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[Illustration: EDWARD BELLAMY.]
EQUALITY
by
EDWARD BELLAMY
Author of
Looking Backward, Dr. Heidenhoff's Process, Miss Ludington's Sister, etc.
* * * * *
Second Edition
* * * * *
PREFACE.
Looking Backward was a small book, and I was not able to get into it all
I wished to say on the subject. Since it was published what was left out
of it has loomed up as so much more important than what it contained that
I have been constrained to write another book. I have taken the date of
Looking Backward, the year 2000, as that of Equality, and have utilized
the framework of the former story as a starting point for this which I
now offer. In order that those who have not read Looking Backward may be
at no disadvantage, an outline of the essential features of that story is
subjoined:
In the year 1887 Julian West was a rich young man living in Boston. He
was soon to be married to a young lady of wealthy family named Edith
Bartlett, and meanwhile lived alone with his man-servant Sawyer in the
family mansion. Being a sufferer from insomnia, he had caused a chamber
to be built of stone beneath the foundation of the house, which he used
for a sleeping room. When even the silence and seclusion of this retreat
failed to bring slumber, he sometimes called in a professional mesmerizer
to put him into a hypnotic sleep, from which Sawyer knew how to arouse
him at a fixed time. This habit, as well as the existence of the
underground chamber, were secrets known only to Sawyer and the hypnotist
who rendered his services. On the night of May 30, 1887, West sent for
the latter, and was put to sleep as usual. The hypnotist had previously
informed his patron that he was intending to leave the city permanently
the same evening, and referred him to other practitioners. That night the
house of Julian West took fire and was wholly destroyed. Remains
identified as those of Sawyer were found and, though no vestige of West
appeared, it was assumed that he of course had also perished.
One hundred and thirteen years later, in September, A. D. 2000, Dr.
Leete, a physician of Boston, on the retired list, was conducting
excavations in his garden for the foundations of a private laboratory,
when the workers came on a mass of masonry covered with ashes and
charcoal. On opening it, a vault, luxuriously fitted up in the style of a
nineteenth-century bedchamber, was found, and on the bed the body of a
young man looking as if he had just lain down to sleep. Although great
trees had been growing above the vault, the unaccountable preservation of
the youth's body tempted Dr. Leete to attempt resuscitation, and to his
own astonishment his efforts proved successful. The sleeper returned to
life, and after a short time to the full vigor of youth which his
appearance had indicated. His shock on learning what had befallen him was
so great as to have endangered his sanity but for the medical skill of
Dr. Leete, and the not less sympathetic ministrations of the other
members of the household, the doctor's wife, and Edith the beautiful
daughter. Presently, however, the young man forgot to wonder at what had
happened to himself in his astonishment on learning of the social
transformation through which the world had passed while he lay sleeping.
Step by step, almost as to a child, his hosts explained to him, who had
known no other way of living except the struggle for existence, what were
the simple principles of national co-operation for the promotion of the
general welfare on which the new civilization rested. He learned that
there were no longer any who were or could be richer or poorer than
others, but that all were economic equals. He learned that no one any
longer worked for another, either by compulsion or for hire, but that all
alike were in the service of the nation working for the common fund,
which all equally shared, and that even necessary personal attendance, as
of the physician, was rendered as to the state like that of the military
surgeon. All these wonders, it was explained, had very simply come about
as the results of replacing private capitalism by public capitalism, and
organizing the machinery of production and distribution, like the
political government, as business of general concern to be carried on for
the public benefit instead of private gain.
