CHAPTER X

THE MEANS OF REALIZATION

Impossible to tell definitely how the change will be brought

about--Possible only to point out tendencies making for Socialism,

and to show how the change _can_ be brought about--Marx's

"catastrophe theory" a lapse into Utopian methods of thought--His

deeper thought--Testimony of Liebknecht--Socialism not to be

reached through a _coup de force_--The political changes necessary

for Socialism--Tendencies making for socialization of

industry--Monopolies, cooeperative societies, the vast extension of

collectivism within the capitalist system--Confiscation or

compensation?--Change to Socialism to be legal and gradual--Engels

and Marx favored compensation--The widow's savings--Elimination of

unearned incomes--Violence not necessary 323

INDEX 339

SOCIALISM

A SUMMARY AND INTERPRETATION OF

SOCIALIST PRINCIPLES

SOCIALISM

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I

It is not a long time since the kindest estimate of Socialism by the

average man was that expressed by Ebenezer Elliott, "the Corn-Law

Rhymer," in the once familiar cynical doggerel:--

"What is a Socialist? One who is willing

To give up his penny and pocket your shilling."

There was another view, brutally unjust and unkind, expressed in

blood-curdling cartoons representing the Socialist as a bomb-throwing

assassin. According to the one view, Socialists were all sordid, envious

creatures, yearning for the

"Equal division of unequal earnings,"

while the other view represented them as ready to enforce this selfish

demand by means of the cowardly weapons of the assassin.

Both these views are now, happily, well-nigh extinct. There is still a

great deal of misconception of the meaning of Socialism; the ignorance

concerning it which is manifested upon every hand is often

disheartening, but neither of these puerile misrepresentations is

commonly encountered in serious discussion. It is true that the average

newspaper editorial confounds Socialism with Anarchism, often enlisting

the prejudice which exists against the most violent forms of Anarchism

in attacking Socialism, though the two systems of thought are

fundamentally opposed to each other; it is likewise true that Socialists

are not infrequently asked to explain their supposed intention to have a

great general "dividing-up day" for the equal distribution of all the

wealth of the nation. The Chancellor of a great American university

returns from a sojourn in Norway, and naively hastens to inform the

world that he has "refuted" Socialism by asking the members of some

poor, struggling sect of Communists what would happen to their scheme of

equality if babies should be born after midnight of the day of the equal

division of wealth!

Recognizing it to be the supreme issue of the age, the Republican Party,

in its national platform,[1] defines Socialism as meaning equality of

ownership as against equality of opportunity, notwithstanding the fact

that every recognized exponent of Socialism would deny that Socialism

means equality of ownership, or that it goes beyond equality of

opportunity; that the voluminous literature of Socialism teems with

unequivocal and unmistakable disavowals of any desire for the periodic

divisions of property and wealth which alone could make equality of

ownership possible for brief periods.

Still, when all this has been said, it must be added that these

criticisms do not represent the attitude of the mass of people toward

the Socialist movement to the same extent as they once did. In serious

discussions of the subject among thinking people it is becoming quite

rare to encounter either of the two criticisms named. Most of those who

seriously and honestly discuss the subject know that modern Socialism

comprehends neither assassination nor the equal division of wealth. The

enormous interest manifested in Socialism during recent years and the

steady growth of the Socialist vote throughout the world bear witness to

the fact that the views expressed in the satirical distich of the poet's

fancy and the blood-curdling cartoon of the artist's invention are no

longer the potent appeals to prejudice they once were.

The reason for the changed attitude of the public toward the Socialist

movement and the Socialist ideal lies in the growth of the movement

itself. There are many who would change the order of this proposition

and say that the growth of the Socialist movement is a result of the

changed attitude of the public mind toward it. In a sense, both views

are right. Obviously, if the public mind had not revised its judgments

somewhat, we should not have attained our present strength and

development; but it is equally obvious that if we had not grown, if we

had remained the small and feeble band we once were, the public mind

would not have revised its judgments much, if at all. It is easy to

enlist prejudice against a small body of men and women when they have no

powerful influence, and to misrepresent and vilify them.

But it is otherwise when that small body has grown into a great body

with far-reaching influence and power. So long as the Socialist movement

in America consisted of a few poor workingmen in two or three of the

largest cities, most of them foreigners, it was very easy for the

average man to accept as true the wildest charges brought against them.

But when the movement grew and developed a powerful organization, with

branches in almost every city, and a well-conducted press of its own, it

became a very different matter. The sixteen years from 1888 to 1904 saw

the Socialist vote in the United States grow steadily from 2068 in the

former year to 442,402 in the latter. Europe and America together had in

1870 only about 30,000 votes, but by 1906 the number had risen to

considerably over 7,000,000. These figures constitute a vital challenge

to the thoughtful and earnest men and women of the world.

It is manifestly impossible for a great world-wide movement, numbering

its adherent by millions, and having for its advocates many of the

foremost thinkers, artists, and poets of the world, to be based upon

either sordid selfishness or murderous hate and envy. If that were true,

if it were possible for such a thing to be true, the most gloomy

forebodings of the pessimist would fall far short of the real measure of

Humanity's impending doom. It is estimated that no less than thirty

million adults are at present enrolled in the ranks of the Socialists

throughout the world, and the number is constantly increasing. This vast

army, drawn from every part of the civilized world, comprising men and

women of all races and creeds, is not motivated by hate or envy, but by

a consciousness that in their hands and the hands of their fellows rests

the power to win greater happiness for themselves. Incidentally, their

unity for this purpose is perhaps the greatest force in the world to-day

making for international peace.

Still, notwithstanding the millions enlisted under the banner of

Socialism, the word is spoken by many with the pallid lips of fear, the

scowl of hate, or the amused shrug of contempt; while in the same land,

people of the same race, facing the same problems and perils, speak it

with glad voices and hopelit eyes. Many a mother crooning over her babe

prays that it may be saved from the Socialism to which another, with

equal mother love, looks as her child's heritage and hope. And with

scholars and statesmen it is much the same. With wonderful unanimity

agreeing that, in the words of Herbert Spencer, "Socialism will come

inevitably, in spite of all opposition," they yet differ in their

estimates of its character and probable effects upon the race quite as

much as the unlearned. One welcomes and another fears; one envies the

unborn generations, another pities. To one the coming of Socialism means

the coming of Human Brotherhood, the long, long quest of Humanity's

choicest spirits; to another it means the enslavement of the world

through fear.

Many years ago Herbert Spencer wrote an article on "The Coming Slavery,"

which conveyed the impression that the great thinker saw what he thought

to be signs of the inevitable triumph of Socialism. All over the world

Socialists were cheered by this admission from their implacable enemy.

In this connection it is worthy of note that Spencer continued to

believe in the inevitability of Socialism. In October, 1905, a

well-known Frenchman, M. G. Davenay, visited Mr. Spencer and had a long

conversation with him on several subjects, Socialism among them. Soon

after his return, he received a letter on the subject from Mr. Spencer,

written in French, which was published in the Paris _Figaro_ a few days

after Mr. Spencer's death in December, 1905, two months or thereabouts

from the time of the interview which called it forth.[2] After some

brief reference to his health, Mr. Spencer wrote: "The opinions I have

delivered here before you, and which you have the liberty to publish,

are briefly these: (1) Socialism will triumph inevitably, in spite of

all opposition; (2) its establishment will be the greatest disaster

which the world has ever known; (3) sooner or later, it will be brought

to an end by a military despotism."

Anything more terrible than this black pessimism which clouded the

latter part of the life of the great thinker, it would be difficult to

imagine. After living his long life of splendid service to the cause of

intellectual progress, and studying as few men have ever done the

history of the race, he went down to his grave fully believing that the

world was doomed to inevitable disaster. How different from the

confidence of the poet,[3] foretelling:--

"A wonderful day a-coming when all shall be better than well."

The last words of the great French Utopist, Saint-Simon, were, "The

future is ours!" And thousands of times his words have been echoed by

those who, believing equally with Herbert Spencer that Socialism must

come, have seen in the prospect only the fulfillment of the age-long

dream of Human Brotherhood. Men as profound as Spencer, and as sincere,

rejoice at the very thing which blanched his cheeks and filled his heart

with fear.

There is, then, a widespread conviction that Socialism will come and, in

coming, vitally affect for good or ill every life. Millions of earnest

men and women have enlisted themselves beneath its banner in various

lands, and their number is steadily growing. In this country, as in

Europe, the spread of Socialism is one of the most evident facts of the

age, and its study is therefore most important. What does it mean, and

what does it promise or threaten, are questions which civic duty

prompts. The day is not far distant when ignorance of Socialism will be

regarded as a disgrace, and neglect of it a civic wrong. No man can

faithfully discharge the responsibilities of his citizenship until he is

able to give an answer to these questions, to meet intelligently the

challenge of Socialism to the age.

II

The word "Socialism" is admittedly one of the noblest and most inspiring

words ever born of human speech. Whatever may be thought of the

principles for which it is the accepted name, or of the political

parties which contend for those principles, no one can dispute the

beauty and moral grandeur of the word itself. I refer not merely, of

course, to its etymology, but rather to its spiritual import. Derived

from the Latin word, _socius_, meaning a comrade, it is, like the word

"mother," for instance, one of those great universal speech symbols

which find their way into every language.

Signifying as it does faith in the comradeship of man as the basis of

social existence, prefiguring a social state in which there shall be no

strife of man against man, or nation against nation, it is a verbal

expression of a great ideal, man's loftiest aspirations crystallized

into a single word. The old Hebrew prophet's dream of a

world-righteousness that shall give peace, when nations "shall beat

their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks,"[4]

and the Angel-song of Peace and Goodwill in the legend of the Nativity,

mean no more than the word "Socialism" in its best usage means. Plato,

spiritual son of the Socrates who for truth's sake drained the hemlock

cup to its dregs, dreamed of such social peace and unity, and the line

of those who have seen the same vision of a love-welded world has never

been broken: More and Campanella, Saint-Simon and Owen, Marx and Engels,

Morris and Bellamy--and the end of the prophetic line is not yet.

But if the dream, the hope itself, is old, the word is comparatively

new. It is hard to realize that the word which means so much to

countless millions of human beings, and which plays such a part in the

vital discussions of the world, in every civilized country, is no older

than many of those whose lips speak it with reverence and hope. Yet such

is the fact. Because it will help us to a clearer understanding of

modern Socialism, and because, too, it is little known, notwithstanding

its intensely interesting character, let us linger awhile over that page

of history which records the origin of this noble word.

