(1) In the Homestead industrial civil wa_War—What For?

received $5 per day and expenses for murdering Carnegie steel workers.

(2) The Carnegie Company furnished the Russian Government steel armor

for warships at about one-half the price the same company

_patriotically_ charged Carnegie’s own dear, dear country.

(3) “Our records show that the companies governed by Mr. Carnegie

received more rebates [_in anarchistic defiance of his country’s

laws_] during the time when rebates were given by our road, than any

other shipper in any line of business.”—First Vice-President Green of

the Pennsylvania Railway Company. Quoted in the New York

_Independent_.

(4) This same crafty gentleman recently provided enormous old-age

pension funds for college and university professors. This will perhaps

tightly seal the lips of thousands of teachers on the raging civil war

in industry in which war Carnegie is already a blood-stained tzar.

Fearing to lose their old age pensions, teachers may find it easier

and more “respectable” to desert the working class in its struggle

against the capitalist class—Carnegie’s class. (See Index: “Hague

Peace Conference”; also Chapter Two, pages 24–25.)

Footnote 313:

“If, however, there occurs some general industrial disturbance of a

serious sort, such as a condition of over-production, ... it is likely

to turn out that these _vocational_ groupings will be weakened or even

destroyed. In their place the _economic classes_ will enter the

_political_ arena, and carry on the conflict with great energy.... It

may be that the standard of life of an industrial class may be so

seriously threatened that this class struggle will reach the extreme

of absolute hostility.”—Professor Albion W. Small, Head of Department

of Sociology, University of Chicago: _General Sociology_, p. 264.

Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 314:

Reread first page of Preface.

Footnote 315:

William E. Gladstone.

Footnote 316:

“... Non-resistance would be fatal.... If ever war is done away, it

will be when the spirit of aggression, not of protection, shall have

been quenched.”—Lester F. Ward: _Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., p. 684.

Footnote 317:

See Chapter Seven, Section 12.

Footnote 318:

William Howard Taft: _Present-Day Problems_, pp. 162–63:—

“... It is also true that had the Elkins bill never been passed, the

same acts could and doubtless would have been prosecuted ... under the

Interstate Commerce Act of 1889 which the Elkins law supplanted....

Under the 1889 amendment, however, the individuals convicted could

have been sent to the penitentiary, whereas under the Elkins Act the

punishment by imprisonment was taken away.... The chief effect of the

Elkins law had on these particular prosecutions ... was ... to save

the guilty individual perpetrators from imprisonment.

“It was well understood that the Elkins bill was passed without

opposition by, and with the full consent of, the railroads, and the

chief reason was the elimination of the penitentiary penalty for

unjust discriminations.... The imprisonment of two or three prominent

officers of a railway company, or a trust ... would have greater

deterrent effect for the future than millions in a fine.”

Theodore Roosevelt knows a good deal about the capitalist class. He

wrote on pages 5, 6, 9, 10 of his book, _American Ideals_, as follows:

“The people that do harm in the end are not the wrong-doer whom _all_

execrate.... The career of Benedict Arnold has done us no harm as a

nation.... The foes of order harm quite as much by example as by what

they actually accomplish. So it is with the _equally dangerous

criminals of the wealthy classes_. The conscienceless stock speculator

who acquires wealth by swindling his fellows, by debauching judges,

and corrupting legislatures, and who ends his days with the reputation

of being among the richest men in America, exerts over the minds of

the rising generation an influence _worse than that of the average

murderer or bandit_, because his career is even more dazzling in its

success, and even more dangerous in its effects upon the community.

Any one who reads the essays of Charles Francis Adams and Henry Adams,

entitled _A Chapter of Erie_, and the _Gold Conspiracy in New York_,

will read about the doings of men whose influence for evil upon the

community is more potent than that of any band of anarchists or train

robbers.... Too much cannot be said against men who sacrifice

everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble

character than the mere money getting American, insensible to every

duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a

fortune ... whether ... to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads

himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive

idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high

social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. _Such a man is

only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like

founding a college or endowing a church_ which makes those good

people, who are also foolish, forget his real iniquity.” Italics mine.

G. R. K.

Footnote 319:

Theodore Roosevelt: in a speech at the State Fair, Minneapolis,

Minnesota, September 3, 1901.

Footnote 320:

“If the public economy of a people be an organism, we must expect to

find that the perturbations, which affect it, present some analogies

to the diseases of the body physical. We may, therefore, hope to learn

much that may be of use in practice, from the tried methods of

medicine.” Roscher: _Political Economy_, Vol. I., pp. 85–86.

Footnote 321:

It must be added for the sake of clearness (and fairness):

(1) That _some_ members of the capitalist class detest the capitalist

system; that these regret their unsocial relation to the social body;

and that while they are living under the capitalist system they are in

somewhat the same difficulty that a democrat is in Russia. One can

_believe_ in democracy in Russia, but he can not _practice_ democracy

under the autocratic form of Russian government. So under Capitalism:

one may believe in industrial democracy, but he cannot practice it

under an industrial despotism.

(2) That some members of present society belong partly to the

capitalist class and partly to the working class.

(_The Theory of the Leisure Class_, a brilliant book by Dr. Thorstein

Veblen, helpful in understanding social parasites, is urged upon the

reader’s attention. Also W. J. Ghent’s _Mass and Class_.)

Footnote 322:

“The government which has the right to do an act and has imposed upon

it the duty of performing the act, must, according to the dictates of

reason, be permitted to select the means.”—Supreme Court of the United

States, March 7, 1819. See Supreme Court Reports, Vol. 17, pp. 409,

430.

Footnote 323:

_Political Science and Constitutional Law_, Vol. I., p. 87.

Footnote 324:

_Sociology_, pp. 45, 47.

