Evolution is no longer a mere tentative hypothesis. One by one, step by
step, each division and subdivision of science has contributed its
evidence, until now the case is complete and the verdict rendered. While
there is still discussion as to the method of evolution, none the less,
as a process sufficient to explain all biological phenomena, all
differentiations of life into widely diverse species, families, and even
kingdoms, evolution is flatly accepted. Likewise has been accepted its
law of development: _That_, _in the struggle for existence_, _the strong
and fit and the progeny of the strong and fit have a better opportunity
for survival than the weak and less fit and the progeny of the weak and
less fit_.
It is in the struggle of the species with other species and against all
other hostile forces in the environment, that this law operates; also in
the struggle between the individuals of the same species. In this
struggle, which is for food and shelter, the weak individuals must
obviously win less food and shelter than the strong. Because of this,
their hold on life relaxes and they are eliminated. And for the same
reason that they may not win for themselves adequate food and shelter,
the weak cannot give to their progeny the chance for survival that the
strong give. And thus, since the weak are prone to beget weakness, the
species is constantly purged of its inefficient members.
Because of this, a premium is placed upon strength, and so long as the
struggle for food and shelter obtains, just so long will the average
strength of each generation increase. On the other hand, should
conditions so change that all, and the progeny of all, the weak as well
as the strong, have an equal chance for survival, then, at once, the
average strength of each generation will begin to diminish. Never yet,
however, in animal life, has there been such a state of affairs. Natural
selection has always obtained. The strong and their progeny, at the
expense of the weak, have always survived. This law of development has
operated down all the past upon all life; it so operates today, and it is
not rash to say that it will continue to operate in the future--at least
upon all life existing in a state of nature.
Man, preeminent though he is in the animal kingdom, capable of reacting
upon and making suitable an unsuitable environment, nevertheless remains
the creature of this same law of development. The social selection to
which he is subject is merely another form of natural selection. True,
within certain narrow limits he modifies the struggle for existence and
renders less precarious the tenure of life for the weak. The extremely
weak, diseased, and inefficient are housed in hospitals and asylums. The
strength of the viciously strong, when inimical to society, is tempered
by penal institutions and by the gallows. The short-sighted are provided
with spectacles, and the sickly (when they can pay for it) with
sanitariums. Pestilential marshes are drained, plagues are checked, and
disasters averted. Yet, for all that, the strong and the progeny of the
strong survive, and the weak are crushed out. The men strong of brain
are masters as of yore. They dominate society and gather to themselves
the wealth of society. With this wealth they maintain themselves and
equip their progeny for the struggle. They build their homes in
healthful places, purchase the best fruits, meats, and vegetables the
market affords, and buy themselves the ministrations of the most
brilliant and learned of the professional classes. The weak man, as of
yore, is the servant, the doer of things at the master's call. The
weaker and less efficient he is, the poorer is his reward. The weakest
work for a living wage, (when they can get work), live in unsanitary
slums, on vile and insufficient food, at the lowest depths of human
degradation. Their grasp on life is indeed precarious, their mortality
excessive, their infant death-rate appalling.
That some should be born to preferment and others to ignominy in order
that the race may progress, is cruel and sad; but none the less they are
so born. The weeding out of human souls, some for fatness and smiles,
some for leanness and tears, is surely a heartless selective process--as
heartless as it is natural. And the human family, for all its wonderful
record of adventure and achievement, has not yet succeeded in avoiding
this process. That it is incapable of doing this is not to be hazarded.
Not only is it capable, but the whole trend of society is in that
direction. All the social forces are driving man on to a time when the
old selective law will be annulled. There is no escaping it, save by the
intervention of catastrophes and cataclysms quite unthinkable. It is
inexorable. It is inexorable because the common man demands it. The
twentieth century, the common man says, is his day; the common man's day,
or, rather, the dawning of the common man's day.
Nor can it be denied. The evidence is with him. The previous centuries,
and more notably the nineteenth, have marked the rise of the common man.
