After Midith and Viola had returned from the postoffice on their
bicycles the following evening, Mr. Uwins requested Mr. Midith to give
us the promised explanation of the Marsian government.
“How does your _government_ fit with your perfect social and industrial
world?” asked Mr. Uwins. “Are all its functions in harmony with all
your industrial and social functions? Do or can the politicians
hoodwink the ignorant? Are not the governmental functions sometimes
exercised barbarously at times by cruel, incompetent men?”
“I fear by your remarks that you have an entirely erroneous opinion of
our government,” said Mr. Midith. “Let us see now if I can give you a
correct idea of our government.
“You have already learned that we live in families of a thousand
or more in ‘big-houses.’ Our large family is just like an orderly,
well-adjusted family with you, only ours is larger. For instance, let
us take Mr. Uwins’ family here, as far as I can see has no superior and
no inferior, no commander and no obeyer, no ‘boss.’ We want to bear in
mind that it is as painful, if not more so, for a highly cultivated
person to command his companions as it is for him to obey a tyrant. A
command always involves a hindrance to order and progress. It makes
the obeyer less self-governing and less self-reliant, and it makes the
commander more tyrannical and more ostentatious.
“In a well-adjusted family every adult has learned his part as a social
and industrial being, and he does that part without being commanded;
he does it because it gives him more happiness than to act otherwise.
Our children know of no physical compulsion. They are exhorted and
pleasantly taught, by precept and example, that the right course of
conduct is the easiest and brings the most happiness, which they soon
learn by experience as they grow in years and in wisdom, in a world
where the adults set no bad examples. The old idea that a family cannot
exist without a ‘boss’ is nothing but a relic of barbarism. Mr. Uwins
cannot command Mrs. Uwins in her work, for Mrs. Uwins understands her
work better herself than her husband can tell her, and _vice versa_.
His command would therefore be a disadvantage, would cause discord,
ill-feeling, and unproductive labor; it would take up his time which
ought to be devoted to his own work; would make a master and a tyrant
of the man and a slave of the woman and child.
“From the foregoing remarks you will see at once that every sane
individual man, woman, and child of our large family enjoys perfect
freedom. They do what they believe to be their equitable part without
being commanded by any one. Our internal motives and promptings are
the only recognized standard of Marsian conduct. But, in order to
avoid being misunderstood, let me tell you right here, that we can
certainly not expect the same kind of conduct from a child, which is
full of life and activity, that we do from an older person. The child
requires constant activity to develop body and mind; and we must make
due allowance for that. One who does not make that allowance cannot be
successful in orderly government.
“We always construct and arrange our things and institutions to
suit the purpose they are intended to serve. We do not, like you,
endeavor to make, with a rod, a sage out of an infant in a few days.
For example, if we have a door or a gate that we desire to have
always closed, when not in use, we make it self-closing. If we have a
department in which little children may hurt themselves, or unknowingly
destroy delicate things, we have a self-closing door that cannot be
opened by a _little child_.
“We keep our infants and little children, who are unable to swim,
out of the deep lakes in our parks by fencing the lakes with an
impassable fence, and by guarding the entrance with a self-closing and
self-locking door, which can be opened only by swimmers who hold a key
for it. The _little children_ go in the shallow lake. If we do not wish
our children to play certain games all over the green park, we fit up
grounds more suited for the game, and they will always play on that
ground, because it is most suitable for that purpose.
“If we, as older people, do not find it delightful, on account of our
older and more inactive age, to be always and immediately surrounded by
the more active children, we build and fit out nurseries’ play-grounds
and other apartments in which the child-nature can be best gratified;
and the children, during their active intervals, never fail to go there.
“If we wish to create self-reliance and a desire for laboring, we make
the labor agreeable, by making it easy, by esteeming it honorable, and
by creating a system of money under which every man, woman and child
draws his own pay at the end of each month; and the amount of his pay
is in proportion to the time each worked or to the wealth produced.
