{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_53052/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_53052","id":"gutenberg_53052","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53052","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Economics","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Sociology","Trusts, Industrial","United States -- Economic conditions -- 1865-1918","United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918","Working class -- United States"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See\n      https://archive.org/details/ourbenevolentfeu00ghenrich\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s note:\n\n      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\n      An additional Transcriber\u2019s note is at the end.\n\n\n\n\n\nOUR BENEVOLENT FEUDALISM\n\n\n[Illustration: Publisher's logo]\n\n\nOUR BENEVOLENT FEUDALISM\n\nby\n\nW. J. GHENT\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNew York\nThe Macmillan Company\nLondon: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.\n1902\n\nAll rights reserved\n\nCopyright, 1902,\nBy The Macmillan Company.\n\nSet up and electrotyped October, 1902.\n\nNorwood Press\nJ. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith\nNorwood Mass. U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe germ of this book was contained in an article published in the\n_Independent_, April 3, 1902. The wide interest which that article\nawakened prompted the elaboration and arrangement of its briefly\nconsidered and somewhat disjointed parts into the present form.\n\nThe chapters on \u201cOur Makers of Law\u201d and \u201cOur Interpreters of Law\u201d have\nbeen carefully read by a member of the New York Bar who has made a\nspecial study of the matters treated therein. Some of the decisions\ncited in the latter chapter are admitted to be those of subordinate\ncourts in comparatively unimportant States. The intention, however, was\nto give a general view of judicial interpretation; and for that reason\nit became necessary to cite decisions of inferior as well as superior\ncourts, and those from semi-industrial as well as industrial States.\n\nAs the book goes to press, the news is published that the anthracite\nmagnates have yielded and made concessions to public sentiment. It is\nan act in harmony with the wiser forethought of most of the magnates\nof to-day, and it strengthens the general seigniorial position\nimmeasurably.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                    PAGE\n\n  PREFACE                              v\n\n  CHAPTER\n\n     I. UTOPIAS AND OTHER FORECASTS    1\n\n    II. COMBINATION AND COALESCENCE   11\n\n   III. OUR MAGNATES                  27\n\n    IV. OUR FARMERS AND WAGE-EARNERS  47\n\n     V. OUR MAKERS OF LAW             83\n\n    VI. OUR INTERPRETERS OF LAW      102\n\n   VII. OUR MOULDERS OF OPINION      122\n\n  VIII. GENERAL SOCIAL CHANGES       154\n\n    IX. TRANSITION AND FULFILMENT    180\n\n  INDEX                              199\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I UTOPIAS AND OTHER FORECASTS\n\n\n\u201cThe old order changeth, yielding place to new.\u201d But what the new order\nshall be is a matter of some diversity of opinion. Whoever, blessed\nwith hope, speculates upon the future of society, tends to imagine it\nin the form of his social ideals. It matters little what the current\nprobabilities may be--the strong influence of the ideal warps the\njudgment. To Thomas More, though most tendencies of his time made for\nabsolutism, the future was republican and communistic; and to Francis\nBacon the present held the promise of a new Atlantis, despite the\ngrowing arrogance of the Crown and the submissiveness of the people.\n\nThe great diversity of social ideals produces a like diversity of\nsocial forecasts. All the soothsayers give different readings of the\nsigns. Even those of the same school, who build the future in the\nlight of the same dogmas, differ in regard to particulars of form\nand structure. How many forecasts of one sort or another have been\ngiven us, it is impossible to say. Mr. H. G. Wells, in a footnote to\nhis \u201cAnticipations,\u201d complains of their scarcity. \u201cOf quite serious\nforecasts and inductions of things to come,\u201d he says, \u201cthe number is\nvery small indeed; a suggestion or so of Mr. Herbert Spencer\u2019s, Mr.\nKidd\u2019s \u2018Social Evolution,\u2019 some hints from Mr. Archdall Reid, some\npolitical forecasts, German for the most part (Hartmann\u2019s \u2018Earth in the\nTwentieth Century,\u2019 _e.g._), some incidental forecasts by Professor\nLangley (_Century Magazine_, December, 1884, _e.g._), and such isolated\ncomputations as Professor Crookes\u2019s wheat warning and the various\nestimates of our coal supply, make almost a complete bibliography.\u201d But\nsurely the Utopians, from Plato to Edward Bellamy, have given us \u201cquite\nserious forecasts\u201d; there is something of serious prophecy in both Karl\nMarx and Friedrich Engels, much more in Tolstoi and Peter Kropotkin;\nand the \u201cFabian Essays\u201d are charged with it. Mr. Henry D. Lloyd\u2019s\n\u201cWealth against Commonwealth\u201d closes with a brilliant and eloquent\npicture of a regenerated society, and Mr. Edmond Kelly\u2019s \u201cIndividualism\nand Collectivism\u201d is in large part prophetic. All the social reformers\nwho write books or articles give us engaging pictures of things as\nthey are to be; and though the Philosophical Anarchists deal rather\nmore largely with polemics than with prophecy, the Socialists are\nconspicuously definite and serious in their forecasts. Even the popular\nscientists--the astronomers, biologists, and anthropologists--often run\ninto prediction; and in the pages of Richard A. Proctor, E. D. Cope,\nand Grant Allen, and of such living men as M. Camille Flammarion, Mr.\nAlfred Russell Wallace, and Professor W. J. McGee, we have frequent\ndepictions of certain phases of the future.\n\nDoubtless, any reader can add to this list. Of a surety, we have had\nno lack of forecasts of one sort or another; and now we have some\nnew contributions,--Mr. Wells\u2019s \u201cAnticipations,\u201d Mr. Benjamin Kidd\u2019s\n\u201cPrinciples of Western Civilization,\u201d two brief but sententious papers\nby Professor John B. Clark, on \u201cThe Society of the Future\u201d and \u201cA\nModified Individualism\u201d (published in the _Independent_), a definite\nSocialist prediction by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, and a semi-Socialist one by\nMr. Sidney Webb.\n\n\nI\n\nMr. Wells, in his lecture before the Royal Institution last January,\nput forth the thesis that, just as we can picture the general aspects\nof the earth in mesozoic times by a study of geology and paleontology,\nso by a study of the present sociological drift can we picture the\nsociety of a hundred years hence. He thereupon gives us \u201cAnticipations\u201d\nas a result of the more or less rigorous working out of this method.\nThere is much to be said for the method, and its right employment might\nprobably give us something of great value. Unfortunately, Mr. Wells\nforgets his thesis, and plunges into pure vaticination. He writes\nwith a spirited aggressiveness, and his pictures are often vivid and\nimpressive. But the greater part of his revelation is of a state of\nthings which seems far removed from what would be produced by any\ncurrent tendencies, actual or latent.\n\nMr. Kidd\u2019s predictions lack somewhat in definiteness of outline, and\nneed not here concern us. Tolstoi, on the other hand, is specific.\nHe dreams of a return to a more primitive manner of production, and a\nsocial change toward a status of Anarchist-Communism. He scoffs at the\nenormous diversity of wants made necessary by the growing intelligence\nand refinement of the race, and urges mankind to live more simply. \u201cThe\ntown must be abandoned, the people must be sent away from the factories\nand into the country to work with their hands; the aim of every man\nshould be to satisfy all his wants himself.\u201d But the counsel falls\nupon heedless ears. Urged to live more simply, the race, impelled by\nnatural and irresistible laws, yearly increases the sum of its wants.\nScience, art, and industry constantly pile up new commodities. Mankind\nfinds that through them it secures longer and healthier, if not happier\nlives. It recognizes that by this increase of wants more human beings\nare employed, and that by a slight diminution thereof tens of thousands\nare thrown into idleness. And finally it recognizes that by a division\nof labor, in which natural aptitude in particular directions is sought\nto be secured, the greatest and most economical production follows.\nUnder Anarchist-Communism and the performance of labor in the direction\nof each individual attempting to create the things needful for himself,\nthere would be entailed upon us a productive waste vastly greater than\nthat heretofore compelled by capitalism, diffusing a degree of want\nand consequent wretchedness at present unknown. There is no present\nindication that mankind will take this step.\n\nSomething better is to be said for Peter Kropotkin\u2019s ideal of a\ncommunistic union of shop industry and agriculture. In remote places,\noutside the current of factory industrialism, there are still survivals\nof this union, though the communistic feature is generally wanting.\nDoubtless, under any form of society, even a well-regulated State\nSocialism, this union would to some extent persist. But if there are\nany present tendencies toward its growth, they are but feeble and\nisolated. Kropotkin\u2019s recent book, \u201cFields, Factories and Workshops,\u201d\nwhich was intended to sound the glad timbrel of rejoicing over the\nexpansion of this movement, turns out to be a rather pitiful threnody\non the decline and death of petty industries throughout Europe.\nMoreover, it is one thing to argue the persistence of this manner of\nproduction in scattered places, and quite another to argue it the\ndominant manner of production in a transformed society of the future.\nOf the coming of such a society the evidences are painfully scant.\n\nWe have also the Single-Taxers, the followers of the late Henry George,\nwho are quite as fertile in prophecy as in polemics. They dream of a\nmillennium through the imposition of a tax on the economic value of\nland, and the abolition of all other taxes and duties of whatsoever\nkind. Free competition is their shibboleth; and it is no less the\nshibboleth of the Neo-Jeffersonians, the followers of Mr. Bryan.\nExcept for the fact that these two schools are somewhat Jacobinical,\ntheir general notions of the coming society do not differ greatly\nfrom the notions of the orthodox economists. All of these desire,\nor think they desire, free competition. Arising out of an era of\ncompetition, Professor Clark sees a coming order wherein the rich \u201cwill\ncontinually grow richer, and the multi-millionnaires will approach\nthe billion-dollar standard; but the poor will be far from growing\npoorer.... It may be that the wages of a day will take him [the worker]\nto the mountains, and those of a hundred days will carry him through a\nEuropean tour.\u201d\n\nThe dreadful spectre of monopoly, however, arises to threaten these\nvisions. Most of the orthodox economists acknowledge a possible danger\nfrom it, but the Single-Taxers and Jeffersonians are sure it is a real\nand growing menace. Says Professor Clark, \u201cBetween us and the r\u00e9gime\nof monopoly there ranges itself a whole series of possible measures\nstopping short of Socialism, and yet efficient enough to preserve our\nfree economic system.\u201d It is a \u201cfree economic system\u201d which all these\nare bent on having,--the economists determined on preserving it, the\nothers on establishing it; for the Single-Taxers, with their _b\u00eate\nnoir_ of private ownership of land, and the Jeffersonians, with their\n_b\u00eates noirs_ of railroads and trusts, deny that our economic system\nis at present \u201cfree.\u201d Doubtless they are both right; but if there be\none fact in the realm of political economy fairly established, it is\nthat the era of competition, whether free or unfree, is dead, and the\nmeans of its resurrection are unknown to political science. With old\nmen the dream of its revival is warrantable, for it springs from that\nretrospective mood of age which gilds past times, and that attendant\nmood which recreates and projects them into some imagined future; but\nwith the younger generation visions of free competition are but as\nchildren\u2019s dreams of wild forests and shaggy animals--the atavistic\nreminders of experiences unknown to the individual, though knit into\nthe fibre of the race. The subject is one far better suited to the\ndomain of a psychologist like Dr. Stanley Hall than to the scope of\nthis book.\n\nFinally, we have the Socialists, with their prophecy of the early\nestablishment of a co\u00f6perative commonwealth. It is a noble picture,\nin its best expression based upon the extreme of faith in the coming\ngenerations of mankind, however its draughtsmen may criticise the\nwisdom and justice of the present. There is no doubt that now a\nground-swell of Socialist conviction moves like a tide \u201cof waters\nunwithstood\u201d; everywhere one notes its influences. Even so conservative\na scholar as Professor Henry Davies, lecturer on the history of\nphilosophy in Yale University, can write, \u201cThere is no doubt that the\nnext form of political activity to claim attention is the socialistic,\nas it is the most popular and serious of any now before the educated\nminds of this country.\u201d Its propaganda is carried on untiringly, and\nthat its results are feared is evident from the equal aggressiveness\nof a counter-propaganda maintained by the ingenious defenders of the\npresent r\u00e9gime against the whole form and spirit of Socialism. But\nthough socialist conviction spreads, the substance sought for seems\nas far away as ever. It would seem, for the most part, to be but a\nlukewarm conviction, much like that for which the Laodiceans were so\nwidely famed. Present tendencies make for other forms of production,\nfor a vastly different social r\u00e9gime.