THE INSTITUTE OF SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS--NORRENA'S ADDRESS ON THE
TRANSITION PERIOD--FROM COMPETITION TO CO-OPERATION--THE CLOSING
DECADES OF MONEY SUPREMACY--THE POWER OF GOLD--ITS CONQUEST OF THE
WORLD--POLITICAL GOVERNMENTS ITS TOOLS--THE PEOPLE HELPLESS--A HINT
AT THE WAY OUT.
AT an early hour we were up and had our breakfast. I felt that
my journey to Orbitello and the hasty glance through the leading
departments had been the most instructive day I had ever experienced.
But I was not surfeited, and looked forward with interest to the
meeting of the Institute of School Superintendents and especially
to Norrena's oral lessons from the Transition Period of the great
Industrial Commonwealth of Altruria.
We met in the Auditorium over the Department of Public Printing. Many
had already arrived and were gathered into groups in various portions
of the vast hall conversing with each other. I took a seat on one
side by myself to contemplate the scene before me. I was by nature
a student, and here I was among, as it were, a nation of competent
instructors, and in a country where everything demonstrated the power
to control the great potent forces which govern the external world,
and the innate force of our higher moral and spiritual concepts of
what should be our relations toward each other in order to convert
this earth into a heaven of blissful, happy contentment. I was among
a people who universally regarded "an injury to one as the concern
of all," and hence health, happiness and abundance for all was their
normal condition.
I could hardly realize that this country had once been the abode of
poverty and all of its consequences of ignorance, vice and crime; that
here where equal rights, equal opportunities and an equal share in
the unlimited abundance which nature places within the easy reach of
intelligent labor were the universal and unquestioned law of being,
there had once been a grasping and cruel financial and commercial power
that condemned the wealth-producing millions to lives of unrequited
toil. But such, I was repeatedly told, had been the fact, and Norrena,
at this meeting was to give an oral lesson from that period and
describe the power that had oppressed and degraded the people in those
early ages.
But a short time had gone by since my first meeting with these people
and yet I had become thoroughly absorbed in their mental, moral and
spiritual life. I felt myself to be to all intents and purposes one
of them. What was it that had so entirely taken possession of my
consciousness? In all my life I had never felt so completely at home,
and at peace with myself and all the world. I was fully satisfied.
Norrena broke in upon my reverie by asking:
"What is it Nequa, that so absorbs your attention that you seem to be
utterly oblivious of the presence of this large assemblage of teachers
from all parts of the country to talk over the history of the olden
time when 'wealth accumulated and men decayed?' Have you forgotten
what I told you last evening? Oqua will report the lesson from the
Transition Period in English for you and you can afford to give some
attention to your old friends, Iola, MacNair, Polaris, Dione and your
comrades of the Ice King."
I looked around and found that while I had been musing, our party
had all gathered near me without attracting my attention and I said
apologetically: "I must have been dreaming."
"Then you were dreaming with your eyes wide open," said Oqua. "I
noticed that you seemed to be unusually absorbed. What were you
thinking about?"
"I was pondering," I replied, "how it was possible that this country
could ever have been cursed with poverty as the normal condition of
the masses of the people while the few were rich beyond the dreams of
avarice, and held those masses bound by fetters that they could not
break."
"It is now time for the exercises to commence," said Norrena. "I will
explain the mystery in my address, at least so far as the leading
factors are concerned, for in its entirety it is indeed a long and
ghastly picture of human ignorance on one side and human greed
directed by a morally perverted human intelligence on the other."
The chairman called the meeting to order and stated that the first
thing on the program would be an address on the Transition Period, by
Norrena, the Continental Commissioner of Education. Without extended
preliminary remarks, the speaker opened the discussion of the question
under consideration from which I condense the following from Oqua's
report in English. Yet notwithstanding my short residence in the
country I believe that I could have given the gist of the address
myself without any assistance.
"I need not," said the speaker, "enter into any lengthy explanation
before an institute of teachers, as to how our ancestors under the
old civilisation exchanged the products created by their labor for
products created by the labor of others, by the use of a law-created
medium of exchange called money. Neither need we trace the history of
many kinds of products and devices which were used in different ages
as a medium of exchange, such as cattle, slaves, shells, tobacco, the
skins of animals and certain stones and metals. These things are only
of interest to the antiquarian. It is enough to know for our present
purpose that money had originally been devised as a substitute for
barter, and marked the first step towards the establishment of a system
of exchanging products which required the exercise of a higher order
of mental faculties. During the early part of the Transition Period,
gold and silver were the exclusive materials from which money was
coined, except for sums of only a few cents, when the so-called baser
metals were used. As the supply of gold and silver was not equal to
the demands of business, banks were established to issue notes to
circulate as money with the consent of both parties to the exchange.
These notes were made redeemable in gold and silver on the demand
of the holders, and at frequent intervals the banks failed and the
people lost the wealth which they had exchanged for the notes. This
was a transfer without compensation, of the actual values created by
the labor of the people, to the note issuing power, and this process,
oft-repeated, laid the foundations for many colossal fortunes.
"In this connection, it may be well to note that in times of great
public danger when the metal coins disappeared from circulation, the
government exercised the right to issue a legal tender paper money to
meet the deficiency. It served all the purposes of gold, and often
in the midst of adversity and disaster brought great industrial
prosperity to the people. But when the danger had gone by, strange
as it may appear, the government funded this legal tender paper into
government bonds, payable, interest and principal, in coin. This
process of converting the debt paying medium of the country into an
interest bearing debt that must be paid in another kind of money
which had been hidden away by the more wealthy in times of danger,
was the foundation of the great bonded debt of this country which was
established during the Transition Period. This bonded debt was made
the basis of a national bank currency for the redemption of which, at
first in legal tender paper and coin, and later in gold, the people as
debtors to the banks were in the last analysis responsible. In other
words the national bank currency derived its sole value as a reliable
medium of exchange from the fact that it was based on the public
credit, and this public credit belonged to the people, but the private
banking associations got the benefit for the private gain of their
stockholders, and the service rendered, cost the people many times its
worth.
