The questions which I needed to ask before I could acquire even an
outline acquaintance with the institutions of the twentieth century
being endless, and Dr. Leete's good-nature appearing equally so, we
sat up talking for several hours after the ladies left us. Reminding
my host of the point at which our talk had broken off that morning, I
expressed my curiosity to learn how the organization of the industrial
army was made to afford a sufficient stimulus to diligence in the lack
of any anxiety on the worker's part as to his livelihood.
"You must understand in the first place," replied the doctor, "that
the supply of incentives to effort is but one of the objects sought in
the organization we have adopted for the army. The other, and equally
important, is to secure for the file-leaders and captains of the
force, and the great officers of the nation, men of proven abilities,
who are pledged by their own careers to hold their followers up to
their highest standard of performance and permit no lagging. With a
view to these two ends the industrial army is organized. First comes
the unclassified grade of common laborers, men of all work, to which
all recruits during their first three years belong. This grade is a
sort of school, and a very strict one, in which the young men are
taught habits of obedience, subordination, and devotion to duty. While
the miscellaneous nature of the work done by this force prevents the
systematic grading of the workers which is afterwards possible, yet
individual records are kept, and excellence receives distinction
corresponding with the penalties that negligence incurs. It is not,
however, policy with us to permit youthful recklessness or
indiscretion, when not deeply culpable, to handicap the future careers
of young men, and all who have passed through the unclassified grade
without serious disgrace have an equal opportunity to choose the life
employment they have most liking for. Having selected this, they enter
upon it as apprentices. The length of the apprenticeship naturally
differs in different occupations. At the end of it the apprentice
becomes a full workman, and a member of his trade or guild. Now not
only are the individual records of the apprentices for ability and
industry strictly kept, and excellence distinguished by suitable
distinctions, but upon the average of his record during apprenticeship
the standing given the apprentice among the full workmen depends.
"While the internal organizations of different industries, mechanical
and agricultural, differ according to their peculiar conditions, they
agree in a general division of their workers into first, second, and
third grades, according to ability, and these grades are in many cases
subdivided into first and second classes. According to his standing as
an apprentice a young man is assigned his place as a first, second, or
third grade worker. Of course only young men of unusual ability pass
directly from apprenticeship into the first grade of the workers. The
most fall into the lower grades, working up as they grow more
experienced, at the periodical regradings. These regradings take place
in each industry at intervals corresponding with the length of the
apprenticeship to that industry, so that merit never need wait long to
rise, nor can any rest on past achievements unless they would drop
into a lower rank. One of the notable advantages of a high grading is
the privilege it gives the worker in electing which of the various
branches or processes of his industry he will follow as his specialty.
Of course it is not intended that any of these processes shall be
disproportionately arduous, but there is often much difference between
them, and the privilege of election is accordingly highly prized. So
far as possible, indeed, the preferences even of the poorest workmen
are considered in assigning them their line of work, because not only
their happiness but their usefulness is thus enhanced. While, however,
the wish of the lower grade man is consulted so far as the exigencies
of the service permit, he is considered only after the upper grade men
have been provided for, and often he has to put up with second or
third choice, or even with an arbitrary assignment when help is
needed. This privilege of election attends every regrading, and when a
man loses his grade he also risks having to exchange the sort of work
he likes for some other less to his taste. The results of each
regrading, giving the standing of every man in his industry, are
gazetted in the public prints, and those who have won promotion since
the last regrading receive the nation's thanks and are publicly
invested with the badge of their new rank."
"What may this badge be?" I asked.
"Every industry has its emblematic device," replied Dr. Leete, "and
this, in the shape of a metallic badge so small that you might not see
it unless you knew where to look, is all the insignia which the men of
the army wear, except where public convenience demands a distinctive
uniform. This badge is the same in form for all grades of industry,
but while the badge of the third grade is iron, that of the second
grade is silver, and that of the first is gilt.
"Apart from the grand incentive to endeavor afforded by the fact that
the high places in the nation are open only to the highest class men,
and that rank in the army constitutes the only mode of social
distinction for the vast majority who are not aspirants in art,
literature, and the professions, various incitements of a minor, but
perhaps equally effective, sort are provided in the form of special
privileges and immunities in the way of discipline, which the superior
class men enjoy. These, while intended to be as little as possible
invidious to the less successful, have the effect of keeping
constantly before every man's mind the great desirability of attaining
the grade next above his own.