\n\n\nII\n\nThe dominant tendencies will be clearly seen only by those who for\nthe time detach themselves from their social ideals. What, then, in\nthis republic of the United States, may Socialist, Individualist,\nand Conservative alike see, if only they will look with unclouded\nvision? In brief, an irresistible movement--now almost at its\nculmination--toward great combinations in specific trades; next toward\ncoalescence of kindred industries, and thus toward the complete\nintegration of capital. Consequent upon these changes, the group of\ncaptains and lieutenants of industry attains a daily increasing power,\nsocial, industrial, and political, and becomes the ranking order\nin a vast series of gradations. The State becomes stronger in its\nrelation to the propertyless citizen, weaker in its relation to the\nman of capital. A growing subordination of classes, and a tremendous\nincrease in the numbers of the lower orders, follow. Factory industry\nincreases, and the petty industries, while still supporting a great\nnumber of workers, are in all respects relatively weaker than ever\nbefore; they suffer a progressive limitation of scope and function\nand a decrease of revenues. Defenceless labor--the labor of women\nand children--increases both absolutely and relatively. Men\u2019s wages\ndecline or remain stationary, while the value of the product and the\ncost of living advance by steady steps. Though land is generally held\nin somewhat smaller allotments, tenantry on the small holdings, and\nsalaried management on the large, gradually replace the old system of\nindependent farming; and the control of agriculture oscillates between\nthe combinations that determine the prices of its products and the\nrailroads that determine the rate for transportation to the markets.\n\nIn a word, they who desire to live--whether farmers, workmen,\nmiddlemen, teachers, or ministers--must make their peace with those\nwho have the disposition of the livings. The result is a renascent\nFeudalism, which, though it differs in many forms from that of the\ntime of Edward I, is yet based upon the same status of lord, agent,\nand underling. It is a Feudalism somewhat graced by a sense of ethics\nand somewhat restrained by a fear of democracy. The new barons seek\na public sanction through conspicuous giving, and they avoid a too\nobvious exercise of their power upon political institutions. Their\nbeneficence, however, though large, is but rarely prodigal. It\nbetokens, as in the case of the careful spouse of John Gilpin, a frugal\nmind. They demand the full terms nominated in the bond; they exact from\nthe traffic all it will bear. Out of the tremendous revenues that flow\nto them some of them return a part in benefactions to the public; and\nthese benefactions, whether or not primarily devoted to the easement of\nconscience, are always shrewdly disposed with an eye to the allayment\nof pain and the quieting of discontent. They are given to hospitals; to\ncolleges and churches which teach reverence for the existing r\u00e9gime,\nand to libraries, wherein the enforced leisure of the unemployed\nmay be whiled away in relative contentment. They are never given,\neven by accident, to any of the movements making for the correction\nof what reformers term injustice. But not to look too curiously into\nmotives, our new Feudalism is at least considerate. It is a paternal, a\nBenevolent Feudalism.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II COMBINATION AND COALESCENCE\n\n\nI\n\nWe have, first, the enormous growth of industrial, commercial,\nand financial combinations. A crude idea of the extent to which\nconcentration in manufactures had grown up to May 31, 1900, may\nbe gained from Census Bulletin No. 122. In this report only those\naggregations are considered which consisted of \u201ca number of formerly\nindependent mills which have been brought together into one company\nunder a charter obtained for that purpose.\u201d Several of the new\nsecurity-holding stock companies are included, but \u201cmany large\nestablishments comprising a number of mills which have grown up, not\nby combination with other mills, but by erection of new plants or the\npurchase of old ones,\u201d are not considered, nor are gas and electric\nlighting plants, or pools, and \u201cgentlemen\u2019s agreements.\u201d\n\nThe list contains records of 183 corporations, with 2029 active and 174\nidle plants, an average of 11 active plants each. The actual capital\ninvested in these corporations, exclusive of that for 56 of the idle\nplants, was $1,458,522,573, and the authorized capitalization was\n$3,607,539,200. These combinations employed 24,585 salaried officers\nand clerks, and an average of 399,192 wage-earners. The 1047 officers\nreceived an average of $6,825.28 yearly and the wage-earners, $487.32.\nThere were 40 combinations in iron and steel, with 447 plants; 28 in\nliquor and beverages, with 219 plants; 21 in food and allied products,\nwith 273 plants; 15 in clay, glass, and stone products, with 180\nplants, and 14 in chemicals, with 248 plants. The gross value of the\nmanufactured product of these combinations, as given by the census,\nwas $1,661,295,364. Excluding hand trades, government establishments,\neducational, eleemosynary, and penal workshops, and shops with a\nproduct of less than $500, this total represented 14 per cent of the\nvalue of the manufactured product for the whole country.\n\nThe spring of 1900 was, however, but the mid-morning of the combination\nmovement. Only 63 of these companies had been formed previous to\n1897, while more than 50 per cent of them were formed during the\neighteen months from January 1, 1899, to June 30, 1900. Since then\nthe movement has swept forward like a great tide. The consolidations\nof manufacturing companies for the first five months of 1901 alone\nprobably exceeded $2,000,000,000 in capitalization. The great steel\n\u201ctrust\u201d (to use the popular term), an $88,000,000 tin-can trust, still\nother trusts in tobacco machinery, carpets, coal and coke, witch-hazel,\nglass lamps and electric glass fittings, ship-building, cotton duck,\nagricultural implements, and watches, had their birth during this\nperiod. More recently came the steel-castings trust, subordinate to the\nsteel corporation, a recombination in tobacco, and very lately a new\nship-building combination, a $120,000,000 harvester trust, and a cotton\ncompress trust. The capital invested in manufacturing combinations is\nnow probably two and one-half times what it was in May, 1900; and it is\na reasonable guess that nearly one-third of the manufactured product of\nthe country, outside of the petty trades, comes from the combinations.\n\nOf the magnitude of some of these concerns the average mind can form\nbut an inadequate idea. The figures expressing it are comparable with\nthose of star distances, which must be transmuted into light-years to\nmake them conceivable. A New York newspaper has recently made some\ncomputations on the great steel trust, which help to bring home to us\na realization of its size and power. Its yearly net profits are now\ndouble the amount of the total revenues of the United States Government\nin the year Lincoln was elected. Its wage-roll carries on an average\nof the round year over 158,000 names--an army of employees larger by\n45,000 than serves the National Government in every branch of its\ncivil service, classified and unclassified, except only fourth-class\npostmasters. Its wage-payments for last year aggregated nearly\n$113,000,000, more by $13,000,000 than the huge annual city budget of\nGreater New York. Its annual production of steel is 10,000,000 tons,\n67 per cent of the total production of the country; and its freight\npayments for the year 1901 amounted to more than $54,000,000.\n\nDuring the same period financial, commercial, mining, and\ntransportation trusts have also had their splendid inning. We read\nof an accident-insurance trust with a capitalization of $50,000,000,\nthe great shipping trust, the $120,000,000 jobbing hardware trust, the\nInterurban Street Railway stock-holding combination, the beef trust,\na $50,000,000 lead merger, a recombination in copper, and a universal\noil trust. _Moody\u2019s Manual of Corporation Securities_ for 1902 gives a\nlist of 82 industrial and mercantile consolidations effected between\nJanuary 1, 1899, and September 1, 1902, each of which is capitalized\nat $10,000,000 or more, the whole aggregating a capitalization of\n$4,318,005,646. Thirty-nine of these, with $1,232,947,790 authorized\ncapital, were formed during 1899; 7 with $186,110,400 capital, in\n1900; 20 with $2,141,197,456 capital in 1901, and 16 with $757,750,000\ncapital during the first eight months of 1902. The list is admittedly\nincomplete. \u201cIt embraces only the so-called gigantic combinations\nwhich have been forming in the past three and one-half years. A\ncomplete list, without regard to date of formation, and including\nboth large and small,\u201d says this authority, \u201cwould probably aggregate\n850 different-going combinations, and would easily foot up over\n$9,000,000,000 of capitalization. Including railroad consolidations,\nsuch a list would make a total of over $15,000,000,000 outstanding\ncapitalization.\u201d As for the railroads, the formation of the Northern\nSecurities Company, the recent assimilation of the Louisville and\nNashville, and the \u201creorganization\u201d of the Rock Island show the\nsame drift. Five men, according to a recent statement of Interstate\nCommerce Commissioner J. A. Prouty, control all the railroads of the\ncountry; and Mr. John W. Gates, a financier who may be supposed to\nknow something on that head, has more recently declared, according to\na newspaper interview, that two men are really in control. \u201cI believe\nthat the time is not far distant,\u201d declared Professor Francis L.\nPatton, former head of Princeton University, in a recent address before\nthe Presbyterian Social Union of Chicago, \u201cwhen there will not be a\nthing that we eat, drink, or wear that will not be made by a trust.\u201d\nHe might have gone farther and fared as well; for the theatrical\ntrust determines what dramas we shall witness; the pulp trust, the\ntypefounders\u2019 trust, the news trust, and the school-book trust exert a\nmost direct bearing on what we read and what our reading costs us; and\nfinally the undertakers\u2019 trust determines the style and cost of our\nburial.\n\n\nII\n\nThe tendencies make not only for combination in specific trades, but\nfor unification--for complete integration of all capital which is\nsusceptible of organization. Capitalistic atoms of low valency--to\nuse a term from chemistry,--such as those invested in some of the\nhand trades, custom and repairing and the like--may continue their\ncourse, but those of a high valency are sooner or later brought into\nassociation. From this fundamental grouping comes integration, the\nconcentration of the material units which go to make up an aggregate.\nThe lesser gravitates to the larger. It needs no modern Newton to\nproclaim that in finance, commerce, and industry, as in the physical\nworld, all bodies attract one another in direct proportion to their\nmass. Distance provides a limitation, it is true, to the action of\nthis law in the physical world; but less so in the economic world, for\nsuch is the perfection of our means of communication that they provide\na more transmissible medium to capital than is the pervading ether to\nlight and gravitation.\n\nThe separate trade trusts are not sufficient unto themselves, but\nmove steadily toward unification. A glance at the directorates of\nthe leading combinations shows many names repeated through a long\nlist of varied industries. The combinations themselves reach out and\nacquire new interests, often distinct from their primary interests. In\nPennsylvania coal is mined and railroads are operated by practically\nthe same companies, and in Colorado and West Virginia nearly as\ncomplete an identity is discovered. The steel corporation owns coal\nlands, limestone quarries, railroads, and docks; it is allied with the\ngreat Atlantic shipping trust; it is related, not distantly, to the\nStandard Oil Company; and the beginnings of a public opinion trust\nare indicated, for already its chief magnate has acquired several\nnewspapers and a prominent magazine. Bishop Potter\u2019s prediction, it\nwould seem, is in fair way of fulfilment. \u201cWe must fully realize,\u201d he\nsaid to the Yale students last April, \u201cthe danger that mind as well\nas matter will be at some time in the future capitalized, and that\nthe real thinking and planning for the many will be done by a mere\nhandful.\u201d Beet and cane sugar are soon to be joined, we read; paper and\nlumber, if not already wedded, are at least on excellent terms. Oil\nand gas on the one hand, coal and iron on the other, have a \u201ccommon\nunderstanding,\u201d and each of them holds morganatic relations with one\nor more of the railroads. All the great combinations recognize a\ngrowing community of interest; they tend more and more to a potential,\nif not an actual, coalescence; and in the face of popular agitation,\nlegislative aggressiveness, or the formal demands of labor, they\ndevelop a unity of purpose and method. Their support is thrown, in\ngeneral, to the same candidates for governors, senators, judges, and\ntax assessors. In brief, they tend to the formation of a state within\na state, and their individual members to the creation of an industrial\nand political hierarchy.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe counter-tendency toward the persistence of small-unit farming and\nof small-shop production and distribution must not be lost sight of,\nnor must the great combinations be looked upon as necessarily a proof\nof individual concentration of wealth. That they generally so result is\nhardly to be disputed; but primarily, they mean the massing together of\nseparately owned capitals, often small, for a particular use. There is\nevery reason to suppose that the shareholders grow in numbers, and that\nthey increase their holdings. So that while the magnates tend to become\nMidases, there is a concurrent tendency making for diffused ownership.