"During the Transition Period in this country the people had three
kinds of legal tender money, gold, silver, and paper, together with the
national bank notes which were a legal tender as between the people and
the government. At the close of this period, silver coin, and legal
tender paper were made redeemable by the government in gold, on the
demand of the holder; and all deferred payments were made payable in
gold on the demand of the creditor. The great bulk of the business of
the country among the people was transacted by the use of silver, paper
and bank notes but the holders of these forms of currency could demand
gold in exchange, and if for any cause the government failed to collect
enough gold from the people to meet the demand it became the duty of
the Secretary of the Treasury to sell interest bearing gold bonds to
meet the deficiency.
"Such in brief, was the complicated, cumbersome and unscientific system
of exchanging, or distributing wealth, which existed under the old
civilization. The means of production being fixed by natural law were
the same then as now. Wealth always was and must always continue to
be, the product of human labor and skill applied to natural resources,
facilitated by such mechanical contrivances and business methods as
human skill may devise. But the system of distribution being entirely
under human control is continually changing as affected by human
impulses, whether they be selfish, as in the olden time, or altruistic
as they are now.
"We now exchange a product for a product of equal value, for the
convenience and benefit of all, without any charge except for the
necessary labor expended in the production and distribution. But under
the old civilization the product was first exchanged for money and the
money was then exchanged with some one else for the product that was
wanted in return. As a method of exchanging one value for another,
this was a very awkward and unscientific process, but in and of itself
it was not necessarily unjust and oppressive; yet the system such as
it was, could be used by the greedy few who controlled the financial
and commercial affairs of the country, for the purpose of exacting
such exorbitant tribute from the many as would, and did, condemn the
millions to poverty. The few, with their superior business sagacity
took advantage of this semi-barbarous idea of a perpetual money token
which was supposed to contain within itself an actual value, equal to
the values which it was used to exchange, and they organized banking
as the chief factor in the mechanism of exchange among themselves,
which in its operations also gave them control of the perpetual money
tokens which the people must have to carry on their ordinary business
transactions with each other.
"These shrewd financiers had no use for money except to pay balances,
and at the time of the end, ninety-seven per cent. of the great
business transactions of the country were carried on by means of
organised credit through banks and clearing houses. This system of
minimising the use of legal money through banking methods, as a matter
of course left a large surplus in the hands of the great operators,
which was loaned to the people, who in their unorganised condition were
compelled to pay cash. These loans bore various rates of interest,
but always much above the average increase of wealth, and very often
so exorbitant that the states for very shame's sake were compelled to
establish certain arbitrary rates beyond which the money lender dare
not go.
"It will be seen at a glance that this system of transacting the
business of the country on a cash basis by the people and by organized
credit through banks by large operators who controlled finance and
commerce could not fail to give to the latter an enormous advantage
in the aggregate business of the country. The great masses of wealth
producers naturally became a debtor class. As all wealth was the
product of their labor, they must necessarily create the means of
paying all indebtedness, interest and principal. Hence they constituted
the interest paying masses while the comparatively small number
of large operators constituted a powerful creditor class who were
continually receiving interest, and hence always had money to loan or
invest in such a manner as to be able to receive more interest. And the
larger the interest-charge against the people, the more they needed
money and the more inclined they were to borrow. Cities and towns often
voted a bonded debt upon themselves for improvements, for the express
purpose of providing employment for the workers, so that business might
derive some temporary advantage by having the wages expended in their
midst. The great masses of the people did not realize that a part
of the same dollars they borrowed most go back to the lender to pay
interest, and that the consequent deficiency in the means of payment
could only be met by transferring to the creditor a portion of the
wealth created by their labor equal to the interest. And the larger the
aggregate indebtedness in proportion to the volume of money available
for debt paying purposes, the larger must be the deficiency to be met
out of their savings, or what should have been their net income from
the exercise of their producing power.
"But the interest on loans, public and private was only a small
fraction of the burden of usury imposed upon the wealth producing
masses. All the large industrial, financial and commercial enterprises
of the country were on a debt-creating basis. Stock companies owned
the railroads of the country; the streetcars, waterworks, gasworks
and electric light and power plants of the cities; all the great
manufacturing, mining and commercial enterprises; the steamship lines,
and even vast bonanza farms and stock ranches. All these interests were
operated with a view to paying dividends on the stock in addition to
the operating expenses, and were therefore equivalent to a perpetual
interest bearing debt, the principal of which never could be paid.
"This constructive indebtedness was intended to be perpetual, and its
volume was not limited to the actual cost of the various enterprises
that were incorporated. The railroads, for instance, sold stock to
many times the cost of the roads, or as it was called, 'watered their
stock,' and then they ordinarily bonded the roads for vast sums
besides. These bonded debts however, were very often created for the
purpose of bankrupting the companies for the enrichment of an 'inside
ring.' This process was known as 'freezing out the stockholders,' and
by thus reducing capitalization it was not necessary for the roads to
exact so much tribute from their patrons in order to pay dividends.
Other corporate enterprises also 'watered' their stock, and some
of them got such a hold upon the people that they continued to pay
exorbitant dividends on their fictitious valuation until they were
absorbed into the larger combination of the whole people.
"At the close of the Transition Period the volume of interest bearing
indebtedness and dividend earning investments was estimated at fifty
thousand millions, and the average cost to the people six per cent.
per annum, or an aggregate of three thousand millions every year to
be taken out of the wealth produced by the people. The bulk of these
obligations, public, corporate and private was held by the great
banking institutions which had been established by the corporation and
trust magnates, who practically owned the lands and all the machinery
of production and distribution. They owned not only the indebtedness
against the people but they controlled the medium by which it must be
paid, and on their demand under the law, this medium of final payment
was gold.
"As this great creditor class was the principal employer of labor and
controlled both the buying and selling of products which the people
must have for the purposes of consumption, thus fixing both the income
and the expenses of the producer, it was not difficult to collect their
tribute. A pro rata of the great annual charge of interest, dividends
and profits against the people was collected from the producer in the
shape of a discount on what he had to sell, whether it was his labor
or its products. The remainder was charged up to consumption and
constituted a part of the price that was paid for every article that
was purchased. The cost to the consumer of every commodity purchased,
consisted of five distinct elements: First, interest on the money
supposed to be invested in its production and distribution; Second,
rent upon all the buildings in which it had been stored, which would
include cars or vessels used in transportation; Third, profit to
all who had handled the product; Fourth, its pro rata of taxation
and Fifth, the wages paid to the labor expended in its production,
transportation, superintendence and distribution. This fifth element in
the cost was all that went to useful labor, while the other elements
went to the great financial, industrial and commercial combines which
held the masses of the people in their grasp.