Footnote 325:

“It is the peculiarity of the social struggle that it must be

conducted by a collective whole ... EVERY SOCIETY [OR CLASS] MUST

SECURE SOME SUITABLE ORGAN FOR CONDUCTING THE SOCIAL STRUGGLE.

“Thus the ruling classes, through their parliaments, exercise the

legislative power and are able, by legal institutions, to further

their interests at the cost of others.... Thus the rulers

themselves forge the weapons with which the ruled and powerless

classes successfully attack them and complete the natural

process.”—Gumplowitz: _Outlines of Sociology_, pp. 145–146.

Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 326:

_The Communist Manifesto._

Footnote 327:

Reread Chapter Seven, Section 4.

Footnote 328:

Fearing that the powerful suggestion might reach and rouse the

slumbering working class the _capitalist_ press of the world kept

silent as an oyster on the behavior of the clear-visioned soldiers of

Norway and Sweden. Only the _working_-class press properly reported

the sublime event. (See Challenge, page 206 et seq.)

Footnote 329:

For an excellent and convenient discussion of the Socialist Party’s

opposition to war and militarism, see Werner Sombart’s _Socialism and

the Socialist Movement_, pp. 193–211; Morris Hillquit’s _Socialism in

Theory and Practice_, pp. 296–302.

Footnote 330:

“It is no easy task to detect and follow the tiny paths of progress

which the unencumbered proletarian with nothing but his life and

capacity for labor is pointing out for us. These paths lead to a type

of government founded upon peace and fellowship as contrasted with

restraint and defence.... From the nature of the case, he who would

walk these paths must walk with the poor and oppressed, and can only

approach them through affection and understanding. The ideals of

militarism would forever shut him out from this new fellowship.”—Miss

Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago: _Newer Ideals of Peace_, p. 30.

Footnote 331:

The class who despise you so thoroughly that they would be willing to

have you murdered on the battlefield—_would these hesitate to tell you

a lie?_ Certainly not. And they have lied to you about “different

kinds of Socialism,” “Socialists don’t seem to know what they want,”

etc., etc. But secretly the capitalists are worrying because they know

that the Socialists of all the world _do_ know what they want and also

know how to organize the necessary power to get what they want.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A Short Lesson in the History of the Working Class.

(A very careful distinction should always be made between those who

abuse and those who nobly use great offices and powers.)

“We have repeatedly pointed out that every social institution weaves

a protecting integument of glossy idealization about itself like a

colony of caterpillars in an apple-tree. For instance, wherever

militarism rules, war is idealized by monuments and paintings,

poetry and song. The stench of the hospitals and the maggots of the

battlefield are passed in silence, and the imagination of the people

is filled with waving plumes and the shout of charging

columns.”—Professor Walter Rauschenbusch, Rochester Theological

Seminary.[332]

KNOWLEDGE OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORKING CLASS, WHICH INCLUDES THE

HISTORY OF WAR, WILL CEMENT THE WORKERS INSEPARABLY TOGETHER—SOCIALLY,

INDUSTRIALLY AND POLITICALLY, AND WILL THUS MANY TIMES MULTIPLY THEIR

POWER FOR SELF-DEFENSE.

When the working class understand the history of the working class, a

bronze monument erected in honor of a great general will look to the

workers like a vote of thanks to the Superintendent of Hell, and an

ornamental cannon in a public park will look like a viper on a banquet

table spread for a feast of brothers.

In the public schools of the world the history of the working class is

almost wholly neglected. No text-book gives the facts, and no teacher is

permitted to tell the truth—clearly—about the martyrdom of labor since

the dawn of class-form, “civilized” society. The union labor men and

women of the world could with great advantage to the working class

devote a few thousand dollars for the expense of a five-hundred-page

book summarizing: The History of Labor—The Tragedy of Toil.

(At this point please reread first two pages of the preface of the

present volume.)

The following pages are offered as suggestions for a half-hour lesson

chiefly on the origin of the working class. It is suggested to the

working class reader that he teach this lesson to the children of his

family and of his neighborhood.

Now, no living thing can be understood without a study of its history,

and the study of the history of a living thing requires special

attention to the origin of the thing studied. The working class are a

living reality, and in order to understand themselves the working class

must study their class history—with the very special attention to their

origin as a class.

Long, long ago—thousands of years ago—our ancestors lived in tribes.

These tribes grew, expanded till finally the pressure of population

forced the tribes to enlarge their territories; and thus the tribes

trespassed—aggressed upon one another’s territory.

This caused wars—intertribal wars.

This was the origin of war.

This led to the opening of hell—for the workers.

After a while a working class arose—and began to fall into hell. Here is

the way it came about:

For a long time in these intertribal wars it was the practice to take no

prisoners (except the younger women), but to kill, kill, kill, because

the conquerors had no use for the captive men. When, however, society

had developed industrially to a stage enabling the victors to make use

of live men as work animals, _that new industrial condition produced a

new idea_—one of the greatest and most revolutionary ideas that ever

flashed in the human brain; and that idea was simply this:—A live man is

worth more than a dead one, if you can make use of him _as a work

animal_. When industrially it became practicable for the conquerors to

make use of live men captured in war, it rapidly became the custom to

take prisoners, save them alive, beat them into submission—tame them—and

thus have them for work animals, human work animals.

Here the human ox, yoked to the burdens of the world, started through

the centuries, centuries sad with tears and red with blood and fire.

Thus originated a class of workers, the _working class_.

Thus also originated the _ruling_ class. Thus originated the “leading

citizens.”

Thus, originally, in war, the workers fell into the bottomless gulf of

misery. It was thus that war opened wide the devouring jaws of hell for

the workers.

Thus was human society long ago divided into industrial classes,—into

_two_ industrial classes.

Of course the interests of these two classes were in fundamental

conflict, and thus originated the class struggle.

Of course the ruling class were in complete possession and control of

all the powers of government—and of course they had _sense enough to use

the powers of government to defend their own class interests_.