"It is obviously important that not only the good but also the
indifferent and poor workmen should be able to cherish the ambition of
rising. Indeed, the number of the latter being so much greater, it is
even more essential that the ranking system should not operate to
discourage them than that it should stimulate the others. It is to
this end that the grades are divided into classes. The grades as well
as the classes being made numerically equal at each regrading, there
is not at any time, counting out the officers and the unclassified and
apprentice grades, over one-ninth of the industrial army in the lowest
class, and most of this number are recent apprentices, all of whom
expect to rise. Those who remain during the entire term of service in
the lowest class are but a trifling fraction of the industrial army,
and likely to be as deficient in sensibility to their position as in
ability to better it.
"It is not even necessary that a worker should win promotion to a
higher grade to have at least a taste of glory. While promotion
requires a general excellence of record as a worker, honorable
mention and various sorts of prizes are awarded for excellence less
than sufficient for promotion, and also for special feats and single
performances in the various industries. There are many minor
distinctions of standing, not only within the grades but within the
classes, each of which acts as a spur to the efforts of a group. It is
intended that no form of merit shall wholly fail of recognition.
"As for actual neglect of work, positively bad work, or other overt
remissness on the part of men incapable of generous motives, the
discipline of the industrial army is far too strict to allow anything
whatever of the sort. A man able to do duty, and persistently
refusing, is sentenced to solitary imprisonment on bread and water
till he consents.
"The lowest grade of the officers of the industrial army, that of
assistant foremen or lieutenants, is appointed out of men who have
held their place for two years in the first class of the first grade.
Where this leaves too large a range of choice, only the first group of
this class are eligible. No one thus comes to the point of commanding
men until he is about thirty years old. After a man becomes an
officer, his rating of course no longer depends on the efficiency of
his own work, but on that of his men. The foremen are appointed from
among the assistant foremen, by the same exercise of discretion
limited to a small eligible class. In the appointments to the still
higher grades another principle is introduced, which it would take
too much time to explain now.
"Of course such a system of grading as I have described would have
been impracticable applied to the small industrial concerns of your
day, in some of which there were hardly enough employees to have left
one apiece for the classes. You must remember that, under the national
organization of labor, all industries are carried on by great bodies
of men, many of your farms or shops being combined as one. It is also
owing solely to the vast scale on which each industry is organized,
with coördinate establishments in every part of the country, that we
are able by exchanges and transfers to fit every man so nearly with
the sort of work he can do best.
"And now, Mr. West, I will leave it to you, on the bare outline of its
features which I have given, if those who need special incentives to
do their best are likely to lack them under our system. Does it not
seem to you that men who found themselves obliged, whether they wished
or not, to work, would under such a system be strongly impelled to do
their best?"
I replied that it seemed to me the incentives offered were, if any
objection were to be made, too strong; that the pace set for the young
men was too hot; and such, indeed, I would add with deference, still
remains my opinion, now that by longer residence among you I have
become better acquainted with the whole subject.
Dr. Leete, however, desired me to reflect, and I am ready to say that
it is perhaps a sufficient reply to my objection, that the worker's
livelihood is in no way dependent on his ranking, and anxiety for that
never embitters his disappointments; that the working hours are short,
the vacations regular, and that all emulation ceases at forty-five,
with the attainment of middle life.
"There are two or three other points I ought to refer to," he added,
"to prevent your getting mistaken impressions. In the first place, you
must understand that this system of preferment given the more
efficient workers over the less so, in no way contravenes the
fundamental idea of our social system, that all who do their best are
equally deserving, whether that best be great or small. I have shown
that the system is arranged to encourage the weaker as well as the
stronger with the hope of rising, while the fact that the stronger are
selected for the leaders is in no way a reflection upon the weaker,
but in the interest of the common weal.
"Do not imagine, either, because emulation is given free play as an
incentive under our system, that we deem it a motive likely to appeal
to the nobler sort of men, or worthy of them. Such as these find their
motives within, not without, and measure their duty by their own
endowments, not by those of others. So long as their achievement is
proportioned to their powers, they would consider it preposterous to
expect praise or blame because it chanced to be great or small. To
such natures emulation appears philosophically absurd, and despicable
in a moral aspect by its substitution of envy for admiration, and
exultation for regret, in one's attitude toward the successes and the
failures of others.