"Of course under the operation of this system, where both the income
and the expenses of the producer were determined by this great
creditor class for its own selfish purposes, it is not strange that
the condition of the average toiler was one of poverty, nor is it
strange that a widespread spirit of unrest, and often of angry and
violent discontent threatened the peace of society and the perpetuity
of established institutions and a stable government. But to us, it does
indeed look strange that the brawny millions whose strong arms and
undaunted courage had conquered the untamed forces of nature and made
the wilderness a fit dwelling place for a refined and cultured people,
could have been bound, hand and foot, by such a gossamer thread as the
puny power of a few owners of gold. But when we take into consideration
the fundamental truth that mind controls matter, and that the few
who were at the top had cultivated brains while the many who were at
the bottom had only cultivated muscles, the mystery is solved. The
toiling masses had no conception of their power, and on their plane of
intelligence were utterly unable to hold their own against the wily
schemes of the more intelligent few.
"At the time of which we speak, four-fifths of the aggregate wealth
of the country had passed into the hands of a small fraction of
the people, and millions were landless, homeless and dependent for
subsistence upon the crumbs, so to speak, that fell from the tables
of their lordly masters who controlled every avenue to employment
and dictated the terms upon which they were permitted to live. Being
few in numbers, they could and did co-operate with each other for
their mutual advantage. All they had to do in order to keep wages at
a minimum was to leave a large number of applicants unemployed, and
hence very poor, who at all times, would be ready to take the place of
workmen who demanded more liberal wages. The self-employed farmers were
but little better off than the wage workers, as they were forced to
sell their products and purchase their supplies at prices fixed by the
great financial, industrial and commercial combines which controlled
the business of the country. Under the inequitable methods of exchange
which existed at that time, the masses of the people were powerless to
help themselves. The fortunate few who controlled money, dictated how
much they might receive for their labor or its products and how much of
the products created by the labor of others they could purchase with
the proceeds.
"To us the natural remedy for discriminations of this kind, so unjust
and oppressive to the masses of the people seems so self-evident and
easy of application that it is not strange that many have been inclined
to doubt the correctness of much that is recorded in the history of
the economic conditions which existed under the old civilisation, when
human selfishness ruled supreme in business affairs. But when we take
into consideration the fact, that at that time, the world had never had
a single object lesson large enough to be seen by the great of mankind,
as to what would constitute an equitable system of distribution, we
are forced to the conclusion that the adverse conditions existing
during the Transition Period were just what might have been expected
under the circumstances. The few who had the ability to conduct the
business of the world did not understand that the productive power
of the earth is practically unlimited so that under an equitable
system of exchange there is absolutely no possibility of any person
being reduced to poverty. Then, too, the great masses were but a few
generations removed from a condition of absolute serfdom, and were
just what ages of drudgery had made them, and could not be expected to
take broad and comprehensive views of the great economic problems by
which they were confronted. The world had never known anything but the
private ownership of all the means of production and distribution and
the desire to lay up treasures was universally regarded as laudable
and praiseworthy. Under these circumstances neither the few who had
monopolized the earth nor the many who were disinherited could have
been reasonably expected to be other than they were. Both alike were
the product of long ages of growth. The wheat and the tares must
necessarily grow up together, nurtured by the same soil, until the
harvest is ready, and then the separation takes place strictly in
accordance with natural law.
"The gold power which established itself in this country during the
Transition Period was an exotic that had been imported from the old
world. Its object was to control every nation on earth, for its own
gain, without being the loyal supporter of any. It had secured absolute
control over the nations of the Old World before it succeeded in
financially conquering the New. Whenever it succeeded in establishing
the gold standard in any country, it established its local branch for
controlling that country's finances. Its first object was to promote
the creation of national bonded debts, payable, principal and interest,
in gold. For this purpose, it was always ready to loan money to carry
on wars, and each country could negotiate its loans through its own
local branch, but the creditor in every case, as a matter of fact, was
the international Gold Power of the world, which had no preferences
between nations but sought to impose a bonded debt alike upon all.
There was absolutely nothing patriotic about it. All it wanted, was
a lien upon the industries of the world, that would produce a steady
income in the shape of interest.
"In this country, we had a Republican form of government and with our
vast area of public lands the people were more independent by far than
the people of any other country ever had been, notwithstanding the
fact that they were robbed unmercifully by the private banks which
issued notes and then suspended so that the notes which the people had
accepted for their property became worthless. At frequent intervals,
these bank panics reduced thousands of people to bankruptcy. But the
country was new and land could be had for the asking, so when pressed
to the wall, as it were, in the more populous districts along the
eastern border, they came west on the public lands, made new homes
and soon accumulated another competency. It is not strange that this
international Gold Power of the world cast longing eyes upon a country
that was so productive, and could recover so rapidly from industrial
depressions and financial disasters.
"For nearly one hundred years after the establishment of our Republic,
notwithstanding the prevalent 'wild cat' banking system as it was
called and the absurd reverence for the so-called precious metals,
the people of this country were practically independent of the great
Gold Power which had its headquarters in Atlan. While the founders of
the Republic had made gold and silver coin the standard money of the
country, they reserved the right to issue treasury notes and also to
make them a legal tender, and as there was no great debt, and land
could be had for the asking, the economic independence of the people
could not be entirely crushed out, and therefore Altruria offered an
effectual barrier to the encroachments of the gold power. Before the
people could be actually subjugated financially, a vast bonded debt
must be created, and in order to induce the people to agree to such a
debt, the life of the Republic must be placed in jeopardy. A foreign
war was not to be thought of, as it would arouse to fever heat all of
the innate democratic hatred against aristocratic rule of every name
and description, but a war between the states would serve the same
purpose.