\nThe small investor is to be found in every stratum of society, and the\nnumber of shareholders in some of the great combinations reaches an\nastonishing figure. The \u201cone touch of nature\u201d which in Shakespeare\u2019s\neyes made the whole world kin was the love of novelty; in our day it is\nthe passion for investing in shares.\n\nPetty industries and small-unit farming persist, despite the movement\ntoward combination. The recent census gives the number of manufacturing\nestablishments in the United States as 512,726, an increase of 44.3\nper cent. This is a larger percentage of increase than is shown for\nany other of the fifteen items in the census summary of manufactures,\nexcept capital, children\u2019s wages, and miscellaneous expenses. Doubtless\nmany of these establishments belong to the trusts; but with all\nallowances the numerical growth is remarkable. The undeveloped sections\nshow the greatest increase, but even industrially settled States,\nsuch as Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, reveal marked\ngains. Professor Ely has pointed out several branches of industry in\nwhich small-shop production is increasing. Some investigations which\nthe present writer made two years ago in two branches confirm this\ntendency. It is pronounced in the notion trades and in the manufacture\nof women\u2019s ready-made wear. In the latter the industry has been\nrevolutionized, the large houses being menaced with disaster and some\nof them with extinction. In dry-goods distribution the tendencies are\nconfused and puzzling. While the number of general jobbing houses in\nNew York City has decreased from thirty-five to five in twenty-five\nyears, the remaining ones growing to enormous proportions, the number\nof smaller houses distributing special lines has either maintained\nits own or has grown. In Baltimore and St. Louis small jobbing houses\npersist in the face of the larger houses. In the retail trades, even in\nNew York, despite the creation of a number of mammoth general stores,\nthe dullest observer will note the continuance of thousands of small\ngrocery, dry-goods, and furniture stores, confectionery and butcher\nshops; while custom and repairing work is still done in the little\ntailoring and shoemaking shops that speak a sort of defiance to the\ngreat emporiums. Through convenience of location to the community of\ncustomers about them--often, too, by the giving of credit--many of\nthese little shops and stores furnish a social service that cannot be\nperformed by the larger stores, which are mostly to be found massed in\nthe central shopping district.\n\nSomething of the same nature is to be found in agriculture. Though the\ngreat estates are increasing in size, so also is the number of small\nholdings increasing. Nearly every State and Territory shows an increase\nin the number of farms, while the majority show a decrease in average\nacreage. The great stock-grazing farms of the West and the unproductive\n\u201cgentlemen\u2019s estates\u201d of the East help to make the census figures\nmisleading. It is probable that in every State real farming is done on\na smaller average acreage than ever before.\n\nEven independent capital in trading and manufactures shows an\nunexpected persistence. An interesting article in a recent issue of\nthe New York _Journal of Commerce_ puts the capitalization of the\ngreat trusts for the twelve years ending with 1901 at $6,474,000,000,\nof which it marks off $2,000,000,000 as \u201cspurious common stock,\u201d that\nis, stock not representing real capital in any form. Not more than\n$300,000,000 of new capital, it maintains, had been thrown into the\nconsolidations. This would leave $4,474,000,000 as the sum of values\nalready established by previous investment. On the other hand, it\nmaintains that actual records show that in seventeen months from\nthe beginning of 1901, in the four States of New York, New Jersey,\nDelaware, and Maine, the aggregate capitalization of newly organized\ncompanies with a capital of $1,000,000 and upwards is $1,969,650,000;\nand it calculates that for the whole country, including the large and\nsmall corporations, \u201cthe national industrial capital (exclusive of\nthat for transportation appliances) must have increased approximately\n$5,000,000,000 since the end of 1900.\u201d Several rather obvious demurrers\nmight be made to the conclusions reached, but they need not now concern\nus. With all possible discounting, strong proof is given of the\naggressive persistence of independent capital.\n\n\nIV\n\nSuch facts, however, do not carry on the surface their real import.\nIndependent capital persists as a force, but the units that compose\nit melt like bubbles in a stream. These companies are but the raw or\n\u201cpartly manufactured\u201d material out of which the great combinations are\nmade. Formation, growth, and absorption into a trust are generally the\nthree terms in their life-history; or if, through ill environment\nor spirited warfare waged against them, they fail to get secure\nfooting, they soon slip back into the slough of disaster. The fate of\nindependent tobacco factories, sugar and oil refineries, railroads,\nindependent companies of one kind or another, is constantly before\nus. If they are worth having, they are more or less benevolently\nassimilated; and if they are not worth having, they are permitted to\nstruggle onward to the almost inevitable collapse.\n\nNeither do small holdings in agriculture mean economic independence.\nAs the late census reveals, they mean tenantry. The number of farms\noperated by owners is decreasing; tenantry is becoming more and\nmore common, and so is salaried management of great estates. Of the\n5,739,657 farms of the nation, tenants now operate 2,026,286. Owners\noperated 74.5 per cent of all farms in 1880, 71.6 per cent in 1890,\n64.7 per cent in 1900. The tendency is general, and applies to all\nsections. Since 1880 tenantry has relatively increased in every State\nand Territory (no comparative data are given for the Indian Territory)\nexcept Arizona, Florida, and New Hampshire. Since 1890 it has increased\nin Arizona. In twenty years it has increased 49.4 per cent in Florida,\nthough the unloading of \u201corange groves\u201d and other tropical paradises on\nthe too susceptible Northerner has increased ownership by a slightly\ngreater ratio; while in New Hampshire, where 2857 farms have been given\nup in the last twenty years, tenantry has decreased by but five-tenths\nof 1 per cent since 1890, and but six-tenths of 1 per cent since 1880.\n\nSo, too, with petty industries and the small retailers. M. Emile\nVandervelde, in his sterling work, \u201cCollectivism and Industrial\nEvolution,\u201d has well shown how \u201csmall trade is the special refuge of\nthe cripples of capitalism.\u201d It is the particular refuge \u201cof all who\nprefer, in place of the hard labor of production, the scanty gleaning\nof the middleman, or who, no longer finding a sufficient revenue in\nindustry or farming, desire to add a string to their bow by opening a\nlittle shop.\u201d But it would be a mistake, he continues, to suppose that\nthese miniature establishments, which the census officials characterize\nas distinct enterprises, can be generally regarded as the personal\nproperty of those who carry them on. \u201cA great number of them, and a\nnumber constantly increasing, as capitalism develops, have only a\nphantom of independence, and are really in the hands of a few great\nmoney lenders, manufacturers, or merchants.\u201d\n\nThough M. Vandervelde argues on the basis of these phenomena as\nobserved in Belgium, France, Germany, and England, the same conclusions\nare applicable in the United States. Our national census figures are\npractically useless as illuminators on the subject, and one must get\nhis data from the observation or investigation of himself or others. It\nis generally known that small industries the product of which is more\nor less ingenious or artistic manage to survive; that those the product\nof which is common or usual are sooner or later extinguished; and that\nthe petty retailers represent so many heterogeneous elements that\nit is impossible to predicate anything of them as a class. Of these\nlatter there is a moderate number who, by furnishing a needful social\nservice, make profits; there is a large and constantly changing number\nwho, through ease of credit, manage to obtain stock without capital,\nand who almost invariably succumb; there is then a larger number whose\nlittle shops are run by women and children, the husbands and fathers\nworking at some trade or office job, and hopefully expending their\nweekly earnings in the vain attempt to \u201cbuild up a business\u201d; finally,\nthere is a class, the numbers and relative importance of which it\nis impossible to estimate, whose businesses are owned, directly or\nindirectly, by other men or by companies.\n\n\nV\n\nMany of these so-called independent concerns find it possible, and\nsome of them find it fairly profitable, to continue. But the more the\nlarge combinations wax in power, the greater is the subordination of\nthe small concerns. An increasing constraint characterizes all their\nefforts. They are more closely confined to particular activities and\nto local territories, their bounds being dictated and enforced by\nthe pressure of the combinations. The petty tradesmen and producers\nare thus an economically dependent class. Equally subordinate--and\nfor the most part subservient--are the owners of small and moderate\nholdings in the trusts. The larger holdings--often the single\nlargest holding--determine what shall be done. Generally, too, the\npetty investors are acquiescent to the will of the Big Men. But\noccasionally, as in the case of the transfer of the Metropolitan Street\nRailway stock, they rebel, and it becomes necessary to suppress them.\nAt the meeting which determined this action, the protesting minority\nwere emphatically ordered to \u201cshut up\u201d; when they still objected,\nthe presiding officer declared, \u201cWe will vote first; you can discuss\nthe matter afterward,\u201d and the vote was promptly taken. The head of\nan American corporation, moreover, is often an absolute ruler, who\ndetermines not only the policy of the enterprise, but the personnel\nof the board of directors. It was a na\u00efve letter which a well-known\nNew York financier recently wrote to his \u201cboard of directors\u201d on the\noccasion of his retirement from the presidency of a great trust company\nin favor of a retiring Cabinet minister. He had been looking about,\nhe explained, for some time for a competent successor. Now he had\nfound him and had chosen him. Of course the formal action of the board\nwould be a welcome detail; and, equally a matter of course, it was\npromptly given. One of the copper kings recently testified in a legal\naction that he \u201cdidn\u2019t want to call the board of directors together\nto obtain authority to buy adjacent properties.\u201d He went ahead, did\nwhat he pleased, and let the board discuss the matter afterward. If\nthere was ever so much as a question about it, it was but a profitless\ninterference.\n\n\nVI\n\nThe tendencies thus make, on the one hand, toward the centralization of\nvast power in the hands of a few men--the morganization of industry,\nas it were--and, on the other, toward a vast increase in the number\nof those who compose the economically dependent classes. The latter\nnumber is already stupendous. The laborers and mechanics were long ago\nbrought under the yoke through their divorcement from the land and the\napplication of steam to factory operation. They are economically unfree\nexcept in so far as their organizations make possible a collective\nbargaining for wages and hours. The growth of commerce raised up an\nenormous class of clerks and helpers, perhaps the most dependent class\nin the community. The growth and partial diffusion of wealth has in\nfifty years largely altered the character of our domestic service and\nincreased the number of servants many fold. The professions, too, have\nfelt the change. Behind many of our important newspapers are private\ncommercial interests which dictate their general policy, if not, as\nis frequently the case, their particular attitude upon every public\nquestion; while the race for endowments made by the greater number of\nthe churches and by all colleges except a few State-supported ones,\ncompels a cautious regard on the part of synod and faculty for the\nwishes, the views, and the prejudices of men of wealth. To this growing\ndeference of preacher, teacher, and editor is added that of two yet\nmore important classes,--the makers and the interpreters of law. The\nrecord of legislation and judicial interpretation regarding slavery\nprevious to the Civil War has been paralleled, if not surpassed, in\nrecent years by the record of legislatures and courts in matters\nrelating to the lives and health of manual workers, especially in such\nmatters as employers\u2019 liability and factory inspection. Thus, with a\ngreat addition to the number of subordinate classes, with a tremendous\nincrease of their individual components, and with a corresponding\ngrowth of power in the hands of a few score magnates, there is needed\nlittle further to make up a socio-economic status that contains all the\nessentials of a renascent Feudalism.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III OUR MAGNATES\n\n\nWith the rise of the magnates to power comes a growing\nself-consciousness of their authority and responsibility. \u201cI am a\ncitizen of no mean state,\u201d is the reflection of each of them as he\nlooks upon the emergent order of which he is so large a part; and\nthereupon it becomes his mission to live up to his rank and function.