THE TERM OF SERVICE—THE SURVIVORS OF TWENTY YEARS—SPREAD OF
CO-OPERATION—SECRET OF CO-OPOLITAN SUCCESS—1917.
An important question came up before the Legislative Council at one of
its meetings in May, 1916. It was as to whether the term of service in
the Industrial Army should be reduced from twenty-five to twenty years.
After full discussion it was decided to refer the matter to popular vote
at the referendum election of October following. It was accordingly
referred, but not in the form in which it was at first considered.
The question submitted was: “Whether the term of service in the
Industrial Army shall be reduced to twenty years to all members in the
Grade of Honor at the expiration of that time.” All persons who had
performed their duties faithfully and whom their companies, by a
majority vote, recommended to advancement to the Grade of Honor were,
after serving fifteen years, so advanced.
This had the effect of rendering our workers more diligent, and it was
believed by the members of the Legislative Council that if men could
shorten their term of service five years by industry and faithfulness it
would increase the efficiency of the Industrial Army. The people of
Idaho thought so, too, and after a most thorough discussion, in which it
was made apparent that the Association could well afford to shorten the
term, the election of October resulted in a practically unanimous
decision in favor of twenty years.
The 20th of May, 1917, completed the service of thirty-six members.
Twenty years before our little company of fifty, under the leadership of
John Thompson, had entered Deer Valley and established our camp on the
present site of Co-opolis. Since then fourteen of that company had
passed to “that country from whose bourne no traveler returns.” The
thirty-six who remained were nearly all of them high in the councils of
the Association and some had achieved reputations which extended beyond
the limits of Idaho.
We who composed that little company were, on this twentieth anniversary,
released from the burdens and duties attaching to the Co-opolitan
system, and thenceforward were entitled to come and go at will.
Wheresoever we chose a habitation in the state the Association undertook
to provide us with suitable houses, and, our income continuing as large
as if we were still employed, we were expected to, and could, pay the
rental of the house and our living and other expenses without stint.
One dollar of credit, as represented by the labor-credit check, was
neither depreciable nor appreciable by the act of interested or
disinterested persons. Abundance or scarcity of any product, as measured
by the demand for it, was the determining factor of price. Our credit
dollar was invested with large purchasing power because co-operation
produced abundance and guaranteed to each of us a quantity of any needed
article, and a quality of comfort, pleasure, convenience or
accommodation equal to the fair exchange value of labor.
The thirty-six whose service ceased on this anniversary were men who
were devoted to the principle of co-operation and ready to make any
sacrifice to the success of the Co-opolitan Association. Most of them
had lived comparatively frugal lives. For fifteen years the income which
they had derived from their service had been twelve hundred dollars per
annum at least. This was allowed them on the books of the Association
and the labor-credit checks were delivered to them each month, as to all
workers. If they failed to exhaust their month’s credit during the month
the surplus remained with the Association.
We have no banks. We have no money and no department which makes a
business of handling money. We have no occasion to deposit or store
labor-credit checks.
No man has any claim with us upon anything but the fruits of labor.
These we hold until he calls for them, and we pay him no interest for
their use. In fact, we have no use for what he leaves with the
Association. We prefer to have him take it and consume it himself. The
Association, for instance, has a menagerie and circus which it sends
from city to city. We see no reason why a man who desires to see such an
exhibition should refrain from doing so from motives of frugality. The
Association prefers that the admission fee be taken out of every
labor-credit check. Of course this does not usually happen, because the
members do not always desire to witness such an exhibition when it
appears.
If a man is frugal and spends but little of his monthly credit he does
not lose it during his life. It is a matter of prudence to save
something, so that he may use it if he goes abroad, and the Association
holds itself ready to furnish him the money of any nation if he makes
the proper application for it.
But if a man dies his unexhausted credit is canceled. He cannot will it
to his wife or children. The wife is given a place in the Industrial
Army and his years of service are accredited to her, so that if he has
served ten years up to the time of his death only fifteen more are
required of her, or ten years if he or she should be a member of the
Grade of Honor.
As for children, if they are members of the Educational department and
are left orphans they are allowed the father’s portion until they arrive
at age, when they enter the Industrial Army. These provisions are
necessary to co-operative success. To permit a man to leave his
accumulations to his son or daughter takes from them the incentive to
labor. They cease to be useful or acquire a superiority which nature did
not give them.
We insist that all should be equal in the start, and that they have no
advantages which they cannot create for themselves.
The competitor claims that this removes the incentive for action. This
is not true. It removes one incentive out of many, and the worst and
most injurious one.
It is an incentive which makes robbers, thieves, murderers and tyrants
and produces a host of evils.
The competitor says it is unjust because it takes from wife and child
their support. It does not. We give the wife a chance to be useful and
an income for her use equal to the income of any.
