Mr. Wilson’s messages to the American people and to the world have
proclaimed a new international order, a League of Democracies. And in a
recent letter to New Jersey Democrats we find him warning his party,
or more properly the nation, of the domestic social changes necessarily
flowing from his international program. While rightly resolved to
prosecute the war on the battle lines to the utmost limit of American
resources, he points out that the true significance of the conflict lies
in “revolutionary change.” “Economic and social forces,” he says, “are
being released upon the world, whose effect no political seer dare to
conjecture.” And we “must search our hearts through and through and
make them ready for the birth of a new day--a day we hope and believe
of greater opportunity and greater prosperity for the average mass of
struggling men and women.” He recognizes that the next great step in
the development of democracy which the war must bring about--is the
emancipation of labour; to use his own phrase, the redemption of masses
of men and women from “economic serfdom.” “The old party slogans,” he
declares, “will mean nothing to the future.”
Judging from this announcement, the President seems prepared to condemn
boldly all the rotten timbers of the social structure that have outlived
their usefulness--a position that hitherto no responsible politician has
dared to take. Politicians, on the contrary, have revered the dead wood,
have sought to shore the old timbers for their own purposes. But so
far as any party is concerned, Mr. Wilson stands alone. Both of the two
great parties, the Republican and the Democratic, in order to make
a show of keeping abreast of the times, have merely patched their
platforms with the new ideas. The Socialist Party in the United States
is relatively small, is divided against itself, and has given no
evidence of a leadership of broad sanity and vision. It is fortunate
we have been spared in this country the formation of a political labour
party, because such a party would have been composed of manual workers
alone, and hence would have tended further to develop economic class
consciousness, to crystallize class antagonisms. Today, however, neither
the Republican nor the Democratic party represents the great issue of
the times; the cleavage between them is wholly artificial. The formation
of a Liberal Party, with a platform avowedly based on modern social
science, has become essential. Such a party, to be in harmony with our
traditions and our creed, to arrest in our democracy the process of
class stratification which threatens to destroy it, must not draw its
members from the ranks of manual labour alone, but from all elements
of our population. It should contain all the liberal professions, and
clerks and shopkeepers, as well as manual workers; administrators, and
even those employers who have become convinced that our present
economic system does not suffice to meet the needs of the day. In short,
membership in such a party, as far as possible, should not be based upon
occupation or economic status, but on an honest difference of view from
that of the conservative opposition. This would be a distinctly American
solution. In order to form such a party a campaign of education will
be necessary. For today Mr. Wilson’s strength is derived from the
independent vote representing the faith of the people as a whole; but
the majority of those who support the President, while they ardently
desire the abolition in the world of absolute monarchy, of militarism
and commercial imperialism, while they are anxious that this war shall
expedite and not retard the social reforms in which they are interested,
have as yet but a vague conception of the social order which these
reforms imply.
It marks a signal advance in democracy when liberal opinion in any
nation turns for guidance and support to a statesman of another nation.
No clearer sign of the times could be desired than the fact that our
American President has suddenly become the liberal leader of the world.
The traveller in France, and especially in Britain, meets on all sides
striking evidence of this. In these countries, until America’s entrance
into the war, liberals had grown more and more dissatisfied with the
failure of their governments to define in democratic terms the issue of
the conflict, had resented the secret inter-allied compacts, savouring
of imperialism and containing the germs of future war. They are now
looking across the Atlantic for leadership. In France M. Albert Thomas
declared that Woodrow Wilson had given voice to the aspirations of his
party, while a prominent Liberal in England announced in a speech that
it had remained for the American President to express the will and
purpose of the British people. The new British Labour Party and the
Inter-Allied Labour and Socialist Conferences have adopted Mr. Wilson’s
program and have made use of his striking phrases. But we have between
America and Britain this difference: in America the President stands
virtually alone, without a party behind him representing his views;
in Britain the general democratic will of the nation is now being
organized, but has obtained as yet no spokesman in the government.
