It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which
shall be worth doing and which should be done under such conditions
as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious. Turn this
claim about as I may, think of it as long as I can, I cannot find
that it is an exorbitant claim.--_William Morris._
On the 18th of last May, while in a small restaurant on Fifth Avenue, in
Chicago, my attention was attracted by a large number of men who had
congregated on both sides of the street in front of the office of the
Chicago _Daily News_. In answer to my inquiry, a gentleman at my side
explained that these men were waiting to see the "Want" column of the
_News_, in the hope of being able to secure work. "It is an old, old
story," he continued. "Day after day crowds of men gather here and
anxiously wait for the _News_ to appear, as this paper contains more
'Want' advertisements than any other Chicago daily." I waited until the
boys rushed from the office with the newly printed papers, and saw the
men hurriedly buy copies. I noticed how scores upon scores of eyes
searched the "Help Wanted" columns, and how, one by one, they started in
quest of work. I noticed the countenances of the weary watchers. Among
them were to be seen almost all types of faces, but all, save one, were
anxious, careworn, or stolid. I shuddered as, standing inside the
restaurant unobserved, I beheld this sight of appalling misery and
national shame. The faces of these men have haunted me ever since.
Hunger was there, hate was there, despair was hovering over more than
one countenance. There were wan, dull eyes, wolfish eyes, and eyes
eloquent with mute appeals for kindness. There was the hunted look of a
beast at bay, and the craven expression of a broken spirit. One only
among the throng seemed able to be merry, though his thin face and worn
clothes indicated his wretchedness. The tragedy of these lives remains
with me. I know that this awful condition is unnecessary. I know that a
little more conscience, a little more love, a keener sense of justice,
and a little honest concern for the rights of men and the enduring
welfare of the state, a settled determination to overcome this condition
and place the good of the people and the cause of justice above a
shortsighted policy of selfishness, would change the whole aspect of
things, now so ominous, so menacing, and so essentially unjust. This
panorama of exiled industry, seeking vainly for employment, may be
witnessed from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
I am not of that number who can regard these spectacles with
indifference, nor can I feel, as do some others, that because the
present order is essentially unjust in its practical workings it is well
to turn a cold shoulder to movements calculated to arrest the downward
drift of life and lessen the unfathomable misery of the poor in order
that the crisis may be hastened. For while I believe that the present
order is as surely outgrown as was feudalism in the sixteenth century,
and though I believe most profoundly that this order must pass away or
civilization perish, as have perished the civilizations of former ages,
yet I also appreciate the fact, which to me is very important, that the
only way to bring about the revolution peaceably is, first, to educate
the brain and touch the conscience of the people; and, second, to check
the growing bitterness and hate in the hearts of our unfortunates by
giving them employment and treating them with justice and humanity. If a
crisis is precipitated, fed by blind hate and a bitterness born of a
consciousness of injustice long endured, it will assume the form of an
uncontrollable storm, a blind, passionate outburst, in which the guiding
influences of reason, judgment, and conscience will be absent. It will
spread devastation in all directions, destroying the innocent as well as
the guilty. If, on the other hand, we push forward an intelligent
educational agitation, appealing to the judgment, the conscience, and
the sense of right in the people, and at the same time supply means for
maintaining self-respecting manhood among the unemployed until this
waiting time is over, our civilization will move onward without the
crash or shock of force, the destruction of property, and the loss of
life incident to all struggles in which physical force and blind passion
dominate. It is necessary to examine this problem on the side of human
dignity and on the side of national life. The question of utility,
though of far less concern in its ultimate effect on conditions, has
also an important place in the discussion.
