Speech or Document 8

SOCIALISM VERSUS SOCIAL REFORM

IT is always difficult to discuss a question when it proves impossible to define the terms in which that question is to be discussed.  Therefore there is not much to be gained by a discussion of Socialism versus Individualism in the abstract.  Neither absolute Individualism nor absolute Socialism would be compatible with civilization at all; and among the arguments of the extremists of either side the only unanswerable ones are those which show the absurdity of the position of the other.  Not so much as the first step towards real civilization can be taken until there arises some development of the right of private property; that is, until men pass out of the stage of savage socialism in which the violent and the thriftless forcibly constitute themselves co-heirs with the industrious and the intelligent in what the labor of the latter produces.  But it is equally true that every step toward civilization is marked by a check on individualism.  The ages that have passed have fettered the individualism which found expression in physical violence, and we are now endeavoring to put shackles on that kind of individualism which finds expression in craft and greed.  There is growth in all such matters.  The individualism of the Tweed Ring type would have seemed both commonplace and meritorious to the Merovingian Franks, where it was not entirely beyond their comprehension; and so in future ages, if the world progresses as we hope and believe it will progress, the standards of conduct which permit individuals to make money out of pestilential tenements or by the manipulation of stocks, or to refuse to share with their employees the burdens laid upon the latter by old age and by the inevitable physical risks in a given business, will seem as amazing to our descendants as we now find the standards of a society which regarded Clovis and his immediate successors as preeminently fit for leadership.

There are many American " Socialists" to whom " Socialism " is merely a rather vaguely conceived catchword, and who use it to express their discontent with existing wrongs and their,' purpose to correct them.  These may be men of high character, who wish to protest against concrete and cruel injustice.  So far as they make any proposals which tend towards betterment, we can wisely act with them.  But the real, logical, advanced Socialists, who teach their faith as both a creed and a party platform, may deceive to their ruin decent and well-meaning, but short-sighted men; and there is need of plain speaking in order accurately to show the trend of their teaching.  The leaders of the Socialist party have, in the present war, shown themselves the enemies of America, and the tools of German militaristic brutality.

The immorality and absurdity of the doctrines of Socialism as propounded by these advanced advocates are quite as great as those of the advocates of an unlimited individualism.  As an academic matter Herbert Spencer stands as far to one side of the line of sane action as Marx stands on the other.  But practically there is more need of refutation of the creed of absolute Socialism than of the creed of absolute individualism; for it happens that at the present time a greater number of visionaries, both sinister and merely dreamy, believe in the former than in the latter.  One difficulty in arguing with professed Socialists of the extreme type, however, is that those of them who are sincere almost invariably suffer from great looseness of thought; for if they did not keep their faith nebulous, it would at once become abhorrent in the eyes of any upright and sensible man.  The doctrinaire Socialists, the extremists, the self-styled " scientific " Socialists, the men who represent the doctrine in its most advanced form, are, and must necessarily be, not only convinced opponents of private property, but also bitterly hostile to religion and morality; in short, they must be opposed to all those principles through which, and through which alone, even an imperfect civilization can be built up by slow advances through the ages.

Indeed, these thoroughgoing Socialists occupy, in relation to all morality, and especially to domestic morality, a position which can only be described as revolting.  In America the leaders even of this type have usually been cautious about stating frankly that they proposed to substitute free love for married and family life as we have it, although many of them do in a roundabout way uphold this position.  In places on the continent of Europe, however, they are more straightforward, their attitude being that of the extreme French Socialist writer, M.  Gabrielle Deville, who announces that the Socialists intend to do away with both prostitution and marriage, which he regards as equally wicked — his method of doing away with prostitution being to make unchastity universal.  Professor Carl Pearson, a leading English Socialist, states their position exactly: " The sex relation of the future will not be regarded as a union for the birth of children, but as the closest form of friendship between man and woman.  It will be accompanied by no child-bearing or rearing, or by this in a much more limited number than at present.  With the sex relationship, so long as it does not result in children, we hold that the state in the future will in no wise interfere, but when it does result in children, then the state will have a right to interfere." He then goes on to point out that in order to save the woman from “economic dependence " upon the father of her children, the children will be raised at the expense of the state; the usual plan being to have huge buildings like foundling asylums.