From chattel slavery to serfdom, and from serfdom to what he bitterly
terms "wage slavery," he has risen. Never was he so strong as he is
today, and never so menacing. He does the work of the world, and he is
beginning to know it. The world cannot get along without him, and this
also he is beginning to know. All the human knowledge of the past, all
the scientific discovery, governmental experiment, and invention of
machinery, have tended to his advancement. His standard of living is
higher. His common school education would shame princes ten centuries
past. His civil and religious liberty makes him a free man, and his
ballot the peer of his betters. And all this has tended to make him
conscious, conscious of himself, conscious of his class. He looks about
him and questions that ancient law of development. It is cruel and
wrong, he is beginning to declare. It is an anachronism. Let it be
abolished. Why should there be one empty belly in all the world, when
the work of ten men can feed a hundred? What if my brother be not so
strong as I? He has not sinned. Wherefore should he hunger--he and his
sinless little ones? Away with the old law. There is food and shelter
for all, therefore let all receive food and shelter.
As fast as labor has become conscious it has organized. The ambition of
these class-conscious men is that the movement shall become general, that
all labor shall become conscious of itself and its class interests. And
the day that witnesses the solidarity of labor, they triumphantly affirm,
will be a day when labor dominates the world. This growing consciousness
has led to the organization of two movements, both separate and distinct,
but both converging toward a common goal--one, the labor movement, known
as Trade Unionism; the other, the political movement, known as Socialism.
Both are grim and silent forces, unheralded and virtually unknown to the
general public save in moments of stress. The sleeping labor giant
receives little notice from the capitalistic press, and when he stirs
uneasily, a column of surprise, indignation, and horror suffices.
It is only now and then, after long periods of silence, that the labor
movement puts in its claim for notice. All is quiet. The kind old world
spins on, and the bourgeois masters clip their coupons in smug
complacency. But the grim and silent forces are at work.
Suddenly, like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, comes a disruption of
industry. From ocean to ocean the wheels of a great chain of railroads
cease to run. A quarter of a million miners throw down pick and shovel
and outrage the sun with their pale, bleached faces. The street railways
of a swarming metropolis stand idle, or the rumble of machinery in vast
manufactories dies away to silence. There is alarm and panic. Arson and
homicide stalk forth. There is a cry in the night, and quick anger and
sudden death. Peaceful cities are affrighted by the crack of rifles and
the snarl of machine-guns, and the hearts of the shuddering are shaken by
the roar of dynamite. There is hurrying and skurrying. The wires are
kept hot between the centre of government and the seat of trouble. The
chiefs of state ponder gravely and advise, and governors of states
implore. There is assembling of militia and massing of troops, and the
streets resound to the tramp of armed men. There are separate and joint
conferences between the captains of industry and the captains of labor.
And then, finally, all is quiet again, and the memory of it is like the
memory of a bad dream.
But these strikes become olympiads, things to date from; and common on
the lips of men become such phrases as "The Great Dock Strike," "The
Great Coal Strike," "The Great Railroad Strike." Never before did labor
do these things. After the Great Plague in England, labor, finding
itself in demand and innocently obeying the economic law, asked higher
wages. But the masters set a maximum wage, restrained workingmen from
moving about from place to place, refused to tolerate idlers, and by most
barbarous legal methods punished those who disobeyed. But labor is
accorded greater respect today. Such a policy, put into effect in this
the first decade of the twentieth century, would sweep the masters from
their seats in one mighty crash. And the masters know it and are
respectful.
A fair instance of the growing solidarity of labor is afforded by an
unimportant recent strike in San Francisco. The restaurant cooks and
waiters were completely unorganized, working at any and all hours for
whatever wages they could get. A representative of the American
Federation of Labor went among them and organized them. Within a few
weeks nearly two thousand men were enrolled, and they had five thousand
dollars on deposit. Then they put in their demand for increased wages
and shorter hours. Forthwith their employers organized. The demand was
denied, and the Cooks' and Waiters' Union walked out.