Only under conditions which are fundamentally unjust, and only where the
finer sensibilities of man have been blinded and deadened, could it be
possible to witness the spectacle of millions of men and women begging
for work, and begging in vain, in a nation of fabulous wealth and almost
boundless resources; and yet such a condition prevails in our republic
to-day. It is, therefore, time for every patriotic citizen to lay aside
all partisan contentions and face this great question as we would face
any great danger which suddenly came upon the nation, not as partisans,
but as patriots; not as warring factions seeking victory for some
special body or party, but as men and women who have the welfare of the
race at heart, and who appreciate the gravity of the situation. It is
the eternal law of recompense that when justice is long denied and the
rights of man are systematically ignored, though the sufferers may
Samson-like crush themselves in the ruins of the temple, yet the temple
and its inmates also must fall. Or if by some chance the ruin comes not
through the strength of the burdened ones, it will nevertheless come
with unerring certainty, and not unfrequently through the very excesses
of those who have hardened their hearts against the cry of justice.
Such is the interdependence of the units in national life that a wrong
committed against one injures the whole people; and when that wrong is
inflicted upon a large number of the units, and is of long duration, its
fatal effects become very apparent. You cannot crush a finger or a toe
without causing your whole body to suffer in consequence. You may
disregard the hurt, you may ignore the wound until mortification sets
in, but the result means death or the loss of one of the most valuable
members of your body. It is precisely so with national life; for such is
the divine economy, such the inevitable law of progress, that only by
conscious recognition of human brotherhood, and of the rights and
obligations which it implies, can any nation or civilization move onward
and upward without those great periods of depression and decline which
too frequently end in total eclipse.
Shortsighted, indeed, is that policy which places gold above manhood.
When lust for gain stifles the voice of conscience, and the cry of the
disinherited is heard throughout a land of marvellous wealth, a nation
is confronted by a deadly peril which calls for a supreme effort on the
part of every man and woman of conviction.
It is useless to close our eyes to the fact that the rising tide of
bitterness is turning into hate, and that hate darkens the eye of
judgment, obscures reason, and deadens conscience. A few years ago, when
I wrote a brief paper on the menace of the unemployed, I was assured
that the deplorable condition then present was temporary, that in a few
months at most it would be a thing of the past, and that therefore it
was not a problem calling for the intervention of the government; but
to-day there are far more unemployed than there were then. The problem
is assuming gigantic proportions, and the instincts of self-preservation
second the demand of humanity in calling for immediate measures for the
relief and the maintenance of self-respecting manhood. Whenever a
workingman becomes a tramp or sinks into the social cellar, as tens of
thousands are now doing, the nation suffers a real injury. Present
conditions call for prompt action. The unemployed must receive that
succor which will in no conventional sense be charity, but which will
elevate instead of degrade. And this can be done by the state allowing
those armies of men who now unwillingly represent unproductive labor to
become armies for increasing the wealth of the country, by extending the
productive area of the nation's domain, and by providing against the
ruin which constantly menaces tens of thousands of industrious people in
such a way as to stimulate business in all its ramifications by placing
in circulation the equivalents for the work performed and the wealth
earned. The ancient Romans understood the importance of having great
works substantially built. The mighty highways which centred in the
Eternal City, and the great public works which contributed so much to
the comfort and happiness and grandeur of Rome, while not constructed
with a view to affording employment to the unemployed, were wise
measures for the benefit of the state, and it is safe to say that no
expenditures were more serviceable or contributed more to the greatness
and essential wealth of the empire, save the money spent in the
patronage of education.
The ancient Peruvians went further. They argued that the happiness,
welfare, and prosperity of one was the concern of all. They banished
poverty by giving every person productive work, and by their system
transformed every foot of tillable land into productive gardens,
enabling them to support in affluence an immense population, only a
small fraction of which could have subsisted under conditions such as
prevail with us. In our country to-day we have vast areas of useless
land, only waiting to be transformed into tillable acres second in
richness to no land in the country. To-day we have necessary work in the
way of internal improvements which is imperatively demanded, and which,
but for the slothfulness and indifference of our government, would be
performed, thereby enormously increasing the wealth of the nation; while
the performing of the same would give productive employment to millions
of idle hands.
