HOW THE WORLD CAME TO BE RUINED
We were uneasy, restless, longing for the night to come. To while
away the time we conversed upon subjects that were near our hearts.
I said to Maximilian while he paced the room:
"How did this dreadful state of affairs, in which the world now finds
itself, arise? Were there no warnings uttered by any intelligent men?
Did the world drift blindly and unconsciously into this condition?"
"No," said Maximilian, going to his library; "no; even a hundred
years ago the air was full of prophecies. Here," he said, laying his
hand upon a book, is _The Century Magazine_, of February, 1889; and
on page 622 we read:
For my own part, I must confess my fears that, unless some
important change is made in the constitution of our voting
population, _the breaking strain upon our political system
will come within half a century_. Is it not evident that
our present tendencies are in the wrong direction? The
rapidly increasing use of money in elections, for the
undisguised purchase of votes, and the growing disposition
to tamper with the ballot and the tally-sheet, are some of
the symptoms. . . . Do you think that you will convince the
average election officer that it is a great crime to cheat
in the return of votes, when he knows that a good share of
those votes have been purchased with money? No; the
machinery of the election will not be kept free from fraud
while the atmosphere about the polls reeks with bribery.
_The system will all go down together_. In a constituency
which can be bribed all the forms of law tend swiftly to
decay.
"And here," he said, picking up another volume, "is a reprint of the
choicest gems of _The North American Review_. In the number for
March, 1889, Gen. L. S. Bryce, a member of Congress, said:
We live in a commercial age--not in a military age; and the
shadow that is stealing over the American landscape
partakes of a commercial character. In short, _the shadow
is of an unbridled plutocracy_, caused, created and
cemented in no slight degree by legislative, aldermanic and
congressional action; _a plutocracy that is far more
wealthy than any aristocracy that has ever crossed the
horizon of the world's history, and one that has been
produced in a shorter consecutive period_; the names of
whose members are emblazoned, not on the pages of their
nation's glory, but of its peculations; who represent no
struggle for their country's liberties, but for its boodle;
no contests for Magna Charta,{sic} but railroad charters;
and whose octopus-grip is extending over every branch of
industry; a plutocracy which controls the price of the
bread that we eat, the price of the sugar that sweetens our
cup, the price of the oil that lights us on our way, the
price of the very coffins in which we are finally buried; a
plutocracy which encourages no kindly relation between
landlord and tenant, which has so little sense of its
political duties as even to abstain from voting, and which,
in short, by its effrontery, is already causing the
unthinking masses to seek relief in communism, in
single-taxism, and in every other ism, which, if ever
enforced, would infallibly make their second state worse
than the first.
"And here are hundreds of warnings of the same kind. Even the
President of the United States, in that same year, 1889, uttered this
significant language:
Those who use unlawful methods, if moved by no higher
motive than the selfishness that prompted them, may well
stop and inquire, What is to be the end of this?
"Bishop Potter, of New York, in the national ceremonies, held April
30, 1889, which marked the centennial anniversary of the first
inauguration of George Washington, spoke of the plutocracy, which had
already reached alarming proportions, and expressed his doubts
whether the Republic would ever celebrate another centennial.
Afterwards, in explaining his remarks, he said:
When I speak of this as the era of the plutocrats, nobody
can misunderstand me. Everybody has recognized the rise of
the money power. Its growth not merely stifles the
independence of the people, but the blind believers in this
omnipotent power of money assert that its liberal use
condones every offense. The pulpit does not speak out as it
should. These plutocrats are the enemies of religion, as
they are of the state. And, not to mince matters, I will
say that, while I had the politicians in mind prominently,
there "are others." I tell you I have heard the corrupt use
of money in elections and the sale of the sacred right of
the ballot openly defended by ministers of the gospel. I
may find it necessary to put such men of the sacred office
in the public pillory.
"And Bishop Spalding, of Peoria, Illinois, about the same time, said:
Mark my words, the saloon in America has become a public
nuisance. The liquor trade, by meddling with politics and
corrupting politics, has become a menace and a danger.
Those who think and those who love America and those who
love liberty are going to bring this moral question into
politics more and more; also this question of bribery, this
question of lobbying, this question of getting measures
through state and national legislatures by corrupt means.
They are going to be taken hold of. Our press, which has
done so much to enlighten our people, which represents so
much that is good in our civilization, must also be
reformed. It must cease to pander to such an extent to the
low and sensual
appetites of man. My God, man is animal enough! You don't
want to pander to his pruriency! You don't want to pander
to the beast that is in him. . . . Our rich men--and they
are numerous, and their wealth is great--their number and
their wealth will increase--but our rich men _must do their
duty or perish_. I tell you, in America, we will not
tolerate vast wealth in the hands of men who do nothing for
the people.