\nFrequently his benefactions increase, and always he takes on a more\nJovian air, and views with a more providential outlook the phenomena\npassing before and about him. He is a part not only, as Tennyson makes\nUlysses say, of all that he has met, but of the primary causes of\nthings. He is at once the loaf-giver to the needy, the regulator of\ntemporal affairs, the lord protector of church and society; and he\nholds his title directly from the Creator. \u201cThe rights and interests of\nthe laboring man,\u201d wrote the chief of the anthracite coal magnates last\nAugust, \u201cwill be protected and cared for, not by the labor agitators,\nbut by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given\nthe control of the property interests of the country.\u201d Gradually there\ncomes the renascent development of the seigniorial mind.\n\n\nI\n\n\u201cBusiness\u201d is the main thought, and the apotheosis of \u201cbusiness\u201d the\nmain cult of the new magnates. \u201cOf gods, friends, learnings, of the\nuncomprehended civilization which they overrun,\u201d indignantly writes Mr.\nHenry D. Lloyd, \u201cthey ask but one question: How much? What is a good\ntime to sell? What is a good time to buy?... Their heathen eyes see\nin the law and its consecrated officers nothing but an intelligence\noffice, and hired men to help them burglarize the treasures accumulated\nfor a thousand years at the altars of liberty and justice, that they\nmay burn their marble for the lime of commerce.\u201d\n\nThough a forcible, it is an extreme view, for it leaves out of\nconsideration the high professions of morality, the frequent appeal to\nChristian ideals, the tender solicitude for honesty, integrity, law and\norder, with which our new magnates gild their worship of \u201cbusiness.\u201d\nSuch of them as have recently invaded literature give edifying glimpses\nof the new seigniorial attitude. The artistic career, writes Mr. Andrew\nCarnegie in his entertaining volume, \u201cThe Empire of Business,\u201d is most\nnarrowing, and produces \u201cpetty jealousies, unbounded vanities, and\nspitefulness\u201d; the learned professions also produce narrowness, albeit\noften a high specialization of faculty and knowledge. But \u201cbusiness,\u201d\nproperly pursued, broadens and develops the whole man. It is a view\nechoed to greater or less extent by the other literary magnates,\nparticularly Mr. James J. Hill, Mr. Russell Sage, Mr. S. C. T. Dodd,\nMr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the Hon. Marcus A. Hanna, and Mr. Charles\nR. Flint.\n\nA flattering unction that all lay to their souls is the dictum that\nsuccess in business is a matter of honesty, intelligence, and energy.\n\u201cThere is no line of business,\u201d writes Mr. Carnegie, \u201cin which success\nis not attainable. It is a simple matter of honest work, ability, and\nconcentration.\u201d \u201cTo rail against the accumulation of wealth,\u201d writes\nMr. Sage, in the _Independent_, \u201cis to rail against the decrees of\njustice. Intelligence, industry, honesty, and thrift produce wealth....\nSo long as some men have more sense and more self-control than others,\njust so long will such men be wealthy, while others will be poor.\u201d\nMr. Dodd, in his address to the students of Syracuse University, adds\nthis contribution: \u201cWhy is there still so much poverty? One reason is\nbecause nature or the devil has made some men weak and imbecile and\nothers lazy and worthless, and neither man nor God can do much for\none who will do nothing for himself.\u201d Mr. Rockefeller appeals both to\nevolution and to divine sanction. \u201cThe growth of a large business,\u201d\nhe is reported as declaring in one of his Sunday-school addresses,\n\u201cis merely a survival of the fittest.... The American Beauty rose can\nbe produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its\nbeholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it.\nThis is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working out\nof a law of nature and a law of God.\u201d\n\nIt matters not that many millions of men, tirelessly energetic and\nreasonably intelligent, can be shown to have toiled all their lives\nwithout winning even a competence. Nor does it matter that some of\nthese, in addition to being energetic and intelligent, have been\nreasonably honest. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man\npicked out of ten thousand; and the fact that most of the greater\naffairs of the business world sooner or later find their way into the\ncourts, for the testing of the amount and quality of honesty involved\ntherein, might well cause some hesitation in positing this virtue as\na necessary qualification for \u201cbusiness.\u201d But the notion is not to be\nargued with; it is a characteristic outcropping of the seigniorial mind.\n\nThe praise of labor is the antiphony to the praise of \u201cbusiness,\u201d and\nthe lyres of all the magnates are strung tensely when chanting tributes\nto toil.\n\n  \u201cRound swings the hammer of industry, quickly the sharp chisel rings,\n   And the heart of the toiler has throbbings that stir not the bosom\n     of kings,\u201d\n\nwarbles Mr. Flint in his article on \u201cCombinations and Critics,\u201d\nin \u201cThe Trust: Its Book.\u201d Toil is the foundation of wealth, they\nall aver, though the rhapsodical nature of the tributes prevents a\nclear and definite utterance on the question, Of _whose_ wealth is\nit the foundation? But there is no lack of definiteness regarding\ntheir attitude toward those defensive societies, the trade-unions,\nwhich the toilers organize to secure a larger part of their product\nto themselves. Mr. Flint, indeed, somewhat cautiously acknowledges\nan element for good in the unions, but the general attitude of the\nseigniorial mind is distinctly inimical. The recent interesting\ncorrespondence between the coal magnates and President Mitchell is an\ninstance in point; so are the frequent utterances on the subject by the\npresident of the steel trust, and any number of examples could be given\nof a like character. A crowning example of a distinctly feudal attitude\nis furnished by a letter from a prominent New York merchant, printed in\nthe issue of June 9, 1902, of a newspaper which makes a considerable\nto-do about the printing of such of the news as it sees fit to print.\nThe prominent merchant objects very strongly to labor leaders and\nwalking delegates, describing them in almost as temperate and judicial\nlanguage as that of United States District Judge Jackson. The flower of\nhis contribution is his seigniorial remedy for strikes:--\n\n\u201cThe only remedy, in my opinion, for strikes is to get as many men as\nthere are officers in the different [labor] associations admitted to\ntheir meetings, where they would have a chance to talk to the men in\na businesslike way, explaining matters to them in such a manner as to\nbring the effects of a strike very plainly before them.\u201d\n\nMoral suasion, however, is not the only method suggested for bringing\nsense to the workers. A hint of more forcible means is occasionally\nbroached. A New York newspaper, which makes a boast of printing\nunimpeachable interviews, reports, in its issue of July 31st last, a\nsignificant warning from the president of the New York, Ontario and\nWestern Railroad. This is one of the coal-carrying railroads, and the\nreference is to the anthracite strike. \u201cAfter the men return to work,\u201d\nhe said, \u201cI believe that legal steps will be taken in the United States\ncourts against those who are responsible for the loss occasioned by the\nstrike.\u201d The Hon. Abram S. Hewitt echoed this interesting suggestion\nin an interview of August 25th. \u201cThe consequences of such strikes,\u201d he\nsays, \u201care so disastrous, not merely to the parties directly concerned,\nbut to the whole community, that every effort should be made as soon as\nthe existing strike has been called off and the excitement is abated to\nprevent by appropriate legislation the recurrence of such calamitous\nconflicts where everybody is injured and no one is benefited.\u201d Criminal\ncodes, it may be said generally, depend largely on the economic\nconditions of the time and place where they obtain: horse-stealing, in\na community girdled by trolley lines, degenerates to petty larceny,\nwhile in Wyoming or Arabia it is a capital offence. In the new order,\nwhich requires peace and stability for its proper operation, it may\nreadily enough come about that voluntary leaving of work will be\nseverely penalized.\n\n\nII\n\nThe new seigniorial attitude toward government and public policy is\nalso significant. Often it is paternalistic in a princely degree. The\noffer of a retired magnate to settle a great national problem by paying\nto the Government the $20,000,000 demanded of Spain, on condition\nthat the Filipinos be \u201cset free,\u201d had in it something of the \u201cgrand\nstyle\u201d which Matthew Arnold so extols. The rallying to the defence of\nthe Government\u2019s gold reserve by certain financiers, several years\nago, need not be instanced, since in certain quarters it is gravely\nsuspected that their interest was not entirely platonic. But certainly\nthe recent offer of a wealthy magnate to pay one-third of the cost\nof repairing all the roads in the vicinity of Lakewood, N.J., showed\nthe true seigniorial spirit. Not different in kind, though somewhat\nin degree, was the recent action of a Pittsburg magnate, on the rude\nrefusal of the Department of Public Works to pave his street otherwise\nthan with blocks at a cost of 65 cents the square yard, in doing the\nthing himself at a cost of $4.50 the square yard.\n\nUsually, however, the seigniorial attitude toward government is\nsomewhat more in the direction of intervention. The seasonal migration\nto Washington of representatives of all the great commercial interests\nhas become a salient datum in political zo\u00f6logy. Curiosity regarding a\nproposed parcels post or government telegraph alone draws hundreds of\nthese birds of passage there. The rights of private initiative must be\nmaintained at any cost. In the great West one of the prime necessities\nfor a living is the access to water for irrigation purposes. One\nmay have land; but, if he has not water to irrigate it, the soil\nis worthless. The prevailing sentiment is for public ownership of\nwaterways, since, in many places, monopoly controls the supply. At the\nelectrical convention held at San Francisco recently, the presiding\nofficer, who is also the president of a public-service corporation,\nafter denouncing organized labor and municipal ownership, added:\n\u201cFor us a far more dangerous agitation is that which now proposes\nState appropriation of all water rights. The scheme advocated makes\nthe appropriation little less than sheer confiscation.\u201d Luckily the\nseventy-one mile envelope of air that encases the globe yet eludes\nmonopolization.\n\n\u201cHands off!\u201d is the warning to government; and though occasionally\ngovernment puts hands on, they are not very closely or tenaciously\napplied. The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission (1901),\nfor instance, employs a rather pessimistic tone regarding government\ncontrol of traffic rates. \u201cWe simply call attention to the fact,\u201d it\nrecites, \u201cthat the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the\nTrans-Missouri case and the Joint Traffic Association case has produced\nno practical effect upon the railway operations of the country. Such\nassociations, in fact, exist now, as they did before those decisions,\nand with the same general effect.\u201d \u201cShould the Supreme Court declare\nthe Northern railways consolidation unconstitutional,\u201d one of the\ninterested magnates is reported as saying, \u201cwe shall simply do the\nthing in another way. It is something that must be done.\u201d Cynically\nfrank is Mr. Dodd, in his Syracuse address, regarding the Anti-trust\nlaw. \u201cA modern Federal law also exists,\u201d he says, \u201cwhich, literally\ninterpreted, forbids business of any magnitude; but Federal judges have\nthus far found it easier to dismiss proceedings under it than to guess\nat its real meaning.\u201d The president of the Southern Pacific Railroad\ntakes the bull by the horns, and denounces all interference. In an\ninterview given to the press June 2d of the present year, he declares\nthat \u201cthe legislation of the future must be pro-railroad instead of\nanti-railroad.... I believe commissions are things of the past. I do\nnot think transportation companies should have to submit to dictation\nor control by bodies who do not know anything about transportation.\u201d\n\nThe Contract-labor law is another measure, to the seigniorial mind,\nunnecessary and obstructive, and its provisions, therefore, are but\nlightly observed. Known evasions have been numerous; and, were the full\ntruth revealed, it would probably be found that this law has met with\nabout the same degree of observance as have the Interstate Commerce\nand Anti-trust laws. As recently as July 16th, comes word from Berlin\nto the Chicago _Daily News_ that \u201cagents of American railroads are\ncanvassing the Polish and Slavic districts of Europe for laborers,\nto whom they offer $2.50 a day and board, regardless of the Federal\nContract-labor law.\u201d\n\nNot only do the magnates demand immunity from government interference\nin their business affairs, but they demand also a more real, if not\na more obvious, share in the operations of government. The invasion,\nduring the last ten years, of the National Senate by a number of the\nmagnates or their legates is a part of the process; but something more\nto the point is their insistence on the right to be consulted in grave\naffairs by the President and Cabinet. A New York daily newspaper,\nedited by the distinguished scholar who delivers lectures on journalism\nbefore Yale University, published last February an account of a\nremarkable gathering at Washington. It verges closely upon contumacy to\nmention the names of the attending magnates, such is their eminence,\nand they will therefore not be given. Their purpose was to protest\nto the President against a repetition of his action in the Northern\nSecurities case. \u201cThe financiers declare,\u201d says this newspaper, \u201cthat\nthey should have been notified of the intended Federal action last\nweek, so that they could be prepared to support the stock market, and\nthat their unpreparedness came very near bringing on a panic. Had\nnot the big interests of the street been in possession of the bulk\nof securities, instead of speculators and small holders, there would\nhave been a panic, the capitalists assert.