Mr.  Pearson is a scientific man who, in his own realm, is worthy of serious heed, and the above quotation states in naked form just what logical scientific Socialism would really come to.  Aside from its thoroughly repulsive quality, it ought not to be necessary to point out that the condition of affairs aimed at would in actual practice bring about the destruction of the race within at most a couple of generations; and such destruction would be heartily to be desired for any race of such infamous character as to tolerate such a system.

“Advanced “Socialist leaders are fond of declaiming against patriotism, of announcing their movement as international, and of claiming to treat all men alike.  As regards patriotism their practice is generally as bad as their preaching; in this war the Socialist leaders have played the part of traitors to America, and many sincere men have in consequence left the Socialist party — although as so many of the Socialist leaders here are Germans, and as they have been warm upholders of every revolting act of the German autocracy, they may claim that their patriotism is merely inverted.  But as regards real internationalism, the Socialists would not for one moment stand the test of actual experiment.  If the leaders of the Socialist party in America should today endeavor to force their followers to admit all negroes and Chinamen to a real equality, their party would promptly disband, and rather than submit to such putting into effect of their avowed purpose, would, as a literal fact, follow any capitalistic organization as an alternative.

It is not accident that makes thoroughgoing and radical Socialists adopt the principles of free love as a necessary sequence to insisting that no man shall have the right to what he earns.  When Socialism of this really advanced and logical type, or any social system really, although not nominally, akin to it, is tried as it was in France in 1792, and again under the Commune in 1871, it is inevitable that the movement, ushered in with every kind of high-sounding phrase, should rapidly spread so as to include, not merely the forcible acquisition of the property of others, but every conceivable form of monetary corruption, immorality, licentiousness, and murderous violence.  In theory, distinctions can be drawn between this kind of Socialism and anarchy and nihilism; but in practice, as in 1871, the apostles of all three act together; and if the doctrines of any of them could be applied universally, all the troubles of society would indeed cease, because society itself would cease.  The poor and the helpless, especially women and children, would be the first to die out, and the few survivors would go back to the condition of skin-clad savages, so that the whole painful and laborious work of social development would have to begin over again.  Of course, long before such an event really happened the Socialistic regime would have been overturned, and in the reaction men would welcome any kind of one-man tyranny that was compatible with the existence of civilization.

The fact is that this kind of Socialism represents an effort to enthrone privilege in its crudest form.  Much of what we are fighting against in modern civilization is privilege.  We fight against privilege when it takes the form of a, franchise to a street railway company to enjoy the use of the streets of a great city without paying an adequate return; when it takes the form of a great business combination which grows rich by rebates which are denied to other shippers; when it takes the form of a stock-gambling operation which results in the watering of railway securities so that certain inside men get an enormous profit out of a swindle on the public.  All these represent various forms of illegal, or, if not illegal, then anti-social, privilege.  But there can be no greater abuse, no greater example of corrupt and destructive privilege, than that advocated by those who say that each man should put into a common store what he can and take out what he needs.  This is merely another way of saying that the thriftless and the vicious, who could or would put in but little, should be entitled to take out the earnings of the intelligent, the foresighted, and the industrious.  Such a proposition is morally base.  To choose to live by theft or by charity necessarily means the complete loss of self-respect.  The worst wrongs that capitalism can commit upon labor would sink into insignificance when compared with the hideous wrongs done by those who would degrade labor by entailing upon it the rapid lowering of self-reliance.

However — and this we must say again, and again, and again — the fact that the professed socialists hold views that are on some points profoundly immoral, does not in the smallest degree excuse us from warring against existing evils.  To fail to do so would rank us among the foes of this nation's own household.  And in thus warring, we must lose sight neither of our moral nor of our economic needs.