All organized employers stood back of the restaurant owners, in sympathy
with them and willing to aid them if they dared. And at the back of the
Cooks' and Waiters' Union stood the organized labor of the city, 40,000
strong. If a business man was caught patronizing an "unfair" restaurant,
he was boycotted; if a union man was caught, he was fined heavily by his
union or expelled. The oyster companies and the slaughter houses made an
attempt to refuse to sell oysters and meat to union restaurants. The
Butchers and Meat Cutters, and the Teamsters, in retaliation, refused to
work for or to deliver to non-union restaurants. Upon this the oyster
companies and slaughter houses acknowledged themselves beaten and peace
reigned. But the Restaurant Bakers in non-union places were ordered out,
and the Bakery Wagon Drivers declined to deliver to unfair houses.
Every American Federation of Labor union in the city was prepared to
strike, and waited only the word. And behind all, a handful of men,
known as the Labor Council, directed the fight. One by one, blow upon
blow, they were able if they deemed it necessary to call out the
unions--the Laundry Workers, who do the washing; the Hackmen, who haul
men to and from restaurants; the Butchers, Meat Cutters, and Teamsters;
and the Milkers, Milk Drivers, and Chicken Pickers; and after that, in
pure sympathy, the Retail Clerks, the Horse Shoers, the Gas and
Electrical Fixture Hangers, the Metal Roofers, the Blacksmiths, the
Blacksmiths' Helpers, the Stablemen, the Machinists, the Brewers, the
Coast Seamen, the Varnishers and Polishers, the Confectioners, the
Upholsterers, the Paper Hangers and Fresco Painters, the Drug Clerks, the
Fitters and Helpers, the Metal Workers, the Boiler Makers and Iron Ship
Builders, the Assistant Undertakers, the Carriage and Wagon Workers, and
so on down the lengthy list of organizations.
For, over all these trades, over all these thousands of men, is the Labor
Council. When it speaks its voice is heard, and when it orders it is
obeyed. But it, in turn, is dominated by the National Labor Council,
with which it is constantly in touch. In this wholly unimportant little
local strike it is of interest to note the stands taken by the different
sides. The legal representative and official mouthpiece of the
Employers' Association said: "This organization is formed for defensive
purposes, and it may be driven to take offensive steps, and if so, will
be strong enough to follow them up. Labor cannot be allowed to dictate
to capital and say how business shall be conducted. There is no
objection to the formation of unions and trades councils, but membership
must not be compulsory. It is repugnant to the American idea of liberty
and cannot be tolerated."
On the other hand, the president of the Team Drivers' Union said: "The
employers of labor in this city are generally against the trade-union
movement and there seems to be a concerted effort on their part to check
the progress of organized labor. Such action as has been taken by them
in sympathy with the present labor troubles may, if continued, lead to a
serious conflict, the outcome of which might be most calamitous for the
business and industrial interests of San Francisco."
And the secretary of the United Brewery Workmen: "I regard a sympathetic
strike as the last weapon which organized labor should use in its
defence. When, however, associations of employers band together to
defeat organized labor, or one of its branches, then we should not and
will not hesitate ourselves to employ the same instrument in
retaliation."
Thus, in a little corner of the world, is exemplified the growing
solidarity of labor. The organization of labor has not only kept pace
with the organization of industry, but it has gained upon it. In one
winter, in the anthracite coal region, $160,000,000 in mines and
$600,000,000 in transportation and distribution consolidated its
ownership and control. And at once, arrayed as solidly on the other
side, were the 150,000 anthracite miners. The bituminous mines, however,
were not consolidated; yet the 250,000 men employed therein were already
combined. And not only that, but they were also combined with the
anthracite miners, these 400,000 men being under the control and
direction of one supreme labor council. And in this and the other great
councils are to be found captains of labor of splendid abilities, who, in
understanding of economic and industrial conditions, are undeniably the
equals of their opponents, the captains of industry.