If we desire to educate our children in a certain direction, we first
learn that lesson ourselves, and from our practicing it the children
will learn it without any formal teaching.
“To govern our children in the practice of eating, we always keep
before them, as well as before ourselves, more than we want of
everything; consequently the appetite is the safest guide, so that
neither the child nor adult ever eats too much, and just so pleasant,
harmonious and successful is our governing power in all directions.
“The foreman of any branch of industry whether of the family, such as
storekeeper, barber, cook, etc., or whether of the community, such as
head agriculturist, head painter, head builder, etc., always elects
himself to his position by his own deeds, by his superior ability
of doing work in his occupation, by being kind and pleasant, by
directing the labor of his or her co-laborers in the most productive
and agreeable channels. Our foreman is leader only just so far as his
co-laborers are willing to acknowledge him as such; and when a person
of greater ability appears in his branch of industry, the former
leader naturally resigns his position to his superior, because such
a resignation is agreeable to the former leader as well as to his
co-laborers. Hence the leader always does the most and best work and
receives no more pay than the commonest laborer. All our officers are
elected, then, by the tacit or avowed ballot of superior ability and
agreeableness, but never by a _paper_ ballot. Hence you can plainly
see that we acknowledge universal suffrage in its true and full sense,
because every man, woman and child is a voter as well as a candidate.
“Some of our family leaders, or officers as you would call them, are
foremen in the following departments: Store, restaurant, kitchen,
bakery, dining hall, parlors, engine room, tailor shop, barber shop,
halls, bath-rooms, commercial apartment, vehicle apartment, the
departments of ushers, painters, house cleaners, laundry department,
representatives in the ‘Com,’ Fano and Modano, etc., etc.
“Now let us briefly glance at the government of the community. The
business of the community is transacted at the ‘Com,’ as I have already
told you. Every family has one or more representatives in the ‘Com,’
who are daily laboring there, in some department, as paying bills,
making money, examining labor-records, printing, receiving money from
the families, canceling the community’s own money when it arrives,
inventing, etc.
“The family representatives who work at the ‘Com’ nearly always
return to their own family after the close of their day’s work. By
this arrangement every family, and every person in the family, is in
constant personal communication with the ‘Com.’ Any one who desires
information concerning the business of the community can get it orally
from the family representative, or, he can get it from the daily
community’s newspaper, which contains all the business and which is
taken and read by every one who is old enough to read it.
“Some of the community’s and family’s foremen are in the following
departments: Printing, money making, paying, money receiving, selling,
building and repairing motor lines, agriculture, stock raising, mining,
manufacturing, warehouse, roads and boulevards, electric light, parks,
conservatory and greenhouse, garden, orchard, inventor, etc., etc.
“The foregoing is a brief description of some of the most important
features of our government, by which you will see at once that we have
no government by physical force against man, woman or child; that we
have no parties, no politicians, no election frauds, no political
boodle, no vast armies and costly navies; no generals who lead the
people to death and destruction; no guns and cannons; no swords and
sabres; no pensions and crippled soldiers; no impoverished widows and
uncared for orphans; no burning of cities and tearing up of railroads;
no kings, queens, and presidents; no political congresses, parliaments,
and legislatures; no crowns and thrones; no high-salaried officers, no
national debt which often gets larger by paying on it; no compulsory
taxation; no tariff involuntarily wrung from the people; no prisons and
reform schools; no so-called courts of justice and an army of lawyers
and judges who have to live from the ignorance and quarreling of the
people; no political patriotism; no statute laws which monopolize
natural opportunity in favor of the rich and against the poor; no
hangmen, and no policemen. Our political congress slowly changed into
an industrial one.”
“I must say that your government seems to be an admirable one, if it
could be _enforced_,” said Rev. Dudley, “but I cannot see how a people
can do without all those things you have just named.”
“Why, uncle,” said Viola, “it seems to me that we would be much better
off without those relics of barbarism than with them, and I shall do
all I can to elevate the mind of man high enough so that he feels no
need for them.”