\u201d It is, when considered, a\nmodest claim--the powers of an extra-constitutional cabinet, intrusted\nwith the conservation of the public peace. There is no proof that the\nclaim has been conceded, though some light is thrown on the problem by\nthe newspaper\u2019s further declaration that the chief magnate, after an\ninterview with the President, \u201cfelt very much better.\u201d\n\nSomething of the same nature was revealed in the negotiations last\nMarch between the Mayor of New York City and the directors of the New\nYork Central Railroad Company. The company requested the Mayor to\nsecure the withdrawal of the Wainwright bill in the State Assembly,\ncompelling the railroad to abandon steam in the Park Avenue tunnel by\na fixed date, and promised to do the required thing in its own time\nand at its own pleasure. The letter of the Mayor to Assemblyman Bedell\nrecords the result: \u201cThis letter [of the directors] seems to me to\nlay a good foundation for the waiving a fixed date to be named in the\nbill;\u201d and the date was accordingly \u201cwaived.\u201d\n\nOf the seigniorial attitude toward the police law, the abundant crop\nof automobile cases alone furnishes signal testimony. Dickens made a\nhighly dramatic, though perhaps rather unhistorical, use in his \u201cA Tale\nof Two Cities\u201d of the riding down of a child by a marquis, and the long\ntrain of tragic consequences that ensued. We do the thing differently\nin our day: we acquit, or at most fine the marquis, and the matter\nrests; we are too deferential to carry it further. Fast driving in the\nnew \u201cmachines\u201d has become one of the tests of courage, manliness, and\nskill,--what jousting in full armor was in the fifteenth century, or\nduelling with pistols in the early part of the nineteenth,--and if the\npolice law interferes, the exploit is the more hazardous and therefore\nthe more emulatory. The scion of a great house who recently, on being\narrested for fast driving and then bailed, subsequently sent his valet\nto the police court to pay the fine, showed the true seigniorial\nspirit. Possibly, though, had his identity been known before arrest,\nhe would have escaped the irritating interference of the law; for it\nhappened, about the same time, on the arrest for the same offence of a\nmillionnaire attorney, companioned by a Supreme Court judge, that a\ntoo vigilant policeman came to learn his severest lesson--that to know\nwhom not to trouble is the better part of valor.\n\nAt Newport, the summer home of the seigniorial class, the automobile\nenforces a right of way. This is not sufficient, however, for the\nautomobilists, who would prefer a sole and exclusive way. In the summer\nof 1901 the resident magnates fixed upon a certain Friday afternoon for\ntheir motor races, and demanded exclusive control of Ocean, Harrison,\nand Carroll avenues between the hours of two and four o\u2019clock. In\nthe \u201cgrand style\u201d characterizing the dealings of this class with the\npublic, the magnates offered to pay all the fines if the races led to\nany prosecutions. This meant, of course, that the ordinance prohibiting\na speed greater than ten miles an hour was to be overlooked, since\nthe races would surely have developed speed up to forty, fifty,\nand sixty miles an hour. The deferential City Council acquiesced.\nFor once, however, the ever serviceable injunction was found to be\navailable against other persons than striking workmen. A few property\nowners sought refuge in the Supreme Court, a temporary injunction was\nissued by Judge Wilbur, and, though the magnates hired lawyers to\nfight it, the order was made permanent. It is but natural that keen\nresentment should follow this high-handed action of the courts. It is\nannounced that some of the magnates are tiring of Newport, and one of\nthe wealthiest of them has recently threatened to forsake the place\nentirely.\n\nLaws are like cobwebs, said Anacharsis the Scythian, where the\nsmall flies are caught and the great break through. Yet that even\nthe great can sometimes bow to the reign of law, and particularly\nthat the seigniorial mind can on occasion be conciliatory, is well\nillustrated by the recent action of the governors of the Automobile\nClub, in suspending two members and disciplining a third, for fast\ndriving. The troublesome restrictions of the law on this point are\nprobably destined, however, to be soon abolished. Already the Board\nof Freeholders of Essex County, N.J., a region much frequented by\nautomobilists, has advanced the speed limit in the country districts\nto twenty miles per hour. Further changes are expected, and it will\nprobably be but a short time before a man with a \u201cmachine\u201d will enjoy\nthe God-given right of \u201cdoing what he will with his own.\u201d\n\n\nIII\n\nMost of the magnates show a frugal and a discriminating mind in their\nbenefactions; but it is a prodigal mind indeed which governs the\nexpenditures that make for social ostentation. It is probable that\nno aristocracy--not even that of profligate Rome under the later\nC\u00e6sars--ever spent such enormous sums in display. Our aristocracy,\navoiding the English standards relating to persons engaged in trade,\nwelcomes the industrial magnate, and his vast wealth and love of\nostentation have set the pace for lavish expenditure. Trade is the\ndominant phase of American life,--the divine process by which,\naccording to current opinion, \u201cthe whole creation moves,\u201d--and, as it\nhas achieved the conquest of most of our social institutions and of\nour political powers, that it should also dominate \u201csociety\u201d is but a\nnatural sequence. Flaunting and garish consumption becomes the basic\ncanon in fashionable affairs. As Mr. Thorstein Veblen, in his keen\nsatire, \u201cThe Theory of the Leisure Class,\u201d puts it:--\n\n\u201cConspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of\nreputability.... As wealth accumulates on his [the magnate\u2019s] hands,\nhis own unaided effort will not avail sufficiently to put his opulence\nin evidence by this method. The aid of friends and competitors is\ntherefore brought in by resorting to the giving of valuable presents\nand expensive feasts and entertainments. Presents and feasts had\nprobably another origin than that of na\u00efve ostentation, but they\nacquired their utility for the purpose very early, and they have\nretained that character to the present.\u201d\n\nThe conspicuous consumption of other days was, however, as compared\nwith that of the present, but a flickering candle flame to a great\ncluster of electric lights. Against the few classic examples, such\nas those of Cleopatra and Lucullus, our present aristocracy can show\nhundreds; and the daily spectacle of wasteful display might serve to\nmake the earlier Sybarites stare and gasp. Present-day fashionable\nevents come to be distinguished and remembered not so much on the score\nof their particular features as of their cost. A certain event is known\nas Mr. A\u2019s $5,000 breakfast, another as the Smith-Jones\u2019s $15,000\ndinner, and another as Mrs. C\u2019s $30,000 entertainment and ball.\n\nConspicuous eating becomes also a feature of seigniorial life. The\n\u201csociety\u201d and the \u201cyellow\u201d journals are crowded with accounts of\ndinners and luncheons, following one after another with an almost\nincredible frequency. And not only is the frequency remarkable, but the\nrange and quantity of the viands furnished almost challenge belief. So\nfar, it is believed, the journals which usually deal in that sort of\nnews have neglected to give an authoritative menu for a typical day\nin the life of a seigniorial family. We have dinner menus, luncheon\nmenus, and so on, but nothing in the way of showing what is consumed\nby the individual or family during a term of twenty-four hours. Some\nlight on the subject, however, is furnished by Mr. George W. E.\nRussell, the talented author of \u201cCollections and Recollections,\u201d in his\nrecent volume, \u201cAn Onlooker\u2019s Note-book.\u201d Objection may be made to the\neffect that Mr. Russell is an Englishman, and that he is describing an\nEnglish royal couple. But the demurrer is irrelevant, since it is well\nknown that our seigniorial class founds its practices and its canons\n(excepting only the canon regarding persons engaged in trade) upon\nEnglish precedents, and that English precedents are made by the Royal\nFamily. And not only does our home nobility imitate English models, but\nit piles Pelion upon Ossa, and seeks constantly to outshine and overdo\nthe actions of its transatlantic cousins. Mrs. George Cornwallis-West\n(formerly Lady Randolph Churchill) recently stated that the vast sums\nspent by Americans in England have lifted the standard of living to a\nscale of magnificence almost unknown before. So for whatever is shown\nto be English custom, something must be added for American improvement\nand extension when assuming its transplantation to these shores. Mr.\nRussell writes:--\n\n\u201cA royal couple arranged to pay a two nights\u2019 visit to a country house\nof which the owners were friends of mine. For reasons of expediency,\nwe will call the visitors the duke and duchess, though that was not\ntheir precise rank. When a thousand preparations too elaborate to be\ndescribed here had been made for the due entertainment of them and\ntheir suite and their servants, the private secretary wrote to the lady\nof the house, enclosing a written memorandum of his royal master\u2019s and\nmistress\u2019s requirements in the way of meals. I reproduce the substance\nof the memorandum--and in these matters my memory never plays tricks.\nThe day began with cups of tea brought to the royal bedroom. While the\nduke was dressing, an egg beaten up in sherry was served to him, not\nonce, but twice. The duke and duchess breakfasted together in their\nprivate sitting room, where the usual English breakfast was served to\nthem. They had their luncheon with their hosts and the house party, and\nate and drank like other people. Particular instructions were given\nthat at 5 o\u2019clock tea there must be something substantial in the way\nof eggs, sandwiches, or potted meat, and this meal the royal couple\nconsumed with special gusto. Dinner was at 8.30, on the limited and\nabbreviated scale which the Prince of Wales introduced--two soups, two\nkinds of fish, two entr\u00e9es, a joint, two sorts of game, a hot and cold\nsweet, and a savory, with the usual accessories in the way of oysters,\ncheese, ice, and dessert. This is pretty well for an abbreviated\ndinner. But let no one suppose that the royal couple went hungry to\nbed. When they retired, supper was served to them in their private\nsitting room, and a cold chicken and a bottle of claret were left in\ntheir bedroom, as a provision against emergencies.\u201d\n\nAll the men of great wealth are not men of leisure. Some of them\nwork as hard as do common laborers. For such as these the tremendous\ngastronomy recounted by Mr. Russell would be impossible as a daily\nexercise. When, therefore, it is assumed of any of our seigniorial\nclass, it must be limited to magnates on vacation, to their leisurely\nsons, nephews, hangers-on, and women, and to those who have retired\nfrom active pursuits. But there are other canons of social reputability\nbesides personal leisure and personal wasteful consumption. These\nare, to quote again from Mr. Veblen, vicarious leisure and vicarious\nconsumption--the leisure and lavishness of wives, sons, and daughters.\nIt is these who, in large part, at New York, Lenox, and Newport,\nsupport the social reputation of their seigniorial husbands and\nfathers. The \u201cdog parties,\u201d wherein the host \u201cputs on a dog collar and\nbarks for the delectation of his guests,\u201d the \u201cvegetable parties,\u201d\nwherein host and guests, perhaps from some latent sense of inner\nlikeness, make themselves up to represent cabbage heads and other\ngarden products, the \u201cmonkey parties,\u201d the various \u201ccircuses\u201d and like\nevents, are given and participated in more generally by the vicarious\nupholders of the magnate\u2019s social reputation than by the seignior\nhimself.\n\nBut in ways more immediate--by means which do not conflict with\nhis daily vocation--the working magnate gives signal example of\nthat virtue of capitalistic \u201cabstinence\u201d which is the foundation of\northodox political economy. The splendors of his town house, his\ncountry estate, and his steam yacht, to say nothing of his club, are\nrepeatedly described to us in the columns of popular periodicals. His\npaintings, decorations, and bric-\u00e0-brac, his orchids and roses, his\nblooded animals and his $10,000 Panhard, are depicted in terms which\nmake one wonder how paltry and mean must have been the possessions of\nMidas and how bare the \u201cwealth of Ormus and of Ind.\u201d And when, for a\ntime, he lays down the reins of power, and betakes himself to Saratoga\nor Newport or Monte Carlo, yet more wonderful accounts are given of\nhis lavish expenditure. The betting at the Saratoga race-tracks last\nAugust is reported to have averaged $2,000,000 a day. \u201cThe money does\nnot come,\u201d said that eminent maker of books, Mr. Joe Ullman, \u201cfrom any\ngreat plunger or group of plungers, but from the great assemblage of\nrich men who are willing to bet from $100 to $1,000 on their choices\nin a race.