The United States is honeycombed with labor organizations. And the big
federations which these go to compose aggregate millions of members, and
in their various branches handle millions of dollars yearly. And not
only this; for the international brotherhoods and unions are forming, and
moneys for the aid of strikers pass back and forth across the seas. The
Machinists, in their demand for a nine-hour day, affected 500,000 men in
the United States, Mexico, and Canada. In England the membership of
working-class organizations is approximated by Keir Hardie at 2,500,000,
with reserve funds of $18,000,000. There the cooperative movement has a
membership of 1,500,000, and every year turns over in distribution more
than $100,000,000. In France, one-eighth of the whole working class is
unionized. In Belgium the unions are very rich and powerful, and so able
to defy the masters that many of the smaller manufacturers, unable to
resist, "are removing their works to other countries where the workmen's
organizations are not so potential." And in all other countries,
according to the stage of their economic and political development, like
figures obtain. And Europe, today, confesses that her greatest social
problem is the labor problem, and that it is the one most closely
engrossing the attention of her statesmen.
The organization of labor is one of the chief acknowledged factors in the
retrogression of British trade. The workers have become class conscious
as never before. The wrong of one is the wrong of all. They have come
to realize, in a short-sighted way, that their masters' interests are not
their interests. The harder they work, they believe, the more wealth
they create for their masters. Further, the more work they do in one
day, the fewer men will be needed to do the work. So the unions place a
day's stint upon their members, beyond which they are not permitted to
go. In "A Study of Trade Unionism," by Benjamin Taylor in the
"Nineteenth Century" of April, 1898, are furnished some interesting
corroborations. The facts here set forth were collected by the Executive
Board of the Employers' Federation, the documentary proofs of which are
in the hands of the secretaries. In a certain firm the union workmen
made eight ammunition boxes a day. Nor could they be persuaded into
making more. A young Swiss, who could not speak English, was set to
work, and in the first day he made fifty boxes. In the same firm the
skilled union hands filed up the outside handles of one machine-gun a
day. That was their stint. No one was known ever to do more. A
non-union filer came into the shop and did twelve a day. A Manchester
firm found that to plane a large bed-casting took union workmen one
hundred and ninety hours, and non-union workmen one hundred and
thirty-five hours. In another instance a man, resigning from his union,
day by day did double the amount of work he had done formerly. And to
cap it all, an English gentleman, going out to look at a wall being put
up for him by union bricklayers, found one of their number with his right
arm strapped to his body, doing all the work with his left arm--forsooth,
because he was such an energetic fellow that otherwise he would
involuntarily lay more bricks than his union permitted.
All England resounds to the cry, "Wake up, England!" But the sulky giant
is not stirred. "Let England's trade go to pot," he says; "what have I
to lose?" And England is powerless. The capacity of her workmen is
represented by 1, in comparison with the 2.25 capacity of the American
workman. And because of the solidarity of labor and the destructiveness
of strikes, British capitalists dare not even strive to emulate the
enterprise of American capitalists. So England watches trade slipping
through her fingers and wails unavailingly. As a correspondent writes:
"The enormous power of the trade unions hangs, a sullen cloud, over the
whole industrial world here, affecting men and masters alike."
The political movement known as Socialism is, perhaps, even less realized
by the general public. The great strides it has taken and the portentous
front it today exhibits are not comprehended; and, fastened though it is
in every land, it is given little space by the capitalistic press. For
all its plea and passion and warmth, it wells upward like a great, cold
tidal wave, irresistible, inexorable, ingulfing present-day society level
by level. By its own preachment it is inexorable. Just as societies
have sprung into existence, fulfilled their function, and passed away, it
claims, just as surely is present society hastening on to its
dissolution. This is a transition period--and destined to be a very
short one. Barely a century old, capitalism is ripening so rapidly that
it can never live to see a second birthday. There is no hope for it, the
Socialists say. It is doomed.
The cardinal tenet of Socialism is that forbidding doctrine, the
materialistic conception of history. Men are not the masters of their
souls. They are the puppets of great, blind forces. The lives they live
and the deaths they die are compulsory. All social codes are but the
reflexes of existing economic conditions, plus certain survivals of past
economic conditions. The institutions men build they are compelled to
build. Economic laws determine at any given time what these institutions
shall be, how long they shall operate, and by what they shall be
replaced. And so, through the economic process, the Socialist preaches
the ripening of the capitalistic society and the coming of the new
cooperative society.