But, though it was not long before the young stranger's first
astonishment at the institutions of the new world had passed into
enthusiastic admiration and he was ready to admit that the race had for
the first time learned how to live, he presently began to repine at a
fate which had introduced him to the new world, only to leave him
oppressed by a sense of hopeless loneliness which all the kindness of his
new friends could not relieve, feeling, as he must, that it was dictated
by pity only. Then it was that he first learned that his experience had
been a yet more marvelous one than he had supposed. Edith Leete was no
other than the great-granddaughter of Edith Bartlett, his betrothed, who,
after long mourning her lost lover, had at last allowed herself to be
consoled. The story of the tragical bereavement which had shadowed her
early life was a family tradition, and among the family heirlooms were
letters from Julian West, together with a photograph which represented so
handsome a youth that Edith was illogically inclined to quarrel with her
great-grandmother for ever marrying anybody else. As for the young man's
picture, she kept it on her dressing table. Of course, it followed that
the identity of the tenant of the subterranean chamber had been fully
known to his rescuers from the moment of the discovery; but Edith, for
reasons of her own, had insisted that he should not know who she was till
she saw fit to tell him. When, at the proper time, she had seen fit to do
this, there was no further question of loneliness for the young man, for
how could destiny more unmistakably have indicated that two persons were
meant for each other?
His cup of happiness now being full, he had an experience in which it
seemed to be dashed from his lips. As he lay on his bed in Dr. Leete's
house he was oppressed by a hideous nightmare. It seemed to him that he
opened his eyes to find himself on his bed in the underground chamber
where the mesmerizer had put him to sleep. Sawyer was just completing the
passes used to break the hypnotic influence. He called for the morning
paper, and read on the date line May 31, 1887. Then he knew that all this
wonderful matter about the year 2000, its happy, care-free world of
brothers and the fair girl he had met there were but fragments of a
dream. His brain in a whirl, he went forth into the city. He saw
everything with new eyes, contrasting it with what he had seen in the
Boston of the year 2000. The frenzied folly of the competitive industrial
system, the inhuman contrasts of luxury and woe--pride and
abjectness--the boundless squalor, wretchedness, and madness of the whole
scheme of things which met his eye at every turn, outraged his reason and
made his heart sick. He felt like a sane man shut up by accident in a
madhouse. After a day of this wandering he found himself at nightfall in
a company of his former companions, who rallied him on his distraught
appearance. He told them of his dream and what it had taught him of the
possibilities of a juster, nobler, wiser social system. He reasoned with
them, showing how easy it would be, laying aside the suicidal folly of
competition, by means of fraternal co-operation, to make the actual world
as blessed as that he had dreamed of. At first they derided him, but,
seeing his earnestness, grew angry, and denounced him as a pestilent
fellow, an anarchist, an enemy of society, and drove him from them. Then
it was that, in an agony of weeping, he awoke, this time awaking really,
not falsely, and found himself in his bed in Dr. Leete's house, with the
morning sun of the twentieth century shining in his eyes. Looking from
the window of his room, he saw Edith in the garden gathering flowers for
the breakfast table, and hastened to descend to her and relate his
experience. At this point we will leave him to continue the narrative for
himself.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I.--A SHARP CROSS-EXAMINER
II.--WHY THE REVOLUTION DID NOT COME EARLIER
III.--I ACQUIRE A STAKE IN THE COUNTRY
IV.--A TWENTIETH-CENTURY BANK PARLOR
V.--I EXPERIENCE A NEW SENSATION
VI.--HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE
VII.--A STRING OF SURPRISES
VIII.--THE GREATEST WONDER YET--FASHION DETHRONED
IX.--SOMETHING THAT HAD NOT CHANGED
X.--A MIDNIGHT PLUNGE
XI.--LIFE THE BASIS OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY
XII.--HOW INEQUALITY OF WEALTH DESTROYS LIBERTY
XIII.--PRIVATE CAPITAL STOLEN FROM THE SOCIAL FUND
XIV.--WE LOOK OVER MY COLLECTION OF HARNESSES
XV.--WHAT WE WERE COMING TO BUT FOR THE REVOLUTION
XVI.--AN EXCUSE THAT CONDEMNED
XVII.--THE REVOLUTION SAVES PRIVATE PROPERTY FROM MONOPOLY
XVIII.--AN ECHO OF THE PAST
XIX.--"CAN A MAID FORGET HER ORNAMENTS?"