Of course the ruling class made all the laws and controlled all

institutions in the interest of the ruling class—naturally.

Of course the ruling class socially despised the slaves—that is,

despised the working class; this “upper” class felt contempt for the

“lower” class—naturally; and thus originated the social degradation, the

social stigma that still sticks to the working class, so clearly clings

to the workers that, for example, the banker’s daughter does not marry

the wage-earning carpenter; the mine-owner’s son does not marry the

wage-earning house-maid; the rank and file of union labor are not

welcome in the palatial parlors and ball-rooms where the “very best

people” are sipping the best champagne and are rhythmically hugging

themselves in the dance; the servants, both white and black, in a

high-grade (high class, “upper” class) hotel are not even permitted to

take a drink of water at the guests’ water fountain tho’ the guest-list

may include scores of blasé old reprobates, scores of polygamous

parasites, scores of the most infamous, dollar-lusting, law-breaking

disreputables in the world. The working class are indeed even yet openly

or secretly despised socially by their “betters.”

It was thus and there and then that, long ago, _in war_, originated the

first class-labor form of society, the institution called slavery.[333]

A class of despised human work animals and a class of domineering

masters thus appeared; and these two classes developed, this METHOD OF

PRODUCTION developed, to such vast proportions that this CLASS-labor

system became the FUNDAMENTAL THING IN THE INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE OF

SOCIETY. It was in this manner that, long ago, one part of society

climbed upon the shoulders of the other part of society and became

parasites, social parasites, and as a class sunk their parasitic beaks

into the industrial flesh of those who had become a working class.

(Reread carefully the three quotations at the head of Chapter Ten. They

are specially important.)

Of course the industrial blood of the workers tasted good to the

masters—that is to say, the more work the slaves did the less work the

masters had to do,—and that was lovely, for the masters, for the

“leading citizens.” The “leading citizens” knew they had a bright

idea—just like a “leading citizen’s” idea of course. The new idea became

popular, extremely so—of course. The “leading citizens” were _so_

pleased—with themselves and their “brainy” idea. They were “superior”

people—their idea proved that, of course. At that point in human history

a ruling class began to flatter themselves and talk in a loud and

handsome manner about “the _best_ people,” “the _right to ride inferior

people_,” “the progressive, enterprising part of society,” and so forth.

The “leading citizens” knew very well that they had a “good thing”—for

the “leading citizens,” for the upper class who thus became _so very

pleasantly located as an upper class_—that is, upon the industrial

shoulders of the “lower class,” the working class. (Note carefully the

quotation from Dr. Ward at Head of Chapter Ten.)

Very naturally the ruling class at once busied themselves _promoting and

protecting_ their new class-work plan, their new idea. The idea was

_their_ idea and it was such a splendid idea. Indeed slavery was such a

perfectly delightful idea—for the rulers—that, being “gentlemen of push

and enterprise,” they _eagerly studied the problem of developing ways

and means of extending their new advantage_. They thought. They

planned—to manage the new human mule.

Their first idea was—force.

Kick the mule—and rule.

An institution, an _armed_ guard, was, therefore, promptly organized for

holding down the slaves, the “lower class,” by force,—to hold the

toilers, as it were, by the wrists. But an armed guard was expensive,

and it was expensive simply because _one_ armed guard could not hold

_many_ slaves to their tasks—by force. Now, the ancient slave-holding

ruling class, like the modern capitalist ruling class, were, of course,

eager to “reduce expenses and increase efficiency.” Thus the rulers had

another idea, a big bright idea. Mark well the masters.

Their second idea was—fraud.

Fool the mule—and rule.

The brilliant idea of using _fraud_ in ruling slaves, that is, in ruling

the working class, was simply this: to have an _unarmed_ guard _teach_

the human horse to “stand hitched,” as it were, or, rather, to work like

a trained horse without requiring an armed driver to whip him, to force

him to his tasks. This unarmed guard was to hold the workers to their

tasks by getting a grip on their minds, on their brains, rather than on

their wrists.

This was more “refined.”

This was also much cheaper. _This method has always been cheaper._ It is

cheaper for this reason: One _unarmed_ deceiver acting as a guard by

holding the mind, the _brain_, of the workers, can hold to their tasks

_hundreds of times as many_ as one _armed_ guard can hold by force. This

was a most happy idea—for the ruling class.

A new era opened.

The ruler smiled at the deceiver. The deceiver smiled at the ruler. They

understood—each other, and agreed upon “_the best interests of

society_.”

Precisely so.[334]

Here originated the vile rôle of the intellectual prostitute, the cheap

part of the chloroformer of the working class, the contemptible business

of the professional palaverer. Here, right at this point in human

history, the perfumed intellectual prostitute joined the blood-stained

soldier,—in the ruler’s service of _holding down the robbed and ruined

working class_. The palaverer taught the toil-cursed workers to be

obedient and grateful and humble and meek and lowly and contented, to

“forget it” that they have poverty here and keep in mind that “it will

be all right over there”—“up above” (over in behind beyond the stars)

where they will be “richly rewarded, in the sweet bye and bye, for all

their sufferings in this world”; taught them that they should not be

“resentful,” but “in patience bear all sufferings,”—bear even the agony

of having their daughters raped by rulers, and their sons run through

with spears.

Thus the toiler was kept in his “proper place” (at work) by the soldier

and the palaverer, compelling and cajoling the domesticated human work

animal.

They held him fast.

One seized his wrists, the other seized his reason; one used force, the

other used fraud; one used a lash, the other used a lure; one used a

club, the other used chloroform; one frowned threateningly, the other

smiled seductively. With curses and cunning these two have taught the

toiler LAW AND ORDER—THE LAW AND THE ORDER MADE BY THE MASTERS FOR THE

MASTERS.