Some years ago, anxious to settle, if possible, the vexed question of

the origin and first use of the word "Socialism," the present writer

devoted a good deal of time to an investigation of the subject, spending

much of it in a careful survey of all the early nineteenth-century

radical literature. It soon appeared that the generally accepted account

of its introduction, by the French writer, L. Reybaud, in 1840, was

wrong. Indeed, when once fairly started on the investigation, it seemed

rather surprising that the account should have been accepted,

practically without challenge, for so long. Finally the conclusion was

reached that an anonymous writer in an English paper was the first to

use the word in print, the date being August 24, 1833.[5] Since that

time an investigation of a commendably thorough nature has been made by

three students of the University of Wisconsin,[6] with the result that

they have been unable to find any earlier use of the word. It is

somewhat disappointing that after thus tracing the word back to what may

well be its first appearance in print, it should be impossible to

identify its creator.

The letter in which the term is first used is signed "A Socialist," and

it is quite evident that the writer uses it as a synonym for the

commonly used term "Owenite," by which the disciples of Robert Owen were

known. It is most probable that Owen himself had used the word, and, to

some extent, made it popular; and that the writer of the letter had

heard "our dear social father," as Owen was called, use it, either in

some of his speeches or in conversation. This is the more likely as Owen

was fond of inventing new words. At any rate, one of Owen's associates,

now dead, told the present writer that Owen often specifically claimed

to have used the word at least ten years before it was adopted by any

other writer.

The word gradually became more familiar in England. Throughout the years

1835-1836, in the pages of Owen's paper, _The New Moral World_, there

are many instances of the word occurring. The French writer, Reybaud, in

his "Reformateurs Modernes," published in 1840, made the term equally

familiar to the reading public of Continental Europe. By him it was

used to designate the teachings not merely of Owen and his followers,

but those of all social reformers and visionaries--Saint-Simon, Charles

Fourier, Louis Blanc, and others. By an easy transition, it soon came

into general use as designating all altruistic visions, theories, and

experiments, from the "Republic" of Plato onward through the centuries.

In this way much confusion arose. The word became too vague and

indefinite to be distinctive. It was applied--frequently as an

epithet--indiscriminately to persons of widely differing, and often

conflicting, views. Every one who complained of social inequalities,

every dreamer of social Utopias, was called a Socialist. The

enthusiastic Christian, pleading for a return to the faith and practices

of primitive Christianity, and the aggressive atheist, proclaiming

religion to be the bulwark of the world's wrongs; the State worshiper,

who would extol Law, and spread the net of government over the whole of

life, and the iconoclastic Anarchist, who would destroy all forms of

social authority, have all alike been dubbed Socialists, by their

friends no less than by their opponents.

The confusion thus introduced has had the effect of seriously

complicating the study of Socialism from the historical point of view.

Much that one finds bearing the name of Socialism in the literature of

the middle of the nineteenth century, for example, is not at all

related to Socialism as that term is understood to-day. Thus the

Socialists of the present day, who do not advocate Communism, regard as

a classic presentation of their views the famous pamphlet by Karl Marx

and Friederich Engels, _The Communist Manifesto_. They have circulated

it by millions of copies in practically all the languages of the

civilized world. Yet throughout it speaks of "Socialists" with

ill-concealed disdain, and always in favor of Communism and the

Communist Party. The reason for this is clearly explained by Engels

himself in the preface written by him for the English edition, but that

has not prevented many an unscrupulous opponent of Socialism from

quoting the _Communist Manifesto_ of Marx and Engels against the

Socialists of the Marx-Engels school.[7] In like manner, the utterances

and ideas of many of those who formerly called themselves Socialists

have been quoted against the Socialists of to-day, notwithstanding that

it was precisely on account of their desire to repudiate all connection

with, and responsibility for, such ideas that the founders of the modern

Socialist movement took the name "Communists."

Nothing could be clearer than the language in which Engels explains why

the name Communist was chosen, and the name Socialist discarded. He

says: "Yet, when it (the _Manifesto_) was written, we could not have

called it a _Socialist Manifesto_. By Socialists, in 1847, were

understood, on the one hand, the adherents of the various Utopian

systems: Owenites in England, Fourierists in France, both of these

already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out;

on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks, who, by all

manner of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital

and profit, all sorts of social grievances; in both cases men outside of

the working-class movement, and looking rather to the 'educated' classes

for support. Whatever portion of the working class had become convinced

of the insufficiency of mere political revolution and had proclaimed the

necessity of a total social change, that portion, then, called itself

Communist. It was a crude, rough-hewn, purely instinctive sort of

Communism; still, it touched the cardinal point and was powerful enough

among the working class to produce the Utopian Communism, in France, of

Cabet, and in Germany, of Weitling. Thus Socialism was, in 1847, a

middle-class movement; Communism a working-class movement. Socialism

was, on the Continent at least, 'respectable'; Communism was the very

opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that the

'emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class

itself,' there could be no doubt as to which of the names we must take.

Moreover, we have ever since been far from regretting it."[8]

There is still, unfortunately, much misuse of the word "Socialism," even

by some accredited Socialist exponents. Writers like Tolstoy, Ibsen,

Zola, and many others, are constantly referred to as Socialists, when,

in fact, they are nothing of the sort. Still, the word is now pretty

generally understood as defined by the Socialists--not the "Socialists"

of sixty years ago, who were mostly Communists, but the Socialists of

to-day, whose principles find classic expression in the _Communist

Manifesto_, and to the attainment of which they have directed their

political parties and programmes. In the words of Professor Thorstein

Veblen: "The Socialism that inspires hopes and fears to-day is of the

school of Marx. No one is seriously apprehensive of any other so-called

Socialistic movement, and no one is seriously concerned to criticise or

refute the doctrines set forth by any other school of 'Socialists.'"[9]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Republican National Platform, 1908.

[2] I quote the English translation from the London _Clarion_, December

18, 1905.

[3] William Morris.

[4] Isaiah ii. 4.

[5] See _Socialism and Social Democracy_, by John Spargo. _The Comrade_,

Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1903.

[6] In _The International Socialist Review_, Vol. VI, No. 1, July, 1905.

[7] As an instance of this I note the following example: "No severer

critic of Socialists ever lived than Karl Marx. No one more bitterly

attacked them and their policy toward the trade unions than he.... And

yet Socialists regard him as their patron saint." Mr. Samuel Gompers, in

_The American Federationist_, August, 1905.

[8] Preface to _The Communist Manifesto_, by F. Engels, Kerr edition,

page 7.

[9] _Quarterly Journal of Economics._

CHAPTER II

ROBERT OWEN AND THE UTOPIAN SPIRIT

I

As a background to modern, or scientific, Socialism there is the

Socialism of the Utopians, which the authors of the _Manifesto_ so

severely criticised. It is impossible to understand the modern Socialist

movement, the Socialism which is rapidly becoming the dominant issue in

the thought and politics of the world, without distinguishing sharply

between it and the Utopian visions which preceded it. Failure to make

this distinction is responsible for the complete misunderstanding of the

Socialism of to-day by many earnest and intelligent persons.

It is not necessary that we study the Utopian movements which flourished

and declined prior to the rise of scientific Socialism in detail. It

will be sufficient if we consider the Utopian Socialism of Owen, which

is Utopian Socialism at its best and nearest approach to the modern

movement. Thus we shall get a clear view of the point of departure which

marked the rise of the later scientific movement with its revolutionary

political programmes. Incidentally, also, we shall get a view of the

great and good Robert Owen, whom Liebknecht, greatest political leader

of the movement, has called, "By far the most embracing, penetrating,

and practical of all the harbingers of scientific Socialism."[10]

Friederich Engels, a man not given to praising overmuch, has spoken of

Owen with an enthusiasm which he rarely showed in his descriptions of

men. He calls him, "A man of almost sublime and childlike simplicity of

character," and declares, "Every social movement, every real advance in

England on behalf of the workers, links itself on to the name of Robert

Owen."[11] And even this high praise from the part-author of _The

Communist Manifesto_ who for so many years was called the "Nestor of the

Socialist movement," falls short, because it does not recognize the

great influence of the man in the United States at a most important

period of our history.

Robert Owen was born of humble parentage, in a little town in North

Wales, on the fourteenth day of May, 1771. A most precocious child, at

seven years of age, so he tells us in his "Autobiography," he had

familiarized himself with Milton's "Paradise Lost," and by the time he

was ten years old he had grappled with the ages-old problems of Whence

and Whither and become a skeptic! It is doubtful whether his

"skepticism" really consisted of anything more than the consciousness

that there were apparent contradictions in the Bible, a discovery which

many a precocious lad has made at quite as early an age, and the failure

of the usual theological subterfuges to satisfy a boy's frank spirit.

Still, it is worthy of note as indicating his inquiring spirit.

The great dream of his childhood was that he might become an educated

man. He thirsted for knowledge and wanted above all things a university

education. A passion for knowledge was the controlling force of his

life. But his parents were too poor to gratify his desire for an

extensive education. He was barely ten years old when his scanty

schooling ended, and he set out to fight the battle of life for himself

in London.

He was apprenticed to a draper, named McGuffeg, who seems to have been a

rather superior type of man. From a small peddling business he had built

up one of the largest and wealthiest establishments in that part of

London, catering to the wealthy and the titled nobility. Above all,

McGuffeg was a man of books, and in his well-stocked library young Owen

could read several hours each day, and thus make up in a measure for his

early lack of educational opportunities. During the three years of his

apprenticeship he read prodigiously, and laid the foundations of that

literary culture which characterized his whole life and added

tremendously to his power.

This is not in any sense a biographical sketch of Robert Owen.[12] If it

were, the story of the rise of this poor, strange, strong lad, from

poverty to the very pinnacle of industrial and commercial power and

fame, as one of the leading manufacturers of his day, would lead through

pathways of romance as wonderful as any in our biographical literature.

We are concerned, however, only with his career as a social reformer and

the forces which molded it. And that, too, has its romantic side.

II

The closing years of the eighteenth century marked the beginning of a

great and far-reaching industrial revolution. The introduction of new

mechanical inventions enormously increased the productive powers of

England. In 1770 Hargreaves patented his "spinning jenny," and in the

following year Arkwright invented his "water frame," a patent spinning

machine which derived its name from the fact that it was worked by water

power. Later, in 1779, Crompton invented the "mule," which was really a

combination of the principles of both machines. This was a long step

forward, and greatly facilitated the spinning of the raw material into

yarn. The invention was, in fact, a revolution in itself. Like so many

other great inventors, Crompton died in poverty.