“It is doubtless true,” said Mr. Midith, “that those who have always
lived in a world where a certain class of people have always ruled,
or at least have tried to rule, the remainder of mankind by physical
force, it may seem that no family, community or nation can do without
a ruler backed by physical force. In primitive times the force process
begins soon after birth and continues until death. First the child
is scolded, cuffed and flogged by the parent and nurse, then by the
teacher and preacher, then by his playmates and street-ruffians;
when he wants to marry, the church and state begin to interfere; the
policeman clubs his victim into submission, the hangman hangs him, the
tax-collector forces him to pay taxes, and finally the landlord compels
him or his friends to pay for the little patch of earth in which
he is buried. Consequently all but a few of your foremost thinkers
believe that the ruler and the force system is absolutely necessary to
the welfare of an orderly society. But when we examine the pages of
your history, as well as our own ancient history when our ancestors
practiced the same despotism as you now practice, we find that the
_ruler_, either directly or indirectly, has played all the cruel
mischief that ever was played in the human family.
“The ruler calls the soldier to war to shoot his neighbor. The ruler
instituted the practice of suttee, and exhorts the slavish widow
to practice it. The ruler induces the Hindoo mother to throw her
newly-born babe in the Ganges, by which the mother becomes a ruler
over the child, to satisfy the ruler’s created Deity, who is supposed
to be the supreme ruler. The ruler tortured and killed every so-called
heretic--the cream of the mental world, during the dark ages. The
ruler kindled every witch fire that consumed thousands and millions
of innocent persons supposed to be witches. The ruler did all the
wife and child flogging. The ruler gave all the unjust decisions that
were ever given in any court of so-called justice. The ruler made all
the millions of laws that have already been repealed, and are now
considered wrong and cruel. The ruler had every national building and
monument built and erected with the life and labor of his ruled. The
ruler is the author of every battle. The ruler has been the suppressor
of all liberty and freedom. The ruler has drafted every soldier, and
forced him to burn and kill. The ruler has preached all superstitious
doctrines, whether religious, industrial, social, political or sexual.
The ruler has grown rich without productive labor, on profit, interest,
rent, taxes, and the varying purchasing power of the dollar. The ruler
has compelled children to attend school in which they were forced to
act in direct opposition to the known laws of life and health. The
ruler, whether individual, state or nation, has committed every murder.
The ruler is the author of every ravishment. The ruler has received all
the boodle. The ruler has so far, in your world, made slaves of women
and children, and has thereby indirectly made a slave of himself. The
ruler has committed every theft, robbery and burglary. The ruler has,
in many cases, demanded prayer and shrine cure, instead of resorting to
sanitary measures. The ruler has caused every quarrel and fight. The
ruler has, in countless cases, commended the infamous and prohibited
the virtuous. The ruler is the invader of all personal right and
personal liberty. The ruler has done all this and much more. He has
caused all the social and industrial discord. Why, then, should the
ruled pay the ruler for ruling them, after having made so many errors
and committed so many crimes? What guarantee have the ruled now that
the ruler will not err in the present and future as he has done in the
past?”
“No doubt,” said Rev. Dudley, “the ruler, under the various monarchical
forms, has done a great many wrongs; but the monarchies of the world
are fast passing away, we are living in a republic in which the
_majority_ rule.”
“I find that the vast majority of your citizens, like you, believe
that the majority rule in your republic, as you call it, but this is
an error. The majority do not rule, but only a small minority do. To
illustrate:
“The population of the United States is about 65 millions. Of these
about 13 millions vote. If these 13 million voters all belonged to
two parties--say Democrats and Republicans--one party would require
but one majority to let it in power--say the Republicans. 6,500,001
is a majority of 13 millions. The 6,499,999 Democrats would have
nothing to say as far as their principles differed from the principles
of the Republican party. Under these conditions, which are about as
we actually find them, all the Democrats, all the women and all the
children have nothing to say civilly. Now you want to remember that
many of the children, the same as the adults, support themselves. We
see, then, that 6,500,001 is ten per cent. plus of 65 millions. Hence
one-tenth rules nine-tenths. Your boon of universal suffrage is nothing
but an illusion when it is analyzed.