Both guards were “necessary”—in the business of robbing the working

class. Both have served the ruling class long and well. Through the long

sad centuries these three, the ruler and his two “standbys,” the soldier

and the palaverer, have ridden the human beast of burden, the working

class. The mailed fist of the hired assassin and the soft voice of the

bribed palaverer have held the worker utterly helpless while the ruler

robbed him.

Both guards have been rewarded—with provender and flattery, with pelf

and popularity. The whipper and the wheedler of the toiler, the slayer

and the seducer of the working class, have been the specially petted

patriots whose ignoble rôle has been to help defend the class-labor

system.

The workers have been kicked and tricked for ten thousand years, but

chiefly tricked, _betrayed into helpless consent and stupid approval_.

The more fraud the less force.

_Undoubtedly far more important than the physical conquest over the

working class was the conquest over the mind of the working class.

Undoubtedly the idea of teaching the slave to be a slave and to be

satisfied with slavery and thus make the slave, the serf, the

wage-earner, an_ AUTOMATIC _human ox to bear and draw the burdens of the

world in brainless obedience and dull humility—undoubtedly that idea has

done more solid service in the successes of injustice than any other

idea ever born in the brain of tyrants_.

The ruling class have always carefully secured the services of many of

the world’s ablest men to play Judas to the carpenters—to the working

class. Profound men, gifted men, trained men, eloquent men, enjoying the

world’s choicest food, blissfully happy with the world’s finest wine,

living in homes of comfort and splendor, dressed in softest raiment,

many of these have traduced the slave, the serf and the wage-earner

without shame. Tho’ the splendid Christ said: “The _truth_ shall make

_you free_,” these Judases have taught the working class that learning

is a useless or an evil thing for the _working_ people;[335] that the

toilers’ poverty is the will of God, that unrewarded toil in this world

would reap a “_specially_ rich reward beyond the grave.” These paid and

powerful human things, palavering about the “dignity of honest toil,”

palavering about the “joy of the hope of good things beyond” (always

_beyond_)—these themselves have been practical and careful to take

cash-down-good-things for their collect-on-delivery services, careful to

take a rich and prompt reward _here_ and _now_ in _this_ world, while at

the very same time they were advising and urging the slave, the serf,

and the wage-earner to accept unsigned cheques payable in heaven.

Always this for the worker: “_Your_ turn will come _next_”—that is, in

the next world.

Following this vanishing lure, hundreds of millions of toilers have, as

it were, walked barefoot on broken glass and lain down in their beds of

misery _mentally paralyzed on the subject of justice_. Hundreds of

millions of toilers have not only accepted these teachings; but, saddest

of all, have been tricked into teaching these same things to their

children.

Thus it was that almost the entire working class were tamed and trained

for many centuries into spineless meekness, into the docility of

humility—helpless—policed by prejudice and fear founded on _shrewdly

perpetuated ignorance_.

“Slaves, obey your masters,” has been taught in a thousand ways for ten

thousand years by the stuffed prophets for the profit-stuffed rulers of

the robbed and ruined workers of the world.

This perhaps will make it somewhat easier to understand the _present

intellectual condition of the working class_. It thus becomes easier to

understand why the workers were taught (and are taught now) to be

“satisfied with their lot,” taught the “identity and harmony of

interests of capital and labor.” This explains the meekness of the

multitude, the docility of the majority, and their _political modesty_.

Sheepish meekness, self-contempt and prideless obedience long ago took

the place of defiant and splendid rebellious self-respect—in the

_character_ and the _thinking_ of the working class.

In every possible way the shackles have been riveted to the wrists and

brains of the working class—what for?—_in order to perpetuate the

class-labor system_. Under slavery, under serfdom and under capitalism,

laws, constitutions, customs, religious teachings, secular teachings,

and all the social institutions have been _shrewdly conformed or

adjusted to_ THE PREVAILING METHOD OF PRODUCTION for the PROTECTION of

that method of production _in order thus to_ SUPPORT THE CLASS _who, in

the struggle for existence, have had_ GROSSLY UNFAIR ADVANTAGE BY MEANS

OF THAT METHOD OF PRODUCTION.[336]

Ferocious _wrongs_ were studiously developed into vast _institutions_.

For example, man-stealing and slave-breeding became the chief business

of the mightiest of the ancient pagan societies, the Roman Empire, and

was also a flourishing enterprise under the most highly developed modern

Christian societies, the British Empire and the American Republic.

Christian Queen Anne, of England, unrebuked by her “spiritual adviser,”

was a pious stockholder in a slave-hunting corporation composed of

prominent and pious Christian ladies and gentlemen.[337] The Christian

churches, colleges, newspapers, of the United States not long ago, North

and South, were almost unanimous in their eloquent and pious defense of

human slavery.[338] The business was eminently respectable, the business

of legally (and piously) sucking the industrial blood out of one’s

fellowmen—living like a parasite,—the business of producing nothing and

living upon the results of the worker’s labor-power.

Thus keep in mind:[339]

(1) The origin of the working class,

(2) The origin of the first class-labor system,

(3) The origin of the class struggle,

(4) The origin of the social degradation, the socially “down-and-out”

condition, the loss of social standing—of the working class people,

(5) The origin and growth of the humility of the working class, of the

sheepish meekness of the working class, the meekness which today shows

itself in the politics of most working men—always suspecting and

despising their own working-class political party, always in our day

tagging along after some smooth, well-dressed crook candidates on

capitalist class party tickets.

(6) The perpetuation of ignorance—in the working class.

(7) The origin of the intellectual prostitute, the moral emasculate.

Now, help your satisfied fellow worker, help _him_ understand _why he is

satisfied_.

Without malice, without anti-culture prejudice, without anti-religious

hatred, without anti-church spite, but _with knowledge of the

naturalness of human behavior domineered by economic necessity_, with

knowledge of the great _historical process_, with your vision clear,

your heart kind, your courage high, and your purpose fraternal—explain,

explain this matter of meekness to your humble, contented wage-slave

neighbor. Explain: That long ago the working man was forced and taught

to be docile and meek. Under slavery, later under serfdom and still

later under capitalism—for thousands of years—he industrially, socially,

and politically _surrendered_. He was compelled to do so. He was taught

to do so.