A striking illustration of the criminal neglect and shortsightedness of
our government was seen this last spring in the devastation created by
the floods in the Mississippi Valley, rendered possible through the
inadequate levee system. Here the losses to crops and in stock killed
are said to have been considerably over twelve million dollars, to say
nothing of the enormous outlay which will be required to patch up the
levees and make the devastated farms again habitable. This great loss
would have been averted had the government acted upon the suggestions
which I made some years ago in a paper on "Emergency Measures for
Maintaining Self-respecting Manhood," in which it was shown that a
permanent levee was practicable, and could be built in such a way as to
resist the floods, reclaim many hundreds of thousands of acres of rich
land, and protect millions of dollars' worth of property which is now
under a yearly menace through danger of floods.
In this enterprise, which I shall again touch upon, we have a striking
illustration of a practicable work which would immediately increase the
national wealth far beyond the outlay required, while it would also
change an army of idle consumers into an army of wealth-producers.
But as I wish to consider this question more at length a little later,
I now pass on to a brief notice of the vast tracts of land in the West,
which have not yet fallen into the clutches of land syndicates, and
which for a comparatively small outlay by proper irrigation could be
transformed into garden spots. Take, for example, the State of Nevada.
Here we find immense tracts of arid land, representing millions of
acres, which to-day are unproductive for lack of moisture, but which,
wherever irrigation has been introduced, have been transformed into
wonderfully productive garden land. Mr. William M. Smythe, in the April
_Forum_, has given some very interesting facts in regard to the
agricultural resources of Nevada, from which we summarize the following:
The most painstaking and systematic inquiry, however, ever made
with regard to the extent of her water supply resulted in the
conclusion that at least 6,000,000 acres of rich soil could be
irrigated. The commission of 1893 reported twenty lakes and sixteen
rivers of importance, which with minor streams and springs could be
made to irrigate upward of 5,000,000 acres; and artesian wells
would bring up the total to the figure above named. It should be
borne in mind that the splendid agricultural prosperity of Colorado
and Utah is based upon a cultivated area of only about 2,000,000
acres. It seems, then, that, so far as her agricultural
capabilities are concerned, Nevada might sustain at least as many
people as do Utah and Colorado put together, at their present stage
of development. The products of the irrigated lands of Nevada are
the fruits, the vegetables, cereals, and grasses of the temperate
zone, and, in the extreme southern portions, the more delicate
products of the semi-tropics, such as figs, olives, pomegranates,
almonds, Madeira walnuts, and, in sheltered places, even oranges.
When we add that Nevada, like all parts of the arid plateau, is
distinguished for pure dry air, an extraordinary amount of
sunshine, and consequently a very high degree of healthfulness, it
can be scarcely maintained that the state is destitute of
attractions.
What is true in regard to the possibilities of Nevada is true of large
areas of land in other Western States and Territories. It must be
remembered that irrigated land can be relied upon to yield bountiful
crops with practical regularity, as the water-supply is ever present,
while for most persons the fine pure air in these high regions is
peculiarly healthful and invigorating. Thus the great West still offers
millions of acres of exceedingly productive land which can be
transformed into gardens and made to increase the national wealth by
untold millions if the government will treat these tracts as any wise or
thrifty private owner would treat them. If the government or the various
commonwealths would take all the available land which can be irrigated
and give to the unemployed work at fair wages until the great desert
tracts become fertile areas, the national or state domain would be
enormously increased in wealth at a relatively small cost through the
wise employment of the now paralyzed hand of industry.
Returning to the question of the Mississippi river, let our national
government build a permanent levee, which, like the great highways of
ancient Rome, should be built to endure for generations.
"There are," says ex-Governor Lionel Sheldon, "over twenty-three
million acres exposed to overflow from the mouth of the Ohio to the
Gulf of Mexico. The productive power of these lands is not excelled
in any part of the world, and by proper cultivation they would
annually add many hundreds of millions of dollars to the national
wealth and afford profitable employment for several hundreds of
thousands of people."