"But all men, even in the last year of the twentieth century, are not
of this high order, and the incentives to endeavor requisite for those
who are not must be of a sort adapted to their inferior natures. For
these, then, emulation of the keenest edge is provided as a constant
spur. Those who need this motive will feel it. Those who are above its
influence do not need it.
"I should not fail to mention," resumed the doctor, "that for those
too deficient in mental or bodily strength to be fairly graded with
the main body of workers, we have a separate grade, unconnected with
the others,--a sort of invalid corps, the members of which are
provided with a light class of tasks fitted to their strength. All our
sick in mind and body, all our deaf and dumb, and lame and blind and
crippled, and even our insane, belong to this invalid corps, and bear
its insignia. The strongest often do nearly a man's work, the
feeblest, of course, nothing; but none who can do anything are willing
quite to give up. In their lucid intervals, even our insane are eager
to do what they can."
"That is a pretty idea of the invalid corps," I said. "Even a
barbarian from the nineteenth century can appreciate that. It is a
very graceful way of disguising charity, and must be grateful to the
feelings of its recipients."
"Charity!" repeated Dr. Leete. "Did you suppose that we consider the
incapable class we are talking of objects of charity?"
"Why, naturally," I said, "inasmuch as they are incapable of
self-support."
But here the doctor took me up quickly.
"Who is capable of self-support?" he demanded. "There is no such thing
in a civilized society as self-support. In a state of society so
barbarous as not even to know family coöperation, each individual may
possibly support himself, though even then for a part of his life
only; but from the moment that men begin to live together, and
constitute even the rudest sort of society, self-support becomes
impossible. As men grow more civilized, and the subdivision of
occupations and services is carried out, a complex mutual dependence
becomes the universal rule. Every man, however solitary may seem his
occupation, is a member of a vast industrial partnership, as large as
the nation, as large as humanity. The necessity of mutual dependence
should imply the duty and guarantee of mutual support; and that it did
not in your day constituted the essential cruelty and unreason of your
system."
"That may all be so," I replied, "but it does not touch the case of
those who are unable to contribute anything to the product of
industry."
"Surely I told you this morning, at least I thought I did," replied
Dr. Leete, "that the right of a man to maintenance at the nation's
table depends on the fact that he is a man, and not on the amount of
health and strength he may have, so long as he does his best."
"You said so," I answered, "but I supposed the rule applied only to
the workers of different ability. Does it also hold of those who can
do nothing at all?"
"Are they not also men?"
"I am to understand, then, that the lame, the blind, the sick, and the
impotent, are as well off as the most efficient, and have the same
income?"
"Certainly," was the reply.
"The idea of charity on such a scale," I answered, "would have made
our most enthusiastic philanthropists gasp."
"If you had a sick brother at home," replied Dr. Leete, "unable to
work, would you feed him on less dainty food, and lodge and clothe him
more poorly, than yourself? More likely far, you would give him the
preference; nor would you think of calling it charity. Would not the
word, in that connection, fill you with indignation?"
"Of course," I replied; "but the cases are not parallel. There is a
sense, no doubt, in which all men are brothers; but this general sort
of brotherhood is not to be compared, except for rhetorical purposes,
to the brotherhood of blood, either as to its sentiment or its
obligations."
"There speaks the nineteenth century!" exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Ah, Mr.
West, there is no doubt as to the length of time that you slept. If I
were to give you, in one sentence, a key to what may seem the
mysteries of our civilization as compared with that of your age, I
should say that it is the fact that the solidarity of the race and the
brotherhood of man, which to you were but fine phrases, are, to our
thinking and feeling, ties as real and as vital as physical
fraternity.
"But even setting that consideration aside, I do not see why it so
surprises you that those who cannot work are conceded the full right
to live on the produce of those who can. Even in your day, the duty of
military service for the protection of the nation, to which our
industrial service corresponds, while obligatory on those able to
discharge it, did not operate to deprive of the privileges of
citizenship those who were unable. They stayed at home, and were
protected by those who fought, and nobody questioned their right to
be, or thought less of them. So, now, the requirement of industrial
service from those able to render it does not operate to deprive of
the privileges of citizenship, which now implies the citizen's
maintenance, him who cannot work. The worker is not a citizen because
he works, but works because he is a citizen. As you recognize the duty
of the strong to fight for the weak, we, now that fighting is gone by,
recognize his duty to work for him.
