the greed of the employers. But you never can expect through the union
to get all that rightfully belongs to you. It is impossible to expect
that the union will ever do away with the terrible inequalities in the
distribution of wealth. The union is a good thing, and the workers
ought to be much more thoroughly organized into unions than they are.
Socialists are always on the side of the union when it is engaged in
an honest fight against the exploiters of labor.
Later on, I shall take up the question of unionism and discuss it with
you, Jonathan. Meanwhile, I want to impress upon your mind that _a
wise union man votes as he strikes_. There is not the least bit of
sense in belonging to a union if you are to become a "scab" when you
go to the ballot-box. _And a vote for a capitalist party is a scab
vote, Jonathan._
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Note: In the American edition, published by Kerr, the page is
186.
V
THE DRONES AND THE BEES
Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions
yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.
They have enabled a greater population to live the same life
of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of
manufactures, and others, to make large fortunes.--_John
Stuart Mill._
Most people imagine that the rich are in heaven, but as a rule
it is only a gilded hell. There is not a man in the city of
New York with brains enough to own five millions of dollars.
Why? The money will own him. He becomes the key to a safe.
That money will get him up at daylight; that money will
separate him from his friends; that money will fill his heart
with fear; that money will rob his days of sunshine and his
nights of pleasant dreams. He becomes the property of that
money. And he goes right on making more. What for? He does not
know. It becomes a kind of insanity.--_R.G. Ingersoll._
Is it well that, while we range with Science, glorying in the time,
City children soak and blacken soul and sense in City slime?
There, among the gloomy alleys, Progress halts on palsied feet,
Crime and Hunger cast our maidens by the thousand on the street.
There the master scrimps his haggard seamstress of her daily bread,
There a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead;
There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor,
In the crowded couch of incest, in the warrens of the poor.
--_Tennyson._
When you and I were boys going to school, friend Jonathan, we were
constantly admonished to study with admiration the social economy of
the bees. We learned to almost reverence the little winged creatures
for the manner in which they
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower.
We were taught, you remember, to honor the bees for their hatred of
drones. It was the great virtue of the bees that they always drove the
drones from the hive. For my part, I learned the lesson so well that I
really became a sort of bee-worshipper. But since I have grown to
mature years I have come to the conclusion that those old lessons were
not honestly meant, Jonathan. For if anybody proposes to-day that we
should drive out the drones from the _human_ hive, he is at once
denounced as an Anarchist and an "undesirable citizen."
It is all very well for bees to insist that there must be no idle
parasites, that the drones must go, but for human beings such a policy
won't do! It savors too much of Socialism, my friend, and is
unpleasantly like Paul's foolish saying that "If any man among you
will not work, neither shall he eat." That is a text which is out of
date and unsuited to the twentieth century!
"Allah! Allah!" cried the stranger,
"Wondrous sights the traveller sees;
But the greatest is the latest,
Where the drones control the bees!"
Every modern civilized nation rewards its drones better than it
rewards its bees, and in every land the drones control the bees.
I want you to consider, friend Jonathan, the lives of the people. How
the workers live and how the shirkers live; now the bees live and how
the drones live, if you like that better. You can study the matter for
yourself, right in Pittsburg, much better than you can from books, for
God knows that in Pittsburg there are the extremes of wealth and
poverty, just as there are in New York, Chicago, St. Louis or San
Francisco. There are gilded hells where rich drones live and squalid
hells where poor bees live, and the number of truly happy people is
sadly, terribly, small.
_Ten millions in poverty!_ Don't you think that is a cry so terrible
that it ought to shame a great nation like this, a nation more
bounteously endowed by Nature than any other nation in the world's
history? Men, women and children, poor and miserable, with not enough
to eat, nor clothes to keep them warm in the cold winter nights; with
places for homes that are unfit for dogs, and these not their own;
knowing not if to-morrow may bring upon them the last crushing blow.
All these conditions, and conditions infinitely worse than these, are
contained in the poverty of those millions, Jonathan.