XX.--WHAT THE REVOLUTION DID FOR WOMEN
XXI.--AT THE GYMNASIUM
XXII.--ECONOMIC SUICIDE OF THE PROFIT SYSTEM
XXIII.--"THE PARABLE OF THE WATER TANK"
XXIV.--I AM SHOWN ALL THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH
XXV.--THE STRIKERS
XXVI.--FOREIGN COMMERCE UNDER PROFITS; PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE, OR
BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA
XXVII.--HOSTILITY OF A SYSTEM OF VESTED INTERESTS TO IMPROVEMENT
XXVIII.--HOW THE PROFIT SYSTEM NULLIFIED THE BENEFIT OF INVENTIONS
XXIX.--I RECEIVE AN OVATION
XXX.--WHAT UNIVERSAL CULTURE MEANS
XXXI.--"NEITHER IN THIS MOUNTAIN NOR AT JERUSALEM"
XXXII.--ERITIS SICUT DEUS
XXXIII.--SEVERAL IMPORTANT MATTERS OVERLOOKED
XXXIV.--WHAT STARTED THE REVOLUTION
XXXV.--WHY THE REVOLUTION WENT SLOW AT FIRST BUT FAST AT LAST
XXXVI.--THEATER-GOING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
XXXVII.--THE TRANSITION PERIOD
XXXVIII.--THE BOOK OF THE BLIND
* * * * *
EQUALITY.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
A SHARP CROSS-EXAMINER.
With many expressions of sympathy and interest Edith listened to the
story of my dream. When, finally, I had made an end, she remained musing.
"What are you thinking about?" I said.
"I was thinking," she answered, "how it would have been if your dream had
been true."
"True!" I exclaimed. "How could it have been true?"
"I mean," she said, "if it had all been a dream, as you supposed it was
in your nightmare, and you had never really seen our Republic of the
Golden Rule or me, but had only slept a night and dreamed the whole thing
about us. And suppose you had gone forth just as you did in your dream,
and had passed up and down telling men of the terrible folly and
wickedness of their way of life and how much nobler and happier a way
there was. Just think what good you might have done, how you might have
helped people in those days when they needed help so much. It seems to me
you must be almost sorry you came back to us."
"You look as if you were almost sorry yourself," I said, for her wistful
expression seemed susceptible of that interpretation.
"Oh, no," she answered, smiling. "It was only on your own account. As for
me, I have very good reasons for being glad that you came back."
"I should say so, indeed. Have you reflected that if I had dreamed it all
you would have had no existence save as a figment in the brain of a
sleeping man a hundred years ago?"
"I had not thought of that part of it," she said smiling and still half
serious; "yet if I could have been more useful to humanity as a fiction
than as a reality, I ought not to have minded the--the inconvenience."
But I replied that I greatly feared no amount of opportunity to help
mankind in general would have reconciled me to life anywhere or under any
conditions after leaving her behind in a dream--a confession of shameless
selfishness which she was pleased to pass over without special rebuke, in
consideration, no doubt, of my unfortunate bringing up.
"Besides," I resumed, being willing a little further to vindicate myself,
"it would not have done any good. I have just told you how in my
nightmare last night, when I tried to tell my contemporaries and even my
best friends about the nobler way men might live together, they derided
me as a fool and madman. That is exactly what they would have done in
reality had the dream been true and I had gone about preaching as in the
case you supposed."
"Perhaps a few might at first have acted as you dreamed they did," she
replied. "Perhaps they would not at once have liked the idea of economic
equality, fearing that it might mean a leveling down for them, and not
understanding that it would presently mean a leveling up of all together
to a vastly higher plane of life and happiness, of material welfare and
moral dignity than the most fortunate had ever enjoyed. But even if the
rich had at first mistaken you for an enemy to their class, the poor, the
great masses of the poor, the real nation, they surely from the first
would have listened as for their lives, for to them your story would have
meant glad tidings of great joy."
"I do not wonder that you think so," I answered, "but, though I am still
learning the A B C of this new world, I knew my contemporaries, and I
know that it would not have been as you fancy. The poor would have
listened no better than the rich, for, though poor and rich in my day
were at bitter odds in everything else, they were agreed in believing
that there must always be rich and poor, and that a condition of material
equality was impossible. It used to be commonly said, and it often seemed
true, that the social reformer who tried to better the condition of the
people found a more discouraging obstacle in the hopelessness of the
masses he would raise than in the active resistance of the few, whose
superiority was threatened. And indeed, Edith, to be fair to my own
class, I am bound to say that with the best of the rich it was often as
much this same hopelessness as deliberate selfishness that made them what
we used to call conservative. So you see, it would have done no good even
if I had gone to preaching as you fancied. The poor would have regarded
my talk about the possibility of an equality of wealth as a fairy tale,
not worth a laboring man's time to listen to. Of the rich, the baser sort
would have mocked and the better sort would have sighed, but none would
have given ear seriously."