"And here is a still more remarkable article, by Dr. William Barry,
in _The Forum_ for April, 1889. He speaks of--
The concrete system of capitalism; which in its present
shape is not much more than a century old, and goes back to
Arkwright's introduction of the spinning-jenny in
1776--that notable year--as to its hegira or divine epoch
of creation.
"And again he says:
This it is that justifies Von Hartmann's description of the
nineteenth century as "the most irreligious that has ever
been seen;" this and not the assault upon dogma or the
decline of the churches. There is a depth below atheism,
below anti-religion, and into that the age has fallen. It
is the callous indifference to everything which does not
make for wealth. . . . What is eloquently described as "the
progress of civilization," as "material prosperity," and
"unexampled wealth," or, more modestly, as "the rise of the
industrial middle class," becomes, when we look into it
with eyes purged from economic delusions, the creation of a
"lower and lowest" class, without land of their own,
without homes, tools or property beyond the strength of
their hands; whose lot is more helplessly wretched than any
poet of the Inferno has yet imagined. Sunk in the mire of
ignorance, want and immorality, they seem to have for their
only gospel the emphatic words attributed to Mr. Ruskin:
"If there is a next world they _will_ be damned; and if
there is none, they are damned already." .--- Have all
these things come to pass that the keeper of a whisky-shop
in California may grow rich on the spoils of drunken miners,
and great financiers dictate peace and war to venerable
European monarchies? The most degraded superstition that
ever called itself religion has not preached such a dogma
as this. It falls below fetichism. The worship of the
almighty dollar, incarnate in the self-made capitalist, is
a deification at which Vespasian himself, with his "_Ut
puto, deus fio_," would stare and gasp.
"And this remarkable article concludes with these words of prophecy:
The agrarian difficulties of Russia, France, Italy,
Ireland, and of wealthy England, show us that ere long the
urban and the rural populations will be standing in the
same camp. They will be demanding the abolition of that
great and scandalous paradox whereby, though production has
increased three or four times as much as the mouths it
should fill, those mouths are empty. The backs it should
clothe are naked; the heads it should shelter, homeless;
the brains it should feed, dull or criminal, and the souls
it should help to save, brutish. Surely it is time that
science, morality and religion should speak out. A great
change is coming. It is even now at our doors. Ought not
men of good will to consider how they shall receive it, so
that its coming may be peaceable?
"And here," Max added, "is the great work of Prof. Scheligan, in
which he quotes from _The Forum_, of December, 1889, p. 464, a
terrible story of the robberies practiced on the farmers by railroad
companies and money-lenders. The railroads in 1882 took, he tells us,
one-half of the entire wheat crop of Kansas to carry the other half
to market! In the thirty-eight years following 1850 the railroad
interest of the United States increased 1580 per cent.; the banking
interest 918 per cent., and the farming interest only 252 per cent. A
man named Thomas G. Shearman showed, in 1889, that 100,000 persons in
the United States would, in thirty years, at the rate at which wealth
was being concentrated in the hands of the few, own _three-fifths of
all the property of the entire country_. The _American Economist_
asserted, in 1889, that in twenty-five years the number of people in
the United States who owned their own homes had fallen from
five-eighths to three-eighths. A paper called _The Progress_, of
Boston, in 1889, gave the following significant and prophetic figures:
The eloquent Patrick Henry said: "We can only judge the
future by the past."
Look at the past:
When Egypt went down 2 per cent. of her population owned 97
per cent. of her wealth. The people were starved to death.
When Babylon went down 2 per cent. of her population owned
all the wealth. The people were starved to death.
When Persia went down 1 per cent. of her population owned
the land.
When Rome went down 1,800 men owned all the known world.
There are about 40,000,000 people in England, Ireland and
Wales, and 100,000 people own all the land in the United
Kingdom.
For the past twenty years the United States has rapidly
followed in the steps of these old nations. Here are the
figures:
In 1850 capitalists owned 37½ per cent. of the nation's
wealth.
In 1870 they owned 63 percent.
"In 1889, out of 1,500,000 people living in New York City, 1,100,000
dwelt in tenement-houses.
"At the same time farm-lands, east and west, had fallen, in
twenty-five years, to one-third or one-half their cost. State
Assessor Wood, of New York, declared, in 1889, that, in his opinion,
'in a few decades _there will be none but tenant farmers in this
State_.'