Extraordinary symptomatic phenomena have occurred in Russia as well as
in Britain. In Russia the rebellion of an awakening people against an
age-long tyranny has almost at once leaped to the issue of the day,
taken on the complexion of a struggle for industrial democracy. Whether
the Germans shall be able to exploit the country, bring about a reaction
and restore for a time monarchical institutions depends largely upon
the fortunes of the war. In Russia there is revolution, with concomitant
chaos; but in Britain there is evolution, an orderly attempt of a people
long accustomed to progress in self-government to establish a new
social order, peacefully and scientifically, and in accordance with a
traditional political procedure.
The recent development of the British Labour Party, although of deep
significance to Americans, has taken place almost without comment in
this country. It was formally established in 1900, and was then composed
of manual workers alone. In 1906, out of 50 candidates at the polls, 39
were elected to Parliament; in 1910, 42 were elected. The Parliamentary
Labour Party, so called, has now been amalgamated with four and a half
millions of Trade Unionists, and with the three and a half millions
of members of the Co-operative Wholesale Society and the Co-operative
Union. Allowing for duplication of membership, these three
organizations--according to Mr. Sidney Webb--probably include two fifths
of the population of the United Kingdom. “So great an aggregation of
working class organizations,” he says, “has never come shoulder to
shoulder in any country.” Other smaller societies and organizations are
likewise embraced, including the Socialists. And now that the suffrage
has been extended, provision is made for the inclusion of women. The new
party is organizing in from three to four hundred constituencies, and
at the next general election is not unlikely to gain control of the
political balance of power.
With the majority of Americans, however, the word “labour” as
designating a party arouses suspicion and distrust. By nature and
tradition we are inclined to deplore and oppose any tendency toward
the stratification of class antagonisms--the result of industrial
discontent--into political groups. The British tradition is likewise
hostile to such a tendency. But in Britain the industrial ferment has
gone much further than with us, and such a result was inevitable. By
taking advantage of the British experience, of the closer ties now being
knit between the two democracies, we may in America be spared a stage
which in Britain was necessary. Indeed, the program of the new British
Labour Party seems to point to a distinctly American solution, one in
harmony with the steady growth of Anglo-Saxon democracy. For it is now
announced that the word “labour,” as applied to the new party, does not
mean manual labour alone, but also mental labour. The British unions
have gradually developed and placed in power leaders educated in social
science, who have now come into touch with the intellectual leaders
of the United Kingdom, with the sociologists, economists, and social
scientists. The surprising and encouraging result of such association is
the announcement that the new Labour Party is today publicly thrown open
to all workers, both by hand and by brain, with the object of securing
for these the full fruits of their industry. This means the inclusion of
physicians, professors, writers, architects, engineers, and inventors,
of lawyers who no longer regard their profession as a bulwark of the
status quo; of clerks, of administrators of the type evolved by the war,
who indeed have gained their skill under the old order but who now in a
social spirit are dedicating their gifts to the common weal, organizing
and directing vast enterprises for their governments. In short, all
useful citizens who make worthy contributions--as distinguished from
parasites, profiteers, and drones, are invited to be members; there is
no class distinction here. The fortunes of such a party are, of course,
dependent upon the military success of the allied armies and navies. But
it has defined the kind of democracy the Allies are fighting for, and
thus has brought about an unqualified endorsement of the war by those
elements of the population which hitherto have felt the issue to be
imperialistic and vague rather than democratic and clear cut. President
Wilson’s international program is approved of and elaborated.
The Report on Reconstruction of the new British Labour Party is perhaps
the most important political document presented to the world since the
Declaration of Independence. And like the Declaration, it is written
in the pure English that alone gives the high emotional quality of
sincerity. The phrases in which it tersely describes its objects are
admirable. “What is to be reconstructed after the war is over is
not this or that government department, this or that piece of social
machinery, but Society itself.” There is to be a systematic approach
towards a “healthy equality of material circumstance for every person
born into the world, and not an enforced dominion over subject nations,
subject colonies, subject classes, or a subject sex.” In industry as
well as in government the social order is to be based “on that equal
freedom, that general consciousness of consent, and that widest
participation in power, both economic and political, which is
characteristic of democracy.” But all this, it should be noted, is not
to be achieved in a year or two of “feverish reconstruction”; “each
brick that the Labour Party helps to lay shall go to erect the structure
it intends and no other.”