We give the child his education and an opportunity equal to the best
when he becomes a man. We insure these things and the husband and father
is relieved from all worry on their account while he lives. Is not this
worth many times the riches of the competitor which are so ready to
vanish and leave wife and child in the ranks of abject and despised
poverty.
The twentieth year of the Co-operative Commonwealth is indeed a proud
one. The great state which we occupy is entirely under the control of
the Co-opolitan Association. It contains four million people and two and
a half million active members of the Industrial Army. Its inhabitants
are all in cities, but no city is greater than one hundred and fifty
thousand persons, except Idaho Falls and Shoshone, where the great water
power, generating electricity, gives exceptional advantages for
manufactures. Idaho Falls contains three hundred and fifty thousand
inhabitants and Shoshone two hundred and twenty-one thousand. In
Shoshone are the great flouring and woolen mills, but nearly every
needful and useful article is also produced through the medium of its
marvelous electric power. Idaho Falls is more famous for its cotton
mills, and other cities are numerous which are devoted to manufactures
of various kinds. The city of Rokybar is the Pittsburg of Idaho and the
Association steel works at that city are the largest in the world.
Laselle is the producer of beet sugar, and all the sugar used by our
department stores in Idaho is supplied from our factories there. There
is little necessity for the importation of anything into this state, so
varied and abundant are its resources and productions.
These cities of Idaho are all laid out and conducted on the plan of
Co-opolis. Each one of them covers an area nearly three times as large
as that of any competitive city. The streets are all one hundred and
fifty feet wide, consisting of two driveways fifty feet wide and a park
of equal width separating them.
Numerous parks are located at convenient distances from one another. The
buildings are all at least fifty feet apart. There is ample sunlight,
pure air and space for children to play or for older people to take
recreation.
There are flowers, fountains, artificial lakes and trees in profusion.
Monuments and statues have been erected in many localities, representing
art and history and illustrating the power and beauty of co-operation.
The streets are all paved with asphalt. Most of our buildings are
constructed of brick or stone and of the material necessary for the
purpose Idaho has inexhaustible resources.
In this twentieth year of the Co-operative Commonwealth the United
States is moving swiftly and quietly to that condition which Bellamy
beheld in “Looking Backward.” Washington was the first state to join
Idaho as a Co-operative Commonwealth, which it did in 1910. Oregon,
Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South
Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and California followed in quick succession in
about the order named. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan, Tennessee, Arkansas, North and South Carolina and Texas are
almost ready to wheel into line.
As for the other states of the Union, the co-operative system is gaining
ground every day. In the United States Senate there are forty
Co-operative Senators. In the House of Representatives there are one
hundred and forty-three Co-operators.
Through the influence of Idaho the United States government has
purchased and now operates five transcontinental lines of railroad, and
it is probable that it will, in a few years, acquire most of the lines
which are sufficiently valuable to warrant their operation. It owns all
the telegraph lines in its territory, having purchased them as early as
1908.
Nearly all the cities of the country have become the owners of their own
public utilities, such as street-car lines, telephone, gas, electric and
water systems and plants, and from the income derived from them have
almost succeeded in relieving their citizens from the burden of
taxation.
But the private department stores, labor-saving machinery, trusts and
monopolies, which continue to exact tribute from and oppress the people
for private gain, are our unconscious and unintentional allies, and the
thousands of good citizens who yearly move westward to avail themselves
of the opportunities which exist in the Co-operative Commonwealths
called into being by the success of the Co-opolitan Association do not
fail by their correspondence to light the fires of the new and higher
civilization in every city and hamlet of the nation.
This success is one which Idaho and her people are, at this time,
disposed to credit, in a somewhat larger degree than history will or
should approve, to the immortal senior Senator from Idaho, Hon. John
Thompson, and his associates of twenty years ago. All honor, indeed, to
them!
But I maintain that conditions, circumstances and a great nation of
intelligent, honest, industrious and comparatively temperate laboring
men and women made their work possible in America when it could not have
been successful in any other country in this world.
I do not say this from motives of patriotism. I say it because it
appears to me that the reasons to support the allegation will be
recognized and approved when stated.
In the first place, there has never before been any extensive experiment
with industrial co-operation for the benefit of the workers engaged in
it, where land was the basis of all operations, except in ancient Peru.
It is unfortunate that history has been so far deprived of the records
of that wonderful country, by the destructive fanaticism of its Spanish
conquerors, that the details of its system must remain obscure.
But happily the indisputable fact remains to give courage to
co-operators who do battle in the dark corners of the world that Peru
was a co-operative or socialistic state, and that its people were happy,
prosperous and contented.
This fact suggests the very pertinent question whether the people who
boast a high state of civilization like that of modern New York and
Boston are equal to the establishment of a system as just, as fair and
as equitable in the production, distribution and protection of wealth as
the comparatively ignorant, simple-minded and uncivilized inhabitants of
ancient Peru?