"The conditions that made such an interstate struggle possible, had
unintentionally been provided for by the founders of the Republic. At
the time when the Republic was established the colored people were held
as slaves in nearly all of the original colonies. This institution was
regarded by the founders of the Republic, as inconsistent with the
spirit of its institutions, and it was unsparingly denounced as the
'sum of all villainies' by a large number; and one state after another
emancipated its slaves, and new free states were admitted, until the
country was practically half slave and half free.
"In the manufacturing states uncultured slave labor was not profitable
and hence there was but little objection to its abolition. But in
the agricultural states such labor was valuable, as the old world
furnished an unfailing market for all the surplus products. The gold
power of Atlan took advantage of the situation to sow the seeds of
discord between the two sections.
"Missionaries were sent into the manufacturing states, papers
established and literature distributed appealing to the sympathies of
the people in behalf of the slaves and creating a public sentiment
against the slaveholding states. These anti-slavery missionaries came
in the name of religion and humanity and it cannot be denied that ample
grounds existed for all that could be said against chattel slavery,
but the PURPOSES for which the anti-slavery agitation was used by the
Gold Power were, if possible, to destroy the Republic, or failing in
this, involve the country in an interstate war and induce the patriotic
lovers of liberty to consent to the establishment of a vast bonded debt.
"Another class of missionaries were sent into the slaveholding states
and another class of literature circulated, proclaiming that 'cotton is
king' and that if Free Trade with all the world was established, the
planters would be the wealthiest and happiest people on earth. That all
that stood in the way was the union with the anti-slavery states, which
sought to abolish the 'peculiar institution' that enabled the planters
to produce such a magnificent surplus, which the Old World stood ready
to take in unlimited quantities, at high prices in gold, just as soon
as Free Trade could be established. To secure this grand victory for
agriculture, all that was needed was to dissolve the union with the
anti-slavery states and their pet hobby of tariff duties on imported
goods.
"Both sections of the country were flooded with literature, all
of which contained enough of truth to make it attractive to honest
people, and enough of misrepresentation to engender the most bitter
and antagonistic feelings between them. The institution of slavery
was wrong, in and of itself, but the anti-slavery agitators ignored
the fact that the masses of the slaves were not qualified for
self-government, and that the perpetuity of free institutions depended
upon the intelligence of the voters. They did not try to convert
the slaveholding states to the policy of educating their slaves and
preparing them for freedom, but they went to the non-slaveholding
states and demanded the immediate and unconditional abolition of
slavery in the other section. This was, as a matter of course, most
exasperating to the people of the slave states who in their capacity as
independent states felt themselves amply competent to attend to their
own affairs.
"In the political discussions of that time, half truths served all the
purposes of full grown falsehoods as a means of deluding the people.
The Free Trade agitators of the slave states were unqualifiedly right
when they called attention to the fact that all import duties were
a tax upon the people in proportion to their expenses instead of
their incomes and were therefore unjust and oppressive to the great
masses of the people; but they ignored the fact that the absolute
Free Trade that did exist between all sections of the country was of
vastly more importance to the slaveholding states, than Free Trade
with any foreign country could possibly be. The manufacturing states
of their own country were over two thousand miles nearer to them than
the manufacturing countries of the Old World, and that fact, with a
fair compensation to labor would have given them an assured market for
their surplus products without paying transportation charges both ways
across the ocean.
"But the leading object of these Free Trade agitators, was to appeal
to the selfish impulses of the few who owned slaves, and to the race
prejudices of the masses of non-slaveholders, by telling them that the
abolitionists proposed to place them on terms of political and social
equality with the slaves. They were taught to believe that under the
prevailing tariff regulations, they were taxed for the special benefit
of the 'mudsills' of the manufacturing states, who being low down in
the social scale themselves wanted to bring the proud, chivalrous
people of the slave states down to the level of their chattel slaves.
"As a matter of fact, neither the producing masses of the Free States
or the non-slaveholders of the slave states had the remotest conception
that the international gold power of Atlan was taking advantage of the
discussion of slavery and free trade through its paid agents, to sow
the seeds of discord between the two sections of the Great Republic
of the New World. And they permitted their resentments for fancied
wrongs to be fanned into a flame of fierce indignation, which, as was
intended, culminated in a bloody strife and the creation of a vast
bonded debt.
"This fratricidal struggle lasted nearly five years, and when it ended,
the people found themselves in debt, billions of dollars, to a class
of people who had speculated on their necessities. The unsuspecting
masses on both sides had bared their breasts to the storm of battle,
endured all the privations and suffered all the losses, and were in
debt for all the expenses of the war INCLUDING THEIR OWN SERVICES, to
an international money power which ruled the world.
"In order to carry on the war, paper money was issued and paid out
to the soldiers, sailors and citizens for their services. This money
performed all the functions of gold and notwithstanding the fact that
the people were engaged in a most destructive war, it stimulated
all branches of business and brought on an era of great industrial
prosperity. But after the war was over this same paper money which had
been paid to the people as the original creditors of the government,
and for which they had signed receipts in full for their services,
was converted into interest bearing bonds, and these same soldiers,
sailors and citizens were taxed to pay to those who speculated on their
necessities in the hour of danger, the same debt that had originally
been due to themselves, and for which they had received legal tender
paper money.
"But had the process of funding the legal tender debt paying medium of
the country into bonds ceased at this point, the international gold
power of the world would never have been able to financially subjugate
the people of this country, as under the law creating the bonds, the
debt was payable in legal tender paper money. So another step must be
taken. The debt had been created and a large portion of the money had
been burned, but the bonds did not call for gold, except for interest.
Hence a law was enacted resuming specie payments, and the bonds were
made payable in coin, and now the people who had taken paper dollars
for their services in saving the union, were taxed to pay gold dollars
to the money kings for the paper dollars they had received.
"We can scarcely conceive at this distant day, how it was possible
for our ancestors to have been so stupid, as not to see through this
outrage that was perpetrated upon them, but nevertheless, history
records the fact that for thirty odd years after this bare faced
legalised robbery had been committed, a vast majority of men were
voting their approval, which was proclaimed throughout the world as the
triumph of patriotic statesmanship.
"As the direct result of this kind of financial legerdemain,
which converted the DEBT-PAYING medium of the country into an
INTEREST-BEARING DEBT, the wages of labor and the prices of products
steadily declined, business enterprises were wound up in bankruptcy at
the rate of more than one thousand per month and millions of workmen
were forced into idleness and thronged the highways in all parts of
the country, demoralized, degraded and becoming a sure menace to
civilization.
