efforts to possess, and to retain permanent control of lands, sufficient for themselves and their children. In this work, they have discovered that co-operation leads to perfect success.

”In answering other arguments advanced to show why the city should dominate the country, and therefore absorb its population; the question of rent plays an important part. It should be studied carefully. The law of rent, is an enigma to the poorer cla.s.ses, upon whose necks its yoke presses as a grievous burden. They sweat and groan under the burden, but can discover no way of escape. They must be educated. They must know the cause, before they can learn to avoid the effect.

”Rent, is a legal harness which enables the capitalist who owns houses and lands, to bind needy people to do his work. Through the exactions of rent, he can compel these people who can least afford to do it, to pay his taxes, his interest on capital invested, his living expenses, his traveling expenses, his insurance and such wide margins of profit, as necessity, opportunity and favorable location, may allow him to take.

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