But Edith smiled serenely.
"It seems very audacious for me to try to correct your impressions of
your own contemporaries and of what they might be expected to think and
do, but you see the peculiar circumstances give me a rather unfair
advantage. Your knowledge of your times necessarily stops short with
1887, when you became oblivious of the course of events. I, on the other
hand, having gone to school in the twentieth century, and been obliged,
much against my will, to study nineteenth-century history, naturally know
what happened after the date at which your knowledge ceased. I know,
impossible as it may seem to you, that you had scarcely fallen into that
long sleep before the American people began to be deeply and widely
stirred with aspirations for an equal order such as we enjoy, and that
very soon the political movement arose which, after various mutations,
resulted early in the twentieth century in overthrowing the old system
and setting up the present one."
This was indeed interesting information to me, but when I began to
question Edith further, she sighed and shook her head.
"Having tried to show my superior knowledge, I must now confess my
ignorance. All I know is the bare fact that the revolutionary movement
began, as I said, very soon after you fell asleep. Father must tell you
the rest. I might as well admit while I am about it, for you would soon
find it out, that I know almost nothing either as to the Revolution or
nineteenth-century matters generally. You have no idea how hard I have
been trying to post myself on the subject so as to be able to talk
intelligently with you, but I fear it is of no use. I could not
understand it in school and can not seem to understand it any better now.
More than ever this morning I am sure that I never shall. Since you have
been telling me how the old world appeared to you in that dream, your
talk has brought those days so terribly near that I can almost see them,
and yet I can not say that they seem a bit more intelligible than
before."
"Things were bad enough and black enough certainly," I said; "but I don't
see what there was particularly unintelligible about them. What is the
difficulty?"
"The main difficulty comes from the complete lack of agreement between
the pretensions of your contemporaries about the way their society was
organized and the actual facts as given in the histories."
"For example?" I queried.
"I don't suppose there is much use in trying to explain my trouble," she
said. "You will only think me stupid for my pains, but I'll try to make
you see what I mean. You ought to be able to clear up the matter if
anybody can. You have just been telling me about the shockingly unequal
conditions of the people, the contrasts of waste and want, the pride and
power of the rich, the abjectness and servitude of the poor, and all the
rest of the dreadful story."
"Yes."
"It appears that these contrasts were almost as great as at any previous
period of history."
"It is doubtful," I replied, "if there was ever a greater disparity
between the conditions of different classes than you would find in a half
hour's walk in Boston, New York, Chicago, or any other great city of
America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century."
"And yet," said Edith, "it appears from all the books that meanwhile the
Americans' great boast was that they differed from all other and former
nations in that they were free and equal. One is constantly coming upon
this phrase in the literature of the day. Now, you have made it clear
that they were neither free nor equal in any ordinary sense of the word,
but were divided as mankind had always been before into rich and poor,
masters and servants. Won't you please tell me, then, what they meant by
calling themselves free and equal?"
"It was meant, I suppose, that they were all equal before the law."
"That means in the courts. And were the rich and poor equal in the
courts? Did they receive the same treatment?"
"I am bound to say," I replied, "that they were nowhere else more
unequal. The law applied in terms to all alike, but not in fact. There
was more difference in the position of the rich and the poor man before
the law than in any other respect. The rich were practically above the
law, the poor under its wheels."
"In what respect, then, were the rich and poor equal?"
"They were said to be equal in opportunities."
"Opportunities for what?"
"For bettering themselves, for getting rich, for getting ahead of others
in the struggle for wealth."
"It seems to me that only meant, if it were true, not that all were
equal, but that all had an equal chance to make themselves unequal. But
was it true that all had equal opportunities for getting rich and
bettering themselves?"