"As a result of the war between the states, chattel slavery had been
abolished, but another form of industrial servitude, the wage system,
had fallen heir to all of its worst features. The owners of the
chattel slaves had the power to be oppressive and cruel, but personal
interest demanded that the slave should always be provided with food,
shelter and raiment, while the wage slave could be turned out to starve
when from sickness, age of any other cause it was more profitable to
dispense with his services. The wage slave, who must work or starve was
serving a much more exacting and cruel master than the most heartless
owner of chattel slaves ever could have been. In the great sphere of
human servitude the tables had been completely turned. While the slave
owner had always been very careful not to give his chattel slaves an
opportunity to run away, the wage slave very often lived in a perpetual
dread that his master would pay him off and tell him to go.
"Conditions such as these could not fail to arouse a widespread feeling
of dissatisfaction and as every man had a vote, political agitation
was the logical result of the situation and politicians were kept
busy in defending old policies and proposing new ones, all for the
professed purpose of securing better conditions for the great masses
of the people. A slight glance at a few of the popular economic and
political ideas of that time indicates the average status of popular
intelligence, and is therefore useful in tracing the evolutionary
forces which were operating at that time for the elimination of
selfishness and the establishment of equity in human affairs.
"As the times grew harder, the politicians of the old school told the
people that the over production of wealth was the cause of all their
poverty and distress, and for a time the great masses seemed to be
satisfied with this explanation. They did not pause to inquire how it
was possible for them to produce so much food and clothing and build so
many houses, and for that reason be compelled to go hungry, dress in
rags and be without shelter.
"Further on, this same class of politicians told the people that what
they needed was to make their silver and paper money redeemable in
gold and then they would have a dollar that would purchase more, and
a majority of the people decided in favor of the gold standard. They
did not reflect, that the larger the purchasing power of the dollar
might be, the more of their labor it would require in order to get
the dollar, and so without understanding what they were doing, the
laboring masses of the country actually voted to decrease the money
earning power of their own labor. But had they decided in favor of
more money, while their wages would have gone up, their cost of living
would have increased and they would not have been materially benefited
except incidentally, as a part of the great debtor class, which was
required to pay interest as part of the price of everything purchased
for consumption. And we may add, that but for the fact that the great
masses who produced wealth by their labor, constituted a debtor class,
the advantages and disadvantages between a larger or smaller volume of
money, would have formed a perfect equation, and the condition of the
masses would neither have been better nor worse, as in either case, the
banks would have determined the amount that was permitted to circulate
among the people, by making or withholding loans as might at the time,
best promote their own interests.
"While the Gold Power was international in its character, and not
loyal to any country, it always took an active interest in moulding
the opinions of the dominant political parties of all countries. It
was necessary for it to have at least two favorites among the dominant
parties, so that by turns they might spring reforms, so-called,
based on half truths, to attract the constantly increasing number
of dissatisfied voters. The demand for an increased volume of money
in order to raise the wages of labor and the price of farm products
was a question of this character, and it was sufficient to sidetrack
and head off a more searching investigation as to the real causes of
poverty. This was met by the demand for a better quality of money that
would purchase more goods. The arguments in favor of both, contained
half truths which were dwelt upon with great force, but the success
of either, still left the gold power, directly or indirectly, in a
position to control the situation.
"The same thing was true in regard to the tariff question which the
gold power made a dominant issue between its favorite parties. The
question itself could be used to call attention away from the question
of finance, which had a more direct bearing upon the vital matter of
EXCHANGE and was therefore more likely to educate the people to a
point where they could no longer be deluded by an ingenious discussion
of half truths. This question, in order to be made available for
the purposes of the gold power, must necessarily have two SEEMINGLY
antagonistic political parties to go before the people. One party
advocated a tariff-for-revenue, with Free Trade arguments, while the
other advocated a tariff-for-protection, and appealed to the laboring
classes to maintain liberal wages for themselves by voting for a high
tariff that would exclude foreign goods.
"The positions taken by these parties were about equally delusive and
neither would have in the least delayed the dangerous encroachments
of the gold power. A tariff-for-revenue could in no sense be a Free
Trade party, but it did propose to raise revenue by duties on imports.
This duty would of course be paid by the people as part of the price
of the goods which they consumed, and hence the tax would be in
proportion to their expenses without any reference to their incomes.
Those who expended their entire incomes in consumption would be taxed
upon the whole, while those who expended only a small fraction, would
be taxed only on the fraction so expended. As a system of taxation
it is difficult to conceive of one that would be more unequal in its
bearings, and more oppressive to people of small incomes.
"On the other hand the tariff-for-protection party, proposed to make
the duties on imports so high that foreign productions would be kept
out, and the home market secured to the employers of home labor.
This, it was claimed, would enable the employers of labor to pay
higher wages, which was true; but the selfishness of the heartless
employer, was always in favor of keeping wages at a minimum and the
noble, generous, employer could not afford to pay any more. If he did,
his heartless competitor would undersell him in the market and destroy
his business. Hence we are not surprised that statistics proved the
tendency of wages to be toward a minimum under both parties--that is,
a sum barely sufficient to provide food, clothing and shelter, and to
enable the workman to raise other toilers to take his place when he was
no longer able to work.
"Under this tariff-for-protection policy, the revenues raised were just
as oppressive and unjust to people of small incomes as under the policy
of 'a tariff for revenue only,' but with this additional burden, that
the increased price of home products was assessed upon the people in
the same unequal manner. But on the other side, more home labor could
be employed, which benefited the workmen in protected industries at
the expense of the classes which were not protected. Of course, even
the tariff-for-protection party which had so much to say in favor of
holding the home market for home products, never seriously intended to
exclude foreign products, as that would have put an end to all revenue.