The second great tenet of Socialism, itself a phase of the materialistic
conception of history, is the class struggle. In the social struggle for
existence, men are forced into classes. "The history of all society thus
far is the history of class strife." In existing society the capitalist
class exploits the working class, the proletariat. The interests of the
exploiter are not the interests of the exploited. "Profits are
legitimate," says the one. "Profits are unpaid wages," replies the
other, when he has become conscious of his class, "therefore profits are
robbery." The capitalist enforces his profits because he is the legal
owner of all the means of production. He is the legal owner because he
controls the political machinery of society. The Socialist sets to work
to capture the political machinery, so that he may make illegal the
capitalist's ownership of the means of production, and make legal his own
ownership of the means of production. And it is this struggle, between
these two classes, upon which the world has at last entered.
Scientific Socialism is very young. Only yesterday it was in swaddling
clothes. But today it is a vigorous young giant, well braced to battle
for what it wants, and knowing precisely what it wants. It holds its
international conventions, where world-policies are formulated by the
representatives of millions of Socialists. In little Belgium there are
three-quarters of a million of men who work for the cause; in Germany,
3,000,000; Austria, between 1895 and 1897, raised her socialist vote from
90,000 to 750,000. France in 1871 had a whole generation of Socialists
wiped out; yet in 1885 there were 30,000, and in 1898, 1,000,000.
Ere the last Spaniard had evacuated Cuba, Socialist groups were forming.
And from far Japan, in these first days of the twentieth century, writes
one Tomoyoshi Murai: "The interest of our people on Socialism has been
greatly awakened these days, especially among our laboring people on one
hand and young students' circle on the other, as much as we can draw an
earnest and enthusiastic audience and fill our hall, which holds two
thousand. . . . It is gratifying to say that we have a number of fine and
well-trained public orators among our leaders of Socialism in Japan. The
first speaker tonight is Mr. Kiyoshi Kawakami, editor of one of our city
(Tokyo) dailies, a strong, independent, and decidedly socialistic paper,
circulated far and wide. Mr. Kawakami is a scholar as well as a popular
writer. He is going to speak tonight on the subject, 'The Essence of
Socialism--the Fundamental Principles.' The next speaker is Professor
Iso Abe, president of our association, whose subject of address is,
'Socialism and the Existing Social System.' The third speaker is Mr.
Naoe Kinosita, the editor of another strong journal of the city. He
speaks on the subject, 'How to Realize the Socialist Ideals and Plans.'
Next is Mr. Shigeyoshi Sugiyama, a graduate of Hartford Theological
Seminary and an advocate of Social Christianity, who is to speak on
'Socialism and Municipal Problems.' And the last speaker is the editor
of the 'Labor World,' the foremost leader of the labor-union movement in
our country, Mr. Sen Katayama, who speaks on the subject, 'The Outlook of
Socialism in Europe and America.' These addresses are going to be
published in book form and to be distributed among our people to
enlighten their minds on the subject."
And in the struggle for the political machinery of society, Socialism is
no longer confined to mere propaganda. Italy, Austria, Belgium, England,
have Socialist members in their national bodies. Out of the one hundred
and thirty-two members of the London County Council, ninety-one are
denounced by the conservative element as Socialists. The Emperor of
Germany grows anxious and angry at the increasing numbers which are
returned to the Reichstag. In France, many of the large cities, such as
Marseilles, are in the hands of the Socialists. A large body of them is
in the Chamber of Deputies, and Millerand, Socialist, sits in the
cabinet. Of him M. Leroy-Beaulieu says with horror: "M. Millerand is the
open enemy of private property, private capital, the resolute advocate of
the socialization of production . . . a constant incitement to violence . . .
a collectivist, avowed and militant, taking part in the government,
dominating the departments of commerce and industry, preparing all the
laws and presiding at the passage of all measures which should be
submitted to merchants and tradesmen."