"In 1889 the farm mortgages in the Western States amounted to three
billion four hundred and twenty-two million dollars."
"Did these wonderful utterances and most significant statistics," I
asked, "produce no effect on that age?"
"None at all," he replied. "'Wisdom cries in the streets, and no man
regards her.' The small voice of Philosophy was unheard amid the
blare of the trumpets that heralded successful knavery; the rabble
ran headlong to the devil after gauds and tinsel."
"Have there been," I asked, "no later notes of warning of the coming
catastrophe?"
"Oh, yes," he replied; "ten thousand. All through the past century
the best and noblest of each generation, wherever and whenever they
could find newspapers or magazines that dared to publish their
utterances, poured forth, in the same earnest tones, similar
prophecies and appeals. But in vain. Each generation found the
condition of things more desperate and hopeless: every year
multiplied the calamities of the world. The fools could not see that
a great cause must continue to operate until checked by some higher
power. And here there was no higher power that desired to check it.
As the domination and arrogance of the ruling class increased, the
capacity of the lower classes to resist, within the limits of law and
constitution, decreased. Every avenue, in fact, was blocked by
corruption. juries, courts, legislatures, congresses, they were as if
they were not. The people were walled in by impassable barriers.
Nothing was left them but the primal, brute instincts of the animal
man, and upon these they fell back, and the Brotherhood of
Destruction arose. But no words can tell the sufferings that have
been endured by the good men, here and there, who, during the past
century, tried to save mankind. Some were simply ostracised from
social intercourse with their caste; others were deprived of their
means of living and forced down into the ranks of the wretched; and
still others"--and here, I observed, his face grew ashy pale, and the
muscles about his mouth twitched nervously--"still others had their
liberty sworn away by purchased perjury, and were consigned to
prisons, where they still languish, dressed in the hideous garb of
ignominy, and performing the vile tasks of felons." After a pause,
for I saw he was strangely disturbed, I said to him:
"How comes it that the people have so long submitted to these great
wrongs? Did they not resist?"
"They did," he replied; "but the fruit of the tree of evil was not
yet ripe. At the close of the nineteenth century, in all the great
cities of America, there was a terrible outbreak of the workingmen;
they destroyed much property and many lives, and held possession of
the cities for several days. But the national government called for
volunteers, and hundreds of thousands of warlike young men, sons of
farmers, sprang to arms: and, after several terrible battles, they
suppressed the revolution, with the slaughter of tens of thousands of
those who took part in it; while afterwards the revengeful Oligarchy
sent thousands of others to the gallows. And since then, in Europe
and America, there have been other outbreaks, but all of them
terminated in the same way. The condition of the world has, however,
steadily grown worse and worse; the laboring classes have become more
and more desperate. The farmers' sons could, for generations, be
counted upon to fight the workmen; but the fruit has been steadily
ripening. Now the yeomanry have lost possession of their lands; their
farms have been sold under their feet; cunning laws transferred the
fruit of their industry into the pockets of great combinations, who
loaned it back to them again, secured by mortgages; and, as the
pressure of the same robbery still continued, they at last lost their
homes by means of the very wealth they had themselves produced. Now a
single nabob owns a whole county; and a state is divided between a
few great loan associations; and the men who once tilled the fields,
as their owners, are driven to the cities to swell the cohorts of the
miserable, or remain on the land a wretched peasantry, to contend for
the means of life with vile hordes of Mongolian coolies. And all this
in sight of the ruins of the handsome homes their ancestors once
occupied! Hence the materials for armies have disappeared. Human
greed has eaten away the very foundations on which it stood. And of
the farmers who still remain nearly all are now members of our
Brotherhood. When the Great Day comes, and the nation sends forth its
call for volunteers, as in the past, that cry will echo in desolate
places; or it will ring through the triumphant hearts of savage and
desperate men who are hastening to the banquet of blood and
destruction. And the wretched, yellow, under-fed coolies, with
women's garments over their effeminate limbs, will not have the
courage or the desire or the capacity to make soldiers and defend
their oppressors."
"But have not the Oligarchy standing armies?" I asked.
"Yes. In Europe, however, they have been constrained, by inability to
wring more taxes from the impoverished people, to gradually diminish
their numbers. There, you know, the real government is now a coterie
of bankers, mostly Israelites; and the kings and queens, and
so-called presidents, are mere toys and puppets in their hands. All
idea of national glory, all chivalry, all pride, all battles for
territory or supremacy have long since ceased. Europe is a banking
association conducted exclusively for the benefit of the bankers.