"These delusive theories of a tariff for revenue and a tariff for
protection, served the purposes of the Gold Power, by calling the
attention of the people away from the real difficulty which stood
in the way of wealth producers. All that the people needed was an
opportunity to apply their labor to natural resources, and be able to
exchange their products for products of equal value, produced by the
labor of others. The foreign trade of the country was a matter of small
importance compared with the home trade. If at almost any time during
the latter part of the Transition Period, the people of this country
had been guaranteed just such rations as were provided for soldiers,
or even convicts, there would have been no surplus for exportation;
and had the whole people been provided with all the clothing that
was needed to keep them well clad, it would have taken the entire
product of wool, flax, cotton and leather. But the press of that day,
religious as well as secular, was to such a large extent under the
control of the Gold Power, that facts such as these were kept away
from the masses of the people. And it may be added in this connection,
that the educational system of the country was controlled by this same
power to suppress the truth on economic questions, and many eminent
scholars were removed from professorships in the higher institutions of
learning, because they refused to teach such sophistries as suited the
purposes of the Gold Power.
"In our very brief mention of the political agitations of that time we
have only referred to the leading measures advocated by the dominant
political parties. It is due however to even that benighted age to
state, that at every step taken by the international Gold Power to
financially conquer the world, a few of the more enlightened and
self-sacrificing spirits, boldly exposed the financial wrongs which
were being perpetrated against the people for the still further
enrichment of the money kings of the Old World and their agents and
co-workers in the great centers of wealth in this country. But these
courageous, clear headed and humanity loving pioneers of a higher
civilization were frowned down as dangerous agitators and enemies
of law and order, and every foul epithet was applied to them. If in
business, they were boycotted, and if belonging to the ranks of labor,
they were blacklisted and in many cases imprisoned on false charges,
and some were even executed for crimes which they did not commit. And
yet the measures of reform they advocated along political lines were
usually of such a nature that had they been enacted into law they would
only have prolonged, for a few decades perhaps, the false system which
pauperized and degraded the toiling millions.
"So much for the political agitations which had for their ostensible
object the improvement of the economic condition of the great masses
of the people. Yet they did much good as a means of educating the
more intelligent into a better understanding of the situation, and
revealed the apparently utter hopelessness of ever being able to secure
necessary reforms by political action, as no matter how pure at first
might be the objects of a political party, just as soon as it was
successful, and offices were in sight, the work of corruption set in
and its principles became subordinate in the minds of its leaders, to
the more profitable occupation of office seeking.
"But other more potent factors than political agitation, were at
work among the masses in the shape of great industrial organizations
of farmers and wage-workers. These organizations as a rule were
strictly non-political. The farmers sought to secure higher prices
for the products of the farm without any regard for the interests of
the millions of wage-workers and others upon whom they depended for
a market. Another object of the farmers was to reduce their cost
of living by securing lower prices on their implements and other
supplies. By concentrating their trade and taking advantage of the
competition between dealers they often succeeded in securing very much
reduced prices on goods, and this furnished what was regarded as a
legitimate excuse for reducing the wages of the employes engaged in
their manufacture. This reduction of wages crippled the market for farm
products and offended both the employer and the workmen, so in the end
the farmers defeated themselves and succeeded in arraying all other
classes of people against them.
"But it was the wage-workers who suffered the most from the great
oligarchy of wealth which had been established in the name of the
people for the express purpose of exacting profits from the industrial
classes. They organized Trade Unions which ultimately federated into
one great national organization with a view to securing higher wages
and fewer hours of labor without any regard to the interests of the
consumers of their products. The number of workmen in these Trade
Unions were at all times but a small fraction of the multitude which
depended upon wages. As a rule the purposes and methods of these
labor organizations were in practice, if not in theory, based upon
the same false principles that characterized the industrial despotism
against which they were protesting. Selfishness was a distinguishing
characteristic and a fatal defect. The skilled workman who had
employment, cared but little for the non-Union workman of his own craft
except as a possible competitor for his job, and nothing whatever for
the great masses of common laborers who were so numerous and so poor
that organization could do them no good as a means of maintaining
wages. The union workman recognized no interest in common with the
unemployed outside of his own fraternity.
"Instead of banding together to devise ways and means by which all
could find employment, the Trade Unions sought only to secure work and
maintain wages for the comparatively small number who were members in
good standing. Hence in case of strikes and lockouts the unemployed
workmen were actuated by the same selfish motives and did not hesitate
to take their places whenever they could be protected from violence.
And whenever they did so, the union workmen made war upon them.
While they recognized the relation of master and servant as one that
was to be perpetuated, they denied the right of the 'scabs' as they
were called, to accept employment from THEIR masters, no matter how
destitute they might be.
"Neither did they question the right of employers, who in the days
of the old civilization were principally powerful corporations, to
control the enactment and the enforcement of the laws. As a rule,
the workmen divided their voting power between the political parties
which were controlled by their masters. With such evident inability
to grasp the situation in which they were placed, it is not strange
that the employers were enabled to obtain absolute control of every
branch of government, state and national, legislative, executive and
judicial, notwithstanding the fact that every laborer had a vote which
counted just as much as that of the most wealthy corporation magnate.
Conspiracy laws were enacted which could be used for their suppression
as occasion required. The right of trial by jury was denied by the
courts, and the champions of labor were imprisoned for long terms for
disobeying the mandates of the courts. Finally the Supreme Court, in
the case of a sailor who had refused to serve for the period for which
he had hired, decided that his employer had a right to hold him in
bondage until the expiration of the contract; that the ownership over
himself had ceased for the time specified, and that the constitutional
provision which prohibited involuntary servitude did not apply to such
as him. One of the labor papers of that time characterized this opinion
of the Court as the 'FUGITIVE SAILOR DECISION,' a name by which it is
known in the history of those dark days of the Transition Period.
"But unfriendly legislation and one-sided court decisions, were not
the only factors in crushing the hopes of labor. This was a period
of wonderful scientific discoveries of natural forces and mechanical
inventions by which they could be utilized in saving labor. The
grandmothers who boasted that they could spin three miles of thread
in one day, from sunrise to sunset, lived to see their little
granddaughters spin three thousand miles in ten hours with the aid
of machinery. Similar improvements were introduced into every branch
of industry. The machinery belonged to the employer and he added the
saving to his profit. He did not need so many workmen to produce all
that the people were able to purchase, and the workmen were dismissed
to join the mighty army of the unemployed. For a time certain skilled
workmen were enabled to maintain living wages by means of organization,
but continued improvements in machinery ultimately enabled common
laborers to take their places, and reduced the number of experts
required, to such a degree, that their condition was but little better
than that of the unskilled. Among the best paid organizations of the
olden time was the Locomotive Engineers, but ultimately, electricity
took the place of steam, and a motor-man from the ranks of common
labor took the places of both an engineer and a fireman. The machine
displaced three-fourths of the printers at first, and later a still
larger number of what remained, by introducing the principles of
multiplex telegraphy, which enabled one expert to operate machines at
the same time in a number of separate offices in different parts of the
world whenever the copy was the same.