Eminent engineers who have examined the levees under the auspices of the
Mississippi river commissioners, agree that the problem is one which can
be successfully solved if a sufficient amount is appropriated for so
gigantic an undertaking, which would require substantial uniformity in
the width of the channel of the river by building spurs and dikes at
points where the Mississippi is too wide, the proper riveting of the
banks wherever caving is likely to occur, together with the building of
permanent levees of a height and strength sufficient to confine the
waters in the channel. It is stated that since 1865 the cost of repairs
has amounted to considerably over forty million dollars, yet owing to
the fact that this work is of a temporary character the benefits which
would be derived from a permanent levee are lost, and every few years
the floods necessitate fresh expenditures of vast sums of money. Hence
this patchwork policy is shortsighted and in the long run the most
expensive. The carrying out of a comprehensive plan for permanent
improvements by the erection of impregnable levees and the governing of
the currents by dikes and spurs, would give us a territory, now
absolutely useless, which would annually add hundreds of millions of
dollars to our national wealth.
The great arid plains of the West and the levees of the Mississippi are
merely examples of internal improvements of a perfectly legitimate
character which could be undertaken most properly by the general
government, under Sec. VIII of the Constitution, which authorizes the
"raising of revenue to pay the debts and provide for the common defence
and the _general welfare_ of the United States." By such internal
improvements as those mentioned above the nation's wealth would be
increased to a far greater extent than by the amount of outlay required
for the completion of the work, while these enterprises would at once
give productive employment to our millions of out-of-works, and this
army of employed would put into immediate circulation large sums of
money which would at once stimulate business through all its
ramifications and bring about the long-hoped-for good times.
But at the very threshold of the discussion we are met with the
declaration that we have no money in the Treasury with which to carry on
these great projects. Before answering this objection I wish to point
out the fact that we have millions of dollars to spend for a useless
navy, a navy which in the hands of our senile government does not
protect the life or the property of American citizens, a navy which is a
constant and an enormous expense. While almost unlimited sums can be
raised for the building and equipment of battleships, we have not a
dollar to aid honest industry to maintain self-respecting manhood by
engaging in works which would add immensely to the real wealth of the
nation.
And, again, before pointing out how this money could be raised, I would
call attention to the fact that this cry is by no means a new one. It
was raised, and with much more show of foundation, during the dark hours
of the early sixties, but the great Civil War exploded the fallacy. One
would think that in the presence of the stupendous facts connected with
the conduct of our Civil War, even if the question of the value to the
state of an independent, contented, and prosperous manhood should be
left out of consideration, the shallowness of the objection would be so
apparent that it would have no weight with thoughtful persons. Let us
not forget that there was a time in the history of our country when the
Treasury of our government was empty, a time of great national peril
when gold had fled across the seas or into the vaults of the bankers
and usurers, as it ever flees in time of danger, when public credit was
greatly impaired by the presence of war within our borders and a strong
probability that even if the national government escaped overthrow a
large number of the States would become an independent nation. In this
crisis we had men in charge of the government who were statesmen, men
great enough to rise to the emergency of the hour. Now, if we were able
under such conditions to carry to a successful termination the most
expensive and memorable civil war of modern times by the aid of the
greenback, surely there would be no risk in resorting to a similar
medium of exchange for the carrying on of a work which would immediately
add to the nation's resources and free from the bondage of involuntary
idleness a large army of men who are now a burden to society and a
danger to stable government.
If, however, the fiction by which bondholders enslave the people still
holds such power over our legislators and the public mind that the
menace of the growing army of unemployed, the injury to the state by the
enforced degradation of her children, and the continued unproductivity
of both soil and industry must go on unless a concession is made, it
would be wiser to make the concession than to let the crime against
manhood continue. I therefore suggest that bonds on the land to be
reclaimed be issued to the amount of the national notes used for these
great works in redeeming the now useless land. The bonds issued against
these lands could be cancelled as the lands were sold. I do not for a
moment hold that this is necessary. I only advance this suggestion in
case the prejudice fostered by selfish and interested classes might
otherwise defeat a work of such inconceivable importance.