The example of Idaho proves that we are. But in England, France and
Germany the co-operators have confined their undertakings almost
exclusively to manufactures and distribution. The land has rarely
entered into their calculations, or when it has been considered has
never been regarded as available. In Idaho we have made land the chief
feature of our enterprise, and I maintain and, in fact, know, that we
could never have succeeded in any marked degree if we had not done so.
A commonwealth which has not the title to its own land is like a house
suspended in the air. Even the co-operative societies engaged in
manufacture and distribution manufacture and distribute what comes,
primarily, from the land.
When they receive the raw material to manufacture or distribute it has
been handled by a number of traders, brokers and other middlemen and its
price increased oppressively. We avoided all this by owning the land.
In England and other densely populated countries the rich land has all
been taken and the owner, whether lord or peasant, will not part with it
except for a large sum of money. The co-operator is thus excluded, in
those countries, from the use of land. It costs him nearly as much in
spot cash to acquire it as the brokers and traders take from him,
through a series of years, in profits on the raw product of land.
Now in Idaho land was cheap, and cheap land is the co-operator’s
salvation.
I also believe that we were fortunate in locating our colonies in Idaho.
The reason for this is that after we had acquired the land of Deer
Valley, placed it under irrigation and rendered it highly productive, we
had the use of millions of acres of grazing lands for our herds and
flocks.
I cannot conceive that a co-operative society could begin its career
under more favorable conditions than did the Co-opolitan. It could not
have found a better location for its productive farm and city in any
other state. It had the best facilities for irrigation and controlling
all the waters necessary to render its land productive; it had the means
to attach its members to the common purpose.
It was able to avail itself of near and high-priced markets.
Better than all this, it had the open ranges embracing millions of acres
of good grazing land, which it was permitted by the laws to use without
cost. If we had not possessed this advantage, my judgment is that our
struggle would have been increased and prolonged.
I believe that cattle and sheep were the most advantageous kind of
wealth for us to handle. We allowed them to roam at will, with but few
attendants, over our ranges, and we were at little expense to care for
and feed them. Besides this it was a form of wealth which was capable of
transporting itself to some extent. Had we attempted a different
location where there were no ranges and put our capital into almost any
other form of property we would have failed.
These natural advantages and the system whose development I have
endeavored in these pages to trace are, in my judgment, responsible for
the success which the Co-opolitan Association has made in twenty years.
L’ENVOI.
My narrative, kind reader, is finished, but if you have followed it thus
far you will doubtless feel some interest in the present condition of
some of its chief characters and features. Of Senator Thompson I need
say only that he is one of the most honored and famous individualities
in this world.
Being a native of England, he is not eligible to the Presidency of the
republic, else I verily believe he would be chosen to usher in the
Co-operative Commonwealth which seems to be one of the probabilities in
the near future. But Senator Thompson is in the prime of manhood and you
can be sure that he will be one of the chief actors in the coming
change.
Mrs. Braden is as famous in her sphere as Senator Thompson is in his.
Having written, as the world knows, five novels of the highest merit,
all of which have been received with extraordinary favor, the
Association has rewarded her by remitting her entire term of service in
the Industrial Army. This has not had the effect of silencing her muse
by any means. She is as industrious as if both fame and fortune were
wanting. The fires of true genius do not require the inspiration of
greed to make them burn more brightly.
Mr. Edmunds is now an old man. He will accept the ease which the
expiration of his term of service enables him to enjoy. Although seventy
years of age, he is strong and hearty, and we hope may live, as he seems
likely to, for many years.
Henry B. Henderson died three years ago. A bronze statue of him stands
in the park on Commonwealth Avenue, in front of the Council Hall, and I
am told that the people of Shoshone and Idaho Falls are arranging to
have similar statues erected and paid for by subscription in their
cities.
Boise City is a beautiful city of fifty thousand inhabitants. The
municipal indebtedness of the old city was long ago purchased by the
Co-opolitan Association for a small sum and the flood of co-operative
enterprise poured over and through the old townsite at once.
The city of CO-OPOLIS is not, as I have already stated, the largest city
in Idaho. It contains a population of one hundred and fifty thousand. It
is the oldest co-operative city in the state and the most beautiful in
the world. Its buildings are substantially constructed; its parks are
well kept and better finished than are those of most other cities, and
its trees are older and more mature. It is believed that it will be the
favorite city of residence for the members whose terms of service in the
Industrial Army expire. At present it is the seat of government in the
Association domain.
Idaho is still a “Light on the Mountains,” as its ancient name implies,
and its effulgence had found a shining way into thousands of homes
throughout the world.
Truly may it be said that her mission is being grandly accomplished and
that the people that dwelt in darkness have seen a great light.