In the United States there are already Socialist mayors of towns and
members of State legislatures, a vast literature, and single Socialist
papers with subscription lists running up into the hundreds of thousands.
In 1896, 36,000 votes were cast for the Socialist candidate for
President; in 1900, nearly 200,000; in 1904, 450,000. And the United
States, young as it is, is ripening rapidly, and the Socialists claim,
according to the materialistic conception of history, that the United
States will be the first country in the world wherein the toilers will
capture the political machinery and expropriate the bourgeoisie.
* * * * *
But the Socialist and labor movements have recently entered upon a new
phase. There has been a remarkable change in attitude on both sides.
For a long time the labor unions refrained from going in for political
action. On the other hand, the Socialists claimed that without political
action labor was powerless. And because of this there was much ill
feeling between them, even open hostilities, and no concerted action.
But now the Socialists grant that the labor movement has held up wages
and decreased the hours of labor, and the labor unions find that
political action is necessary. Today both parties have drawn closely
together in the common fight. In the United States this friendly feeling
grows. The Socialist papers espouse the cause of labor, and the unions
have opened their ears once more to the wiles of the Socialists. They
are all leavened with Socialist workmen, "boring from within," and many
of their leaders have already succumbed. In England, where class
consciousness is more developed, the name "Unionism" has been replaced by
"The New Unionism," the main object of which is "to capture existing
social structures in the interests of the wage-earners." There the
Socialist, the trade-union, and other working-class organizations are
beginning to cooperate in securing the return of representatives to the
House of Commons. And in France, where the city councils and mayors of
Marseilles and Monteaules-Mines are Socialistic, thousands of francs of
municipal money were voted for the aid of the unions in the recent great
strikes.
For centuries the world has been preparing for the coming of the common
man. And the period of preparation virtually past, labor, conscious of
itself and its desires, has begun a definite movement toward solidarity.
It believes the time is not far distant when the historian will speak not
only of the dark ages of feudalism, but of the dark ages of capitalism.
And labor sincerely believes itself justified in this by the terrible
indictment it brings against capitalistic society. In the face of its
enormous wealth, capitalistic society forfeits its right to existence
when it permits widespread, bestial poverty. The philosophy of the
survival of the fittest does not soothe the class-conscious worker when
he learns through his class literature that among the Italian
pants-finishers of Chicago {9} the average weekly wage is $1.31, and the
average number of weeks employed in the year is 27.85. Likewise when he
reads: {10} "Every room in these reeking tenements houses a family or
two. In one room a missionary found a man ill with small-pox, his wife
just recovering from her confinement, and the children running about half
naked and covered with dirt. Here are seven people living in one
underground kitchen, and a little dead child lying in the same room.
Here live a widow and her six children, two of whom are ill with scarlet
fever. In another, nine brothers and sisters, from twenty-nine years of
age downward, live, eat, and sleep together." And likewise, when he
reads: {11} "When one man, fifty years old, who has worked all his life,
is compelled to beg a little money to bury his dead baby, and another
man, fifty years old, can give ten million dollars to enable his daughter
to live in luxury and bolster up a decaying foreign aristocracy, do you
see nothing amiss?"
And on the other hand, the class-conscious worker reads the statistics of
the wealthy classes, knows what their incomes are, and how they get them.
True, down all the past he has known his own material misery and the
material comfort of the dominant classes, and often has this knowledge
led him to intemperate acts and unwise rebellion. But today, and for the
first time, because both society and he have evolved, he is beginning to
see a possible way out. His ears are opening to the propaganda of
Socialism, the passionate gospel of the dispossessed. But it does not
inculcate a turning back. The way through is the way out, he
understands, and with this in mind he draws up the programme.
It is quite simple, this programme. Everything is moving in his
direction, toward the day when he will take charge. The trust? Ah, no.