"It may have been so to some extent at one time when the country was
new," I replied, "but it was no more so in my day. Capital had
practically monopolized all economic opportunities by that time; there
was no opening in business enterprise for those without large capital
save by some extraordinary fortune."
"But surely," said Edith, "there must have been, in order to give at
least a color to all this boasting about equality, some one respect in
which the people were really equal?"
"Yes, there was. They were political equals. They all had one vote alike,
and the majority was the supreme lawgiver."
"So the books say, but that only makes the actual condition of things
more absolutely unaccountable."
"Why so?"
"Why, because if these people all had an equal voice in the
government--these toiling, starving, freezing, wretched masses of the
poor--why did they not without a moment's delay put an end to the
inequalities from which they suffered?"
"Very likely," she added, as I did not at once reply, "I am only showing
how stupid I am by saying this. Doubtless I am overlooking some important
fact, but did you not say that all the people, at least all the men, had
a voice in the government?"
"Certainly; by the latter part of the nineteenth century manhood suffrage
had become practically universal in America."
"That is to say, the people through their chosen agents made all the
laws. Is that what you mean?"
"Certainly."
"But I remember you had Constitutions of the nation and of the States.
Perhaps they prevented the people from doing quite what they wished."
"No; the Constitutions were only a little more fundamental sort of laws.
The majority made and altered them at will. The people were the sole and
supreme final power, and their will was absolute."
"If, then, the majority did not like any existing arrangement, or think
it to their advantage, they could change it as radically as they wished?"
"Certainly; the popular majority could do anything if it was large and
determined enough."
"And the majority, I understand, were the poor, not the rich--the ones
who had the wrong side of the inequalities that prevailed?"
"Emphatically so; the rich were but a handful comparatively."
"Then there was nothing whatever to prevent the people at any time, if
they just willed it, from making an end of their sufferings and
organizing a system like ours which would guarantee their equality and
prosperity?"
"Nothing whatever."
"Then once more I ask you to kindly tell me why, in the name of common
sense, they didn't do it at once and be happy instead of making a
spectacle of themselves so woeful that even a hundred years after it
makes us cry?"
"Because," I replied, "they were taught and believed that the regulation
of industry and commerce and the production and distribution of wealth
was something wholly outside of the proper province of government."
"But, dear me, Julian, life itself and everything that meanwhile makes
life worth living, from the satisfaction of the most primary physical
needs to the gratification of the most refined tastes, all that belongs
to the development of mind as well as body, depend first, last, and
always on the manner in which the production and distribution of wealth
is regulated. Surely that must have been as true in your day as ours."
"Of course."
"And yet you tell me, Julian, that the people, after having abolished the
rule of kings and taken the supreme power of regulating their affairs
into their own hands, deliberately consented to exclude from their
jurisdiction the control of the most important, and indeed the only
really important, class of their interests."
"Do not the histories say so?"
"They do say so, and that is precisely why I could never believe them.
The thing seemed so incomprehensible I thought there must be some way of
explaining it. But tell me, Julian, seeing the people did not think that
they could trust themselves to regulate their own industry and the
distribution of the product, to whom did they leave the responsibility?"
"To the capitalists."
"And did the people elect the capitalists?"
"Nobody elected them."
"By whom, then, were they appointed?"
"Nobody appointed them."
"What a singular system! Well, if nobody elected or appointed them, yet
surely they must have been accountable to somebody for the manner in
which they exercised powers on which the welfare and very existence of
everybody depended."
"On the contrary, they were accountable to nobody and nothing but their
own consciences."
"Their consciences! Ah, I see! You mean that they were so benevolent, so
unselfish, so devoted to the public good, that people tolerated their
usurpation out of gratitude. The people nowadays would not endure the
irresponsible rule even of demigods, but probably it was different in
your day."
"As an ex-capitalist myself, I should be pleased to confirm your surmise,
but nothing could really be further from the fact. As to any benevolent
interest in the conduct of industry and commerce, the capitalists
expressly disavowed it. Their only object was to secure the greatest
possible gain for themselves without any regard whatever to the welfare
of the public."