The inevitable result which would follow such wise, statesmanlike, and
humane proceedings on the part of the government may be briefly
summarized as follows:
Through this judicious, far-sighted, and enlightened course the
government would, first, so strengthen and intrench herself in the
hearts of the people that armories and militia would be little needed
against the menace of lawlessness _within our borders_, while this wise
solicitude and care for the welfare of her citizens would make millions
of persons, who to-day have little or no love for a nation which is
indifferent to their manly cry for work, loyal defenders of the flag. By
such a broad, wise, and just course the United States would do more than
she could in any other way to render herself impregnable in time of
danger. Second, by affording millions of her citizens the opportunity to
engage in productive work she would utilize a vast amount of idle energy
in adding to the permanent wealth of the nation, and the state would be
fulfilling the noble function of government to promote justice, increase
happiness, and ennoble citizenship. She would be restoring hope and the
spirit of independent manhood to her children, and so would prevent a
great increase in beggary, in degradation, and in crime, which must
inevitably follow unless present conditions are radically changed. From
an economic point of view the government would be far richer through the
amount saved from what otherwise would be required to provide prisons,
poorhouses, and court expenses. Third, it would add vastly to the
nation's wealth in increasing by untold millions the annual product of
real wealth, while it would also supply homes for millions of
home-seekers. Fourth, it would bring prosperity to America.
Let us suppose three millions of those now idle should be thus enabled
to engage in productive work, there would then be placed in circulation
each week from five to ten million dollars more money than there is now,
and it would be paid out in small amounts, so that the bulk of it would
instantly go into general circulation. The men would not only purchase
for their own needs, but would send a part of their earnings to their
loved ones, who would thus be able to do what they cannot now do--buy
coal, wood, groceries, and, indeed, life's various necessaries. The
prices of the farmer's crops would naturally rise, and he in turn would
be able to increase his buildings and purchase more machinery. The
increased demand for clothing would raise the price of wool and cotton,
while it would start up the factories without any resort to artificial
measures, such as levying a tax on imported goods.
The difference between present hard times and low prices and good times
and high prices would be illustrated in this way: To-day millions of our
people are idle, a load and an expense; they cannot buy what they need
at any price, for they have nothing to buy with. Millions of others
have to curtail in every way, frequently doing without many needed
things, for times are such that it is impossible for them to do more
than barely subsist. Now, the millions who to-day buy nothing, because
they have nothing to buy with, under these provisions for internal
improvements would soon be buying regularly, because they would have the
wherewithal to buy. They would gladly pay the farmer, manufacturer, and
merchant more than what they now ask because they would have something
to buy with, while to-day they have nothing; and those other millions
who are curtailing expenses to the last degree would gladly pay the
increased amount, for all lines of productive business would receive an
impetus from the great addition to the circulating medium put forth as a
result of the productive work being carried on. Now, our tariff taxes
may put up prices for the favored classes, but they thereby increase the
burdens of all save those who are enabled to gain added wealth from the
taxes imposed on the millions who are yet able to buy, while the small
increase in the demand for work, so long as millions are unable to buy
what is made, would make but little impression on the vast army of
unemployed.
_A tariff tax is a burden to the millions, stimulating prices
artificially, and benefiting chiefly the very wealthy._ But the plan for
internal improvements here outlined would give all ablebodied men
productive work which would benefit the nation far more than the amount
of the outlay involved, and afford time for the general work of
education, by which justice and equitable conditions could be brought
about, to proceed. Those who love peace, those who would see mankind
elevated and the wealth of the nation preserved and increased, should
favor this great palliative movement for maintaining self-respecting
manhood, for enriching the nation's resources, and for insuring
prosperity in the quickest and most healthful manner possible.