Even now, however, the actual weaving had to be done by hand. Not until

1785, when Dr. Cartwright, a parson, invented a "power loom," was it

deemed possible to weave by machinery. Cartwright's invention, coming in

the same year as the general introduction of Watt's steam engine in the

cotton industry, made the industrial revolution. Had the revolution come

slowly, had the inventors of the new industrial processes been able to

accomplish that, it is most probable that much of the misery of the

period would have been avoided. As it was, terrible poverty and hardship

attended the birth of the new industrial order. Owing to the expense of

introducing the machines, and the impossibility of competing with them

by the old methods of production, the small manufacturers themselves

were forced to the wall, and their misery, compelling them to become

wage-workers in competition with other already far too numerous

wage-workers, added greatly to the woe of the time. William Morris's

fine lines, written a hundred years later, express vividly what many a

manufacturer must have felt at that time:--

"Fast and faster our iron master,

The thing we made, forever drives."

But perhaps the worst of all the results of the new regime was the

destruction of the personal relations which had hitherto existed between

the employers and their employees. No attention was paid to the

interests of the latter. The personal relation was forever gone, and

only a hard, cold cash nexus remained. Wages went down at an alarming

rate, as might be expected; the housing conditions became simply

inhuman. Now it was discovered that a child at one of the new looms

could do more than a dozen men had done under the old conditions, and a

tremendous demand for child workers was the result. At first, as H. de

B. Gibbins[13] tells us, there was a strong repugnance on the part of

parents to sending their children into the factories. It was, in fact,

considered a disgrace to do so. The term "factory girl" was an insulting

epithet, and it was impossible for a girl who had been employed in a

factory to obtain other employment. She could not look forward to

marriage with any but the very lowest of men, so degrading was factory

employment considered to be. But the manufacturers had to get children

somehow, and they got them. They got them from the workhouses.

Pretending that they were going to apprentice them to a trade, they

arranged with the overseers of the poor regular days for the inspection

of these workhouse children. Those chosen were conveyed to their

destination, packed in wagons or canal boats, and from that moment were

doomed to the most awful form of slavery.

"Sometimes regular traffickers would take the place of the

manufacturer," says Gibbins,[14] "and transfer a number of children to a

factory district, and there keep them, generally in some dark cellar,

till they could hand them over to a mill owner in want of hands, who

would come and examine their height, strength, and bodily capacities,

exactly as did the slave owners in the American markets. After that the

children were simply at the mercy of their owners, nominally as

apprentices, but in reality as mere slaves, who got no wages and whom it

was not worth while even to feed and clothe properly, because they were

so cheap and their places could be so easily supplied. It was often

arranged by the parish authorities, in order to get rid of imbeciles,

that one idiot should be taken by the mill owner with every twenty sane

children. The fate of these unhappy idiots was even worse than that of

the others. The secret of their final end has never been disclosed, but

we can form some idea of their awful sufferings from the hardships of

the other victims to capitalist greed and cruelty. The hours of their

labor were only limited by exhaustion, after many modes of torture had

been unavailingly applied to force continued work. Children were often

worked sixteen hours a day, by day and by night."

Terrible as this summary is, it does not equal in horror the account

given by "Alfred,"[15] in his "History of the Factory System": "In

stench, in heated rooms, amid the constant whirl of a thousand wheels,

little fingers and little feet were kept in ceaseless action, forced

into unnatural activity by blows from the heavy hands and feet of the

merciless overlooker, and the infliction of bodily pain by instruments

of punishment invented by the sharpened ingenuity of insatiable

selfishness." The children were fed upon the cheapest and coarsest food,

often the same as that served to their master's pigs. They slept by

turns, and in relays, in filthy beds that were never cool. There was

often no discrimination between the sexes, and disease, misery, and vice

flourished. Some of these miserable creatures would try to run away, and

to prevent them, those suspected had irons riveted on their ankles, with

long links reaching up to the hips, and were compelled to sleep and work

with them on, young women and girls, as well as boys, suffering this

brutal treatment. The number of deaths was so great that burials took

place secretly, at night, lest an outcry should be raised. Many of the

children committed suicide.

These statements are so appalling that, as Mr. R. W. Cooke-Taylor

says,[16] they would be "absolutely incredible" were they not fully

borne out by evidence from other sources. It is not contended, of

course, that conditions in all factories were as bad as those described.

But it must be said emphatically that there were worse horrors than any

here quoted, and equally emphatically that the very best factories were

only a little better than those described. Take, for instance, the

account given by Robert Owen of the conditions which obtained in the

"model factory" of the time, the establishment at New Lanark, Scotland,

owned by Mr. David Dale, where Owen himself was destined to introduce so

many striking reforms. Owen assumed control of the New Lanark mills on

the first day of the year 1800. In his "Autobiography,"[17] he gives

some account of the conditions which he found there, in the "best

regulated factory in the world," at that time. There were, says Owen,

about five hundred children employed, who "were received as early as six

years old, the pauper authorities declining to send them at any later

age." They worked from six in the morning until seven in the evening,

and _then their education began_. They hated their slavery, and many

absconded. Many were dwarfed and stunted in stature, and when they were

through their "apprenticeship," at thirteen or fifteen years of age,

they commonly went off to Glasgow or Edinburgh, with no guardians,

ignorant and ready--"admirably suited," is Owen's phrase--to swell the

great mass of vice and misery in the towns. The people in New Lanark

lived "almost without control, in habits of vice, idleness, poverty,

debt, and destitution. Thieving was general." With such conditions

existing in a model factory, under a master whose benevolence was

celebrated everywhere, it can be very readily believed that conditions

elsewhere must have been abominable.

As a result of the appalling poverty which developed, it soon became

necessary for poor parents to permit their children to go into the

factories. The mighty machines were far too powerful for the prejudices

of parental hearts. Child wage-workers became common. They were

subjected to little better conditions than the parish apprentices had

been; in fact, they were often employed alongside of them. Fathers were

unemployed and frequently took meals to their little ones who were at

work--a condition which sometimes obtains in some parts of the United

States even to this day. Michael Sadler, a member of the House of

Commons and a fearless champion of the rights of the poor and

oppressed, described this aspect of the evil in touching verse.[18]

During all this time, let it be remembered, the English philanthropists,

and among them many capitalists, were agitating against negro slavery in

Africa and elsewhere, and raising funds for the emancipation of the

slaves. Says Gibbins,[19] "The spectacle of England buying the freedom

of black slaves by riches drawn from the labor of her white ones affords

an interesting study for the cynical philosopher."

As we read the accounts of the distress which followed upon the

introduction of the new mechanical inventions, it is impossible to

regard with surprise or with condemnatory feelings, the riots of the

misguided "Luddites" who went about destroying machinery in their blind

desperation. Ned Lud, after whom the Luddites were named, was an idiot,

but wiser men, finding themselves reduced to abject poverty through the

introduction of the giant machines, could see no further than he. It was

not to be expected that the masses should understand that it was not the

machines, but the institution of their private ownership, and use for

private gain, that was wrong. And just as we cannot regard with surprise

the action of the Luddites in destroying machinery, it is easy to

understand how the social unrest of the time produced Utopian movements

with numerous and enthusiastic adherents.

The Luddites were not the first to make war upon machinery. In 1758, for

example, Everet's first machine for dressing wool, an ingenious

contrivance worked by water power, was set upon by a mob and reduced to

ashes. From that time on similar outbreaks occurred with more or less

frequency; but it was not until 1810 that the organized bodies of

Luddites went from town to town, sacking factories and destroying the

machines in their blind revolt. The contest between the capitalist and

the wage-worker, which, as Karl Marx says, dates back to the very origin

of capital, took on a new form when machinery was introduced.

Henceforth, the worker fights not only, nor even mainly, against the

capitalist, but against the machine, as the material basis of capitalist

exploitation. This is a distinct phase of the struggle of the

proletariat everywhere.

In the sixteenth century the ribbon loom, a machine for weaving ribbon,

was invented in Germany. Marx quotes an Italian traveler, Abbe

Lancellotti, who wrote in 1579, as follows: "Anthony Mueller, of Danzig,

saw about fifty years ago, in that town, a very ingenious machine, which

weaves four to six pieces at once. But the mayor, being apprehensive

that this invention might throw a large number of workmen on the

streets, caused the inventor to be secretly strangled or drowned."[20]

In 1629 this ribbon loom was introduced into Leyden, where the riots of

the ribbon weavers forced the town council to prohibit it. In 1676 its

use was prohibited in Cologne, at the same time that its introduction

was causing serious disturbances in England. "By an imperial Edict of

the 19th of February, 1685, its use was forbidden throughout all

Germany. In Hamburg it was burned in public, by order of the Senate. The

Emperor Charles VI, on the 9th of February, 1719, renewed the Edict of

1685, and not till 1765 was its use openly allowed in the Electorate of

Saxony. This machine, which shook all Europe to its foundations, was in

fact the precursor of the mule and power loom, and of the industrial

revolution of the eighteenth century. It enabled a totally inexperienced

boy to set the whole loom, with all its shuttles, in motion by simply

moving a rod backward and forward, and in its improved form produced

from forty to fifty pieces at once."[21]

The introduction of machinery has universally caused the workers to

revolt. Much futile denunciation has been poured upon the blind, stupid

resistance of the workers, but in view of the misery and poverty which

they have suffered, it is impossible to judge them harshly. Their

passionate, futile resistance to the irresistible moves to pity rather

than to condemnation. As Marx justly says, "It took both time and

experience before the work people learned to distinguish between

machinery and its employment by capital, and to direct their attacks,

not against the material instruments of production, but against the mode

in which they are used."[22]

III

Under the new industrial regime, Robert Owen, erstwhile a poor draper's

apprentice, soon became one of the most successful manufacturers in

England. At eighteen years of age we find him entering into the

manufacture of the new cotton-spinning machines, with a borrowed capital

of $500. His partner was a man named Jones, and though the enterprise

was successful from a financial point of view, the partnership proved to

be most disagreeable. Accordingly it was dissolved, Owen taking three of

the "mules" which they were making as a reimbursement for his

investment. With these and some other machinery, Owen entered the cotton

manufacturing industry, employing at first only three men. He made $1500

as his first year's profit.

Erelong Owen ceased manufacturing upon his own account, and became

superintendent of a Manchester cotton mill, owned by a Mr. Drinkwater,

and employing some five hundred work people. A most progressive man, in

his new position Owen was always ready to introduce new machinery, and

to embark upon experiments, with a view to improving the quality of the

product of the factory.[23] In this he was so successful that the goods

manufactured at the Drinkwater mill soon commanded a fifty per cent

advance above the regular market prices. Drinkwater, delighted at

results like these, made Owen his partner. Thus when he was barely

twenty years of age Owen had secured an eminent position among the

cotton manufacturers of the time. It is interesting to recall that Owen,

in that same year, 1791, used the first cotton ever brought into England

from the United States. "American sea island cotton," as it was called

from the fact that it was then grown only upon the islands near the

southern coast of the United States, was not believed to be of any value

for manufacture on account, chiefly, of its poor color. But when a

cotton broker named Spear received three hundred pounds of it from an

American planter, with the request that he get some competent spinner to

test it, Owen, with characteristic readiness, undertook the test and

succeeded in making a much finer product than had hitherto been made

from the French cotton, though inferior to it in color. That was the

first introduction of American cotton, destined soon to furnish English

cotton mills with the greater part of their raw material.