He got the habit.

He had the manhood and the courage beaten out of him, kicked out of

him—and coaxed out of him.

He lost heart.

He humbly took his place—as a chattel-slave class, as a serf-slave

class, as a wage-slave class.

He has produced wealth.

He has reproduced slaves.

_The wings of his aspiration have been clipped._ He can hope no higher

than a job—for himself. He hopes no higher than a job—for his children.

The top of the plans of his life is—toil.

And therefore even now as a wage-slave he teaches his own children to

“respect their betters”—their employer masters.

He forgets.

He is so cringingly grateful for a job that he forgets he should have

not only the right to breathe the air, the right to look at the sun, the

right to read in the library, the right to walk on the highway, and the

right to sit in the park,—but also the _right to work_, _the right to

work unrobbed_, _the right to work under dignifying conditions_, and

thus maintain himself on this earth at the _upmost levels of life_,

enjoying the full result of his applied labor power,—and _without

whining for permission to do so_.

He forgets.

He is still so very humble.

He is, under the wage-system, forced to obey orders all his life in the

factory, the shop and the mine. He is thus habitually so obedient that

he will obey any order. He prides himself on his obedience. Under orders

he will even plunge a bayonet into the breast of his fellow workers—in

the interest of the capitalist class. He forgets the thousand wrongs

thrust into his weary life and into the life of his class.

He does indeed forget.

He is still in a dull, dumb slumber.

But he is _beginning to rouse_ from the slumber of meekness—from the

social damnation of brainless obedience.

_He is beginning to study the history of his own working class; and

therefore he is rousing, waking, rising._

Following are some additional short paragraphs on the history of the

working class from books by distinguished writers and teachers. It is

hoped that these quoted paragraphs will induce further working class

study of working class history. These passages confirm the main points

of this lesson. (See Chapter Twelve, Suggestion 4.)

Professor Lester F. Ward (Brown University):[340]

“Still, the world has never reached a stage where the physical and

temporal interests have not been largely in the ascendant, and it is

these upon which the economists have established their science.

_Self-preservation has always been the first law of nature_ and that

which best insures this is the greatest gain.... _All considerations

of pride or self-respect will give way to the imperious law of the

greatest gain for the least effort._ All notions of justice which

would prompt the giving of an equivalent _vanish_ before it....”

Thus wrote Sir Henry Maine:[341]

“The simple wish to use the bodily powers of another person, as a

means of ministering to one’s own ease or pleasure, is doubtless the

foundation of slavery.”

And thus Professor W. G. Sumner (Yale University):[342]

“The desire to get ease or other good by the labor of another and

the incidental gratification to vanity seem to be the fundamental

principles of slavery, when philosophically regarded, after the rule

of one man over others has become established.... It appears that

slavery began historically with the war captive, if he or she was

not put to death, as he was liable to be by the laws of war.... It

seems to be established that it [slavery] began where the economic

system was such that there was gain in making a slave of a war

captive, instead of killing him.... The defeated [in war] were

forced to it [slavery] and _learned to submit to it_.... It seemed

to be good fun, as well as wise policy, to make the members of a

rival out-group do these tasks, after defeating them in war....

Inasmuch as slavery springs from greed and vanity, it appeals to

primary motives and is at once entwined with selfishness and other

fundamental vices.... _It rises to an interest which overrules

everything else_.... The motive of slavery is base and cruel from

the beginning.... The _interests_ normally control life.... Slavery

is an instinct which is sure to break over all restraints and

correctives.... It is a kind of _pitfall for civilization_.”

Here are a few lines from Professors Ely and Wicker (University of

Wisconsin, Department of Economics):[343]

“It follows from the need of larger territories [in the hunting

stage] that war becomes an economic necessity wherever there is not

an abundance of unoccupied land. This same condition of things gives

us one of the causes of cannibalism. The pressure of increasing

numbers bringing people continually to the verge of starvation, they

fall, little by little, into the custom of eating enemies, taken in

war.... Captives later came to be recognized as of use in serving

their captors, and thus slavery succeeds cannibalism....

“The Origin of a Working Class. Perhaps the most important result of

the change which produced the agricultural stage was the growth of

slavery as an institution. As we have said, slavery had its

beginnings in the preceding periods [hunting and pastoral], but it

is only in the agricultural stage that it becomes an important,

almost a fundamental, economic institution. Tending the herds did

not call for persistent labor, but the prose of tilling the soil is

undisguised work, and primitive men were not fond of work.... It is

not strange then that they should have saved the lives of men

conquered in battle with the design of putting upon them the tasks

of tilling the soil.”

On the origin of slavery the eminent French sociologist, Gabriel Tarde,

writes:[344]

“What do all our modern inventions amount to in comparison with this

capital invention of domestication. This was the first decisive

victory over animality. Now, of all historic events the greatest and

most surprising is, unquestionably, the one which alone made history

possible, the triumph of man over surrounding fauna [animals of the

region].... To us the trained horse that is docile under the bit is

merely a certain muscular force under our control.... The idea of

reducing men to slavery, instead of killing and eating them, must

have arisen after the idea of training animals instead of feeding on

them, for the same reason that war against wild beasts must have

preceded that against alien tribes. When man enslaved and

domesticated his own kind, he substituted the idea of human beasts

of burden for that of human prey.”

And this from Wallis:[345]

“But whatever its merits, the consideration of slavery introduces a

much larger subject—the place of class relations in social

development as a whole. In its material aspect, property in men is

an institution by means of which one class of people appropriates

the labor product of another class without economic repayment. _This

relation is brought about [also] by other institutions than

slavery._ For instance, if a class engross the land of a country and

force the remainder of the population to pay rent, either in kind or

in money, for the use of the soil, such a procedure issues, like

slavery, in the absorption of labor products by an upper class

without economic repayment.