\u201d On the transatlantic steamers, in London and in Paris,\nthe same prodigality is seen. A king\u2019s ransom--or what is more to the\npoint, the ransom of a hundred families from a year\u2019s suffering--is\nlost or won in an hour\u2019s play or lightly expended for some momentary\nsatisfaction.\n\n\nIV\n\nThere remain for brief mention the benefactions of the magnates.\nMost of these come under the head of \u201cconspicuous giving.\u201d Gifts for\neducational, religious, and other public purposes last year reached\nthe total of $107,360,000. In separate amounts they ran all the way\nfrom the $5,000 gift of a soap or lumber magnate to the $13,000,000\nthat had their origin in steel. It is an interesting list for study in\nthat it reveals more significantly than some of the instances given\nthe standards and temper of the seigniorial mind. An anonymous writer,\nevidently of Jacobinical tendencies, some time ago suggested in the\ncolumns of a well-known periodical a list of measures for the support\nof which rich men might honorably and wisely devote a part of their\nfortunes:--\n\n\u201cHe [the rich man] could begin by requiring the assessors to hand him a\ntrue bill of his own obligations to the public. He could continue the\ngood work by persuading the collector to accept a check for the whole\namount. This would make but a small draft upon his total accumulations.\nA further considerable sum he could wisely devote to paying the\nsalaries of honorable lobbyists, who should labor with legislative\nbodies to secure the enactment of just laws, which would relieve\nhard-working farmers, struggling shopkeepers, mechanics trying to pay\nfor mortgaged houses, and widows who have received a few thousand\ndollars of life insurance money, from their present obligation to\nsupport the courts, the militia, and other organs of government that\nprotect the rich man\u2019s property and enable him to collect his bills\nreceivable. Finally, if these two expenditures did not sufficiently\ndiminish his surplus, he could purchase newspapers and pay editors to\neducate the public in sound principles of social justice, as applied to\ntaxation and to various other matters.\u201d\n\nPerhaps it is not singular that no part of the gifts of the great\nmagnates is ever devoted to any of these purposes. Doubtless they see\nno flaw, or at least no remediable defect, in the present industrial\nr\u00e9gime. It is the r\u00e9gime under which they have risen to fortune and\npower, and it is therefore justified by its fruits. Their benefactions\nare thus always directed to a more or less obvious easement of the\nconditions of those on whom the social fabric most heavily rests.\nHospitals, asylums, and libraries are the objects, though recently\na bathing beach for poor children has been added to the list. The\npropriety of securing learned justification of the existing r\u00e9gime\ncauses also a considerable giving to schools, colleges, and churches.\nBut nowhere can there be found a seigniorial gift which, directly or\nindirectly, makes for modification of the prevailing economic system.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV OUR FARMERS AND WAGE-EARNERS\n\n\nThe increasing dependence of middleman and petty manufacturer has\nalready been considered. The same pressure which bears upon these bears\nalso upon farmer and wage-earner. The editorials and the oratory of\nelection years, it is true, supply us with recurring p\u00e6ans over the\nindependence, the self-reliance and the prosperity of these classes,\nand such graphic tropes as \u201cthe full dinner pail\u201d and \u201cthe overflowing\nbarn,\u201d become the party shibboleths of political campaigns. Plain\nfacts, however, accord but ill with this exultant strain.\n\n\nI\n\nIn most ages the working farmer has been the dupe and prey of the rest\nof mankind. Now by force and now by cajolery, as social customs and\npolitical institutions change, he has been made to produce the food\nby which the race lives, and the share of his product which he has\nbeen permitted to keep for himself has always been pitifully small.\nWhether Roman slave, Frankish serf, or English villein; whether the\nso-called \u201cindependent\u201d farmer of a free democracy or the _ryot_ of\na Hindu prince, the general rule holds good. Occasionally, by one\nmeans or another, he gains some transitory betterment of condition;\nthe Plague of 1349 and the Peasants\u2019 Rebellion of 1381 won for his\nclass advantages which were retained during three generations. But in\nthe long run he is the race\u2019s martyr. Under a military autocracy his\nexploitation was inevitable. There is no reason for it now, for the\nlives and well-being of the rest of mankind are in his hands: were\nthe working farmers organized as the manufacturers and the skilled\nartisans are organized, and could they lay by for themselves a year\u2019s\nnecessities, they could starve the race into submission to their\ndemands. But the thing is not to be; nor, indeed, is any marked change\nto their advantage likely to happen, for, so far as current tendencies\npoint, the future is to repeat the past.\n\nIn our day and in our land both force and cajolery conspire to keep\nthe peasant farmer securely in his traces. He cannot break through\nthe cordon which the trusts and the railroads put about him; and even\nif he could he would not, since the influences showered upon him are\nspecifically directed to the end of keeping him passive and contented.\nOur statisticians assure him of his prosperity; our politicians and\nour moulders of opinion warn him of the pernicious influence of\nunions like the Farmers\u2019 Alliance, and further preach to him the\ncomforting doctrine that by \u201craising more corn and less politics\u201d\nhe will ultimately work out a blissful salvation. Sometimes he must\nburn his corn for fuel; often he cannot sell his grain for the cost\nof production, even though many thousands of persons in the great\ncities may be hungering for it; frequently he cannot afford to send\nhis children to school, and in a steadily increasing number of cases\nhe is forced to abandon his farm and become a tenant or a wanderer. He\nis puzzled, no doubt, by these things; but they are all carefully and\nneatly explained to him from the writings and preachments of profound\nscholars, as \u201cnatural\u201d and \u201cinevitable\u201d phenomena. His ethical sense\nmay be somewhat disturbed by the explanations, but he learns that it is\nuseless to protest, and he thereupon acquiesces.\n\nA sort of symposium on the joys of the farmer is to be found in the\nSeptember number of the _American Review of Reviews_. Mr. Clarence\nH. Matson writes of improved conditions due to rural free delivery\nof mails and a few other reforms; Mr. William R. Draper dilates upon\nthe enormous revenues which have flowed to the farmers during the\ncurrent year, and Professor Henry C. Adams contributes a symphony\non the diffusion of agricultural prosperity. A fourth article, by\nMr. Cy Warman, furnishes a rather discordant note to the general\nharmony, since it shows a large and increasing immigration of our\nprosperous farmers into Canada. Some 20,000 crossed the border last\nyear, according to Mr. Warman, while during the first four months of\n1902, 11,480 followed, and indications pointed to a total of 40,000\nemigrants for the present year. The official figures of the Canadian\nGovernment, since published, partly confirm these estimates. The\nnumber of immigrants from the United States for the year ended June\n30, 1902, was 22,000. The number for the current year will probably\nbe larger, for according to a Montreal press despatch of September\n17th: \u201cThe immigration from the American to the Canadian Northwest has\nassumed much greater proportions this year than ever before, and land\nsales to Americans are daily reported. The latest large sale is by\nthe Saskatchewan Valley Land Company, which has sold 100,000 acres in\nSaskatchewan to an American syndicate for $500,000.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe American farmer,\u201d sententiously and truthfully remarks Professor\nAdams, \u201cdoes not hoard his cash.\u201d He gives no reason for the fact, and\nthe determination must be left to the reader. \u201cThe American farmer,\u201d\nhe further remarks, \u201cis, as a rule, his own landlord.\u201d This statement\nreveals a very serious misapprehension of the facts. Something more\nthan every third farm in the United States, according to the recent\ncensus, is operated by a tenant. Moreover, the proportion of tenants\nis constantly rising. For the whole country, tenants operated 25.5 per\ncent of all farms in 1880, 28.4 per cent in 1890, and 35.3 per cent in\n1900. Further, the tendency is not confined to particular sections,\nbut is common to the whole country. During the last decade the number\nof tenant-operated farms increased relatively to the whole number of\nfarms in every State and Territory except Maine, Vermont, and New\nHampshire. In Maine tenantry decreased seven-tenths of 1 per cent, in\nNew Hampshire five-tenths of 1 per cent, and in Vermont one-tenth of 1\nper cent. For the twenty-year period, as was pointed out in Chapter II,\nthe only exceptions to the general increase are Arizona, Florida, and\nNew Hampshire.\n\nThe recent census, out of its abundant optimism, does not segregate\nthese facts, and makes no general comment other than that tenantry has\nincreased and that salaried management is believed to be \u201cconstantly\nincreasing.\u201d The bulletin on \u201cAgriculture: The United States\u201d does not\neven furnish a general classified summary of the data on tenantry. But\nthe separate reports give the statistics, and out of them the following\ntable is compiled:--\n\nINCREASE OF FARM TENANTRY\n\n  ==========================+========+========+=======+=======+\n                            |\n    STATES AND TERRITORIES  | PER CENT OF FARMS OPERATED\n                            |         BY TENANTS\n  --------------------------+----------+--------+-------------+\n                            |  1880    |  1890  |      1900\n                            |          |        |\n   1. Alabama               |  46.8    |  48.6  |      57.7\n   2. Arizona               |  13.2    |   7.9  | _a._  8.4[1]\n                            |          |        | _b._ 11.9[2]\n   3. Arkansas              |  30.9    |  32.1  |      45.4\n   4. California            |  19.8    |  17.8  |      23.1\n   5. Colorado              |  13.0    |  11.3  |      22.6\n   6. Connecticut           |  10.2    |  11.5  |      12.9\n   7. Delaware              |  42.4    |  46.9  |      50.3\n   8. District of Columbia  |  38.2    |  36.7  |      43.1\n   9. Florida               |  30.9    |  23.6  |      26.5\n  10. Georgia               |  44.9    |  53.5  |      59.9\n  11. Idaho                 |   4.7    |   4.6  |       8.7\n  12. Illinois              |  21.4    |  24.0  |      29.3\n  13. Indiana               |  23.7    |  25.4  |      28.6\n  14. Iowa                  |  23.8    |  28.1  |      34.9\n  15. Kansas                |  16.3    |  28.2  |      33.2\n  16. Kentucky              |  26.4    |  24.9  |      32.8\n  17. Louisiana             |  35.2    |  44.4  |      58.0\n  18. Maine                 |   4.3    |   5.4  |       4.7\n  19. Maryland              |  31.0    |  31.0  |      33.6\n  20. Massachusetts         |   8.2    |   9.3  |       9.6\n  21. Michigan              |  10.0    |  14.0  |      15.9\n  22. Minnesota             |   9.2    |  12.9  |      17.3\n  23. Mississippi           |  43.8    |  52.8  |      62.4\n  24. Missouri              |  27.3    |  26.8  |      30.5\n  25. Montana               |   5.3    |   4.8  |       9.2\n  26. Nebraska              |  18.0    |  24.7  |      36.9\n  27. Nevada                |   9.7    |   7.5  |      11.4\n  28. New Hampshire         |   8.1    |   8.0  |       7.5\n  29. New Jersey            |  24.6    |  27.2  |      36.9\n  30. New Mexico            |   8.1    |   4.5  |       9.4\n  31. New York              |  16.5    |  20.2  |      23.9\n  32. North Carolina        |  33.5    |  34.1  |      41.4\n  33. North Dakota          |   3.9[3] |   6.9  |       8.5\n  34. Ohio                  |  19.3    |  22.9  |      27.5\n  35. Oklahoma              |          |   0.7  |      21.0\n  36. Oregon                |  14.1    |  12.5  |      17.8\n  37. Pennsylvania          |  21.2    |  23.3  |      26.0\n  38. Rhode Island          |  19.9    |  18.7  |      20.1\n  39. South Carolina        |  50.3    |  55.3  |      61.0\n  40. South Dakota          |   3.9[3] |  13.2  |      21.8\n  41. Tennessee             |  34.5    |  30.8  |      40.5\n  42. Texas                 |  37.6    |  41.9  |      49.7\n  43. Utah                  |   4.6    |   5.2  |       8.8\n  44. Vermont               |  13.4    |  14.6  |      14.5\n  45. Virginia              |  29.5    |  26.9  |      30.7\n  46. Washington            |   7.2    |   8.5  |      14.4\n  47. West Virginia         |  19.1    |  17.8  |      21.8\n  48. Wisconsin             |   9.1    |  11.4  |      13.5\n  49. Wyoming               |   2.8    |   4.2  |       7.6\n  --------------------------+----------+--------+-------------+\n\n  FOOTNOTES:\n\n  [1] Including Indian farms.\n\n  [2] Excluding Indian farms.\n\n  [3] Dakota Territory.\n\nThere were 2,026,286 tenants in 1900, an increase in twenty years of\n97.7 per cent. There were 3,713,371 owners, part owners, \u201cowners and\ntenants,\u201d and managers, an increase in twenty years of 24.4 per cent.\nDuring the twenty-year period owners in Washington increased less\nthan fivefold, tenants tenfold. Utah shows a doubling of the number\nof owners, and a quadrupling of the number of tenants. South Dakota,\ncompared with Dakota Territory in 1880, reveals an increase of owners\nof two and one-half times; of tenants, eighteen times. There are 28,669\nfewer owners in New York State than in 1880, and 14,331 more tenants.