Owen did not long remain with Mr. Drinkwater. He accepted another

profitable partnership in Manchester, and it was at this time that he

became active in social reform work. As a member of an important

literary and philosophical society, he was thrown much into the company

of men distinguished in all walks of life, one of his friends and

admirers being the poet Coleridge. Here he began that agitation which

led to the passing of the very first factory act of Sir Robert Peel, in

1802. The suffering of the children moved his great humane heart to

pity. He well knew that his own wealth and the wealth of his

fellow-capitalists had been purchased at a terrible cost in child life.

He was only a philanthropist as yet; he saw only the pitiful waste of

life involved, and sought to impress men of wealth with what he felt.

His mind was constantly occupied with plans for practical, constructive

philanthropy upon a scale never before attempted.

On the first day of the nineteenth century, Owen entered upon the

wonderful philanthropic career at New Lanark, which attracted universal

attention, and ultimately led him to those social experiments and

theories which won for him the title of "Father of Modern Socialism."

We have already seen what the conditions were in the "model factory"

when Owen assumed control. His influence was at once directed to the

task of ameliorating the condition of the work people. He shortened the

hours of labor, introduced sanitary reforms, protected the people

against the exploitation of traders through a vicious credit system,

opening a store and supplying them with goods at cost, and established

infant schools, the first of their kind, for the care and education of

children from two years of age and upward. Still, the workers themselves

were suspicious of this man who, so different from other employers, was

zealous in doing things for them. He really knew nothing of the working

class, and it had never occurred to him that they might do anything for

themselves. New Lanark under Owen was, to use the phrase which Mr. Ghent

has adopted from Fourier, "a benevolent feudalism." Owen complains

pathetically, "Yet the work people were systematically opposed to every

change which I proposed, and did whatever they could to frustrate my

object."[24]

Opportunity to win the affection and confidence of his employees came to

Owen at last, and he was not slow to embrace it. In 1806 the United

States, in consequence of a diplomatic rupture with England, placed an

embargo upon the shipment of raw cotton to that country. Everywhere

mills were shut down, and there was the utmost distress in consequence.

The New Lanark mills, in common with most others, were shut down for

four months, during which time Owen paid every worker his or her wages

in full, at a cost of over $35,000. Forever afterward he enjoyed the

love and trust of his work people. In spite of all his seemingly

reckless expenditure upon purely philanthropic work, the mills yielded

an enormous profit. But Owen was constantly in conflict with his

business associates, who sought to restrict his philanthropic

expenditures, with the result that he was compelled again and again to

change partners, always securing their interests and returning them big

profits upon their investments, until finally, in 1829, he left New

Lanark altogether.

During twenty-nine years he had carried on the business with splendid

commercial success and at the same time attracted universal attention to

New Lanark as the theater of the greatest experiments in social

regeneration the modern world had known. Every year thousands of persons

from all parts of the world, many of them statesmen and representatives

of the crowned heads of Europe, visited New Lanark to study these

experiments, and never were they seriously criticised or their success

challenged. It was a wonderful achievement. Had Owen's life ended in

1829, he must have taken rank in history as one of the truly great men

of the nineteenth century.

IV

Let us now consider briefly the forces which led this gentle

philanthropist onward to the goal of Communism. His experiences at New

Lanark had convinced him that human character depends in large part

upon, and is shaped by, environment. Others before Owen had perceived

this, but he must ever be regarded as one of the pioneers in the spread

of the idea, one of the first to give it definite form and to

demonstrate its truth upon a large scale. In the first of those keen

"Essays on the Formation of Human Character," in which he recounts the

results of his New Lanark system of education, Owen says, "Any general

character from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the most

enlightened, may be given to any community, even to the world at large,

by the application of proper means; which means are to a great extent at

the command and under the control of those who have influence in the

affairs of men."

We may admit that there is a good deal of overemphasis in this

statement, but the doctrine itself does not seem strange or sensational

to-day. It might be promulgated in any fashionable church, or in any

ministerial conference, without exciting more than a languid, passing

interest. But in Owen's time it was far otherwise. Such a doctrine

struck at the very roots of current theology and all that organized

Christianity consciously stood for. It denied the doctrine of the

freedom of the will, upon which the elaborate theology of the church

rested. No wonder, then, that it brought much bitter denunciation upon

the heads of its promulgators. A poet of the period, in a poem dedicated

to Owen, aptly expresses the doctrine in somewhat prosaic verse:--

"We are the creatures of external things,

Acting on inward organs, and are made

To think and do whate'er our tutors please.

What folly, then, to punish or reward

For deeds o'er which we never held a curb!

What woeful ignorance, to teach the crime

And then chastise the pupil for his guilt!"[25]

Owen learned other things at New Lanark besides the truth that character

is formed largely by environment. Starting out with no other purpose

than to ameliorate the conditions of his work people, he realized before

many years had passed that he could never do for them the one essential

thing--secure their real liberty. "The people were slaves of my mercy,"

he writes.[26] He saw, though but dimly at first, that no man could be

free who depended upon another for the right to earn his bread, no

matter how good the bread-master might be. The hopelessness of expecting

reform from the manufacturers themselves was painfully forced upon him.

First of all, there was the bitter hostility of those of his class who

had no sympathy with his philanthropic ideas, manifested from the

beginning of his agitation at Manchester. Then there was the incessant

conflict with his own associates, who, though they represented the

noblest and best elements of the manufacturing class, constantly opposed

him and regarded as dangerous and immoral his belief in the inherent

right of every child to the opportunities of sound physical, mental, and

moral culture. Class consciousness had not yet become a recognized term

in sociological discussions, but class consciousness, the instinctive

conformity of thought and action with class interests, was a fact which

confronted Owen at every step.

The Luddite riots of 1810-1811 awakened England to the importance of the

labor question, and Owen, who since 1805 had been devoting much time to

its study, secured a wider audience and a much more serious hearing than

ever before. Then came the frightful misery of 1815, due to the crisis

which the end of the great war produced. Every one seemed to think that

when the war was over and peace restored, there would be a tremendous

increase in prosperity. What happened was precisely the opposite; for a

time at least things were immeasurably worse than before. Peace did not

bring with it plenty, but penury.

Owen, more clearly than any other man of the time, explained the real

nature of the crisis. The war had given an important spur to industry

and encouraged many new inventions and chemical discoveries. "The war

was the great and most extravagant customer of farmers, manufacturers,

and other producers of wealth, and many during this period became very

wealthy.... And on the day on which peace was signed, the great customer

of the producers died, and prices fell as the demand diminished, until

the prime cost of the articles required for war could not be

obtained.... Barns and farmyards were full, warehouses loaded, and such

was our artificial state of society that this very superabundance of

wealth was the sole cause of the existing distress. _Burn the stock in

the farmyards and warehouses, and prosperity would immediately

recommence, in the same manner as if the war had continued._ This want

of demand at remunerating prices compelled the master producers to

consider what they could do to diminish the amount of their productions

and the cost of producing until these surplus stocks could be taken out

of the market. To effect these results, every economy in producing was

resorted to, and men being more expensive machines for producing than

mechanical and chemical inventions and discoveries so extensively

brought into action during the war, the men were discharged and the

machines were made to supersede them--while the numbers of the

unemployed were increased by the discharge of men from the army and

navy. Hence the great distress for want of work among all classes whose

labor was so much in demand while the war continued. This increase of

mechanical and chemical power was continually diminishing the demand

for, and value of, manual labor, and would continue to do so, and would

effect great changes throughout society."[27]

In this statement there are several points worthy of attention. In the

first place, the analysis of the crisis of 1815 is very like the later

analyses of commercial crises by the Marxists; secondly, the antagonism

of class interests is clearly developed, so far as the basic interests

of the employers and their employees are concerned. The former, in order

to conserve their interests, have to dismiss the workers, thus forcing

them into the direst poverty. Thirdly, the conflict between manual labor

and machine production is frankly stated. Owen's studies were leading

him from mere philanthropism to Socialism.

During the height of the distress of 1815, Owen called together a large

number of cotton manufacturers at a conference, held in Glasgow, to

consider the state of the cotton trade and the prevailing distress. He

proposed (1) that they should petition Parliament for the repeal of the

revenue tariff on raw cotton; (2) that they should call upon Parliament

to shorten the hours of labor in the cotton mills by legislative

enactment, and otherwise seek to improve the condition of the working

people. The first proposition was carried with unanimity, but the

second, and to Owen the more important, did not even secure a

seconder.[28] The conference plainly showed the power of class

interests. The spirit in which Owen faced his fellow-manufacturers is

best seen in the following extract from the address delivered by him,

with copies of which he afterward literally deluged the kingdom:--

"True, indeed, it is that the main pillar and prop of the political

greatness and prosperity of our country is a manufacture which, as now

carried on, is destructive of the health, morals, and social comfort of

the mass of people engaged in it. It is only since the introduction of

the cotton trade that children, at an age before they had acquired

strength or mental instruction, have been forced into cotton

mills,--those receptacles, in too many instances, for living human

skeletons, almost disrobed of intellect, where, as the business is often

now conducted, they linger out a few years of miserable existence,

acquiring every bad habit which they may disseminate throughout society.

It is only since the introduction of this trade that children and even

grown people were required to labor more than twelve hours in a day, not

including the time allotted for meals. It is only since the introduction

of this trade that the sole recreation of the laborer is to be found in

the pot-house or ginshop, and it is only since the introduction of this

baneful trade that poverty, crime, and misery have made rapid and

fearful strides throughout the community.

"Shall we then go unblushingly and ask the legislators of our country to

pass legislative acts to sanction and increase this trade--to sign the

death warrants of the strength, morals, and happiness of thousands of

our fellow-creatures, and not attempt to propose corrections for the

evils which it creates? If such shall be your determination, I, for one,

will not join in the application,--no, I will, with all the faculties I

possess, oppose every attempt made to extend the trade that, except in

name, is more injurious to those employed in it than is the slavery in

the West Indies to the poor negroes; for deeply as I am interested in

the cotton manufacture, highly as I value the extended political power

of my country, yet knowing as I do, from long experience both here and

in England, the miseries which this trade, as it is now conducted,

inflicts on those to whom it gives employment, I do not hesitate to say:

_Perish the cotton trade, perish even the political superiority of our

country, if it depends on the cotton trade, rather than that they shall

be upheld by the sacrifice of everything valuable in life._"[29]

This conference doubtless had much to do with Owen's acceptance of a

communistic ideal approaching that of modern Socialism in many important

respects. It certainly intensified the hatred and fear of those

manufacturers whose interests he had so courageously attacked. In 1817

we find him proposing to the British government the establishment of

communistic villages, as the best means of remedying the terrible

distress which prevailed at that time. From this time onward his

interest in mere surface reforms such as he had been carrying on at New

Lanark seemed to wane. He became at this juncture an apostle of

Communism, or as he later preferred to say, Socialism. His ideal was a

cooeperative world, with perfect equality between the sexes. He had

completely demonstrated to his own mind that private property was

incompatible with social well-being. Every month of his experience at

New Lanark had deeply impressed him with the conviction that to make it

possible for all people to live equally happy and moral lives they must

have equal material resources and conditions of life, and he could not

understand why it had never occurred to others before him.