"Labor economists called attention to this displacement of labor
by machinery, but the press and the politicians in the service of
the corporations claimed, that this cheapening of production was of
great benefit to the people by securing a corresponding reduction in
prices. Finally, after a persistent agitation for years, the national
Commissioner of Labor was required to make a careful examination,
and in his report, among a multitude of similar items, we find that
the labor cost of a five-dollar hat was only thirty-four cents; a
ten-dollar plow, seventy-nine cents and so on to the end of a long
catalogue of commodities which the people always needed. The question
was, Who got the difference between the amount received by the
actual producer and the price paid by the consumer? The answer was
self-evident; outside of clerk hire, it must have gone to pay profits
in some form to non-producers. But after this official demonstration
that the 'lion's share' of the wealth created by productive labor went
to nonproducing speculators, the great masses of the people still
continued to use their influence to perpetuate this inequitable system
which practically confiscated the wealth created by their labor to pay
profits on speculative investments.
"The mass of the small dealers of that time were no better off, in
many respects, than the wealth producing laborers, but being in some
sense a part of the profit-exacting system, they held to it longer,
in the vain hope that a time might come when by some fortuitous turn
in business, or lucky speculation, they could amass millions. As a
class they had never devoted themselves to an earnest and careful study
of economic questions, but as long as the people came and purchased
goods and left a profit in their hands, they were satisfied, and
paid no attention to the far reaching influences which were surely
paving the way to their ultimate failure in business. Hence it was
not until just before the end of the old civilization that they began
to realize that something was the matter. Sharp competition among the
large number of small dealers reduced the average profits below a fair
compensation for the labor expended, and large combines with unlimited
money capital, were able to meet the universal demand for cheap goods.
The dealers were finding themselves crowded out of business. They
blamed their customers for not giving them the preference, even if the
large department stores could afford to sell for less. They demanded
legislation against the large stores and took an active interest in the
Anti-Trust agitation of the time.
"This opposition to Trusts and Department stores, like the farmer's
organizations and trade unions, took a very narrow view of the
situation. They saw their profits decreasing and their sole object was
to prevent this, without any reference to the interests of the people
who as purchasers of goods must pay all the profits. The masses of
the people understood their motives and did not hesitate to patronize
Department stores and purchase Trust products, provided they could get
them for less. They might have been able to protect themselves from the
inordinate greed of the trusts and combines, by taking their customers
into partnership and with their assistance organizing consumption and
thus controlling distribution for the equal benefit of all. This would
have been in exact accordance with the ideal that had been handed down
in their system of religion, that we should always do unto others as we
would have them do unto us.
"The entire history of Altruria as an independent republic belongs to
the Transition Period in the progress of the world and in a larger,
but not so well defined a sense it extends to the discovery of the
continent, and even to an earlier period, distinguished by the
breaking up of the ancient religious hierarchy and the introduction
of a constantly increasing number of warring sects. These were the
evolutionary forces developed under the operations of natural law, in
strict accordance with the constitution of the human mind, which always
tends towards the utmost possible development of the race, physically,
mentally and morally. These forces in the early stages of human
development, work so slowly, that even the best trained intellects do
not discover their existence and hence have no power to intelligently
co-operate with them, with a view to accelerating their own progress
upward toward the highest possible planes of development. But, it was
during the last fifty years of this Transition Period, that all these
forces became more apparent to the careful historian, and it is these
to which I have more particularly directed your attention.
"Human selfishness on the lower planes of development constitutes the
first step in the development of that higher selfhood, which is the
predominating characteristic on the higher planes. During the last
fifty years of the Transition Period, human selfishness, in the baser
sense, was making its last struggle for existence as the controlling
factor in human affairs. All classes of people were inspired to action
by selfish interests, and these interests could not fail to clash. Out
of this clashing between forces they ultimately learned that the best
and highest interest of every individual could always be secured by
carefully guarding the interest of every other individual. Out of this
was evolved our present universal rule, which governs our relations
towards each other, of 'each for all and all for each,' and hence all
are equally secure in the exercise of every natural right and in the
possession of absolute economic independence.
"The Gold Power sought for and secured universal dominion over all the
nations of the earth and there being no other nations to conquer, in
its inordinate greed, it continued to impose additional burdens upon
the people. This met opposition, first from one class and then from
another, but all these movements were animated by the same element of
selfishness which characterized the Gold Power. The farmers organized
to secure better conditions for themselves without any regard to the
interests of the millions of wage workers and others upon whom they
depended for a market. The workmen organized to secure better wages
for the members of their unions with no regard for any other class
of people, or even for other workmen who did not belong to their
fraternity. At the close of the old system the small dealers and
manufacturers were unanimous against the encroachments of the vast
combines who could undersell them, but they ignored the interests of
the great mass of consumers upon whom they depended for a market.
Selfishness, in the baser sense, guaranteed the failure of all these
movements. No one class of people, seeking to promote its own selfish
interests was able to hold its own against the superior intelligence of
the great financiers who had planned to financially conquer the world
by controlling the world's supply of gold through an organized system
of creating debts both actual, for borrowed money, and constructive as
investments which exacted tribute from the wealth producing classes.
This process of debt creating continued until in this country the
entire volume of sixteen hundred millions of money of all kinds
would have paid but a fraction of the annual charge for interest,
dividends, etc., upon investments and all the gold in the world, about
$4,000,000,000 would have paid but a fraction of the principal.