“We have now seen that the majority do not rule, as is generally
supposed by you. But if the majority instead of the minority did
rule, the question would arise: What right has a majority to rule a
non-invasive minority? Who gave them the right? How long have they had
it? Did your ancestors a thousand years ago give this right to each
other? If so, are bargains that were made a thousand years ago binding
on the present generation? Must you be cruel and unjust to one another
because your ancestors were? Does not culture make justice the basis
of human conduct? But this is not all. If the ballot in the hands of a
_man_ is such a great boon, why is it not equally great in the hands of
the _women_ and _children_? Are they not entitled to the same welfare
and happiness that the man is?
“And furthermore, I suppose that all of you are ready to acknowledge
that money, intimidation and fraud greatly influence the result of
your ballot elections. The individual or party that spends the most
money and does the most scheming generally triumphs with _you_. _Our_
acknowledged leader (we have no political officers) of any branch of
industry in our families and communities is elected by actual universal
suffrage, solely upon his or her superior fitness for the position.
“Let us notice a few other points of difference between _our_
government and _yours_. Your officials receive, as a rule, high
salaries, and as it is generally difficult here for a person to acquire
wealth by productive labor, on account of monopoly, all are rushing for
the well-paying offices. With us the highest officer in the community
receives no more pay for his day’s labor than a washerwoman does. Here,
in a world where money is _necessary_ and _scarce_, a person can stoop
to most anything, if he thereby gains his election so that he receives
the high salary and not unfrequently some boodle; for in a world where
money is necessary and scarce, a victorious person can _buy_ his
_honor_, _fame_, and _distinction_ with _money_. But in a world like
ours, where money is not monopolized, where it can be easily obtained
by every one, money has lost the power of purchasing honor, fame and
distinction. In such a world nothing but personal worth, fitness and
noble attainments elevate a person to a higher position where he enjoys
approbation and admiration of his fellowmen. Notice here that the
Marsites have removed the _causes_ of corruption, while you are still
endeavoring to make a person _good_ under _bad conditions_.
“Your government, as now constituted, also tends to concentrate wealth.
Rev. Joseph Cook, in Tremont Temple, Boston, Feb. 3, 1890, said: ‘Two
thousand capitalists own more than all the rest of the sixty-five
millions of our population. Two hundred and fifty thousand rich men
control seventy-five per cent. of the national wealth. The American
republic is, therefore, practically owned by less than one-quarter of
a million of persons. If present causes which produce concentration of
capital continue, the republic will soon be owned by less than fifty
thousand men.’
“We all know, then, that some have amassed immense fortunes of material
wealth, while the vast majority under your present conditions are
doomed to life-long toil, to poverty. But, by what means or power
did these rich men accumulate their immense wealth? Not by personal
industry, for the industrial powers of an individual are too limited.
Not by economy, for if he had saved everything he ever _earned_, he
would have but a small fractional part of what he has _accumulated_.
Not by any particular personal superiority, for the personal powers to
produce material wealth are nearly equal in all sound men and women;
but he accumulated and appropriated it by _monopoly_. You have enacted
many laws by your much prized ballot, and these rich men used those
laws to monopolize natural opportunity so that they are continually
growing richer on _interest_, _profit_, _rent_ and _taxes_, without
productive labor. You see if all monopolistic statute laws, which
include nearly all statute laws as such, were repealed and disregarded,
all would stand equal before natural opportunity. Profit, interest,
rent and taxes are produced by monopolistic laws. If there were no
monopolistic laws, no person could accumulate or appropriate wealth
without productive labor.
“Let us take an illustration: You have a few men that have over a
$100,000,000 of wealth as you call it. You can figure up in a few
minutes that they can not have _earned_ or _produced_ that amount
of wealth in one or even in two generations. But some of these men
have accumulated this immense fortune in twenty or thirty years.