Here we have the essential characteristic of Utopian Socialism as

distinguished from modern, or scientific, Socialism. The Utopians regard

human life as something plastic and capable of being shaped and molded

according to systems and plans. All that is necessary is to take some

abstract principle as a standard, and then prepare a plan for the

reorganization of society in conformity with that principle. If the plan

is perfect, it will be enough to demonstrate its advantages as one would

demonstrate a sum in arithmetic. The scientific Socialists, on the other

hand, are evolutionists. Society, they believe, cannot take leaps at

will; social changes are products of the past and the present. They

distrust social inventors and schemes. Socialism is not an ingenious

plan for the realization of abstract Justice, or Brotherhood, but a

necessary outgrowth of the centuries. Owen, then, was a Utopian. He

regarded himself as one inspired, an inspired inventor of a new social

system, and believed that it was only necessary for him to demonstrate

the truth of his contentions and theories, by argument and practical

experiment, to bring about the transformation of the world. He

conducted a tremendous propaganda, by means of newspapers, pamphlets,

lectures, and debates, and established various communities in England

and this country. In face of a bitter opposition and repeated failure,

he kept on with sublime faith and unbounded courage which nothing could

shake.

In 1825 Owen began the greatest and most splendid of his social

experiments in the village of Harmonie, Indiana, in the beautiful valley

of the Wabash. The place had already been the theater of an interesting

experiment in religious communism, Owen having bought the property from

the Rappites. In February and March, 1825, the brave reformer addressed

two of the most distinguished audiences ever gathered in the Hall of

Representatives at the national capital. In the audiences were the

President of the United States, the Judges of the Supreme Court, several

members of the cabinet, and almost the entire membership of both houses

of Congress. Owen explained his plans for the regeneration of society in

detail, exhibiting a model of the buildings to be erected. It is almost

impossible to realize at this day the tremendous interest which his

appeal to Congress awakened. His vision of a re-created world caught the

popular imagination.

Among those whose minds were fired was a boy of sixteen, tall, lank,

uncouth, and poor. Word had come to him of Owen's splendid undertaking,

and he had caught something of the enthusiasm of the great dreamer.

Above all, it was said that New Harmony was to be a wonderful center of

learning, that the foremost educators of the world would establish great

schools there, fully equipped with books and all sorts of appliances. To

be a scholar had been the boy's one great ambition, so he yearned

wistfully for an opportunity to join the new community. But his father

forbidding, claiming his services, the boy suffered grievous

disappointment. One wonders what effect residence at New Harmony would

have had upon the life of Abraham Lincoln, and upon the history of

America! And how much, one wonders, was that splendid life influenced by

that boyish interest in the regeneration of the world?

That the influence of New Harmony was felt by Lincoln we know. It was a

child of New Harmony, Robert Dale Owen, son of Robert Owen, who, when

emancipation seemed to hang in the balance, penned his remarkable letter

to President Lincoln, dated September seventeenth, 1862. "Its perusal

thrilled me like a trumpet call," said the great President. Five days

after its receipt the Preliminary Proclamation was issued. "Your letter

to the President had more influence on him than any other document which

reached him on the subject--I think I might say than all others put

together. I speak of that which I know from personal conference with

him," wrote Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury.

New Harmony failed. Other communities established by Owen failed, but

the story of their failure is nevertheless full of inspiration. The

world has long since written the word "Failure" as an epitaph for Robert

Owen. But what a splendid failure that life was! Standing by his grave

one day, in the picturesque little churchyard at Newton, by a bend of

the winding river, not far from the ruins of the ancient castle home of

the famous Deist, Lord Herbert, the writer said to an old Welsh laborer,

"But his life was a failure, was it not?" The old man gazed awhile at

the grave, and then with a voice of unforgettable reverence and love

answered, "I suppose it was, sir, as the world goes; a failure like

Jesus Christ's. But I don't call it failure, sir. He established infant

schools; he founded the great cooeperative movement; he helped to make

the trade unions;[30] he helped to give us the factory acts; he worked

for peace between two great countries. His Socialism has not been

realized yet, nor has Christ's--but it will come!"

V

Owen was not the only builder of Utopias in his time. In the same year

that Owen launched his New Harmony venture, there died in Paris another

dreamer of social millenniums, a gentle mystic, Henry de Saint-Simon,

and in 1837, the year of Owen's third Socialist congress, another great

Utopist died in the French capital, Charles Fourier. Each of these

contributed something to the development of the theories of Socialism,

each has a legitimate place in the history of the Socialist movement.

But this little work is not intended to give the history of

Socialism.[31] I have taken only one of the three great Utopists, as

representative of them all: one who seems to me to be much nearer to the

later scientific movement pioneered by Marx and Engels than any of the

others. In the Socialism of Owen, we have Utopian Socialism at its best.

What distinguishes the Utopian Socialists from their scientific

successors we have already noted. Engels expresses the principle very

clearly in the following luminous passage: "One thing is common to all

three. Not one of them appears as a representative of the interests of

that proletariat which historical development had ... produced. Like the

French philosophers,[32] they do not claim to emancipate a particular

class to begin with, but all humanity at once. Like them, they wish to

bring in the kingdom of reason and eternal justice, but this kingdom, as

they see it, is as far as heaven from earth from that of the French

philosophers.

"For, to our three social reformers, the bourgeois world, based upon the

principles of these philosophers, is quite as irrational and unjust,

and, therefore, finds its way to the dust hole quite as readily, as

feudalism and all the earlier stages of society. If pure reason and

justice had not, hitherto, ruled the world, this has been the case only

because men have not rightly understood them. What was wanted was the

individual man of genius, who has now arisen and who understands the

truth. That he has now arisen, that the truth has now been clearly

understood, is not an inevitable event, following of necessity in the

chain of historical development, but a mere happy accident. He might

just as well have been born five hundred years earlier, and might then

have spared humanity five hundred years of error, strife, and

suffering."[33]

Neither of these great Utopists had anything like the conception of

social evolution, determined by economic conditions and the resulting

conflicts of economic classes, which constitutes the base of the

philosophy of the scientific Socialists. Each of them had some faint

comprehension of isolated facts, but neither of them developed his

knowledge very far, nor could the facts appear to them as correlated

later by Marx. Saint-Simon, as we know, recognized the class struggle in

the French Revolution, and saw in the Reign of Terror only the momentary

reign of the non-possessing masses;[34] he saw, too, that the political

question was fundamentally an economic question, declaring that politics

is the science of production, and prophesying that politics would be

absorbed by economics.[35] Fourier, we also know, applied the principle

of evolution to society. He divided the history of society into four

great epochs--savagery, barbarism, the patriarchate, and

civilization.[36] But just as Saint-Simon failed to grasp the

significance of the class conflict, and its relation to the fundamental

character of economic institutions, which he dimly perceived, so Fourier

failed to grasp the significance of the evolutionary process which he

described, and, like Saint-Simon, he halted upon the brink, so to speak,

of an important discovery. His concept of social evolution meant little

to him and possessed only an academic interest. And Owen, in many

respects the greatest of the three, realized in a practical manner that

the industrial problem was a class conflict. Not only had he found in

1815 that pity was powerless to move the hearts of his

fellow-manufacturers when their class interests were concerned, but

later, in 1818, when he went to present his famous memorial to the

Congress of Sovereigns at Aix-la-Chapelle, he had another lesson of the

same kind. At Frankfort, Germany, he tarried on his way to the Congress,

and was invited to attend a notable dinner to meet the Secretary of the

Congress, M. Gentz, a famous diplomat of the day, "who enjoyed the full

confidence of the leading despots of Europe." After Owen had outlined

his schemes for social amelioration, M. Gentz was asked for his reply,

and Owen tells us that the diplomat answered, "We know very well that

what you say is true, but how could we govern the masses, if they were

wealthy, and so, independent of us?"[37] Lord Lauderdale, too, had

exclaimed on another occasion, "Nothing [_i.e._ than Owen's plans] could

be more complete for the poor and working classes, but what will become

of us?"[38] Scattered throughout Owen's writings and speeches are

numerous evidences that he at times recognized the class antagonisms in

industrial society as the heart of the industrial problem,[39] but to

him, also, the germ of an important truth meant practically nothing. He

saw only the facts in their isolation, and made no attempt to discover

their meaning or to relate them to his teaching.

Each of the three men regarded himself as the discoverer of the truth

which would redeem the world; each devoted himself with magnificent

faith and heroic courage to his task; each failed to realize his hopes;

and each left behind him faithful disciples and followers, confident

that the day must come at last when the suffering and disinherited of

earth will be able to say, in Owen's dying words, "Relief has come."

Perhaps no better estimate of the value of the visions of these great

Utopists has ever been penned than that by Emerson in the following

tribute to Owen:[40]--

"Robert Owen of New Lanark came hither from England in 1845 to read

lectures or hold conversations wherever he could find listeners--the

most amiable, sanguine, and candid of men. He had not the least doubt

that he had hit on the plan of right and perfect Socialism, or that

mankind would adopt it. He was then seventy years old, and being asked,

'Well, Mr. Owen, who is your disciple? how many men are there possessed

of your views who will remain after you are gone to put them in

practice?' 'Not one,' was the reply. Robert Owen knew Fourier in his old

age. He said that Fourier learned of him all the truth that he had. The

rest of his system was imagination, and the imagination of a visionary.

Owen made the best impression by his rare benevolence. His love of men

made us forget his 'three errors.' His charitable construction of men

and their actions was invariable. He was the better Christian in his

controversies with Christians.

"And truly I honor the generous ideas of the Socialists, the

magnificence of their theories, and the enthusiasm with which they have

been urged. They appeared inspired men of their time. Mr. Owen preached

his doctrine of labor and reward with the fidelity and devotion of a

saint in the slow ears of his generation.