"Dear me! Dear me! Why you make out these capitalists to have been even
worse than the kings, for the kings at least professed to govern for the
welfare of their people, as fathers acting for children, and the good
ones did try to. But the capitalists, you say, did not even pretend to
feel any responsibility for the welfare of their subjects?"
"None whatever."
"And, if I understand," pursued Edith, "this government of the
capitalists was not only without moral sanction of any sort or plea of
benevolent intentions, but was practically an economic failure--that is,
it did not secure the prosperity of the people."
"What I saw in my dream last night," I replied, "and have tried to tell
you this morning, gives but a faint suggestion of the misery of the world
under capitalist rule."
Edith meditated in silence for some moments. Finally she said: "Your
contemporaries were not madmen nor fools; surely there is something you
have not told me; there must be some explanation or at least color of
excuse why the people not only abdicated the power of controling their
most vital and important interests, but turned them over to a class which
did not even pretend any interest in their welfare, and whose government
completely failed to secure it."
"Oh, yes," I said, "there was an explanation, and a very fine-sounding
one. It was in the name of individual liberty, industrial freedom, and
individual initiative that the economic government of the country was
surrendered to the capitalists."
"Do you mean that a form of government which seems to have been the most
irresponsible and despotic possible was defended in the name of liberty?"
"Certainly; the liberty of economic initiative by the individual."
"But did you not just tell me that economic initiative and business
opportunity in your day were practically monopolized by the capitalists
themselves?"
"Certainly. It was admitted that there was no opening for any but
capitalists in business, and it was rapidly becoming so that only the
greatest of the capitalists themselves had any power of initiative."
"And yet you say that the reason given for abandoning industry to
capitalist government was the promotion of industrial freedom and
individual initiative among the people at large."
"Certainly. The people were taught that they would individually enjoy
greater liberty and freedom of action in industrial matters under the
dominion of the capitalists than if they collectively conducted the
industrial system for their own benefit; that the capitalists would,
moreover, look out for their welfare more wisely and kindly than they
could possibly do it themselves, so that they would be able to provide
for themselves more bountifully out of such portion of their product as
the capitalists might be disposed to give them than they possibly could
do if they became their own employers and divided the whole product among
themselves."
"But that was mere mockery; it was adding insult to injury."
"It sounds so, doesn't it? But I assure you it was considered the
soundest sort of political economy in my time. Those who questioned it
were set down as dangerous visionaries."
"But I suppose the people's government, the government they voted for,
must have done something. There must have been some odds and ends of
things which the capitalists left the political government to attend to."
"Oh, yes, indeed. It had its hands full keeping the peace among the
people. That was the main part of the business of political governments
in my day."
"Why did the peace require such a great amount of keeping? Why didn't it
keep itself, as it does now?"
"On account of the inequality of conditions which prevailed. The strife
for wealth and desperation of want kept in quenchless blaze a hell of
greed and envy, fear, lust, hate, revenge, and every foul passion of the
pit. To keep this general frenzy in some restraint, so that the entire
social system should not resolve itself into a general massacre, required
an army of soldiers, police, judges, and jailers, and endless law-making
to settle the quarrels. Add to these elements of discord a horde of
outcasts degraded and desperate, made enemies of society by their
sufferings and requiring to be kept in check, and you will readily admit
there was enough for the people's government to do."
"So far as I can see," said Edith, "the main business of the people's
government was to struggle with the social chaos which resulted from its
failure to take hold of the economic system and regulate it on a basis of
justice."
"That is exactly so. You could not state the whole case more adequately
if you wrote a book."
"Beyond protecting the capitalist system from its own effects, did the
political government do absolutely nothing?"
"Oh, yes, it appointed postmasters and tidewaiters, maintained an army
and navy, and picked quarrels with foreign countries."
"I should say that the right of a citizen to have a voice in a government
limited to the range of functions you have mentioned would scarcely have
seemed to him of much value."
"I believe the average price of votes in close elections in America in my
time was about two dollars."
"Dear me, so much as that!" said Edith. "I don't know exactly what the
value of money was in your day, but I should say the price was rather
extortionate."