“We have observed the origin of the social cleavage into upper and

lower strata on this general basis at the inception of social

development. If we scrutinize the field carefully, it is evident

that one of the greatest and far reaching facts of ancient

civilization, as it emerges from the darkness of prehistoric times,

as well as one of the most considerable facts of subsequent history

is just _this cleavage into two principal classes_.”

Herbert Spencer has written:[346]

“The sequence of slavery upon war in ancient times is shown us in

the chronicle of all races....

“Ready obedience to a terrestrial ruler is naturally accompanied by

ready obedience to a supposed celestial ruler; ... Examination

discloses a relation between ecclesiastical and political

governments ... and in societies which have developed a highly

coercive secular rule there habitually exists a high coercive

religious rule....

“The Clergy were not the men who urged the abolition of slavery, nor

the men who condemned regulations which raised the price of bread to

maintain rents. Ministers of religion do not _as a body_ denounce

the unjust aggression we continually commit on weaker societies.”

Dr. Ward writes:[347]

“Passing over robbery and theft, which, though prevalent everywhere,

are not recognized by society, let us consider war for a moment as a

non-industrial mode of acquisition. In modern times, most wars have

some pretext besides that of aggrandizing the victorious parties

engaged in them, although in nearly all cases this latter is the

real casus belli [justification of war]. This shows that the world

is so far advanced as to be ashamed of its motives for its conduct,

but not enough so to affect that conduct materially. In olden times

no secret was made of the object of military expeditions as the

acquisition of the wealth of the conquered people.... We may regard

war, then, strictly considered, as a mode of acquisition.... War,

then, when waged for conquest, is simply robbery on so large a scale

that in the crude conceptions of men it arouses the sentiments of

honor.”

In Dealy and Ward’s _Text Book of Sociology_, pp. 86–88, is this

luminous passage:

“The stage of race antagonism is reached and the era of war begins.

The chase for animal food is converted into a chase for human flesh,

and anthropophagous [cannibal] races arise, spreading terror in all

directions.... The use of the bodies of the weaker races for food

was, of course, the simplest form of exploitation to suggest itself.

But this stage was succeeded by that social assimilation through

conquest and subjugation. The profound inequality produced by

subjugation was turned to account through other forms of

exploitation. The women and the warriors were enslaved, and the

system of caste that arose converted the conquered race into a

virtually servile class, while this service and the exemptions it

entailed converted the leaders of the conquering race into a leisure

class.

“Such was the origin of slavery, an economic institution which is

found in the earlier stages of all the historical races.”

The next selected paragraph is from Professor Simon Patten (University

of Pennsylvania), Ex-President of the American Academy of Political and

Social Science:[348]

“The human hordes turned upon each other, and their prowlings about

the precarious supplies of food evolved in the course of time the

‘wars of civilization.’ There was little peace where nature was most

productive, and the conquering populations of the better lands,

governing and protecting by conquest, built up whole states on the

traditions and practice of fighting.... _Statesmen and philosophers

set forth the necessity and beneficence of destruction. It was in

such a world, where a man’s death was his neighbor’s gain, that_ OUR

_social institutions were grounded_.... Predatory habits, which

originated in the hunting of game, developed a zest for hunting men

as soon as conquests and the possession of slaves made the

agricultural resources of the valleys more desirable than those of

the mountain or upland plain.... The contests evolved social

institutions, which do perpetuate and conserve, and which do not

improve, man’s adjustment to nature. Here arises the distinction

between the _social_ institutions ... and the _economic_

institutions.... The former establish status and the rights of

possession and exploitation; the other increase nobility of men and

goods, promote industry, and give each generation renewed power to

establish itself in closer relations with nature.

“The result of these conditions is two kinds of obstacles that

hinder advance. On the one hand are the obstacles economic,

maladjustments between man and _nature_, which forced men in the

past to submit to a poverty they did not know how to escape; and on

the other hand are the obstacles _social_ which do not originate in

nature, but in those _past [social] conditions retaining present

potency_ that have aligned men into antagonistic classes at home and

into hostile races abroad. The _economic_ obstacles are being slowly

weakened by the application of knowledge, science and skill; but the

_social_ obstacles will never be overcome until an intellectual

revolution shall have freed men’s minds from the stultifying social

traditions that hand down hatreds, and shall have given to thought

the freedom that now makes industrial activity. _The extension of

civilization downward does not depend at present so much upon

gaining fresh victories over nature, as it does upon the

demolishment of social obstacles which divide men into classes and

prevent the universal democracy that unimpeded economic forces would

bring about._ The _social_ status, properly determined by a man’s

working capacity, has now _intervened between him and his relations

with nature_ until OPPORTUNITY, which should be impersonal and

self-renewed at the birth of a man, has dwindled and become

partisan.”[349]

Thus Professor Patten, tho’ a conservative and a nonsocialist, frankly

points out the necessity of such social reorganization as will destroy

the _artificial_ barriers to equality of opportunity for each to secure

an abundance. And it is certainly true, as Dr. Patten suggests, that we

have arrived at that stage in our knowledge of nature and in our

industrial evolution, which renders industrial reconstruction of society

logically necessary—both to avoid war and to secure industrial justice

and freedom for the working class.

Anent this matter one of America’s noblest and most scholarly women,

Miss Jane Addams, writes as follows:[350]

“Existing commerce has long ago reached its international stage, but

it has been the result of business aggression, and constantly

appeals for military defense and for the forcing of new markets....

It has logically lent itself to warfare, and is indeed the modern

representative of conquest. As its prototype rested upon slavery and

vassalage, so this commerce is founded upon a contempt for the

worker, and believes that he can live on low wages. It assumes that

his legitimate wants are the animal ones, comprising merely food and

shelter and the cost of its replacement.”