Thank God! The higher civilization is here.
[THE END.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SOCIAL DEMOCRACY OF AMERICA
has as one of its main objects the peaceable establishment, in some such
manner as outlined in this book, of the
CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH.
We believe in the efficacy of object lessons, and the Social Democracy
of America is working for and advocating the Co-operative Commonwealth,
where all shall receive their full share of the wealth they create and
the Brotherhood of Man shall be an actual fact. In order to do its work
in establishing this ideal state of perfect justice between man and man
the
COLONIZATION COMMISSION
of the Social Democracy of America has formulated plans and methods for
putting the ideas contained in this book into actual operation.
If one million working men would pay ten cents each into a fund to help
such a plan, it would mean one hundred thousand dollars a month, or one
million two hundred thousand dollars a year. If one hundred thousand
should do so, it would mean one thousand dollars a month and one hundred
and twenty thousand dollars a year. In five years, with judicious
management and cautious expenditure of such funds, the results would be
marvelous, especially as a dollar in the hands of co-operators would
prove far more efficient than a dollar employed in the extravagant and
wasteful channels of competition. Send a dollar for thirty-four sample
copies and make thirty-four converts to the cause of reform.
Six cents will pay for “Merrie England,” a book of 190 pages, which has
had a sale of 850,000 copies in England and has only begun to sell in
America. It is a popular yet scientific statement of the principles of
Socialism. It is addressed to the people who are prejudiced against
anything of the kind. Get a man to read “Merrie England” and the book
will do the rest. We mail two copies for 10 cents, twelve for 50 cents,
twenty-five for $1.00, a hundred for $3.50.
Ten cents will pay for “President John Smith,” by Frederick Upham Adams,
a book of 300 pages. It has passed through twenty-five editions in a
year. It is a success because it points out practical methods for
intelligent political action by which the people of the United States
may take possession of the government and run it in their own interest.
We mail a dozen copies for $1.00; fifty copies for $3.75.
Twenty-five cents will pay for any one of the following valuable books:
The Co-opolitan, by Zebina Forbush.
Evolutionary Politics, by Walter Thomas Mills.
Man or Dollar. Which? by a newspaper man.
From Earth’s Center, by S. Byron Welcome.
A Breed of Barren Metal, by J. W. Bennett.
Money Found, by Thomas E. Hill.
The six books, or six copies of any one of them, will be sent postpaid
on receipt of one dollar. Special terms to agents, with full list of
reform literature, will be mailed upon request.
Address
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY, Publishers,
56 Fifth Avenue, Chicago.
MEN WANTED.
We firmly believe that in “The Co-opolitan” we are giving to the people
of the United States a book that will be of untold value in hastening
the progress of human brotherhood and a civilization based on justice.
We believe the people are ready for this book, and that any intelligent
man who believes in co-operation and knows how to express his ideas can
make a good living by selling copies. We want to hear from such men.
We also want to hear from those who have no time for selling books but
who believe intensely in human brotherhood and want to do their part in
making it a fact in this present life. Our object is to provide them
with literature for wide distribution, at prices that are based on the
actual cost of production.
One cent will pay for a copy of “The Ethical Aspect of the Labor
Problem,” by Rev. J. Stitt Wilson. It is addressed to Christians and
proves that the profit system under which the people are struggling is
directly opposed to the teachings of Jesus.
Two cents will pay for “The New Democracy,” by Frederick Upham Adams,
the editor of The New Time. It is a clear and forceful statement of the
ideas of Direct Legislation through the Initiative and Referendum.
Three cents will pay for a new pamphlet entitled “The Majority Rule
League of the United States,” which gives a practical plan for
organization to be put in practice at once. It gives a valuable appendix
on Direct Legislation. Fifty copies mailed for $1.00; 500 for $7.50.
Three cents will pay for a sample copy of The New Time, the greatest
reform magazine in the world, 100 large pages each month, full of timely
articles, news and pictures that no reformer will consent to do without
if he once sees it.
The three members of the commission were appointed August 1, 1897, and
their work was outlined before the publication of this book.
The manuscript was read by one of the members of the commission and
received his hearty commendation, as presenting arguments of a high
character in favor of colonization. Many ideas elucidating legal points
are also brought out in the clearest manner.
The Commission is attempting to work out practically the main idea
presented in this book. Any reader who becomes desirous of aiding in
this noble work, or who wishes information concerning it, should address
Secretary Colonization Commission, S. D. of A.,
504 Trude Bldg.,
Chicago, Ill.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LEGAL REVOLUTION OF 1902.
BY
A LAW-ABIDING REVOLUTIONIST.
CHICAGO:
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY.
1898.