If people were poor because the land was poor, because the country was
barren, because Nature dealt with us in niggardly fashion, so that all
men had to struggle against famine; if, in a word, there was democracy
in our poverty, so that none were idle and rich while the rest toiled
in poverty, it would be our supreme glory to bear it with cheerful
courage. But that is not the case. While babies perish for want of
food and care in dank and unhealthy hovels, there are pampered poodles
in palaces, bejeweled and cared for by liveried flunkies and waiting
maids. While men and women want bread, and beg crusts or stand
shivering in the "bread lines" of our great cities, there are monkeys
being banqueted at costly banquets by the profligate degenerates of
riches. It's all wrong, Jonathan, cruelly, shamefully, hellishly
wrong! And I for one, refuse to call such a brutalized system, or the
nation tolerating it, _civilized_.
Good old Thomas Carlyle would say "Amen!" to that, Jonathan. Lots of
people wont. They will tell you that the poverty of the millions is
very sad, of course, and that the poor are to be pitied. But they will
remind you that Jesus said something about the poor always being with
us. They won't read you what he did say, but you can read it for
yourself. Here it is: "For ye have the poor always with you, and
_whensoever ye will ye can do them good_."[3] And now, I want you to
read a quotation from Carlyle:
"It is not to die, or even to die of hunger, that makes a man
wretched; many men have died; all men must die,--the last exit
of us all is in a Fire-Chariot of Pain. But it is to live
miserable we know not why; to work sore and yet gain nothing;
to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt-in with
a cold universal Laissezfaire: it is to die slowly all our
life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, Infinite Injustice, as
in the accursed iron belly of a Phalaris' Bull! This is and
remains forever intolerable to all men whom God has made."
"Miserable we know not why"--"to die slowly all our life
long"--"Imprisoned in a deaf, dead, Infinite Injustice"--Don't these
phrases describe exactly the poverty you have known, brother Jonathan?
Did you ever stop to think, my friend, that poverty is the lot of the
_average_ worker, the reward of the producers of wealth, and that only
the producers of wealth are poor? Do you know that, because we die
slowly all our lives long, the death-rate among the working-class is
far higher than among other classes by reason of overwork, anxiety,
poor food, lack of pleasure, bad housing, and all the other ills
comprehended in the lot of the wage-worker? In Chicago, for example,
in the wards where the well-to-do reside the death-rate is not more
than 12 per thousand, while it is 37 in the tenement districts.
Scientists who have gone into the matter tell us that of ten million
persons belonging to the well-to-do classes the annual deaths do not
number more than 100,000, while among the very best paid workers the
number is not less than 150,000 and among the very poorest paid
workers at least 350,000. To show you just what those proportions are,
I have represented the matter in a little diagram, which you can
understand at a glance:
[Illustration: DIAGRAM
Showing Relative Death-Rate Among Persons of Different Social
Classes.]
There are some diseases, notably the Great White Plague. Consumption,
which we call "diseases of the working-classes" on account of the fact
that they prey most upon the wearied, ill-nourished bodies of the
workers. Not that they are confined to the workers entirely, but
because the workers are most afflicted by them. Because the workers
live in crowded tenement hovels, work in factories laden with dust and
disease germs, are overworked and badly fed, this and other of the
great scourges of the human race find them ready victims.
Here is another diagram for you, Jonathan, showing the comparative
mortality from Consumption among the workers engaged in six different
industrial occupations and the members of six groups of professional
workers.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM
Showing Relative Mortality From Tuberculosis.