Frederic Harrison thus:[351]

“Within our social system there rages the struggle of classes,

interests, and ambitions; the passion for wealth, the restlessness

of want. The future of industry, the cause of education, social

justice, the very life of the poor, all tremble in the balance in

our own country, as in other countries; this way or that way will

decide the well-being of generations to come.”

The wars of long ago originated because it was extremely _difficult_ to

get a living out of nature’s store-house of supplies—when men were

ignorant of nature’s resources and ignorant of how to make nature yield

abundantly. Those wars were due chiefly to ignorance of physical nature,

due to our _inability to get into right relations_ WITH PHYSICAL NATURE.

But the wars of the present are carried on, and the wars of the future

will be carried on, chiefly because of the following _combination_ of

circumstances:

(a) We have so much knowledge of nature’s forces and resources that it

is easy, now, to get livings from nature’s store-house, easy to produce

abundantly; and

(b) Under the _wage_-system the worker’s power to produce abundantly is

so much greater than his permitted consuming power that the surplus

product becomes so large as to make a foreign market, a world-market,

necessary; and,

approaching this stage of development in production, yet still remain

under the wage-and-profit plan of distribution, THE WORLD MARKET IS

INSUFFICIENT FOR ALL OF THEM.

Hence there will be wars, if the working class permit them.

The future wars will be due chiefly to ignorance of social nature, due

to our _inability to get into right relations_ WITH ONE ANOTHER

_industrially_.

War produced slavery, chattel slavery. Chattel slavery evolved into

serf-slavery. Serf-slavery evolved into wage-slavery. And wage-slaves

produce so much and are permitted to consume so small a proportion of

what they produce, that the capitalists must order the wage-slaves to

fight for a foreign market for what the wage-slaves produce and the

capitalist employers do not consume or invest and the wage-slaves are

not permitted to consume. War thus originated slavery and now slavery

[wage-slavery] ends in war.

_War, conflict, struggle, Antagonism is in the social structure wherever

there is slavery._

Slavery is fundamentally unsocial—anti-social.

Now, the capitalist employer insists that the wage-earner and the

employer are in _proper_ relation to each other. The capitalist is

satisfied to have had the first two class-labor forms of society

(slavery and serfdom) pass away. But he accepts the _present_

class-labor form of society (the wage-system) as _correct_; it is

satisfactory—to him. And he craftily has it taught in the high schools,

colleges and universities that the employer and the wage-earner are at

present in proper relation to each other.

The capitalist enjoys his own freedom _at the expense of the worker’s

freedom_.

He is eager to have the wage-earner _believe_ that he too is free; and

that, being free, he should be satisfied AND KEEP QUIET.

The capitalists explain that the wage-earners are free because the

wage-earners have the _privilege of making a contract_, a contract to

_work for wages_; that the wage-earners being thus at last free to make

a contract, they have reached their final status, an ideal status; and

that thus (Blessed be the Lord!) _evolution has finally finished its

great work_—the work is done and _well_ done.

_Capitalists and the intellectual flunkies of the capitalist class do

all possible to have the world believe the following proposition_:

THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RELATIONS IS FINISHED—PERFECT—IN INDUSTRY; AND,

THEREFORE, THE WAGE-EARNERS ARE FOOLISH AND UNGRATEFUL TO BE

DISCONTENTED, AFTER HAVING DEVELOPED TO THEIR PRESENT STAGE OF

INDUSTRIAL FREEDOM.

Following is a sample of the familiar soothing congratulation on our

having reached the present noble form of industrial freedom and

civilization. Professor Fairbanks (Yale University) writes thus:[352]

“When captives taken in war could be utilized for work instead of

being destroyed or eaten, a genuine means of production was

secured.... Feudalism marked a decided advance on slavery.... The

serf had certain interests of his own, not wholly identical with his

lord’s.... Then masters gradually learned that hired labor [the

wage-system] was more profitable than forced labor, and the

principle of serfdom, like that of slavery before it, had to give

way to a higher form of organization for production [the

wage-system]....

“The laborer [at present under the wage-system] is bound to his

master by no tie except such as he voluntarily assumes.”

How frankly profits are admitted to have been the motive inspiring the

origin of the wage-system.

And how entertainingly ridiculous is the last proposition quoted above.

What cheap palavering about freedom. What clownish antics pleasing to

the kings—the industrial kings. It certainly pleases the industrial

Caesars to have the Professor turn intellectual somersaults to induce

the wage-slave to smile sweetly and admire the slave-bands on his own

wrists. Are not those bands plainly marked “_Free_”?

Notice that Professor Fairbanks uses the words “master” and “bound”

in referring to the relation between the employer and the

“free-contracting” wage-earner.

A _free_ man does not _voluntarily_ BIND himself to a _master_.

With the lash of hunger cutting him and the wolf of want at the throats

of his wife and children, the “free-contracting” hired laborer, the

wage-earner, promptly and voluntarily seeks an employer—“master,” and

“voluntarily” “contracts” to produce a dollar’s worth of value for

twenty or forty cents in wages and thus “voluntarily” degrades himself

and thus “voluntarily” submits to have his wife and little children

robbed of the abundant livings he wishes to provide for them. This is

the freedom, the free contract, of the wage-system, the present (the

third) form of _class_-labor system. This _glorious_ freedom of the

modern wage-slave is _easily_ seen in the picture _opposite the

title-page of this book_.

The “freedom” of the wage-earner in thus making a contract, with

starvation behind him, vagrancy laws reaching for him, police, militia,

soldiers, jails and bull-pens ready for him, this freedom is about as

complete as that of a citizen facing an armed and threatening highwayman

who commands, “Hands up!” The wage earner and the held-up citizen are

free to comply, free to surrender and free to be robbed, and _also_ free

to decline _and take the consequences_—all “voluntarily” of course.