The following specimen pages of
“THE LEGAL REVOLUTION OF 1902”
are published by permission of the author from advance proofs of the
book, which is now in press. Every loyal reformer will be interested in
this new work, which outlines a radical and aggressive political
programme to be carried out in the near future. The book will be
handsomely printed on heavy book paper of extra quality, and will be
sold at fifty cents in paper and one dollar in cloth, with liberal terms
to dealers, agents and newspapers.
PREFACE.
“The Legal Revolution of 1902” purports to be a history of social
conditions in the United States for a period of about fifteen years
following the year 1897. It attempts to picture changes and reforms
amounting to an industrial revolution—which I think should, and will, be
made—as if the country had already passed through this period. All
matters of fact recorded as having taken place before 1897, or “before
the Revolution,” are true; quotations from newspapers and other
publications, and utterances of men, prior to that year, are also true;
whatever is mentioned as occurring afterward is, of course, fiction.
Some of the characters in this narrative bear the same names as
distinguished persons of to-day, but no pretense nor claim is made that
they speak or represent in any manner the views or sentiments of those
whose names they may happen to bear. The characters have been named to
give added interest to the story, to connect it more plainly with the
evident trend of social and political conditions, and to more clearly
elucidate the opportunities which lie within the power of men.
The principal idea of the work is to show the people their power,
wherein it lies, and the methods of exercising it to right their
grievances, if they feel that such exist.
If I succeed in bringing all who read these pages to a full
understanding of the power of the people, and how to use that power, and
wherein lies the basis, the very foundation, of our institutions, I
shall be content, even though they do not agree with this story as to
the extent of existing evils, or the measures it inaugurates to
alleviate them. While endeavoring to clothe my ideas in an interesting
and readable narrative, some exaggerations have been made; yet, in
confidence to the reader, it must be said that, in the main, I believe
in every line of the work; in the principle of every reform proposed; in
every change pictured and result prophesied. Indeed, I can see no other
road for a law-abiding, intelligent and prosperous people to travel, and
no other possible destination to be reached, than the one herein
imperfectly portrayed.
A LAW-ABIDING REVOLUTIONIST.
THE LEGAL REVOLUTION OF 1902.
CHAPTER I.
“Well, mother, I’ll run down and get the mail,” said John Brown to his
wife, as he started for the village postoffice. On arriving there he
found his “grist” of daily papers that regularly visited his home, and
also two letters. One was addressed “Hon. John Brown, Member of the
Illinois Legislature.” He looked at it and incidentally remarked to a
friend with whom he was conversing: “I wonder who that is from—‘Return
in five days to Mark Mishler, Attorney-at-Law, Springfield, Ill.’; I
guess it is not of much importance to me; I don’t know any such person.”
And with that he put it, unopened, into his pocket, and looked at the
other.
“Indeed, New York, from brother Benjamin! I haven’t heard from him in a
long time. Mother and I were just talking about him and wondering if he
had forgotten us. She’ll want to hear the news, and I had better go
right back to the house,” and he started, carrying the letter and papers
in his hand. It was but a few minutes’ walk, and he was soon home.
“See here, mother, a letter from Ben,” he said, starting to tear it
open.
“Is it possible!” she exclaimed, with considerable surprise; “we haven’t
heard from him since his wife died. He is no hand to write, and I’ll
warrant it is news of importance; probably sad news, or we wouldn’t hear
from him now. You remember he never wrote us that Glen (his only child)
was born until he was two years old. Of course he wrote during that
time, but never mentioned that fact, and it was so strange, since he
always writes so much about him now, when he writes at all.”
By this time the letter was opened, the spectacles adjusted to his nose,
and Mr. Brown began to read:
“My Dear Brother and Sister—
“You know how difficult it is for me to write, and I am sure you won’t
think strange because of not having heard from me before. I often think
of you both, and have frequently resolved to write, but have neglected
it until days, weeks and months have slipped away. I am in deep trouble
now. You know that ten years ago the company set me back to flagman. The
wages for such a position are very low; I have been able only to live
and keep the family, and have found it impossible to lay by anything. A
year ago an accident, a collision, occurred in the yards between a
couple of switching freight trains. It was charged to me and I was ‘laid
off.’ Perhaps I was to blame. I worked long hours and was very tired. I
am getting old, anyway. My eyes, and faculties as well, are getting dim.
Since then I have had no work, and have employed my time about the
garden and with my poultry, out of which I have made a little.
“But Glen, though only sixteen, had completed school, and had also
learned the glassblower’s trade in the factory here, and with my pension
and what little I could earn was able to support me and keep the house
up in good shape, so I did not feel badly. In my old age I felt I had
earned a rest, and Glen, noble boy! was satisfied, and insisted that I
should have it. But now, just as he has his trade well learned, and had,
as we supposed, the means of gaining a livelihood through life for
himself and a way of supporting me in my old age, improved machines were
introduced into many of the larger factories, that almost entirely
displaced the glassblower and absolutely ruined his trade. They were not
put in the factory here, but it was seen that the factory would be
unable to compete with the machine-equipped factories, and that they
must put them in or close up.