Deaths per 100,000 living in the same occupation
Marble and stone cutters. 540
Cigar makers and tobacco workers. 476
Compositors, printers, pressmen. 435
Barbers and hairdressers. 334
Masons (brick and stone). 294
Iron and steel workers. 236
Physicians and Surgeons. 168
Engineers and Surveyors. 145
School teachers. 144
Lawyers. 140
Clergymen. 123
Bankers, brokers, officials of companies, etc. 92]
I want you to study this diagram and the figures by which it is
accompanied, Jonathan. You will observe that the death rate from
Consumption among marble and stone cutters is six times greater than
among bankers and brokers and directors of companies. Among cigar
makers and tobacco workers it is more than five times as great. Iron
and steel workers do not suffer so much from the plague as some other
workers, according to the death-rates. One reason is that only fairly
robust men enter the trade to begin with. Another reason is that a
great many, finding they cannot stand the strain, after they have
become infected, leave the trade for lighter occupations. I think
there can be no doubt that the _true_ mortality from Consumption among
iron and steel workers is much higher than the figures show. But,
taking the figures as they are, confident that they understate the
extent of the ravages of the disease in these occupations, we find
that the mortality is more than two and a half times greater than
among capitalists.
Now, these are very serious figures, Jonathan. Why is the mortality so
much less among the capitalists? It is because they have better homes,
are not so overworked to physical exhaustion, are better fed and
clothed, and can have better care and attention, far better chances of
being cured, if they are attacked. They can get these things only from
the labor of the workers, Jonathan.
_In other words, they buy their lives with ours. Workers are killed to
keep capitalists alive._
It used to be frequently charged that drink was the chief cause of the
poverty of the workers; that they were poor because they were drunken
and thriftless. But we hear less of that silly nonsense than we used
to, though now and then a Prohibitionist advocate still repeats the
old and long exploded myth. It never was true, Jonathan, and it is
less true to-day than ever before. Drunkenness is an evil and the
working class suffers from it to a lamentable degree, but it is not
the sole cause of poverty, it is not the chief cause of poverty, it is
not even a very important cause of poverty at all.
It is true that intemperance causes poverty in some cases, it is also
true that drunkenness is very frequently caused by poverty. They act
and react upon each other, but it is not doubted by any student of our
social conditions whose opinion carries any weight that intemperance
is far more often the result of poverty and bad conditions of life and
labor than the cause of them.
The International Socialist Congress which met at Stuttgart last
summer very rightly decided that Socialists everywhere should do all
in their power to combat alcoholism, to end the ravages of
intemperance among the working classes of all nations. For drunken
voters are not very likely to be either wise or free voters: we need
sober, earnest, clear-thinking men to bring about better conditions,
Jonathan. But the Socialists, while they adopt this position, do not
mistake results for causes. They know from actual experience that
Solomon was right when he attributed intemperance to ill conditions.
Hunt out your Bible and turn to the Book of Proverbs, chapter 31,
verse 7. There you will read: "Let him drink and forget his poverty,
and remember his misery no more."
That is not very good advice to give a workingman, but it is exactly
what many workingmen do. There was a wise English bishop who said a
few years ago that if he lived in the slums of any of the great
cities, under conditions similar to those in which most of the workers
live, he would probably be a drunkard, and when I see the conditions
under which millions of men are working and living I wonder that we
have not more drunkenness than we have.
A good many years ago, "General" Booth, head of the Salvation Army,
declared that "nine-tenths" of the poverty of the people was due to
intemperance. Later on, "Commissioner" Cadman, one of the "General's"
most trusted aides, made an investigation of the causes of poverty
among all those who passed through the Army shelters for destitute men
and women. He found that among the very lowest class, the "submerged
tenth," where the ravages of drink are most sadly evident, depression
in trade counted for much more than drink as a cause of poverty. The
figures were:
Depression in trade 55.8 per cent.
Drink _and Gambling_ 26.6 per cent.
Ill-health 11.6 per cent.
Old Age 5.8 per cent.
Even among the very lowest class of the social wrecks of our great
cities, who have long since abandoned hope, depression in trade was
found to count for more than twice as much as drink and gambling
combined as a producer of poverty.
That is in keeping with all the investigations that have ever been
made in a scientific spirit. Professor Amos Warner, in his valuable
study of the subject, published in his book, _American Charities_,
shows how false the notion that nearly all the poverty of the people
is due to their intemperance proves to be when an intelligent
investigation of the facts is made.