Unlike the trembling middle-class man and the small capitalist, he sees
nothing at which to be frightened. He likes the trust. He exults in the
trust, for it is largely doing the task for him. It socializes
production; this done, there remains nothing for him to do but socialize
distribution, and all is accomplished. The trust? "It organizes
industry on an enormous, labor-saving scale, and abolishes childish,
wasteful competition." It is a gigantic object lesson, and it preaches
his political economy far more potently than he can preach it. He points
to the trust, laughing scornfully in the face of the orthodox economists.
"You told me this thing could not be," {12} he thunders. "Behold, the
thing is!"
He sees competition in the realm of production passing away. When the
captains of industry have thoroughly organized production, and got
everything running smoothly, it will be very easy for him to eliminate
the profits by stepping in and having the thing run for himself. And the
captain of industry, if he be good, may be given the privilege of
continuing the management on a fair salary. The sixty millions of
dividends which the Standard Oil Company annually declares will be
distributed among the workers. The same with the great United States
Steel Corporation. The president of that corporation knows his business.
Very good. Let him become Secretary of the Department of Iron and Steel
of the United States. But, since the chief executive of a nation of
seventy-odd millions works for $50,000 a year, the Secretary of the
Department of Iron and Steel must expect to have his salary cut
accordingly. And not only will the workers take to themselves the
profits of national and municipal monopolies, but also the immense
revenues which the dominant classes today draw from rents, and mines, and
factories, and all manner of enterprises.
* * * * *
All this would seem very like a dream, even to the worker, if it were not
for the fact that like things have been done before. He points
triumphantly to the aristocrat of the eighteenth century, who fought,
legislated, governed, and dominated society, but who was shorn of power
and displaced by the rising bourgeoisie. Ay, the thing was done, he
holds. And it shall be done again, but this time it is the proletariat
who does the shearing. Sociology has taught him that m-i-g-h-t spells
"right." Every society has been ruled by classes, and the classes have
ruled by sheer strength, and have been overthrown by sheer strength. The
bourgeoisie, because it was the stronger, dragged down the nobility of
the sword; and the proletariat, because it is the strongest of all, can
and will drag down the bourgeoisie.
And in that day, for better or worse, the common man becomes the
master--for better, he believes. It is his intention to make the sum of
human happiness far greater. No man shall work for a bare living wage,
which is degradation. Every man shall have work to do, and shall be paid
exceedingly well for doing it. There shall be no slum classes, no
beggars. Nor shall there be hundreds of thousands of men and women
condemned, for economic reasons, to lives of celibacy or sexual
infertility. Every man shall be able to marry, to live in healthy,
comfortable quarters, and to have all he wants to eat as many times a day
as he wishes. There shall no longer be a life-and-death struggle for
food and shelter. The old heartless law of development shall be
annulled.
All of which is very good and very fine. And when these things have come
to pass, what then? Of old, by virtue of their weakness and inefficiency
in the struggle for food and shelter, the race was purged of its weak and
inefficient members. But this will no longer obtain. Under the new
order the weak and the progeny of the weak will have a chance for
survival equal to that of the strong and the progeny of the strong. This
being so, the premium upon strength will have been withdrawn, and on the
face of it the average strength of each generation, instead of continuing
to rise, will begin to decline.
When the common man's day shall have arrived, the new social institutions
of that day will prevent the weeding out of weakness and inefficiency.
All, the weak and the strong, will have an equal chance for procreation.
And the progeny of all, of the weak as well as the strong, will have an
equal chance for survival. This being so, and if no new effective law of
development be put into operation, then progress must cease. And not
only progress, for deterioration would at once set in. It is a pregnant
problem. What will be the nature of this new and most necessary law of
development? Can the common man pause long enough from his undermining
labors to answer? Since he is bent upon dragging down the bourgeoisie
and reconstructing society, can he so reconstruct that a premium, in some
unguessed way or other, will still be laid upon the strong and efficient
so that the human type will continue to develop? Can the common man, or
the uncommon men who are allied with him, devise such a law? Or have
they already devised one? And if so, what is it?