“After the machines began to be used it was evident that half the
factories would supply the market. So the big ones all joined together
into one big company, or trust, and closed up a number of the factories.
The one here went into the big company, and the Board of Directors of
the big concern voted it to be one of the factories that would be
permanently closed. Lots of the machinery has been moved away, and there
is little probability of it ever being operated again. At any rate it
has now been closed for three months, and Glen has been unable to find a
day’s work of any kind to do, and there is little hope of any here.
Glassblowers have been laid off in all the factories that are still
running, and those now retained are taken from the force of older
employes and there is no chance whatever for a new man now. So Glen will
probably never find work again at his trade.
“And the town! You have no idea of the condition here. The glass factory
was almost the sole industry. There is not another enterprise of any
importance. Two thousand men, who fed ten thousand people, or the whole
town, are thrown out of employment at the mandate of a trust, and the
whole place is ruined. No western cyclone ever wrought worse havoc,
because after one of them has passed the people can go to work and
rebuild, but there is nothing here they can do to get even bread to eat.
“The very day it was known the factory would be permanently closed
residence property depreciated one-half, and in fact it is scarcely
worth anything now, and will not sell at any price. My place, which cost
me a lifetime of toil, and for which I paid $2,500 principal and no end
of interest, will not sell to-day for $500.
“But the question with the people here is, not how much their property
has depreciated in value, but how they are to get work by which to earn
a living.
“Glen and I think we want to go West. We would like to go out where you
are, and want to know what you think about it. Can we make a living
there? We have been thinking if we could get a little patch of ground
near some good-sized town we could, by gardening and poultry raising (at
which I am becoming expert, by the way), get along and make a living;
and Glen is a bright scholar, and I have been thinking that perhaps he
could get work of some kind out there.
“I don’t want to be a burden on you, but God knows I will be on the
state if things continue as they are. And Glen, he deserves a better
fate than the world seems to have allotted him.
“Please let me hear from you soon. With kind regards to sister Jane and
yourself,
“I am, your brother,
“BENJAMIN BROWN.”
Mr. Brown was visibly affected as he slowly read the letter, and tears
filled the eyes of both himself and his wife by the time it was
completed.
“Well, mother, what had I better write him?”
To which the good woman quickly replied: “Send for them both to come at
once and make their home with us—at least for the present. You will soon
go to Springfield, and will be gone all winter attending the
Legislature. You expect to hire someone to attend the stock and the farm
while you are away, and you always hire in the summer. Perhaps they
might like farm work, and suit you better than anyone you can hire, and
so stay permanently.
“The Lord has taken all our dear children away,” she continued; “and if
Glen is the boy his father has always
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“‘Fellow reformers, would you be free? Would you see the regimen of
corporate power and class despotism at an end? Would you see the
shackles stricken forever from the limbs of humanity, and behold
emancipation—the rebirth? Do you believe that this can come through the
ballot? No! You do not.
“‘Have not the reformers spent their lives, their fortunes, and their
energies in the cause of political reform? Have they not seen the
cunning and unscrupulous always victorious, emerging from every campaign
master of the spoils? Have you any hopes that this will be changed in
the future? The past is one long protest against the ballot as an
instrument of reformation.’
“Scarcely a day passes that I do not receive one or more appeals to join
one or the other of the revolutionary orders being formed in this
country, and offers of money and arms are frequently received if I will
give my efforts to the cause of revolution. Thus far I have persistently
declined to give aid or encouragement to such movements. But if, through
the writings of such men as Private Dalzell, revolution comes, in spite
of all efforts to prevent it, I will not be found among the cowards, nor
on the side of the plutocratic classes. * * *
“J. R. SOVEREIGN.”
“Let me see your scrap-book, please,” said Glen. It was handed to him,
and he settled down to read, while the others conversed.
“That letter appeared some time ago,” said Benjamin, “and I’ll warrant
it has been read by every member of a labor union. I tell you something
is going to happen. Where, or when, or what it is going to be I don’t
know, but I do know the power of the labor unions, and doubt not they
will play an important part in the struggle. I haven’t a particle of
doubt but those societies which Mr. Sovereign mentions are being formed.
It is this great chasm between the rich and the poor that is causing the
trouble. The laboring people are piling up wealth, and it is all being
appropriated by the rich, and the poor find it harder each day to make a
living. This is especially true in the factories of the East, where
labor-saving machines are displacing thousands of laborers.”
“Don’t you think,” said Mr. Smith, “that their further introduction
should be prohibited?”