\nOwnership has declined and tenantry advanced, both absolutely and\nrelatively, in New Jersey. The great farming State of Illinois has\n15,044 fewer owners and 23,454 more tenants than in 1880, and even\nthe young Territory of Oklahoma, wherein one might expect to find\nevidences of increased ownership, reveals, for the ten-year period, a\ntwo-hundred-fold increase of tenantry and only a sixfold increase of\nownership.\n\nFrom the foregoing table it will be seen that while during the previous\ndecade relative tenantry declined slightly in several States, the\ntide has since turned. Though the Southern States generally show the\ngreatest proportion of tenants, the greatest percentage of increase is\nrevealed in the Border, Northern, and Western States. Tenants operate\n62.4 per cent of all the farms of Mississippi, 61 per cent of those of\nSouth Carolina. But while the former is a growth since 1880 from 43.8\nper cent, and the latter from 50.3 per cent, Oklahoma (the comparison\nin this single instance is with 1890) increased the percentage of its\ntenant-operated farms from seven-tenths of 1 per cent to 21 per cent.\nWashington doubled its percentage, Montana and Utah very nearly so.\nNearly one-third of the farms of New Jersey are tenant farms, and\nmore than one-third of those of Kansas and Nebraska. Each of these\nthree States doubled its relative percentage of tenant farmers for the\ntwenty-year period. Even in New York the proportion has grown since\n1880 from 16.5 to 23.9 per cent. As marked as is the showing, the whole\nsituation is not revealed by the figures, for the term \u201cowners\u201d in the\nreports includes \u201cfarms operated by individuals who own a part of the\nland and rent the remainder from others,\u201d and \u201cfarms operated under the\njoint direction and by the united labor of two or more individuals, one\nowning the farm or a part of it, and the other or others owning no part\nbut receiving for supervision or labor a share of the products.\u201d\n\nThis remarkable growth of tenantry would be considered, in any other\nthan our own complacent days, as an alarming, even an appalling fact.\nSo blithely and for so long a time have the changes been rung upon\nthe alleged fact of independent ownership that everybody, including\nprofessors of political economy, assumes its truth. But even when its\nbaselessness is clearly shown we shall hear little of an alarmist\nnature from our publicists and teachers. Rather it may be expected\nthat their pronouncements will change with the changing times, and\nthat we shall soon hear reiterated gratulations on the development\nof tenantry. Is not the humble tenant\u2019s security greater, are not\nhis troubles less? Need he worry over taxes, foreclosures, and the\nlike? Not at all; and besides--not the least of considerations to\nour paternalistic moulders of opinion--there is much reason for\nsatisfaction in the fact that, having no land to mortgage, he will not\nbe led into wildly prodigal habits of life by a too ready recourse to\nthe money-lender.\n\nConsidering the growth of tenantry, the increasing migration to Canada,\nthe flocking of rural residents into the cities, and the frequent\noutright abandonment of farms in several sections of the country,\nthe unsophisticated onlooker may naturally wonder at the tales of\nagricultural prosperity which from time to time appear in public print.\nMr. Draper, in the article previously mentioned, speculates somewhat\ningeniously over the financial returns due the farmer for his crop for\nthe present year. The figures are certainly imposing when looked at as\ntotals. The wheat crop will sum up 700,500,000 bushels, and each bushel\nwill sell for 60 cents, making the net value $580,100,000--a rather\ncurious result, by the way, not obtainable by any of the ordinary\nprocesses of mathematics. The corn crop is to bring $776,985,300, and\nthe remaining crops follow, with large values attached.\n\nBut reduced to individual earnings, values of farm products (according\nto the census, products other than those fed to live stock) reveal a\nrather meagre diffusion of prosperity. Of the 5,739,657 farms in the\nUnited States, 1,319,856 are listed in the census as hay and grain\nfarms, for the reason that hay and grain comprise 40 per cent of\ntheir total products. The average size of these hay and grain farms\nis 159.3 acres, and the average value of this product per acre in\n1899 was $4.77. The number of miscellaneous farms is 1,059,416, with\nan average acreage of 106.8, and a product value of $4.12. Live-stock\nfarms number 1,564,714, with an average acreage of 226.9 and a product\nvalue of $3.47. Thus the average productive yield of 70 per cent of all\nthe farms and 80 per cent of all the farm land in the nation ranges\nfrom $3.47 to $4.77 per acre. Flowers and plants, it may be noted for\ncomparison, yield the comfortable return of $431.83 per acre; but their\neffect on the general census is but slight, since the average product\nvalue of all farms is but $4.47 per acre. But let no one suppose that\nall this munificent sum goes to the farmer. He pays 43 cents per acre\nfor labor and nearly 7 cents per acre for fertilizers. The net income\nis thus $3.97 per acre.\n\nThe size of farms is increasing, though actual agriculture is probably\nconfined to smaller holdings. The average was 136.5 acres in 1890;\nit is now 146.6 acres. The tendency varies in different parts of the\ncountry. Nebraska increases her average from 190.1 acres in 1890 to\n246.1 acres in 1900. Kansas shows almost identical figures, while\nthe New England States show little change, and the Southern States\ngenerally show reduced averages. The relation of size of farm to kind\nof tenure is, however, the main point, and here one discovers matter\nfor reflection. Farms operated by cash tenants have 102.7 acres apiece,\nby owners 134.1, by managers 1514.3. The growth of manorial estates\nis dimly revealed in these figures, and there is no need to doubt the\ncensus bulletin\u2019s reserved admission that farms operated by managers\nare believed to be constantly increasing.\n\nThe subject of the changing status of the farmer--a change which\ninvolves his ultimate reduction to a sixteenth-century level--is\ntoo large to receive adequate treatment in these pages. By all\nconsiderations it deserves the space of a generous volume. For present\npurposes there remains to be said that even where apparent ownership is\nretained by the working farmer, effective ownership is determined in\nother quarters. He is the joint tenant of the farm implement trusts,\nof the new harvester trust, of the produce trusts which fix the\nvalue of his products, of the railroad trusts which fix the rate of\ntransportation to the market, and in the arid West of the water trusts.\nThus, even though he boasts the possession of a title-deed to his land,\nthe holding is in reality of the nature of a fief, held at the mercy of\nseveral superiors; and the tithes which he pays, though less formally\nlevied and exacted than were the _redevances_ of the medi\u00e6val peasant,\nare as many and well-nigh as burdensome. And he must pay or go; for\nthere is no remission from his superiors, as in olden days, on account\nof drouth, floods, locusts, or murrain.\n\n\nII\n\nWith the decline of the petty trades, the growth of the combinations,\nand the concentration in fewer hands of the machinery of production,\nthe subordination of the wage-earner becomes more certain and more\nfixed. If ever he were a free agent,--in the sense and to the degree\nthat any one in human society can be free,--the day is passed. Through\nagencies constantly augmenting and extending, he is \u201ccabin\u2019d, cribb\u2019d,\nconfin\u2019d, bound in,\u201d to a narrowing circle of possible efforts.\nDivorced from the land and from the tools of production, he can live\nonly by accepting such wages and conditions as are offered him; and\nthe terms are always such that the kernel of his product goes to some\nother man, while the husks and the tares remain his own portion. The\npatronizing orators of Labor Day and of campaign times sometimes\ndelight to symbolize him as a sturdy Gulliver, though it needs little\nreflection to see that it is the Gulliver of Brobdingnag, and not that\nof Lilliput, that more correctly figures his present status. The mass\nof current tendencies tends to fix him as a dependent--a unit of a\nlower order in a series of gradations running up to the Big Men. \u201cThe\ncorporation,\u201d writes Mr. Richmond,[4] \u201cholds of the State, and its\nofficers hold of the corporation, and their retainers, managers, and\nservants all hold the tenure of their employment from their superiors\nin office, from the highest to the lowest.\u201d But whether corporation, or\npartnership, or individual, employs the laborer\u2019s services, his status\nis practically the same. Trade-unions and other labor societies tend to\nmodify that dependence; and occasionally social legislation, when it\nruns the fierce gantlet of the courts, exerts a further modification.\nBut it is coming to be recognized that there is a limit, perhaps\nnow nearly attained, beyond which the labor societies can exert no\ninfluence; and as for social legislation, as will be shown farther\nalong, it has certainly reached its culmination.\n\nTo the natural causes making for the laborer\u2019s subordination have been\nadded in recent years certain conscious and deliberate forces. There\nis a collective pressure brought to bear upon his wages; there is a\ncollective antagonism maintained against his unions; there is a growing\nmovement in the direction of holding him for the term of his profitable\nservice to the company or corporation by which he is employed, and\nthere is a judicial tendency to pretend still to regard him, despite\nhis changing status, as an economically free agent, able to do what he\nwills, and to protect himself from all injustice.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe assurance of villein fidelity is a prime need of a feudal order.\nThe fidelity need not be personal, as in the old days; instead, the\naltered ceremony of \u201chomage\u201d may take in whole regiments by a single\nrite. Recent acts of the great employers make strongly for creating\ninducements for this fidelity. In spite of instances of conduct like\nthat of the coal magnates of Pennsylvania, there is a growing tendency\nto unite for life-long service the careers of the more faithful workers\nwith the corporations by whom they are employed. \u201cModel workshops,\u201d\nand even \u201cmodel villages,\u201d are unquestionably increasing in numbers.\nTheir character is almost pure paternalism--\u201cenlightened absolutism,\u201d\nProfessor Ely calls it. Rarely have the workers themselves the\nslightest word to say as to their construction or conduct. What is\nthought to be good for them, what is thought will win their devotion,\nis given them. Whether at Pullman, Ill., at Dayton or Cleveland,\nOhio, or at Pelzer, S.C., the general spirit manifested is the same.\nThe perfervid chapter on \u201cAmerican Liberality to Workmen,\u201d which\nMr. Nicholas Paine Gilman gives us in his volume, \u201cA Dividend to\nLabor,\u201d contains dozens of instances wherein employers have indulged\ntheir benevolence by the gift of flower-pots, wash-basins, and other\ncultural paraphernalia to their employees. Mr. Victor H. Olmsted,\nin the _Bulletin_ of the Department of Labor for November, 1900,\ngives another, though somewhat duplicated, list; and the Rev. Josiah\nStrong\u2019s monthly journal, _Social Service_, furnishes a current record\nof such benevolences. The providences of the Colorado Fuel and Iron\nCompany alone make a remarkable showing. This corporation has even a\n\u201csociological department,\u201d and it is at present building a $10,000\nmission at Bessemer, near Pueblo. The plan of the mission, we read,\nis to have a refuge, with all modern improvements, for \u201cfloaters,\u201d or\nthe unemployed. These wayfarers may make a temporary living by working\nin an attached woodyard. In all its camps in Colorado this company has\nestablished kindergartens, libraries, and, in remote places, grade\nschools for the children of its employees. Its hospital at the Pueblo\nworks is said to be the best equipped in the West. \u201cIt is the announced\npurpose of this corporation,\u201d we read, \u201cto solve the social problem.\u201d\n\nModel workshops and the distribution of relief are but a small part\nof the tendency. The giving of old-age pensions, particularly by\nrailroad companies, has recently taken on the dimensions of a national\nmovement. The pension system is not a conspicuously expensive one,\nfor the numbers of workmen who live long enough to avail themselves\nof its benefits are but scant. The sums paid out for pensions by the\nBaltimore and Ohio Railroad Relief Department in eighteen years average\n$31,185.85 yearly--about the salary of a first vice-president--and the\nemployees themselves have borne a considerable part of the expense. A\ntotal of 697 pensions has been granted during this time, but 365 of the\nbeneficiaries have considerately died, and thus reduced the expenses.\n\nThe pension system as it obtains among railroads is more or less an\noutgrowth of the relief association begun by the Baltimore and Ohio\nRailroad Company on May 1, 1880. Prototypes can possibly be found,\nbut this instance is the first of any consequence. The State of\nMaryland revoked the charter of the association in 1888. This was an\nembarrassing interruption, but by no means a fatal one, for the society\nwas immediately reorganized as a department of the company. The plan\nwas to pay accident, sick, and death benefits and old-age pensions,\nthe company contributing $33,500 yearly, and the employees paying\nmonthly dues based on their wages. Section 100 of the regulations\nfor 1889 declares that \u201cthe fund for the payment of pensions will be\nderived wholly from the contributions of the company,\u201d a change from\nthe earlier method in the direction of pure paternalism. The usual age\nfor pensioning is sixty-five years, and the president and directors\ndetermine the roll.