In considering the main features of this program, one must have in
mind whether these are a logical projection and continuation of the
Anglo-Saxon democratic tradition, or whether they constitute an absolute
break with that tradition. The only valid reason for the adoption of
such a program in America would be, of course, the restoration of some
such equality of opportunity and economic freedom as existed in our
Republic before we became an industrial nation. “The first condition
of democracy,”--to quote again from the program, “is effective personal
freedom.”
What is called the “Universal Enforcement of the National Minimum”
contemplates the extension of laws already on the statute books in order
to prevent the extreme degradation of the standard of life brought about
by the old economic system under industrialism. A living minimum wage is
to be established. The British Labour Party intends “to secure to
every member of the community, in good times and bad alike... all the
requisites of healthy life and worthy citizenship.”
After the war there is to be no cheap labour market, nor are the
millions of workers and soldiers to fall into the clutches of charity;
but it shall be a national obligation to provide each of these with work
according to his capacity. In order to maintain the demand for labour
at a uniform level, the government is to provide public works. The
population is to be rehoused in suitable dwellings, both in rural
districts and town slums; new and more adequate schools and training
colleges are to be inaugurated; land is to be reclaimed and afforested,
and gradually brought under common ownership; railways and canals are to
be reorganized and nationalized, mines and electric power systems. One
of the significant proposals under this head is that which demands the
retention of the centralization of the purchase of raw materials brought
about by the war.
In order to accomplish these objects there must be a “Revolution in
National Finance.” The present method of raising funds is denounced; and
it is pointed out that only one quarter of the colossal expenditure made
necessary by the war has been raised by taxation, and that the three
quarters borrowed at onerous rates is sure to be a burden on the
nation’s future. The capital needed, when peace comes, to ensure a happy
and contented democracy must be procured without encroaching on the
minimum standard of life, and without hampering production. Indirect
taxation must therefore be concentrated on those luxuries of which it
is desirable that the consumption be discouraged. The steadily rising
unearned increment of urban and mineral land ought, by appropriate
direct taxation, to be brought into the public exchequer; “the definite
teachings of economic science are no longer to be disregarded.” Hence
incomes are to be taxed above the necessary cost of family maintenance,
private fortunes during life and at death; while a special capital levy
must be made to pay off a substantial portion of the national debt.
“The Democratic Control of Industry” contemplates the progressive
elimination of the private capitalist and the setting free of all who
work by hand and brain for the welfare of all.
The Surplus Wealth is to be expended for the Common Good. That which
Carlyle designates as the “inward spiritual,” in contrast to the
“outward economical,” is also to be provided for. “Society,” says the
document, “like the individual, does not live by bread alone, does not
exist only for perpetual wealth production.” First of all, there is to
be education according to the highest modern standard; and along with
education, the protection and advancement of the public health, ‘mens
sana in corpore sano’. While large sums must be set aside, not only for
original research in every branch of knowledge, but for the promotion
of music, literature, and fine art, upon which “any real development of
civilization fundamentally depends.”
In regard to the British Empire, the Labour Party urges self-government
for any people, whatever its colour, proving itself capable, and the
right of that people to the proceeds of its own toil upon the resources
of its territory. An unequivocal stand is taken for the establishment,
as a part of the treaty of peace, of a Universal Society of Nations;
and recognizing that the future progress of democracy depends upon
co-operation and fellowship between liberals of all countries, the
maintenance of intimate relationships is advocated with liberals
oversea.
Finally, a scientific investigation of each succeeding problem in
government is insisted upon, and a much more rapid dissemination among
the people of the science that exists. “A plutocratic party may choose
to ignore science, but no labour party can hope to maintain its position
unless its proposals are, in fact, the outcome of the best political
science of its time.”