NO ONE IS FREE INDEED TILL HE IS FREE IN THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL ACTIVITY

OF LIFE, THE ACTIVITY OF GETTING A LIVING.

In the evolution of mankind the worker has, in some parts of the world,

secured:

Freedom to investigate,

Freedom of thought,

Freedom of assemblage,

Freedom of speech,

Freedom of the press,

Freedom of suffrage—for male workers,

Freedom of political party organization and association.

This indicates the stage at which we have arrived in the development of

freedom for the working class. These _preliminary_ forms of freedom are

_the means with which, if we have pride enough, we shall secure freedom

indeed—freedom in getting a living_, freedom from capitalist employers

who, with soldiers and the lash of starvation, force us into wage

contracts, freedom from the blue-blood social parasites who despise our

common blood in social relations, suck our blood in industrial

relations, and waste our blood in war.[353]

In the evolution of mankind the ancient free barbarian, taken prisoner

in war, loudly and grandly protesting, became a chattel slave without

any kind of freedom; the chattel slave became a serf without industrial

freedom or any other kind in reality and completeness; the serf became a

wage-earner, a wage-slave, without industrial freedom—that is, without

the _fundamental_ freedom, freedom in getting a living. However, in very

recent times the wage-earner has come into the possession of several of

those extremely _important forms of freedom with which he can defend

himself_ as soon as he has sufficient self-respect to do so.

Thus and therefore the QUESTION OF OUR DAY is this:

ARE THE WORKING CLASS PROUD AND KEEN ENOUGH TO USE THE FREEDOM THEY

HAVE, TO SECURE THE FREEDOM THEY NEED MOST—NAMELY, FREEDOM IN INDUSTRY,

FREEDOM IN GETTING A LIVING IN A SOCIALIZED SOCIETY, A SOCIETY WITH

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL, ALL OF US WITH OUR FEET FIRMLY PLANTED

ON THE COLLECTIVELY OWNED INDUSTRIAL FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY, A SOCIETY

OF RATIONAL MUTUALISM, WITH JUSTICE, PLENTY AND PEACE?

Reader, if you are with us in our peaceful struggle to win the world for

the workers, start a fire—in your neighbor’s mind (if he has one)—hand

him a torch, a torch of truth. Let us shake hands and fight—the

enemy—with light.

With the truth we shall halt the galloping cavalry, silence the cannon,

“ground arms,” and close the class struggle—in a co-operative

commonwealth.

With a dollar’s worth of literature you can reach a hundred brains.

It is your move.

-----

Footnote 332:

_Christianity and the Social Crisis_, p. 350.

Footnote 333:

It is true that even before this time woman occupied a servile

position and virtually constituted an industrial class. See August

Bebel’s _Woman—Past, Present and Future_.

Footnote 334:

Professor E. A. Ross (Department of Sociology, University of

Wisconsin) gently hints thus (_Social Control_, p. 86):

“Under the ascendency of the rich and leisured, property becomes more

sacred than persons, moral standards vary with the pecuniary status,

and it is felt that ‘God will think twice before He damns a person of

quality.’”

Footnote 335:

Even great literatures, regarded as divinely inspired and boasted to

be The Truth, have been kept from the _free_ access of the people—the

“plain people,” too plain to _understand_ the literature said to have

_life_ in it. Such literature has been hidden from the people for many

hundreds of years—or “rightly divided” and diluted.

Footnote 336:

The inauguration of human slavery was a profound change in human

relations—the greatest possible “change in circumstances”—down at the

very foundations of society. Vast _fundamental_ changes

resulted—inevitably—in changed, and even _new_, institutions.

“Institutions must change with changing circumstances, since they are

of the nature of an habitual method of responding to stimuli which

these changing circumstances afford.... The institutions are, in

substance, prevalent habits of thought with respect to particular

relations and particular functions of the individual and of the

community....”—Thorstein Veblen: _The Theory of the Leisure Class_, p.

190. See quotation from Dr. Small at the head of Chapter Ten. Also

consult Ross’s _Social Control_.

Footnote 337:

See Thomas’s _History of the United States_, p. 68.

Footnote 338:

See Hyndman: _The Economics of Socialism_, Lecture 1, Methods of

Production.

Footnote 339:

And get these things into the minds of the children. If the teacher at

your nearest school does not know these things, have the children

teach the teacher.

Footnote 340:

_Pure Sociology_, p. 61. Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 341:

_Ancient Law_, p. 164.

Footnote 342:

_Folkways_, pp. 262–3 and 307. Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 343:

_Elementary Economics_, pp. 27–33.

Footnote 344:

_Laws of Imitation_, Parson’s translation, pp. 277–79.

Footnote 345:

_American Journal of Sociology_, May, 1902, pp. 764–65. Italics mine.

G. R. K.

Footnote 346:

_Principles of Sociology_, Vol. III., pp. 84, 92, 148, 448; Appleton’s

Edition, 1899. See also Lester F. Ward: _Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I.,

pp. 287–90. (Italics mine. G. R. K.)

Footnote 347:

_Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., pp. 583–85.

Footnote 348:

_The New Basis of Civilization_, pp. 67, 69. Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 349:

See discussion of parasites in Chapter Ten.

Footnote 350:

_Newer Ideals of Peace_, pp. 115–16.

Footnote 351:

_National and Social Problems_, p. 255.

Footnote 352:

_Introduction to Sociology_, pp. 136–39.

Footnote 353:

For a powerful argument showing the intellectual equality of the

working class and the ruling class see Professor Lester F. Ward’s

_Applied Sociology_. The political foolishness of the working class is

not due to lack of brains, but to lack of books—books that tell the

truth, the truth that clears the vision and rouses the passion for

freedom and points the way.—Suggestions, next chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

(1) In the Homestead industrial civil war, in 1892, Pinkertons