"One feels that these philosophers have skipped no fact but one, namely,

life. They treat man as a plastic thing, or something that may be put up

or down, ripened or retarded, molded, polished, made into solid or fluid

or gas at the will of the leader; or perhaps as a vegetable, from which,

though now a very poor crab, a very good peach can by manure and

exposure be in time produced--and skip the faculty of life which spawns

and spurns systems and system makers; which eludes all conditions; which

makes or supplants a thousand Phalanxes and New Harmonies with each

pulsation....

"Yet, in a day of small, sour and fierce schemes, one is admonished and

cheered by a project of such friendly aims, and of such bold and

generous proportions; there is an intellectual courage and strength in

it which is superior and commanding; it certifies the presence of so

much truth in the theory, and in so far is destined to be fact.

"I regard these philanthropists as themselves the effects of the age in

which they live, in common with so many other good facts the

efflorescence of the period and predicting the good fruit that ripens.

They were not the creators that they believed themselves to be; but they

were unconscious prophets of the true state of society, one which the

tendencies of nature lead unto, one which always establishes itself for

the sane soul, though not in that manner in which they paint it."

"Our visions have not come to naught,

Who saw by lightning in the night;

The deeds we dreamed are being wrought

By those who work in clearer light;

In other ways our fight is fought,

And other forms fulfill our thought

Made visible to all men's sight."[41]

FOOTNOTES:

[10] _Karl Marx: Biographical Memoirs_, by Wilhelm Liebknecht, page 101.

[11] _Socialism, Utopian and Scientific_, by F. Engels, London, 1892,

pages 20-25.

[12] For good accounts of the life of Owen the reader is referred to the

Biography, by Lloyd Jones, in _The Social Science Series_, 1890,

published by Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., London, and the _Life of Robert

Owen_, by Frank Podmore, 2 vols., New York, 1907.

[13] _The Industrial History of England_, by H. de B. Gibbins, London,

Methuen and Co.

[14] _Industrial History of England_, page 179.

[15] This anonymous historian is now known to have been Mr. Samuel Kydd,

barrister-at-law (_vide_ Cooke-Taylor).

[16] _The Factory System and the Factory Acts_, by R. W. Cooke-Taylor,

London, 1894.

[17] In two volumes: London, Effingham Wilson, 1857 and 1858. Vol. I

contains the Life; Vol. II is a Supplementary Appendix. Quotations are

from Vol. I.

[18] See _Songs of Freedom_, by H. S. Salt, pages 81-83.

[19] _Industrial History of England_, page 181.

[20] _Capital_, by Karl Marx, Vol. I, page 467, Kerr edition.

[21] _Idem_, Vol. I, page 468.

[22] _Capital_, Vol. I, page 468.

[23] For instance, he so improved the machinery and increased the

fineness of the threads that, instead of spinning seventy-five thousand

yards of yarn to the pound of cotton, he spun two hundred and fifty

thousand! At that time a pound of cotton, which in its raw state was

worth $1.25, became worth $50 when spun.--_Life of Robert Owen_,

Philadelphia, 1866.--_Anonymous._

[24] _Autobiography._

[25] _The Force of Circumstances_, a poem, by John Garwood, Birmingham,

1808.

[26] Quoted by Engels, _Socialism, Utopian and Scientific_, page 22

(English edition, 1892).

[27] Quoted by H. M. Hyndman, _The Economics of Socialism_, page 150.

[28] _The New Harmony Communities_, by George Browning Lockwood, page

71.

[29] Quoted by Lockwood, _The New Harmony Communities_, pages 71-72.

[30] Owen presided at the first organized Trade Union Congress in

England.

[31] For the history of these and other Utopian Socialist schemes, the

reader is referred to Professor Ely's _French and German Socialism_

(1883); Kirkup's _History of Socialism_ (1900); and Hillquit's _History

of Socialism in the United States_ (1903).

[32] The Encyclopaedists.

[33] Engels, _Socialism, Utopian and Scientific_, pages 6-7.

[34] Engels, _Socialism, Utopian and Scientific_, page 15.

[35] _Idem._

[36] _Idem_, page 18.

[37] _Autobiography._

[38] _Idem._

[39] See, for instance, _The Revolution in Mind and Practice_, by Robert

Owen, pages 21-22.

[40] _Essay on Robert Owen._

[41] Gerald Massey.

CHAPTER III

THE "COMMUNIST MANIFESTO" AND THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT

I

The _Communist Manifesto_ has been called the birth-cry of the modern

scientific Socialist movement. When it was written, at the end of 1847,

little remained of those great movements which in the early part of the

century had inspired millions with high hopes of social regeneration and

rekindled the beacon fires of faith in the world. The Saint-Simonians

had, as an organized body, disappeared; the Fourierists were a dwindling

sect, discouraged by the failure of the one great trial of their system,

the famous Brook Farm experiment, in the United States; the Owenite

movement had never recovered from the failures of the experiments at New

Harmony and elsewhere, and had lost much of its identity through the

multiplicity of interests embraced in Owen's later propaganda. Chartism

and Trade Unionism on the one hand, and the Cooeperative Societies on the

other, had, between them, absorbed most of the vital elements of the

Owenite movement.

There was a multitude of what Engels calls "social quacks," but the

really great social movements, Owenism in England, and Fourierism in

France, were utterly demoralized and rapidly dwindling away. One thing

only served to keep the flame of hope alive--"the crude, rough-hewn,

purely instinctive sort of Communism" of the workers. This Communism of

the working class differed very essentially from the Socialism of

Fourier and Owen. It was Utopian, being based, like all Utopian

movements, upon abstract ideas. It differed from Fourierism and Owenism,

however, in that instead of a universal appeal based upon Brotherhood,

Justice, Order, and Economy, its appeal was, primarily, to the laborer.

Its basis was the crude class doctrine of "the rights of Labor." The

laborer was appealed to as one suffering from oppression and injustice.

It was, therefore, distinctly a class movement, and its

class-consciousness was sufficiently developed to keep its leaders from

wasting their lives in abortive appeals to the master class. The leading

exponents of this Communism of the workers were Wilhelm Weitling, in

Germany, and Etienne Cabet, in France.

Weitling was a man of the people. He was born in Magdeburg, Germany, in

1808, the illegitimate child of a humble woman and her soldier lover. He

became a tailor, and, as was the custom in Germany at that time,

traveled extensively during his apprenticeship. In 1838 his first

important work, "The World As It Is, and As It Might Be," appeared,

published in Paris by a secret revolutionary society consisting of

German workingmen of the "Young Germany" movement. In this work Weitling

first expounded at length his communistic theories. It is claimed[42]

that his conversion to Communism was the result of the chance placing of

a Fourierist paper upon the table of a Berlin coffeehouse, by Albert

Brisbane, the brilliant friend and disciple of Fourier, his first

exponent in the English language. This may well be true, for, as we

shall see, Weitling's views are mainly based upon those of the great

French Utopist. In 1842 Weitling published his best-known work, the book

upon which his literary fame chiefly rests, "The Guaranties of Harmony

and Freedom." This work at once attracted wide attention, and gave

Weitling a foremost place among the writers of the time in the

affections of the educated workers. It was an elaboration of the

theories contained in his earlier book. Morris Hillquit[43] thus

describes Weitling's philosophy and method:--

"In his social philosophy, Weitling may be said to have been the

connecting link between primitive and modern Socialism. In the main, he

is still a Utopian, and his writings betray the unmistakable influence

of the early French Socialists. In common with all Utopians, he bases

his philosophy exclusively upon moral grounds. Misery and poverty are to

him but the results of human malice, and his cry is for 'eternal

justice' and for the 'absolute liberty and equality of all mankind.' In

his criticism of the existing order, he leans closely on Fourier, from

whom he also borrowed the division of labor into three classes of the

Necessary, Useful, and Attractive, and the plan of organization of

'attractive industry.'

"His ideal of the future state of society reminds us of the

Saint-Simonian government of scientists. The administration of affairs

of the entire globe is to be in the hands of the three greatest

authorities on 'philosophical medicine,' physics, and mechanics, who are

to be reenforced by a number of subordinate committees. His state of the

future is a highly centralized government, and is described by the

author with the customary details. Where Weitling, to some extent,

approaches the conception of modern Socialism, is in his recognition of

class distinctions between employer and employee. This distinction never

amounted to a conscious indorsement of the modern Socialist doctrine of

the 'class struggle,' but his views on the antagonism between the 'poor'

and the 'wealthy' came quite close to it. He was a firm believer in

labor organizations as a factor in developing the administrative

abilities of the working class; the creation of an independent labor

party was one of his pet schemes, and his appeals were principally

addressed to the workingmen."

Weitling visited the United States in 1846, a group of German exiles,

identified with the Free Soil movement, having invited him to become the

editor of a magazine, the _Volkstribun_, devoted to the principles of

the movement. By the time he reached America, however, the magazine had

suspended publication. He stayed little more than a year, hastening back

to the fatherland to share in the revolutionary activities of 1848. He

returned to America again in 1849, after the failure of the "glorious

revolution," and for many years thereafter was an active and tireless

propagandist. He died in Brooklyn in 1871.

Etienne Cabet was, in many ways, a very different type of man from

Weitling, but their ideas were not so dissimilar. Cabet, born in Dijon,

France, in 1788, was the son of a fairly prosperous cooper, and received

a good university education. He studied both medicine and law, adopting

the profession of the latter and early achieving marked success in its

practice. He took a leading part in the Revolution of 1830 as a member

of the "Committee of Insurrection," and upon the accession of Louis

Philippe was "rewarded" by being made Attorney-General for Corsica.

There is no doubt that the government desired to remove Cabet from the

political life of Paris, quite as much as to reward him for his services

during the Revolution; his strong radicalism, combined with his sturdy

independence of character, being rightly regarded as dangerous to Louis

Philippe's regime. His reward, therefore, took the form of practical

banishment. The wily advisers of Louis Philippe used the gloved hand.

But the best-laid schemes of mice and courtiers "gang aft agley." Cabet,

in Corsica, joined the radical anti-administration forces, and became a

thorn in the side of the government. Removed from office, he returned to

Paris, whereupon the citizens of Dijon, his native town, elected him as

their deputy to the lower chamber in 1834. Here he continued his

opposition to the administration, and was at last tried on a charge of

_lese majeste_, and given the option of choosing between two years'

imprisonment and five years' exile.

Cabet chose exile, and took up his residence in England, where he fell

under the influence of Owen's agitation and became a convert to his

Socialistic views. During this time of exile, too, he became acquainted

with the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More and was fascinated by it. The idea

of writing a similar work of fiction to propagate his Socialist belief

impressed itself upon his mind, and he wrote "a philosophical and social

romance," entitled "Voyage to Icaria," which was published soon after

his return to Paris, in 1839. In this novel Cabet follows closely the

method of More, and describes "Icaria" as "a Promised Land, an Eden, an

Elysium, a new terrestrial Paradise." The plot of the book is simple in

the extreme, and its literary merit is not very great. The writer

represents that he met, in London, a nobleman, Lord William Carisdall,

who, having by chance heard of Icaria and the wonderful and strange

customs and form of government of its inhabitants, visited the country.