We should do everything that can be done, by law or otherwise, to keep the avenues of occupation, of employment, of work, of interest, so open that there shall be, so far as it is humanly possible to achieve it, a measurable equality of opportunity; an equality of opportunity for each man to show the stuff that is in him.  We ought, as far as possible, to make it possible for each man to obtain the education, the training which will enable him to take advantage of the opportunity, if he has the stuff in him to do so.  When it comes to reward, let each man, within the limits set by a sound and far-sighted morality, get what, by his energy, intelligence, thrift, courage, he is able to get, with the opportunity open.  We must set our faces against privilege; just as much against the kind of privilege which would let the shiftless and lazy laborer take what his brother has earned as against the privilege which allows the huge capitalist to take toll to which he is not entitled.  We stand for equality of opportunity, but not for equality of reward unless there is also equality of service.  If the service is equal, let the reward be equal; but let the reward depend on the service; and, mankind being composed as it is, there will be inequality of service for a long time to come, no matter how great the quality of opportunity may be; and just so long as there is inequality of service it is eminently desirable that there should be inequality of reward.

We recognize, and are bound to war against, the evils of today.  The remedies are partly economic and partly spiritual, partly to be obtained by laws, and in greater part to be obtained by individual and associated effort; for character is the vital matter, and character can not be created by law.  These remedies include a religious and moral teaching which shall increase the spirit of human brotherhood; an educational system which shall train men for every form of useful service — and which shall train us to prize common sense no less than morality; such a division of the profits of industry as shall tend to encourage intelligent and thrifty tool-users to become tool-owners; and a Government so strong, just, wise, and democratic that, neither lagging too far behind nor pushing heedlessly in advance, it may do its full share in promoting these ends.

Speech or Document 9

THE FARMER; THE CORNER-STONE OF CIVILIZATION

RECENTLY an Indiana woman was peeling some potatoes, and in a hollow in one she found a note from the Southern farmer who had raised the potatoes running:

“I got 69 cents.  A bushel for these potatoes.  How much did you pay for them?"

She wrote back:
“I paid $4 per bushel."

The farmer sent her just one more letter.  It said:

“I got 69 cents.  for those potatoes.  It could not have cost more than 31 cents.  to carry them to you.  Who got the other $3? I am going to try to find out."

It is idle to say that when such an occurrence is typical — and it most certainly is to a large extent typical — there is no cause for uneasiness.  Something is wrong.  It may be wholly the fault of outsiders.  It may be at least partially the fault of the farmers and of those who eat the food the farmers raise.  The trouble may be so deep-rooted in our social system that extreme caution must be exercised in striving for betterment.  But one thing is certain.  The situation is not satisfactory and calls for a thoroughgoing investigation, with the determination to make whatever changes, including radical changes, are necessary in order once more to put on a healthy basis the oldest and most essential of all occupations, the occupation which is the foundation of all others, the occupation of the tiller of the soil, of the man who by his own labor raises the raw material of food and clothing, without which the whole fabric of the most gorgeous civilization will topple in a week.

We can not permanently shape our course right on any international issue unless we are sound on the domestic issues; and this farm movement is the fundamental social issue — the one issue which is even more basic than the relations of capitalist and workingman.  The farm industry can not stop; the world is never more than a year from starvation; this great war has immensely increased the cost of living without commensurately improving the condition of the men who produce the things on which we live.  Even in this country the situation has become grave.

The temporary causes of this' situation have produced such effect in our land only because they aggravated conditions due to fundamental causes which have long been at work.  These fundamental causes may all be included in one: the farmers' business in our country has remained almost unchanged during the century which has seen every other business change in profound and radical fashion.  He still works by methods belonging to the day of the stagecoach and the horse canal-boat, while every other brain or hand worker in the country has been obliged to shape his methods into more or less conformity to those required by an age of steam and electricity.

Our commercial, banking, manufacturing, and transportation systems have been built up with a rapidity never before approached.  We have accumulated wealth at an unheard of rate.  There has been grave injustice in the distribution of the wealth, our law-givers having erred both by unwisdom in leaving the matter alone, and at times by even greater unwisdom when they interfered with it.  But on the whole the growth and prosperity have been enormous; and yet we have allowed the basic industry of farming, the industry which underlies all economic life, to drift along haphazard, we have allowed the life of the dwellers in the open country to become more and more meager, and their methods of production and of marketing to remain so primitive that their soil was impoverished and their profits largely usurped by others.