Dr. Edward T. Devine, of Columbia University, editor of _Charities and
the Commons_, is probably as competent an authority upon this question
as any man living. He is not likely to be called a Socialist by
anybody. Yet I find him writing in his magazine, at the end of
November, 1907: "The tradition which many hold that the condition of
poverty is ordinarily and as a matter of course to be explained by
personal faults of the poor themselves is no longer tenable. Strong
drink and vice are abnormal, unnatural and essentially unattractive
ways of spending surplus income." Dr. Devine very frankly and bravely
admits that poverty is an unnecessary evil, "a shocking, loathsome
excrescence on the body politic, an intolerable evil which should come
to an end." What else, indeed, could a sane man think of it?
As a conservative man, I say without reservation that accidents
incurred in the course of employment, and sickness brought on by
industrial conditions, such as overwork accompanied by under
nourishment, exposure to extremes of temperature, unsanitary workshops
and factories and the inhalation of contaminated atmosphere, are far
more important causes of poverty among the workers than intemperance.
Every investigation ever made goes to prove this true. I wish that
every one who seeks to blame the poverty of the poor upon the victims
themselves would study a few facts, which I am going to ask you to
study, without prejudice or passion. They would readily see then how
false the belief is.
Last year there was a Committee of very expert investigators in New
York which made a careful inquiry into the relation of wages to the
standard of living. They were not Socialists, these gentlemen, or I
should not submit their testimony. I am anxious to base my case
against our present social system upon evidence that is not in any way
biased in favor of Socialism. Dr. Lee K. Frankel was Chairman of the
Committee. He is Director of the United Hebrew Charities of New York
City, an able and sincere man, but not a Socialist. Dr. Devine,
another able and sincere man who is by no means a Socialist, was a
member of the Committee. Among the other members were also such
persons as Bishop Greer, of New York, Reverend Adolph Guttman,
president of the Hebrew Relief Society, Syracuse, New York, Mrs.
William Einstein, president of Emanu El Sisterhood, New York; Mr.
Homer Folks, Secretary State Charities Aid Association and Reverend
William J. White, of Brooklyn, Supervisor of Catholic Charities. The
Committee was deputed to make the investigation by the New York State
Conference of Charities and Corrections, and made its report in
November, 1907, at Albany, N.Y.
I think you will agree, Jonathan, that it would be very hard to
imagine a more conservative body, less inoculated with the virus of
Socialism than that. From their report to the Conference I note that
the Committee reported that as a result of their work, after going
carefully into the expenditure of some 322 families, they had come to
the conclusion that the lowest amount upon which a family of five
could be supported in decency and health in New York City was about
eight hundred dollars a year. I am quite sure, Jonathan, that there is
not one of the members of that Committee who would think that even
that sum would be enough to keep _their_ families in health and
decency; not one who would want to see their children living under the
best conditions which that sum made possible. They were
philanthropists you see, Jonathan, "figuring out" how much the "Poor"
ought to be able to live on. And to help them out they got Professor
Chapin, of Beloit College and Professor Underhill, of Yale. Professor
Underhill being an expert physiological chemist, could advise them as
to the sufficiency of the expenditures upon food among the families
reported.
But the total income of thousands of families falls very short of
eight hundred dollars a year. There are many thousands of families in
which the breadwinner does not earn more than ten dollars a week at
best. Making allowance for time lost through sickness, holidays, and
so on, it is evident that the total income of such families would not
exceed four hundred and fifty dollars a year at best. Even the worker
with twenty dollars a week, if there is a brief period of sickness or
unemployment, will find himself, despite his best efforts, on the
wrong side of the line, compelled either to see his family suffer want
or to become dependent on "that cold thing called Charity." And Dr.
Devine, writing in _Charities and the Commons_, admits that the
charitable societies cannot hope to make up the deficit, to add to the
wages of the workers enough to raise their standards of living to the
point of efficiency. He admits that "such a policy would tend to
financial bankruptcy."