“The labor unions,” was the reply, “do now, to some extent. The shoe
manufacturers of Lynn have not dared to introduce a certain lasting
machine recently invented, because the lasters’ union has declared
against it, and yet it is claimed that that machine will revolutionize
the shoe business. You see that shows the strength of the unions, and
what they can do if they get started. Oh, there are bloody times ahead
for us. I believe one of your Western governors said lately: ‘The high
buildings and grand palaces of our big cities will be spattered with the
lungs and livers of humanity before this thing is adjusted.’ He was
called a crank, but he was not far amiss.”
“I am inclined to think,” said Mr. Smith, “that you take a too serious
view of matters. Your brother tells me the glass factory in your town
was permanently closed by a trust. Is that possible? I never heard of
such an outrage. I should think the managers of the trusts would be in
danger of their lives.”
“Now you are coming to it. See! it makes a revolutionist out of you to
even hear of such a thing,” said Benjamin; “yet you don’t see revolution
coming. Suppose you knew nothing but one trade, and you found the
factory in which you had worked all your life permanently closed by a
trust, and it was impossible to ever again work at your trade. When you
become an actor in such an affair it is worse than a picture in your
imagination. If you were placed in that position you would see what is
coming.”
“But has it really been permanently closed by the trust?” he again
asked.
“Closed! Why, certainly, and it is nothing new. Hundreds of factories
have been permanently shut down by trusts, in order to decrease
production, raise prices and throw thousands of laborers out of work.”
“Well,” said Mr. Smith, “I guess you are right, but what is it going to
be, and what are they going to do?”
“O, I don’t know. They will at least have revenge. It may be we’ll have
anarchy, and the fulfillment of the bloody scenes painted in that
wonderful book, ‘Caesar’s Column.’ Have you read it? It is fearful.
Enough to curdle a man’s blood.”
At this point Glen, who was still looking over his uncle’s scrap-book,
said: “I believe Uncle John is getting to be quite a Socialist, judging
from these clippings. Let me read some of them. They are mostly from the
metropolitan dailies”:
“WANT IN THE CITIES.
“A few days ago we quoted from an editorial in the New York Tribune to
show that there never before was such great distress in the chief city
in the country as at present, and that the victims were not merely
laboring men, unable to find employment, but professional people and
small merchants as well. The Times-Herald editorially testifies that
want is as general and intense in Chicago as in New York. It says:
“‘Perhaps since the great fire there has not been a keener occasion for
generous giving. The country is now in the fourth year of a period of
hard times. Very rich men have had their fortunes trimmed, so to speak;
moderately rich men have been reduced to a sharp counting of the cost of
casual luxuries. All classes have suffered in degree, but thousands and
thousands of those brave folks whose only hope in life is to fight for
the ship till they fall face forward fighting on the deck have been
precipitated from a hard-earned and perilous independence into a black
and hopeless poverty. * * * We do not share the opinion of the versifier
who wrote “Organized charity, cold as ice, in the name of a hard,
statistical Christ,” but we submit that the present crisis, when
ill-clad, half-famished shapes confront us on the streets; when the cold
pinches the denizens of hovels and tenements; when the children in a
thousand squalid homes cry for sustenance, when women fight for bread at
the county agent’s door, and able-bodied men swarm on the railroad
tracks, eagerly begging fragments of coal—this crisis is not to be met
with perfunctory measures.’
“In another article published in its news columns the Times-Herald
declares that:
“‘Chicago has 8,000 families actually starving to death.
“‘It has 40,000 wives, husbands and children begging for a pittance of
food to keep body and soul together—huddled into single rooms and
freezing in the blizzard that visited the city yesterday.’”
The next item reads:
“DISTRESS IN GREAT CITIES.
“The public authorities and organized charities of Chicago are having
more than they can do to care for the tens of thousands of destitute
people in the Garden City, and the New York Tribune confesses that the
want in that town is as dire as in Chicago. ‘At no moment within the
memory of the present generation,’ says the Tribune, ‘has the number of
unemployed in this city been so large as just now, and never before has
the strain on public and private charity been so severe as during this
winter season (1896–97). It is not merely the laboring classes—that is
to say, the classes who may be regarded as within facile reach of
philanthropic relief—who are the sufferers, but those who may be
described as professional men, clerks, the salesmen, the architects and
the literary men. Few, save the clergy and physicians, have any idea of
the extent to which privation and actual want prevail among these
victims of the bad times that are marking the close of the deplorable
Democratic administration, and doctor and parson alike wax eloquent
about the destitution of the families of those unfortunate men who,
while eager for work and ready to do anything for the sake of a living,
are for the first time in their lives unable to find employment of any
kind.’ After adverting to the sympathy extended to the unfortunate
inmates of Sing Sing and other prisons, who are losing their sanity
because there is no work to employ them, the Tribune adds: ‘It may be
questioned whether the first duty of the people of New York is not
toward those of their more honest and honorable fellow-citizens whose
enforced idleness, due to their inability to find any employment, is
driving them, too, to the verge of insanity—an insanity caused not so
much by the brooding over their own unhappy lot as by the spectacle of
their wives and little ones literally starving before their eyes. It is
not merely on the ground of philanthropy and charity that some means or
other should be devised for their relief, but on the score of policy and
economy. For the less enforced idleness there is outside the prison the
fewer convicts there will be within its walls.’”