Let us figure a little on this. Suppose that a man has accumulated
$100,000,000 in fifty years of three hundred working days each. This
would require an average accumulation of nearly $7,000 for every
working day. Now you all know that a man cannot, by any human power,
_earn_ or _produce_ $7,000 worth of wealth--wheat, corn, coal, books,
houses, clothing, or whatever else it may be. But we know that he has
the wealth, or your representative of wealth--the dollar; and if he
has not _earned_ it himself by productive labor, by which all wealth
must be produced, he must have appropriated it from the labor of others
in the form of profit, interest, rent or taxes, for which the receiver
_does_ nothing and for which the giver _receives_ nothing.
“Our government has no statute laws and has, therefore, no profit,
interest, rent and taxes. Your government monopolizes land by the
deed system, hence your _rent_. Our government has nothing to do with
the ownership of land; every one may occupy and use all the vacant
land he wants. Your government monopolizes the making of money, which
makes money scarce, hence your _interest_; in our government, each
individual gets his money made at the end of each month, and as much
as he has produced wealth; money is plenty, and hence no interest.
Your government enforces compulsory taxation, whether the individual
wants it or not; we have no compulsory taxation. From the foregoing and
other monopolizations your profit results. Your government has enacted
laws for the collection of debts, hence your many failures and unpaid
accounts. Our government has no need of such laws, because we have
always plenty of money and, therefore, always pay cash. Your government
endeavors to enforce its mandates by an _external_ agency of soldier
and policeman, while our governmental force resides in the internal
promptings of the individual. The desire of the non-invasive individual
is the highest authority on Mars.
“Of course we all understand that your government, as a whole, is
better now than it ever was before. The government of the United
States, in many respects, is perhaps better than any of its
predecessors or any of its contemporaries. But you must remember that
all ages had a _best_ government. The question is not whether it is
the _best_ that ever was, but whether it is faultless. _Best_ is not
good enough unless it is _faultless_. Can we find any faults? If so, we
should labor to remove them.
“I do not desire to have you understand me that I blame your government
or your rich men for what they have done, or for what they are now
doing. Under the same conditions the Marsites did the same things. With
the _present_ amount of intelligence, human conduct, in your world,
is just about what it should be; and the only force in the universe
that can ever change that course is additional intelligence. All your
labor for advancement, then, should be most economically directed in
the diffusion and assimilation of this additional intelligence. As long
as a person is ignorant enough, he does not feel the burden unjustly
imposed upon him by others; but as he grows in intelligence, the bearer
of the burden becomes continually more sensitive to its weight, and
the imposition becomes continually more repugnant to the imposer. Let
us remember, then, that all wrong and injustice arise from ignorance.
Intelligence is the only motive power that can move the physical world
to higher and nobler planes.”
“Do you have insane asylums, Mr. Midith?” asked Mrs. Uwins.
Mr. Midith smiled and said: “We have no use for them. Insanity, like
everything else, is produced by causes, and when the causes are removed
the effects disappear proportionately. We have almost completely
removed the causes of insanity. In the first place our medical science
is far in advance of yours, and in the second place, in a world where
everybody is rich, sound, intelligent and free, insanity, like crime,
is almost unknown. Not one in a thousand million ever feels any traces
of it; and if he should he would almost certainly be cured in a short
time. Should there be an isolated case of insanity, the insane person
would be gently cared for the same as a child.
“Now let me show you one other great advantage of our government over
yours. You have one Congress and one President in a country, who make
laws by which you endeavor to govern the white man and the black man;
the agriculturist in the North and the agriculturist in the South; the
miner and the manufacturer. But their interests are in many cases very
unlike, still all must be governed by the same national laws. Your
government is so extensive that the President or Congress cannot be
so well informed on the needs of the people of every locality, as we
can be on the needs of our own community. The needs and interests of a
community in the North, on account of climate, are very unlike those of
the South. So each community with us attends to its own business, and
lets every other community attend to theirs. We have no interference,
no antagonism. We believe in _non-aggressive_ competition. In this
manner, a sharp, healthy, commercial competition springs up between the
communities, which naturally throws every community in that line of
industry for which it is best adapted on account of climate, soil, and
other natural resources.