Taking the unskilled workers in New York City, the vast army of
laborers, it is certain that they do not average $400 a year, so that
they are, as a class, hopelessly, miserably poor. It is true that many
of them spend part of their miserable wages on drink, but if they did
not, they would still be poor; if every cent went to buy the
necessities of existence, they would still be hopelessly, miserably
poor.
The Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics showed a few years ago, when
the cost of living was less than now, that a family of five could not
live decently and in health upon less than $754 a year, but more than
half of the unskilled workers in the shoe-making industry of that
State got less than $300 a year. Of course, some were single and not a
few were women, but the figures go far to show that the New York
conditions are prevalent in New England also. Mr. John Mitchell said
that in the anthracite district of Pennsylvania it was impossible to
maintain a family of five in decency on less than $600 a year, but
according to Dr. Peter Roberts, who is one of the most conservative of
living authorities upon the conditions of industry in the coal mines
of Pennsylvania, the _average_ wage in the anthracite district is
less than $500 and that about 60 per cent. receive less than $450 a
year.
I am not going to bother you with more statistics, Jonathan, for I
know you do not like them, and they are hard to remember. What I want
you to see is that, for many thousands of workers, poverty is an
inevitable condition. If they do not spend a cent on drink; never give
a cent to the Church or for charity; never buy a newspaper; never see
a play or hear a concert; never lose a day's wages through sickness or
accident; never make a present of a ribbon to their wives or a toy to
their children--in a word, if they live as galley slaves, working
without a single break in the monotony and drudgery of their lives,
they must still be poor and endure hunger, unless they can get other
sources of income. The mother must go out to work and neglect her baby
to help out; the little boys and girls must go to work in the days
when they ought to be in school or in the fields at play, to help out
the beggars' pittance which is their portion. The greatest cause of
poverty is low wages.
Then think of the accidents which occur to the wage-earners, making
them incapable of earning anything for long periods, or even
permanently. At the same meeting of the New York State Conference of
Charities and Corrections as that already referred to, there were
reports presented by many of the charitable organizations of the state
which showed that this cause of poverty is a very serious one, and one
that is constantly increasing. In only about twenty per cent. of the
accidents of a serious nature investigated was there any settlement
made by the employers, and from a list that is of immense interest I
take just a few cases as showing how little the life of the average
workingman is valued at:
_Nature of Injury._ _Settlement_
Spine injured $ 20 and doctor
Legs broken 300
Death 100
Death 65
Two ribs broken 20
Paralysis 12
Brain affected 60
Fingers amputated 50
The reports showed that about half of the accidents occurred to men
under forty years of age, in the very prime of life. The wages were
determined in 241 cases and it was shown that about 25 per cent. were
earning less than $10 a week and 60 per cent. were earning less than
$15 a week. Even without the accidents occurring to them these workers
and their families must be miserably poor, the accidents only plunging
them deeper into the frightful abyss of despair, of wasting life and
torturous struggle.
No, my friend, it is not true that the poverty of the poor is due to
their sins, thriftlessness and intemperance. I want you to remember
that it is not the wicked Socialist agitators only who say this. I
could fill a book for you with the conclusions of very conservative
men, all of them opposed to Socialism, whose studies have forced them
to this conclusion.
There was a Royal Commission appointed in England some years ago to
consider the problem of the Aged Poor and how to deal with it. Of that
Royal Commission Lord Aberdare was chairman--and he was a most
implacable enemy of Socialism. The Commission reported in 1895: "We
are confirmed in our view by the evidence we have received that ... as
regards the great bulk of the working classes, during their lives,
they are fairly provident, fairly thrifty, fairly industrious and
fairly temperate." But they could not add that, as a result of these
virtues, they were also fairly well-to-do! The Right Honorable Joseph
Chamberlain, another enemy of Socialism, signed with several others a
Minority Report, but they agreed "that the imputation that old age
pauperism is mainly due to drink, idleness, improvidence, and the like
abuses applies to but a very small proportion of the working
population."