"But another, and in the end the most potent evolutionary force which
was destined to emancipate the people, was the arousing of the moral
sense of large numbers who had never turned their attention to the
study of economic science but whose souls revolted at the conditions
imposed upon vast multitudes of people. The Gold Power while still a
mighty factor in the control of the religious press and a large number
of the leading religious teachers of the country, was not able to still
the voice of the truest disciples of Krystus, and these demanded that
the spirit of the founder of their religion should be exemplified in
the practical every day affairs of life. They well understood that if
the people were doing to each other as they would have others do to
them, there could be no such thing as poverty, with all its tendencies
towards vice and crime. These pioneers of a Diviner Civilization, with
nothing but a theological training, were perhaps not clear in their own
minds, as to just how this Golden Rule could be applied in business
under the prevailing financial and commercial systems of the country,
but they did believe that the ideal in every human relation could be
realized, and they insisted that the effort should be made by every
true follower of Krystus, to establish the dominion of good upon earth
to the end that righteousness might prevail in human affairs.
"For this grand culmination, the operation of the evolutionary forces
for the last fifty years had been a post-graduate course for the
workers who were to set the machinery in motion, on the material plane,
by which all the crushing burdens imposed by Greed could be easily and
speedily removed. And in this course, the mistakes made by the people
had been the most potent educators. The producing classes had been
induced to organize because they felt that they were not getting their
just share in the distribution of wealth; but to save that which was
lost in the distribution, they made the strange mistake of organizing
as producers. The farmer had no need of an organization, to enable him
to produce more wealth. The soil would produce just as much without
such organization as with it. The same thing was true of mechanics,
miners and other wage-workers, who organized in their capacity of
wealth producers. But as consumers they could all stand on one
platform, and being the market upon which all producers must depend,
they would be masters of the situation. With an equal distribution of
the benefits of such organization of consumption, it would be just as
easy to pay dividends to labor, and thus increase their share in the
distribution, as it was to pay dividends on capitalistic investments.
"So it was, that at a time when every thing seemed hopeless, the few
who never yield to disappointments, and who had made an exhaustive
study of existing economic conditions reinforced the earnest followers
of Krystus who were demanding the application of the Golden Rule in
business by formulating methods by which this much desired result could
be attained. They had studied the moral problem that confronted the
religionists, from the objective side, and understood just how it must
be solved along business lines. Inasmuch as all material wealth was
created by labor, and distributed by being bought and sold, it followed
as a logical sequence, that there was but one way by which every useful
worker could secure a just share in the distribution, and that was to
take charge of the business of exchange (buying and selling) and divide
the benefits equally among all who united their efforts to establish
the largest possible round of exchange between producers and consumers.
This was simply the organization of the market for the express purpose
of establishing Equity in Distribution, by paying dividends to labor.
The people had at last discovered the vital truth upon which the
application of the Golden Rule depends, that ORGANIZED CONSUMPTION
CONTROLS DISTRIBUTION.
"Organizations of consumers were effected with a view to concentrating
their purchasing power through channels of their own, not to reduce
prices, but to pool the net profits into a common fund for the equal
benefit of all the members. A portion of this was set aside as an
educational fund to extend the work, and the remainder was used to pay
dividends to the members who, as customers, had paid the profits into
the common treasury. This was known as the "Dividend to Labor," and it
was always distributed equally, as it had been secured by the united
purchasing power of all the members. And, in order to secure this fund,
which belonged alike to all, no member had added one cent to his or
her cost of living. It was all a saving, as between the new equitable
system of exchange and the old and wasteful profit system. This was a
PROFIT-SAVING BUSINESS MACHINE of which the PRODUCERS who constituted,
in the main, the great markets of the world, COULD NOT BE DEPRIVED, and
WITH THIS, it became a matter of indifference as to who had immediate
control of the LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY of PRODUCTION.
"This movement had its origin in the West where the people were more
inclined to think for themselves, but the benefits were so decided
and so easily secured, that it spread rapidly. The first exchanges
demonstrated that the use of money could be very largely minimized,
and banks were established as depositories for all the money that
came into their hands, and to facilitate their financial relations
with unorganized communities where money was still a necessity. These
savings of money, were held as a sacred trust, to enable the members to
pay taxes, and debts, in cases where the creditor could not be induced
to take products at a fair price. Among themselves they used exchange
certificates which were issued on the deposit of products or money, and
for necessary labor. These certificates being issued on values which
were seeking a market and redeemed in products needed for consumption
and cancelled, constituted an ideal currency that was always just equal
to the demand,--neither more nor less.
"The people learned by experience how easy it was to minimize the use
of money, and the tendency of this decrease in the demand for money,
was to relatively increase the amount in circulation. It was easy now,
for the most unfamiliar with business methods, to understand how
the large operators, under the old system, had enriched themselves
by making their settlements through great clearing houses where one
obligation cancelled another and only two or three per cent. of money
had been used to pay balances; and they could see how even this balance
among wealth producers, could take the shape of a check against future
production and money be entirely eliminated as a medium in the exchange
of wealth.
"All the people who were doing their buying and selling through these
exchanges were regularly supplied with carefully prepared literature
on economic questions and business methods, and of general information
as to the trend of current events, the progress of the new order which
placed business on an ethical basis and all matters of advantage
for an independent, cultured citizenship to understand. Then for
the first time, the multitudes began to realize the weakness of the
fragile thread by which they had been bound to the triumphal car of
Capitalism. Their experience gave them confidence. They used the same
business methods for the benefit of the many that had enabled the
few to concentrate in their own hands four-fifths of the wealth of
the country. It was therefore no untried experiment. They were only
exercising the same kind of business sagacity that had been used by the
money kings to financially conquer the world. Just in proportion as
they decreased the demand for money, it flowed in upon them in exchange
for their products at a steadily increasing price. They had established
a DEBT-PAYING instead of a DEBT-CREATING system of business, and in
the course of time their debts were all paid, the necessity for legal
money had disappeared, the people were free from its exactions, and all
they had to do was to produce what they consumed and consume what they
produced, exchanging equivalent for equivalent for the equal benefit of
all. And thus the world had been saved from its thralldom to Greed by
the establishment of the 'Kingdom of God and His Righteousness' as had
been enjoined by Krystus at the beginning of the old religious system
two thousand years before. This which was enjoined at the beginning of
the Dispensation was REALIZED at its close and hence the FIRST BECAME
THE LAST, because the LAST was THE FIRST REDUCED TO PRACTICE IN HUMAN
AFFAIRS."