"I think you are right," I answered. "I used to give in to the talk about
the pricelessness of the right of suffrage, and the denunciation of those
whom any stress of poverty could induce to sell it for money, but from
the point of view to which you have brought me this morning I am inclined
to think that the fellows who sold their votes had a far clearer idea of
the sham of our so-called popular government, as limited to the class of
functions I have described, than any of the rest of us did, and that if
they were wrong it was, as you suggest, in asking too high a price."
"But who paid for the votes?"
"You are a merciless cross-examiner," I said. "The classes which had an
interest in controling the government--that is, the capitalists and the
office-seekers--did the buying. The capitalists advanced the money
necessary to procure the election of the office-seekers on the
understanding that when elected the latter should do what the capitalists
wanted. But I ought not to give you the impression that the bulk of the
votes were bought outright. That would have been too open a confession of
the sham of popular government as well as too expensive. The money
contributed by the capitalists to procure the election of the
office-seekers was mainly expended to influence the people by indirect
means. Immense sums under the name of campaign funds were raised for this
purpose and used in innumerable devices, such as fireworks, oratory,
processions, brass bands, barbecues, and all sorts of devices, the object
of which was to galvanize the people to a sufficient degree of interest
in the election to go through the motion of voting. Nobody who has not
actually witnessed a nineteenth-century American election could even
begin to imagine the grotesqueness of the spectacle."
"It seems, then," said Edith, "that the capitalists not only carried on
the economic government as their special province, but also practically
managed the machinery of the political government as well."
"Oh, yes, the capitalists could not have got along at all without control
of the political government. Congress, the Legislatures, and the city
councils were quite necessary as instruments for putting through their
schemes. Moreover, in order to protect themselves and their property
against popular outbreaks, it was highly needful that they should have
the police, the courts, and the soldiers devoted to their interests, and
the President, Governors, and mayors at their beck."
"But I thought the President, the Governors, and Legislatures represented
the people who voted for them."
"Bless your heart! no, why should they? It was to the capitalists and not
to the people that they owed the opportunity of officeholding. The people
who voted had little choice for whom they should vote. That question was
determined by the political party organizations, which were beggars to
the capitalists for pecuniary support. No man who was opposed to
capitalist interests was permitted the opportunity as a candidate to
appeal to the people. For a public official to support the people's
interest as against that of the capitalists would be a sure way of
sacrificing his career. You must remember, if you would understand how
absolutely the capitalists controled the Government, that a President,
Governor, or mayor, or member of the municipal, State, or national
council, was only temporarily a servant of the people or dependent on
their favour. His public position he held only from election to election,
and rarely long. His permanent, lifelong, and all-controling interest,
like that of us all, was his livelihood, and that was dependent, not on
the applause of the people, but the favor and patronage of capital, and
this he could not afford to imperil in the pursuit of the bubbles of
popularity. These circumstances, even if there had been no instances of
direct bribery, sufficiently explained why our politicians and
officeholders with few exceptions were vassals and tools of the
capitalists. The lawyers, who, on account of the complexities of our
system, were almost the only class competent for public business, were
especially and directly dependent upon the patronage of the great
capitalistic interests for their living."
"But why did not the people elect officials and representatives of their
own class, who would look out for the interests of the masses?"
"There was no assurance that they would be more faithful. Their very
poverty would make them the more liable to money temptation; and the
poor, you must remember, although so much more pitiable, were not morally
any better than the rich. Then, too--and that was the most important
reason why the masses of the people, who were poor, did not send men of
their class to represent them--poverty as a rule implied ignorance, and
therefore practical inability, even where the intention was good. As soon
as the poor man developed intelligence he had every temptation to desert
his class and seek the patronage of capital."
Edith remained silent and thoughtful for some moments.
"Really," she said, finally, "it seems that the reason I could not
understand the so-called popular system of government in your day is that
I was trying to find out what part the people had in it, and it appears
that they had no part at all."
"You are getting on famously," I exclaimed. "Undoubtedly the confusion of
terms in our political system is rather calculated to puzzle one at
first, but if you only grasp firmly the vital point that the rule of the
rich, the supremacy of capital and its interests, as against those of the
people at large, was the central principle of our system, to which every
other interest was made subservient, you will have the key that clears up
every mystery."