“Now let us contemplate for a moment how vastly we economize and
produce by our kind, peaceable government of the individual, and what
an immense amount of unproductive and destructive labor you expend in
the maintenance of your cruel, criminal government of force as it would
appear to the Marsites.
“You build and maintain costly statehouses and spacious legislative
halls. You have a vast army of national, state and municipal
politicians who are supported by the productive laborer. You have
an army and a navy to equip and maintain. You have guns and cannons
to mine and manufacture, arsenals to build, and fortifications to
construct. You have ammunition and soldiers’ clothes to manufacture.
You have vast libraries to build, filled with countless volumes of
law books, over the contents of which a large army of judges and
lawyers wrangle and sometimes even fight. You have an endless number
of courthouses to build and maintain, and a swarm of policemen to
uniform and support. You have the country dotted with prisons, jails,
penitentiaries, scaffolds, poorhouses, asylums and reform schools.
“Your armies and navies in time of war destroy an immense amount of
wealth by burning cities and family houses, by destroying the growing
crops in the fields through which they march, and in which they fight,
by blowing up ships and bridges, by tearing up railroads, by cutting
down fences, orchards and forests, by killing the brute animals which
come in the line of their march, and by maiming human bodies and taking
human life itself. Your government in time of war makes sound men
diseased and crippled; it makes mothers helpless widows, and children
poor orphans, and then it forcibly taxes the sound ones who live a
generation later to pension the cripples it made itself.
“Besides the crime of class legislation, which produces an aristocracy
of social parasites who appropriate the products of the laborer in the
forms of profit, interest, rent and taxes, your government is guilty of
graver and more direct crimes, a few of which I shall name. Under the
cloak of capital punishment, it legally murders its so-called criminals
on the pretext of protecting society. In the field of intemperance, it
licenses the manufacturing and selling of intoxicating liquor, thereby
indirectly sanctioning, for a consideration, the evil of intemperance.
In the licentious world, it actually sells to certain fallen women
the privilege of selling their own persons for lewd purposes, thereby
becoming a participant in the crime of impurity, which is caused
directly or indirectly by the government’s own monopoly. By its
marriage interference, it often compels married men and women to live
together when they do not love each other, when they quarrel and fight.
As a self-righteous censor of its so-called morality, it has in all
ages, countries and climes tried to suppress freedom of speech and
freedom of the press. The foregoing are only a few of the countless
number of evils, wrongs and cruelties which a government, by physical
force, imposes on its own people. I mean which the rulers impose on the
ruled.
“What a vast contrast! Our family representatives, who go daily to the
‘Com’ to work, are all engaged in productive labor, and the person,
man or woman, who can add the greatest number of columns quickest and
surest is the person who goes there for that purpose. The national and
world representatives do the same. No strife, no monopoly, but complete
individual freedom, which has eliminated every vestige of government by
physical force against all non-invasive persons, and has established
the highest social harmony.”
“But if you do not elect your officers by paper ballot, how do you
determine who shall be your Fanoers and your Modanoers?” asked Rev.
Dudley.
“I have already stated, Mr. Dudley,” replied Mr. Midith, “that we
have no officers in your sense of the word. We elect a Fanoer and a
Modanoer on exactly the same principle and by exactly the same process
as a cultivated, orderly family here on earth elects its members to
do each a certain portion of its work. That is, if you call such a
mutual choice or assignment of work an election. Our election, then, is
altogether by mutual consent. The process is the same as the process by
which Mrs. Uwins is elected by Uwins’ family to do a certain part of
their domestic work. By the same process by which Mr. Uwins is elected
to do most of the scientific writing of the family. Once more, by the
same process by which Viola is elected to do the parlor work, etc.