In 1880, one farmer in four was a tenant; and at that time the tenant was still generally a young man to whom the position of tenant was merely an intermediate step between that of farm laborer and that of farm owner.  In 1910, over one farmer in three had become a tenant; and now-adays it becomes steadily more difficult to pass from the tenant to the owner stage.  If the process continues unchecked, half a century hence we shall have deliberately permitted ourselves to plunge into the situation which brought chaos in Ireland, and which in England resulted in the complete elimination of the old yeomanry, so that nearly nine-tenths of English farmers today are tenants and the consequent class division is most ominous for the future.  France and Germany are today distinctly better off than we are in this respect; and in New Zealand, where there is an excellent system of land distribution, only one-seventh of the farmers are tenants.

If the tendencies that have produced such a condition continue to work unchecked no prophetic power is needed to foretell disaster to the nation.  Therefore, the one hopeless attitude, in this as in recent international matters, is “watchful waiting," sitting still and doing nothing to prepare for or to avert disaster.  It is far better to try experiments, even when we are not certain how these experiments will turn out, or when we are certain that the proposed plan contains elements of folly as well as elements of wisdom.  Better “trial and error “than no trial at all.  And the service test, the test of actual experiment, is the only conclusive test.  It is only the attempt in actual practice to realize a realizable ideal that contains hope.  Mere writing and oratory and enunciation of theory, with no attempt to secure the service test, amount to nothing.

This applies to the tenancy problem.  It also applies to every other farming problem.  As regards each, let us test the plans for reform, so far as may be, by actual practice.

For many of these plans the several states offer themselves as natural laboratories, where experiments  n be tried when conditions and public opinion are right; and this although thepermanent remedies must ultimately, at least in major part, be national.  It is exceedingly interesting to watch such an experiment as that seemingly to be tried in North Dakota.  This is a farming State, where the farming is the predominant interest, and inasmuch as all reforms cost money, and as even advisable reforms become utterly disastrous if in spending money upon them we treat " the sky as the limit," and decline to consider the proportion between what the reform achieves and what it costs, it is well that the farmers themselves should pay a good proportion of the cost of reforms necessary to and peculiarly affecting themselves.  In North Dakota, in addition to matters like hail insurance, it is proposed that the State shall purchase and operate grain elevators, mills and terminals and other business instrumentalities of vital concern to farmers.  I most heartily commend the earnest effort the leaders in the movement have made actually to better conditions; and I say this although from the facts at my command I judge that most of the work which it is thus proposed to have done by the State could be done better by cooperative societies among the farmers themselves.  Present conditions should certainly be changed.  To keep them unchanged is to act in a spirit of mere Toryism.  From the North Dakota experiment, when put in actual practice, we can learn some things to follow and some things to avoid; and perhaps we can also learn to be wise in time, and, by sane determination to put in practice reforms that we are reasonably sure will have no bad effects, avoid the sad necessity of paying with our own skins for experiments which probably will have bad effects.

I greatly prefer to see the Government leave untouched whatever the corporations under Government supervision can do; and just as far as possible I want to see all the corporations made into cooperative associations.  But there are things so important that the Government must do them, if it is only through such exercise of collective power that they can be done.

Our object must be (1) to make the tenant farmer a landowner; (2) to eliminate as far as possible the conditions which produce the shifting, seasonal, tramp type of labor, and to give the farm laborer a permanent status, a career as a farmer, for which his school education shall fit him, and which shall open to him the chance of in the end earning the ownership in fee of his own farm; (3) to secure cooperation among the small landowners, so that their energies shall produce the best possible results; (4) by progressive taxation or in other fashion to break up and prevent the formation of great landed estates, especially in so far as they consist of unused agricultural land; (5) to make capital available for the farmers, and thereby put them more on an equality with other men engaged in business; (6) to care for the woman on the farm as much as for the man, and to eliminate the conditions which now so often tend to make her life one of gray and sterile drudgery; (7) to do this primarily through the farmer himself, but also, when necessary, by the use of the entire collective power of the people of the country; for the welfare of the farmer is the concern of all of us.