"A solution which leaves an unaccounted-for residuum is no solution at
all; and our solution of the problem of human society would have been
none at all had it left the lame, the sick, and the blind outside with
the beasts, to fare as they might. Better far have left the strong and
well unprovided for than these burdened ones, toward whom every heart
must yearn, and for whom ease of mind and body should be provided, if
for no others. Therefore it is, as I told you this morning, that the
title of every man, woman, and child to the means of existence rests
on no basis less plain, broad, and simple than the fact that they are
fellows of one race--members of one human family. The only coin
current is the image of God, and that is good for all we have.
"I think there is no feature of the civilization of your epoch so
repugnant to modern ideas as the neglect with which you treated your
dependent classes. Even if you had no pity, no feeling of brotherhood,
how was it that you did not see that you were robbing the incapable
class of their plain right in leaving them unprovided for?"
"I don't quite follow you there," I said. "I admit the claim of this
class to our pity, but how could they who produced nothing claim a
share of the product as a right?"
"How happened it," was Dr. Leete's reply, "that your workers were able
to produce more than so many savages would have done? Was it not
wholly on account of the heritage of the past knowledge and
achievements of the race, the machinery of society, thousands of years
in contriving, found by you ready-made to your hand? How did you come
to be possessors of this knowledge and this machinery, which represent
nine parts to one contributed by yourself in the value of your
product? You inherited it, did you not? And were not these others,
these unfortunate and crippled brothers whom you cast out, joint
inheritors, co-heirs with you? What did you do with their share? Did
you not rob them when you put them off with crusts, who were entitled
to sit with the heirs, and did you not add insult to robbery when you
called the crusts charity?
"Ah, Mr. West," Dr. Leete continued, as I did not respond, "what I do
not understand is, setting aside all considerations either of justice
or brotherly feeling toward the crippled and defective, how the
workers of your day could have had any heart for their work, knowing
that their children, or grand-children, if unfortunate, would be
deprived of the comforts and even necessities of life. It is a mystery
how men with children could favor a system under which they were
rewarded beyond those less endowed with bodily strength or mental
power. For, by the same discrimination by which the father profited,
the son, for whom he would give his life, being perchance weaker than
others, might be reduced to crusts and beggary. How men dared leave
children behind them, I have never been able to understand."
NOTE.--Although in his talk on the previous evening Dr. Leete
had emphasized the pains taken to enable every man to
ascertain and follow his natural bent in choosing an
occupation, it was not till I learned that the worker's
income is the same in all occupations that I realized how
absolutely he may be counted on to do so, and thus, by
selecting the harness which sets most lightly on himself,
find that in which he can pull best. The failure of my age in
any systematic or effective way to develop and utilize the
natural aptitudes of men for the industries and intellectual
avocations was one of the great wastes, as well as one of the
most common causes of unhappiness in that time. The vast
majority of my contemporaries, though nominally free to do
so, never really chose their occupations at all, but were
forced by circumstances into work for which they were
relatively inefficient, because not naturally fitted for it.
The rich, in this respect, had little advantage over the
poor. The latter, indeed, being generally deprived of
education, had no opportunity even to ascertain the natural
aptitudes they might have, and on account of their poverty
were unable to develop them by cultivation even when
ascertained. The liberal and technical professions, except by
favorable accident, were shut to them, to their own great
loss and that of the nation. On the other hand, the
well-to-do, although they could command education and
opportunity, were scarcely less hampered by social prejudice,
which forbade them to pursue manual avocations, even when
adapted to them, and destined them, whether fit or unfit, to
the professions, thus wasting many an excellent
handicraftsman. Mercenary considerations, tempting men to
pursue money-making occupations for which they were unfit,
instead of less remunerative employments for which they were
fit, were responsible for another vast perversion of talent.
All these things now are changed. Equal education and
opportunity must needs bring to light whatever aptitudes a
man has, and neither social prejudices nor mercenary
considerations hamper him in the choice of his life work.