Lord William kept a diary in which he described all that he saw in this

wonderland. This record, we are told, the traveler had permitted to be

published through the medium of his friend, and under his editorial

supervision. The first part of the book contains an attractive account

of the cooeperative system of the Icarians, their communistic government,

equality of the sexes, and high standard of morality. The second part is

devoted to an account of the history of Icaria, prior to and succeeding

the revolution of 1782, when the great national hero, Icar, established

Communism.

The book created a tremendous furore in France. It appealed strongly to

the discontented masses, and it is said that by 1847 Cabet had no less

than four hundred thousand adherents among the workers of France. The

numerical strength of revolutionary movements is almost invariably

greatly exaggerated, however, and it is not likely that the figures

cited are exceptional in this regard. It is possible, _cum grano

salis_, to accept the figures only by remembering that a very

infinitesimal proportion of these were adherents in the sense of being

ready to follow Cabet's leadership, as subsequent events showed. When

the clamor rose for a practical test of the theories set forth so

alluringly, Cabet visited Robert Owen in England and sought advice as to

the best site for such an experiment. Owen recommended Texas, then

recently admitted into the union of states and anxious for settlers.

Cabet accepted Owen's advice and called for volunteers to form the

"advance guard" of settlers, the number responding being pitifully,

almost ludicrously, small. Still, the effect of the book was very great,

and it served to fire the flagging zeal of those workers for social

regeneration whose hearts must otherwise have become deadly sick from

long-deferred hopes.

The confluence of these two streams of Communist propaganda represented

by Weitling and Cabet constituted the real Communist "movement" of

1840-1847. Its organized expression was the Communist League, a secret

organization with its headquarters in London. The League was formed in

Paris by German refugees and traveling workmen, and seems to have been

an offspring of Mazzini's "Young Europe" agitation of 1834. At different

times it bore the names, "League of the Just," "League of the

Righteous," and, finally, "Communist League."[44] For many years it

remained a mere conspiratory society, exclusively German, and existed

mainly for the purpose of fostering the "Young Germany" ideas. Later it

became an International Alliance with societies in many parts of Europe.

In 1847 Karl Marx was residing in Brussels. During a prior residence in

Paris he had come into close association with the leaders of the League

there, and had agreed to form a similar society in Brussels. Engels was

in Paris in 1847, and it was probably due to his activities that the

Paris League officially invited both him and Marx to join the

international organization, promising that a congress should be convened

in London at an early date. We may, in view of the after career of

Engels as the politician of the movement, surmise so much. Be that how

it may, the invitation, with its promise to call a congress in London,

was extended and accepted. The reason for the step, the object of the

proposed congress, is quite clear. Marx himself has placed it beyond

dispute. During his stay in Paris he and Engels had discussed the

position of the League with some of its leaders, and he had, later,

criticised it in the most merciless manner in some of his pamphlets.[45]

Marx desired a revolutionary working class political party with a

definite aim and policy. Those leaders of the League who agreed with him

in this were the prime movers for the congress, which was held in

London, in November, 1847.

At the congress, Marx and Engels presented their views at great length,

and outlined the principles and policy which their famous pamphlet later

made familiar. Perhaps it was due to the very convincing manner in which

they argued that the emancipation of the working class must be the work

of that class itself, that there was some opposition to them, on the

part of a few delegates, on the ground that they were "Intellectuals"

and not members of the proletariat, a criticism which pursued them all

through their lives. Their views found general favor, however, as might

be expected from such an inchoate mass of men, revolutionaries to the

core, and waiting only for effective leadership. A resolution was

adopted requesting Marx and Engels to prepare "a complete theoretical

and working programme" for the League. This they did. It took the form

of the _Communist Manifesto_, published in the early part of January,

1848.

II

The authors of the _Manifesto_ were men of great intellectual gifts.

Either of them alone must have won fame; together, they won immortality.

Their lives, from the date of their first meeting in Paris, in 1844, to

the death of Marx, almost forty years later, are inseparably interwoven.

The friendship of Damon and Pythias was not more remarkable.

Karl Heinrich Marx was born on the fifth day of May, 1818, at Treves,

the oldest town in Germany, dating back to Roman times. His parents were

both people of remarkable character. His mother--_nee_ Pressburg--was

the descendant of Hungarian Jews who in the sixteenth century had

settled in Holland. Many of her ancestors had been rabbis. Marx was

passionately devoted to his mother, always speaking of her with reverent

admiration. On his father's side, also, Marx boasted of a long line of

rabbinical ancestors, and it has been suggested that he owed to this

rabbinical ancestry some of his marvelous gift of luminous exposition.

The true family name was Mordechia, but that was abandoned by his

grandfather, who took the name of Marx, which the grandson was destined

to make famous. The father of Karl was a lawyer of some prominence and

considerable learning, and a man of great force of character. In 1824,

the boy Karl being then six years old, he renounced the Jewish religion

and embraced Christianity, all the members of the family being baptized

and received into the Church.

There is a familiar legend that this act was the result of compulsion,

being taken in response to an official edict.[46] He held at the time

the position of notary public at the county court, and it is claimed

that the official edict in question required all Jews holding official

positions to forego them, and to abandon the practice of law, or to

accept the Christian faith. Many writers, including Liebknecht[47] and

one of the daughters of Karl Marx,[48] have given this explanation of

the renunciation of Judaism by the elder Marx. It seems certain,

however, that the act was purely voluntary, and that there was no such

edict.[49] It may be that social ambitions had something to do with it,

that he hoped to attain, as a Christian, a measure of success not

possible to an adherent of the Hebrew faith. Whatever the motive, the

act was a voluntary one. A great admirer of the eighteenth-century

"materialists," and a disciple of Voltaire, he believed in God, he said,

as Newton, Locke, and Leibnitz had done before him. He discussed

religious and philosophical questions very freely and frankly with his

son, and read Voltaire and Racine with him. As for the mother of Marx,

she also believed in God--"not for God's sake, but for my own," she

explained when asked about it.

At the earnest behest of his father, Marx studied law at the

universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena. But "to please himself" he

studied history and philosophy, winning great distinction in these

branches of learning. He graduated in 1841, as a Doctor of Philosophy,

with an essay on the philosophy of Epicurus, and it was his purpose to

settle at Bonn as a professor of philosophy. The plan was abandoned,

partly because he had already discovered that his bent was toward

political activity, and partly because the Prussian government had made

scholastic independence impossible, thus destroying the attractiveness

of an academic career. Accordingly, Marx accepted the editorship of a

democratic paper, the _Rhenish Gazette_, in which he waged bitter,

relentless war upon the government. Time after time the censors

interfered, but Marx was too brilliant a polemicist, even thus early in

his career, and far too subtle for the censors. Finally, at the request

of his managers, who hoped thus to avoid being compelled to suspend the

publication, Marx retired from the editorship. This did not serve to

save the paper, however, and it was suppressed by the government in

March, 1843.

Soon after this Marx went to Paris, with his young bride of a few

months, Jenny von Westphalen, the playmate of his childhood. The Von

Westphalens were of the nobility, and a brother of Mrs. Marx afterward

became a Prussian Minister of State. The elder Von Westphalen was half

Scotch, related, on his maternal side, to the Argyles. He was a lineal

descendant of the Duke of Argyle who was beheaded in the reign of James

II. His daughter tells an amusing story of how Marx, many years later,

having to pawn some of his wife's heirlooms, especially some heavy,

antique silver spoons which bore the Argyle crest and motto, "Truth is

my maxim," narrowly escaped arrest on suspicion of having robbed the

Argyles![50] To Paris, then, Marx went, and there met, among others,

Heinrich Heine, many of whose poems he suggested, Arnold Ruge, the poet,

P. J. Proudhon, and Michael Bakunin, the Anarchist philosopher, and,

above all, the man destined to be his very _alter ego_, Friedrich

Engels, with whom he had already had some correspondence.[51]

The attainments of Engels have been somewhat overshadowed by those of

his friend. Born at Barmen, in the province of the Rhine, November 28,

1820, he was educated in the gymnasium of that city, and after serving

his period of military service, from 1837 to 1841, was sent, in the

early part of 1842, to Manchester, England, to look after a

cotton-spinning business of which his father was principal owner. Here

he seems to have at once begun a thorough investigation of social and

industrial conditions, the results of which are contained in a book,

"The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844," which remains

to this day a classic presentation of the social and industrial life of

the period. From the very first, already predisposed, as we know, he

sympathized with the views of the Chartists and the Owenite Socialists.

He became friendly with the Chartist leaders, notably with Feargus

O'Connor, to whose paper, the _Northern Star_, he became a contributor.

He also became friendly with Robert Owen, and wrote for his _New Moral

World_.[52] His linguistic abilities were very great; it is said that he

had thoroughly mastered no less than ten languages--a gift which helped

him immensely in his literary and political associations with Marx.

When the two men met for the first time, in 1844, they were drawn

together by an irresistible impulse. They were kindred spirits. Marx had

gone to Paris mainly for the purpose of studying the Socialist movement

of the time. During his editorship of the _Rhenish Gazette_ several

articles had appeared on the subject, and he had refused to attack the

Socialists in any manner. He had gone to Paris with a considerable

reputation already established as a leader of radical thought, and at

once sought out the Saint-Simonians, under whose influence he was led to

declare himself definitely a Socialist. At first this seems difficult to

explain, so wide is the chasm which yawns between the "New Christianity"

of Saint-Simon and the materialism of Marx. There seems to be no bond of

sympathy between the religious mysticism of the French dreamer and the

scientific thought of the German economist and philosopher.

Marx has been described as being "rigidly mathematical,"[53] and the

picture of the man one gets from his writings is that of a cold,

unemotional philosopher, dealing only with facts and caring nothing for

idealism. But the real Marx was a very different sort of man. His life

was itself a splendid example of noble idealism, and underlying all his

materialism there was a great religious spirit, using the word

"religious" in its noblest and best sense, quite independent of dogmatic

theology. All his life he was a deep student of Dante, the _Divine

Comedy_ being his constant companion, so that he knew it almost

completely by heart. Some of his attacks upon Christianity are very

bitter, and have been much quoted against Socialism, but they are not

one whit more bitter than the superb thunderbolts of invective which

the ancient Hebrew prophets hurled against an unfaithful Church and

priesthood. For the most part, they are attacks upon religious hypocrisy

rather than upon Christianity. Marx was, of course, an agnostic, even an

atheist, but he was full of sympathy with the underlying ethical

principles of all the great religions. Always tolerant of the religious

opinions of others, he had nothing but scorn and contempt for the

blatant dogmatic atheism of his time, and vigorously opposed committing

the Socialist movement to atheism as part of its programme.[54] In

short, he was a man of fine spiritual instincts, splendidly religious in

his irreligion.