The next clipping is as follows:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
In November, 1897, when evil forebodings were everywhere hovering about,
Mark Mishler, a robust, big-hearted, good-natured lawyer, sat one day in
his office at Springfield, Ill. He had just been beaten in a case he had
tried before the Supreme Court because the law on which he based the
case was declared by the Court to be unconstitutional. He never was mad;
his good soul would not let him; but if ever he was perplexed it was
now. His mind reverted to the Constitution of the State. He read it
over, as he had done many times before, but now he took a special
interest in reviewing it. As he read and reread he said to himself:
“Thank God! There is one thing bigger than a Court—that is the
Constitution, and the people are above that yet. They make the
Constitution itself. It ought to have more laws embodied in it, and this
one should have been a part of it.”
And as he thought on, his mind reverted to the Constitution of the
United States. He turned to it and scanned it over for the first time in
many years, perhaps since he was a law student. He had little practice
in the United States Courts, and had had no occasion to read it. After
he had finished he leaned back in his chair in a meditative mood, saying
to himself: “There is the foundation of all our institutions, State and
National. That was the beginning. It was the corner-stone of the
Republic, and on it all that is good in this country is based.”
He thought on, and added to himself: “And all that is evil, then, must
likewise find its basis there.”
The very thought surprised him. In deep meditation, and with strange,
unaccountable feelings, he continued until he read the article
recognizing human slavery, and declaring the slave trade should not be
prohibited before the year 1808. He always knew that, yet he could
hardly believe his eyes. He read on till he came to the amendment
freeing the slaves, adopted nearly three-quarters of a century
afterward.
“Well,” he gasped, almost aloud, “I knew that; I helped pass that very
amendment freeing the slaves and, as we were charged at the time,
‘confiscating millions of dollars’ worth of property.’ But lawyer as I
am, with twenty-five years of practice, I never thought but Lincoln’s
proclamation freed the slaves.”
He dropped back in his chair, lost for half an hour in silent study. As
he sat, entirely consumed in his own thought, his very countenance
unconsciously brightened. His heart grew light. His eyes beamed within
him. He felt a sort of inspiration. A new idea, and a happy one indeed,
sprang like an angel of light into his mind.
He well knew, and had studied much, of the rise and fall of the grand
ancient civilizations, and with evil forebodings hovering like a dark,
dreary, dangerous cloud over our land, he had often pondered long as to
what would be the outcome with this one. As he went to and from his
office and his home, and each day met men strong, hearty, but
pale-faced, asking, not for bread, but in the name of God for work, he
could not well prevent the question recurring to his mind. He had often
thought the last star of hope for our civilization had almost set, but
as he sat there that moment, in all-absorbing thought, behind a suddenly
beaming countenance, all those evil forecasts left him. Our civilization
would live! The sad pictures of strikes, riots, war, famine, and
pestilence, and a constantly decaying civilization, were no longer stern
realities. It was like being awakened from an ugly nightmare by the
sweet chipper of the birds on a bright spring morning, with the
beautiful rays of the rising sun streaming through his windows.
He had seen, as by a flashlight, the people’s great highway to peace, to
prosperity, and to happiness. He saw wherein lay the power, the
strength, of the people. The ballot was indeed all-powerful. When
properly applied it was above and beyond Congress and Courts. It was the
Legislature that made laws for legislatures. It was the Court of Courts,
and from its decision there was no appeal. He had read again, for the
first time in years, the article (No. V.) in the United States
Constitution providing for its amendment, and for a Constitutional
convention. Through the United States Constitutional convention the
people’s will was law, upon which no court could pass judgment, even if
their law provided that the Court itself be abolished and the judges
retired to private life without salary or with the additional penalty
that they be transported. Anything the people wanted they might have.
What more could they ask or hope for by resorting to riot and war? How
many of the people knew this? Practically none of them.
Mark Mishler then and there declared to himself that
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It ought to be read by every man in America.—=FRANCES E. WILLARD.=
An invaluable help to every reader and thinker.—=EX-GOV. JOHN P.
ALTGELD.=
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P. 88, changed “employed against the co-operator” to “employed
against the competitor”.
2. Please note that the sample sections beginning with THE LEGAL
REVOLUTION OF 1902 are part of the advertisements. The sample is
intentionally incomplete.
3. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
4. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
6. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.