Always by mutual consent based on fitness.
“Thus you see, if you call Mr. and Mrs. Uwins and the other members
of Mr. Uwins’ family officers because each performs a certain portion
of the aggregate family labor, then our Fanoers and Modanoers are
officers; but if you do not call your members of a family officers
because a certain kind of work is voluntarily performed by them,
or mutually and often tacitly assigned to them on account of their
peculiar fitness, then our Fanoers and Modanoers are similarly elected
to their respective work by a _large_ family, the same as you elect
by a _small_ family. In a state of culture we can generally judge
ourselves and others quite accurately. You see the secret of our
election, under freedom, consists in this: A laborer is nearly always
proficient in that vocation which he likes _best_.
“Of course the harmony of this election in our communities, the same
as that of your families, depends on the state of culture of its
members. In some of your families one will not do his fair share of the
aggregate work without he is _ordered_ or _driven_ to do it. But I am
not here speaking of such of your families. I am speaking only of the
cultured families in which each member finds delight in doing his part
so as to make it easy and pleasant for all. Thus you see that some of
your families are able to do what some of them are yet unable to do.
“It is certainly true that our families and communities were not always
as peaceable, just and harmonious as they are at present. We, like you,
passed through all the stages of progress from a savage to that state
of culture which we now enjoy. Hence you see that our elections have
not always been as harmonious as they are at present. Neither have your
family elections ever before been as high as they now are.”
“I can see plainly how a few persons, having a common interest in each
other’s labor and conduct, like our _small_ families, can have each
individual glide into his most proficient sphere of labor without much
friction,” said Rev. Dudley, “but I cannot see how so many individuals
as compose your _large_ families and communities can do so.”
“I will tell you, Rev. Dudley; it certainly requires a certain state
of culture before we can mentally assimilate the essential material
for a thought of a given degree of complexity and range. An individual
of a little horde of savages would no doubt be unable to see how so
many individuals as compose the United States could all live under one
flag as you call it; and that almost without war, too. But we all know
that it is done, and it does not seem impossible to us either; and if
progress continues in the future as it did in the past, your posterity
will be able to see things that are entirely hidden from your present
view.
“You see those acts which will conduce to the welfare and happiness of
man will continually more and more commend themselves to the thoughtful
consideration of humanity; they will be gradually accepted for their
intrinsic worth.”
“If I understand you correctly, then,” said Rev. Dudley, “you have no
compulsory taxation, but only voluntary taxation.”
“No,” replied Mr. Midith, “we have no compulsory taxation. No Marsite
is forced to support any institution he does not wish to support. As to
voluntary taxation, I may say, if you wish to call those gifts which
visitors to the Fanos and Modano usually give voluntary taxation, then
we have a kind of voluntary taxation; but if you do not call that
taxation, we have no taxation at all.
“Just as your former baronage was gradually superseded by your national
militancy--the compulsory state--so was our militancy superseded
by industrialism--our voluntary state, if you wish to call it so.
Our Comers, Fanoers and Modanoers are no generals, no lawmakers, no
statesmen and no politicians. They are solely business men. They aid
in the advantageous distribution of wealth and live from the fruits of
their own productive labor. Hence, we need no taxes for their support.”
“But do you think, Mr. Midith, that we could do away with compulsory
taxation without any bad effects of it at our present age?” asked Rev.
Dudley.
“I fear that you do not fully comprehend this subject,” replied Mr.
Midith. “You see you can not possibly do away with compulsory taxation.
It is always a concomitant of a certain mental condition, and the
element of compulsory taxation can be weakened only in proportion as
the mental condition is strengthened by the discovery of new truths;
and the discovery of new truths implies time. Therefore it is as
impossible for you to do away with compulsory taxation instantaneously
as it is for you to produce instantaneously a ripe apple from an
unfolding blossom. There is only one known agency which can do away
with compulsory taxation, and that agency is the acquisition of a
higher and broader intelligence.”