This spiritual side of Marx must be considered if we would understand

the man. It is not necessary, however, to ascribe the influence of

Saint-Simonian thought upon him to a predisposing spiritual temperament.

Marx, with his usual penetration, saw in Saint-Simonism the hidden germ

of a great truth, the embryo of a profound social theory. Saint-Simon,

as we have seen, had vaguely indicated the two ideas which were

afterward to be cardinal doctrines of the Marx-Engels _Manifesto_--the

antagonism of classes, and the economic foundation of political

institutions. Not only so, but Saint-Simon's grasp of political

questions, instanced by his advocacy, in 1815, of a triple alliance

between England, France, and Germany,[55] appealed to Marx, and

impressed him alike by its fine perspicacity and its splendid courage.

Engels, in whom, as stated, the working-class spirit of Chartism and

the ideals of Owenism were blended, found in Marx a twin spirit. They

were, indeed,--

"Two souls with but a single thought,

Two hearts that beat as one."

III

The _Communist Manifesto_ is the first declaration of an International

Workingmen's Party. Its fine peroration is a call to the workers to

transcend the petty divisions of nationalism and sectarianism: "The

proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to

win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!" These concluding phrases of

the _Manifesto_ have become the shibboleths of millions. They are

repeated with fervor by the disinherited workers of all the lands. Even

in China, lately so rudely awakened from the slumbering peace of the

centuries, they are voiced by an ever increasing army of voices. No

sentences ever coined in the mint of human speech have held such magic

power over such large numbers of men and women of so many diverse races

and creeds. As a literary production, the _Manifesto_ bears the

unmistakable stamp of genius.

But it is not as literature that we are to consider the historic

document. Its importance for us lies, not in its form, but in its

fundamental principle. And the fundamental principle, the essence or

soul of the declaration, is contained in this pregnant summary by

Engels:--

"In every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production

and exchange, and the _social organization necessarily following from

it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be

explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch_, that

consequently the whole history of mankind (since primitive tribal

society holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class

struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and

oppressed classes."[56]

Thus Engels summarizes the philosophy--as apart from the proposals of

immediate measures to constitute the political programme of the

party--of the _Manifesto_; the basis upon which the whole superstructure

of modern, scientific Socialist theory rests. This is the materialistic,

or economic, conception of history which distinguishes scientific

Socialism from all the Utopian Socialisms which preceded it. Socialism

is henceforth a theory of social evolution, not a scheme of

world-building; a spirit, not a thing. Thus, twelve years before the

appearance of "The Origin of Species," nearly twenty years after the

death of Lamarck, the authors of the _Communist Manifesto_ formulated a

great theory of social evolution as the basis of the mightiest

proletarian movement in history. Socialism had become a science instead

of a dream.

IV

Naturally, in view of its historic role, the joint authorship of the

_Manifesto_ has been much discussed. What was the respective share of

each of its creators? What did Marx contribute, and what Engels? It may

be, as Liebknecht says, an idle question, but it is a perfectly natural

one. The pamphlet itself does not assist us. There are no internal signs

pointing now to the hand of the one, now to the hand of the other. We

may hazard a guess that most of the programme of ameliorative measures

was the work of Engels, and perhaps the final section. It was the work

of Engels throughout his life to deal with present social and political

problems in the light of the fundamental theories to the systematization

and elucidation of which Marx was devoted.

Beyond this mere conjecture, we have the word of Engels with regard to

the basal principle which he has summarized in the passage already

quoted. "The _Manifesto_ being our joint production," he says, "I

consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which

forms its nucleus belongs to Marx.... This proposition, which, in my

opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin's theory has done

for biology, we, both of us, had been gradually approaching for some

years before 1845. How far I had progressed toward it is best shown by

my 'Condition of the Working Class in England.'[57] But when I again met

Marx at Brussels, in spring, 1845, he had it ready worked out, and put

it before me in terms almost as clear as those in which I have stated it

here."[58]

Engels has lifted the veil thus far, but the rest is hidden. Perhaps it

is well that it should be; well that no man should be able to say which

passages came from the mind of Marx and which from the mind of Engels.

In life they were inseparable, and so they must be in the Valhalla of

history. The greatest political pamphlet of all time must forever bear,

with equal honor, the names of both. Their noble friendship unites them

even beyond the tomb.

"Twin Titans! Whom defeat ne'er bowed,

Scarce breathing from the fray,

Again they sound the war cry loud,

Again is riven Labor's shroud,

And life breathed in the clay.

Their work? Look round--see Freedom proud

And confident to-day."[59]

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Cf. _Social Democracy Red Book_, edited by Frederic Heath (1900),

page 79.

[43] _History of Socialism in the United States_, by Morris Hillquit,

pages 161-162.

[44] E. Belfort Bax, article on _Friederich Engels_, in _Justice_

(London), No. 606, Vol. XII, August 24, 1895.

[45] _Disclosures about the Communists' Process, Herr Vogt_, etc.

[46] Cf. G. Adler, _Die Grundlagen der Karl Marx'schen Kritik der

bestehenden Volkswirthschaft_ (1887), page 226.

[47] _Karl Marx: Biographical Memoirs_, by Wilhelm Liebknecht, page 14.

[48] _Idem_, page 164.

[49] Cf. F. Mehring's _Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx,

Friederich Engels, und Ferdinand Lassalle_, 1902; the _Neue Beitrage zur

Biographie von Karl Marx und Friederich Engels, in Die Neue Zeit_, 1907,

and Mehring's _Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie_, 1903.

[50] _Memoirs of Marx_, by Wilhelm Liebknecht, page 164.

[51] Karl Kautsky, article on F. Engels, _Austrian Labor Almanac_, 1887.

[52] E. Belfort Bax, article on _Friederich Engels_, in _Justice_

(London), No. 606, Vol. XII, August 24, 1895.

[53] Cf. _Reminiscences of Karl Marx_, by W. Harrison Riley, in _The

Comrade_, Vol. III, No. 1, pages 5-6.

[54] Marx opposed the "Alliance de la Democratic Socialiste," formed by

Bakunin, with its headquarters at Geneva, almost as vigorously for its

atheistic plank as for its denial of political methods. The first plank

in the programme of the "Alliance" was as follows:--

"The Alliance declares itself Atheist; it demands the abolition of all

worship, the substitution of science for faith, and of human justice for

Divine justice; the abolition of marriage, so far as it is a political,

religious, juridical, or civil institution."

This programme is frequently quoted against the Socialist

propaganda,--as, for example, by George Brooks, in _God's England or the

Devil's_?--in spite of the fact that the "Alliance" was an Anarchist

organization, bitterly opposed by Marx, and, in turn, bitterly opposing

him.

In this connection, it may be well to call attention to an alleged

"quotation from Marx" which is frequently used by the opponents of

Socialism. It appears in the work of Brooks, quoted above, and in

Professor Peabody's _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_ (1907), page

16. Used in a public discussion by a New York labor union official, in

April, 1908, it was widely discussed by the press, and, according to

that same press, drew from the President of the United States

enthusiastic praise of the labor-union official in question. The passage

reads: "The idea of God must be destroyed. It is the keystone of a

perverted civilization. The true root of liberty, of equality, of

culture, is Atheism. Nothing must restrain the spontaneity of the human

mind." Had the opponents of Socialism been familiar with the teachings

of Marx, they would have known that he could not have said anything like

this, that it is absolutely at variance with all his teaching. The man

who formulated the materialist conception of history could not by any

possibility utter such balderdash. The fact is, the quotation is not

from Karl Marx at all, but from a very different writer, an Anarchist,

Wilhelm Marr, who was _a most bitter opponent of Socialism_. As given,

the quotation is a free translation of a passage contained in Marr's

_Das junge Deutschland in der Schweiz_, pages 131-134. Marr's programme,

as given in the _Report of the Royal Commission on Labor_ (Vol. V,

Germany), was the abolition of Church, State, property, and marriage,

with the one positive tenet of "a bloody and fearful revenge upon the

rich and powerful."

[55] See F. Engels, _Socialism, Utopian and Scientific_, page 16 (London

edition, 1892).

[56] F. Engels, Introduction to the _Communist Manifesto_ (English

translation, 1888). The italics are mine. J. S.

[57] F. Engels, _The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844_.

See, for instance, pages 79, 80, 82, etc.

[58] Introduction to the _Communist Manifesto_ (English edition, 1888).

[59] From _Friederich Engels_, a poem by "J. L." (John Leslie), in

_Justice_ (London), August 17, 1895.

CHAPTER IV

THE MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF HISTORY

I

Socialism, then, in the modern, scientific sense, is a theory of social

evolution. Its hopes for the future rest, not upon the genius of some

Utopia-builder, but upon the inherent forces of historical development.

The Socialist state will never be realized except as the result of

economic necessity, the culmination of successive epochs of industrial

evolution. Thus the existing social system appears to the Socialist of

to-day, not as it appeared to the Utopians and as it still must appear

to mere ideologist reformers, as a triumph of ignorance or wickedness,

the reign of false _ideas_, but as the result of an age-long

evolutionary process, determined, not wholly indeed, but mainly, by

certain methods of producing the necessities of life in the first place,

and secondly, of effecting their exchange.

Not, let it be understood, that Socialism has become a mere mechanical

theory of economic fatalism. The historical development, the social

evolution, upon the laws of which the theories of Socialism are based,

is a human process, involving all the complex feelings, emotions,

aspirations, hopes, and fears common to man. To ignore this fundamental

fact, as they must who interpret the Marx-Engels theory of history as a

doctrine of economic fatalism, is to miss the profoundest significance

of the theory. While it is true that the scientific spirit destroys the

idea of romantic, magic transformations of the social system and the

belief that the world may be re-created at will, rebuilt upon the plans

of some Utopian architect, it still, as we shall see, leaves room for

the human factor. Otherwise, indeed, it would only be a new kind of

Utopianism. They who accept the theory that the production of the

material necessities of life is the main impelling force, the _geist_,

of human evolution, may rightly protest against social injustice and

wrong just as vehemently as any of the ideologists, and aspire just as

fervently toward a nobler and better state. The Materialistic Conception

of History does not involve the fatalist resignation summed up in the

phrase, "Whatever is, is natural, and, therefore, right." It does not

involve belief in man's helplessness to change conditions.

II