Bonds take the place of national aspirations. To squeeze the wretched
is the great end of government; to toil and submit, the destiny of
the peoples.
"The task which Hannibal attempted, so disastrously, to subject the
Latin and mixed-Gothic races of Europe to the domination of the
Semitic blood, as represented in the merchant-city of Carthage, has
been successfully accomplished in these latter days by the cousins of
the Phœnicians, the Israelites. The nomadic children of Abraham
have fought and schemed their way, through infinite depths of
persecution, from their tents on the plains of Palestine, to a power
higher than the thrones of Europe. The world is to-day Semitized. The
children of Japhet lie prostrate slaves at the feet of the children
of Shem; and the sons of Ham bow humbly before their august dominion.
"The standing armies of Europe are now simply armed police; for, as
all the nations are owned by one power--the money power--there is no
longer any danger of their assaulting each other. But in the greed of
the sordid commercial spirit which dominates the continent they have
reduced, not only the numbers, but the pay of the soldiers, until it
is little better than the compensation earned by the wretched
peasantry and the mechanics; while years of peace and plunder have
made the rulers careless and secure. Hence our powerful association
has spread among these people like wild-fire: the very armies are
honeycombed with our ideas, and many of the soldiers belong to the
Brotherhood.
"Here, in America, they have been wise enough to pay the soldiers of
their standing army better salaries; and hence they do not so readily
sympathize with our purposes. But we outnumber them ten to one, and
do not fear them. There is, however, one great obstacle which we have
not yet seen the way to overcome. More than a century ago, you know,
dirigible air-ships were invented. The Oligarchy have a large force
of several thousands of these, sheathed with that light but strong
metal, aluminium; in popular speech they are known as _The Demons_.
Sailing over a hostile force, they drop into its midst great bombs,
loaded with the most deadly explosives, mixed with bullets; and,
where one of these strikes the ground, it looks like the crater of an
extinct volcano; while leveled rows of dead are strewed in every
direction around it. But this is not all. Some years since a French
chemist discovered a dreadful preparation, a subtle poison, which,
falling upon the ground, being heavier than the air and yet
expansive, rolls, 'like a slow blot that spreads,' steadily over the
earth in all directions, bringing sudden death to those that breathe
it. The Frenchman sold the secret of its preparation to the Oligarchy
for a large sum; but he did not long enjoy his ill-gotten wealth. He
was found dead in his bed the next day, poisoned by the air from a
few drops of his own invention; killed, it is supposed, by the
governments, so that they would possess forever the exclusive
monopoly of this terrible instrument of slaughter. It is upon this
that they principally rely for defense from the uprisings of the
oppressed people. These air-ships, 'the Demons,' are furnished with
bombs, loaded with this powerful poison; and, when an outbreak
occurs, they sail, like great, foul birds, dark-winged and terrible,
over the insurgents; they let fall a single bomb, which inspires such
terror in the multitude that those not instantaneously killed by the
poison fly with the utmost speed; and the contest is at an end. We
have long labored to bring the men who arm these air-ships, and who
manufacture this poison, into our organization, but so far without
success. The Oligarchy knows their value, and pays them well. We
have, however, bribed one or two of their men, not themselves in the
secret, but who have inspired the others to make demand after demand
upon the government for increased pay, knowing that they held
everything in their power. The Oligarchy has been constrained to
yield to these demands, which have only led, under our inspiration,
to still greater claims; and it is our hope that before long the
rulers will refuse to go farther in that direction; and then, in the
discontent that will inevitably follow, the men will yield to our
approaches. It will be the old story over again--the army that was
called in to defend effete Rome at last took possession of the empire
and elected the emperors. This is the fate that cruelty and injustice
ultimately bring upon their own heads--they are devoured by their
instruments. As Manfred says:
"'The spirits I have raised abandon me;
The spells that I had recked of torture me.'"
"You are right," I replied; "there is nothing that will insure
permanent peace but universal justice: that is the only soil that
grows no poisons. Universal justice means equal opportunities for all
men and a repression by law of those gigantic abnormal selfishnesses
which ruin millions for the benefit of thousands. In the old days
selfishness took the form of conquest, and the people were reduced to
serfs. Then, in a later age, it assumed the shape of individual
robbery and murder. Laws were made against these crimes. Then it
broke forth in the shape of subtle combinations, 'rings,' or
'trusts,' as they called them, corporations, and all the other
cunning devices of the day, some of which scarcely manifested
themselves on the surface, but which transferred the substance of one
man into the pockets of another, and reduced the people to slavery as
completely and inevitably as ever the robber barons of old did the
original owners of the soil of Europe."