\n\nThe Pennsylvania Railroad Voluntary Relief Department was begun in\n1886. In a number of respects it followed the details of the earlier\nassociation. As to pensions, however, it put the matter forward by\narranging for the gradual growth of a superannuation fund out of\nthe department\u2019s surplus. There were six companies, according to\nMr. William Franklin Willoughby\u2019s \u201cWorkingmen\u2019s Insurance,\u201d that\nbefore 1898 had created regular insurance departments. These were\nthe Baltimore and Ohio, the Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania west of\nPittsburg, the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, the Philadelphia and\nReading, and the Plant System. Though in two or three instances the\nplans have been altered, all these companies founded their pension\nsystems on employees\u2019 contributions.\n\nThe Pennsylvania\u2019s fund reached the figure set for it January 1, 1900,\nand the pension system was proclaimed. On the first day of 1901 the\nChicago and Northwestern put in operation a gratuitous pension system,\nappropriating $200,000 for the purpose. The beneficiaries, all of whom\nmust have been thirty years with the company, were divided into two\nclasses: first, those seventy years old, who were to be retired and\npensioned at once; and second, those from sixty-five to sixty-nine\nyears inclusive, who were to be retired and pensioned at the discretion\nof the pension board. The rate fixed is one per cent per year of\nservice of the average monthly pay for the preceding ten years. An\nemployee whose average wages were $55 per month, and who had been with\nthe company for thirty years, would thus receive $16.50 a month.\n\nThe Illinois Central proclaimed its pension system July 1, 1901. On\nMarch 1, 1902, the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western took the same\ncourse, appropriating $50,000. The terms are somewhat more liberal,\nin that only twenty-five years\u2019 service is required, and that some\nemployees may be retired between the ages of sixty and sixty-five. The\nMetropolitan Street Railway Company followed on March 6th, and the\nPhiladelphia and Reading Company on May 21. The details, while varying\nsomewhat, are in the main alike for all of these companies.\n\nThough the experiment is a comparatively frugal one, there is no doubt\nthat it brings compensatory returns; for it serves to keep quiescent\nand faithful large bodies of men, and perhaps to loosen the bonds of\nthe labor-union. It holds in servicemen above thirty-five or forty-five\nyears of age, for they know the difficulty of securing work elsewhere;\nand it feeds them with a more or less illusory hope of an ultimate\npension. Indeed, the motive of inducing a closer dependence of the\nlaborer upon the employer is more or less frankly confessed. \u201cUnder\nit\u201d (the pension system), reads the Lackawanna\u2019s advertisement to the\npublic, \u201cthe road and its employees are to be more closely knit by\nsubstantial ties.\u201d The president of the Metropolitan Street Railway\nCompany, however, sounds a more altruistic and benevolent note. \u201cMy\nobject in establishing this department,\u201d he is quoted as saying, \u201cis\nto preserve the future welfare of aged and infirm employees and to\nrecognize efficient and loyal service.\u201d\n\nDespite such benevolent professions there are grave grounds for\nscepticism regarding the tangible benefit of the system to the\nemployees. If Hope lingers with them, it must be because, as Mr.\nWilliam Watson sings, \u201cairiest cheer suffices for her food.\u201d For both\nthe ascertained results of an eighteen years\u2019 operation of the system,\nand a moment\u2019s glance at conditions surrounding the new applications of\nit, point to a most rigorous limitation of its benefits. In the first\nplace, there is a growing disinclination to employ in any industry men\npast forty-five years of age. The new regulations of the Philadelphia\nand Reading reduce even this limit ten years, prohibiting the taking\non of employees past thirty-five years of age, except by the approval\nof the board of directors of the company, although in special cases\nwhere unusual qualifications are desired the age limit may be waived.\nSo general is this attitude of employers that the Chicago Federation\nof Labor was recently moved to the passing of a resolution proposing\nthat \u201cevery unemployed man forty-five years of age who cannot show\nwhat the charity authorities call \u2018visible means of support\u2019 shall\nbe mercifully shot in a lawful and orderly manner.\u201d Moreover, the\nchances of a railroad employee reaching the age of sixty-five or\nseventy years are about equal to the chances of winning a large sum at\npolicy. Discharges are frequent and arbitrary, and usually there is no\nappeal. Aside from this, the casualties are enormous. Of the 191,198\nrailroad workers classed as trainmen employed throughout the country\nin 1900, 1396 (or one in every 138) were killed, and 17,571 (or one\nin every 10.8) injured. The corrected figures for 1901 (given to the\npublic in August of the present year) show about the same percentages.\nOf the 209,043 trainmen, 1537 (or one in every 136) were killed, and\n16,715 (or one in every 12.5) were injured. Thanks to the new safety\nappliances, casualties caused by coupling and uncoupling cars declined\nby 84 killed and 2461 injured; but in other classes of accidents the\npercentages brought the averages to near the previous figures. At best,\nthe chances of maiming or death constantly increase with every one of\nthe twenty-five or thirty years\u2019 service required for the earning of a\npension. In the Metropolitan (now Interurban) Street Railway service,\nwhere accidents are few but discharges many, the benevolent instincts\nof the president will prove difficult of realization. This official\nadmitted that discharges had at one time reached an average of 300 a\nmonth. An employee informed the author that he knew of but two or\nthree men in the entire service whom the published terms entitled to\npensions, while another employee conceded a possible dozen.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe new Feudalism evidently requires a tempering--let us say, a\nconservative adjustment--of the wage-scale. Those whom the gods dower\nwith plenty may for the present give freely of their store, while those\nwho feel the parsimony of Providence must withhold. The recent increase\nof 10 per cent in wages given by the steel corporation, and the refusal\nof the anthracite magnates to increase the average, according to\nthe Pennsylvania Bureau of Mines, of 79-1/2 cents a day which their\noperatives now receive, are but examples of the contrasts which may be\nexpected during the transition period. The collective feudal policy\nwill avoid both extremes. It will pay something better than that which\nbreeds discontent, something less than that which breeds luxury and\npride. It will provide not exactly what the workers desire, but what is\ngood for them.\n\nAlready the more or less collective pressure upon the wage-scale shows\nits effects. Hon. Carroll D. Wright\u2019s 250 wage-quotations for 25\nselected occupations (_Bulletin_ of the Department of Labor, September,\n1898) reveal for the years 1895-98 a steady decline from the wages paid\nin the panic years, 1893-94, to about the same wages as were paid in\n1882. The figures in the _Bulletin_ for September, 1900, pertain to\n148 establishments, representing 26 industries and 192 occupations.\nThey show a slight increase for 1899 and another for 1900. This slight\nincrease, however, is resolved into a marked decrease by the rise in\nthe price of commodities necessary for the average life. From July,\n1897, to July, 1901, according to the careful index-figures published\nin _Dun\u2019s Review_, the price of commodities advanced 27 per cent; and\nfrom July 1 to December 1, of the latter year, an almost steady advance\nwas recorded. Comparing January 1, 1896, with January 1, 1902, the\n_Wall Street Journal_ finds an increase of 36 per cent.\n\nThe wage-quotations used by Col. Wright in his table of 1898 are\nfrom the larger cities, and pertain to trades the workmen in which\nare organized. Here, if anywhere, one would expect evidences of\nincreased wages. Generally, however, the figures for 1897-98 show\na parity with the figures for 1881-82. Compositors, for instance,\nreceived $2.81-1/2 daily in 1898, $2.81 in 1882. Carpenters received\n$2.52-3/4 in 1898, $2.55 in 1882. Often the figures for the latter\nyear show a considerable decline; but the averages are maintained\nthrough the advances gained by those affluent mechanics, the plumbers;\nby the stone-cutters, and by the better-paid wage-earners of the\nrailroads,--conductors, engineers, and firemen. With the increase\nof railroad traffic the hours of labor have been extended; and the\nincrease of wages follows, at least for the engineers and firemen, as\na consequence of longer hours. As for the common laborer, he is being\nleft behind in the race. His wages were less in 1898 than in 1882 in\nsix of the ten cites quoted, and in four of them there was no change.\n\nAll wage-statistics are questionable, and particularly the more\ngeneralized wage-statements which proceed from Washington, during the\nfall months of election years. A look into the figures themselves is\nusually fatal to the optimism voiced in the generalizations. From\nother sources the conflict of figures is puzzling and irritating. It\nmay be shown by selections from these that wages are rising, that they\nare falling, or that they are stationary. There is always a disparity\nbetween the figures of the State bureaus, the National bureau, and the\ncensus, and usually it is a disparity that cannot be harmonized.\n\nThe national census figures ought to be, as most persons will declare,\na sufficiently correct guide. According to the last census, the\nnumber of wage-earners in manufacturing pursuits has increased in ten\nyears 25.2 per cent, wages have increased 23.2 per cent. Despite the\nacknowledged increase in the country\u2019s wealth, wages, if the census\nis correct, have declined. It is officially explained, however, that\nthese figures are not to be taken too literally. The schedules for\n1890 included among wage-earners, \u201coverseers, foremen, and certain\nsuperintendents (not general superintendents or managers), while the\ncensus of 1900 separates from the wage-earning class such salaried\nemployees as general superintendents, clerks, and salesmen.\u201d \u201cIt is\npossible and probable,\u201d says each of the reports on manufactures, \u201cthat\nthis change in the form of the question has resulted in eliminating\nfrom the wage-earners, as reported by the present census, many\nhigh-salaried employees included in that group for the census of 1890.\u201d\n\nPossibly and probably. But aside from the fact that the elimination\nof the comparatively few overseers and foremen, with their somewhat\nhigher salaries, could make but slight influence on averages in the\ntremendous total of 5,321,087 wage-earners, with $2,330,275,021 of\nwages, there is another point or two to consider. According to Part\nI (page 14 _et seq._) of the Report of Manufacturing Industries for\nthe census of 1890, it appears that wages underwent a considerable\ninflation in that record. The questions asked in 1880, it would appear,\nresulted in reporting more wage-earners than there really were. The\nquestions for 1890, it is declared, produced the real number. It is\nfurther stated that \u201cthe questions for 1890 also tended to obtain a\nlarge amount of wages as compared with 1880.\u201d It would seem so, indeed,\neven to a neophyte in the ingenious art of figuring; for while the\nwage-increase of the decade 1870-80 could show but 22.2 per cent, that\nfor the following decade revealed the astonishing figure of a fraction\nless than 100 per cent. When, therefore, one seeks to compare the\naverages of 1890 with those of 1900 he may not unreasonably infer that\nthe elimination of overseers and foremen in the later census is no more\nthan a set-off to the ample generosity given to the wage-figures in\nthe earlier census. There is no telling for a certainty, but it is not\nunlikely that the present census figures give a result approximately\nnear the truth.\n\nIt is not an extravagant hope that some day we shall have two\nsuccessive censuses carried out on identical schedules, so that\ncomparisons may be accurately made between two decades. As it is, we\nmust take what the powers give us, and be thankful. We must take it\non trust, moreover, for there is no going behind the returns; and any\ncaptious questioning of the figures can be met only in the spirit with\nwhich Telemachus answered the fair Helen\u2019s inquiry if he were a true\nson of Ulysses. It is a matter of faith--there is no proof.\n\nIn the faith, then, that there is reasonable accuracy in the reports,\nand a reasonable basis of comparison with previous reports, it is\ninteresting to note what is revealed. First in point of interest is\nthe relation of the value of the manufactured product to the amount\nof wages paid. A comparison will show whether labor is receiving an\nincreasing or decreasing share of the wealth created. The census\ntotals under the former heading are confessedly crude, since \u201ca\nconstant duplication of products appears, ... owing to the fact that\nthe finished products of many manufacturing establishments become the\nmaterials of other establishments, in which they are further utilized\nand again included in the value of products.\u201d The new census has\ntherefore made a separate classification of materials purchased in a\npartially manufactured form. Nevertheless, the gross total, including\nproducts from both raw materials and partly manufactured products, is\nreached by the same means as were employed in previous censuses, and\nis therefore comparable with the gross totals of previous decades.\nWhatever the duplications, they are similar to those of preceding\nreports.\n\nThere are nineteen States wherein the average number of wage-earners\nin manufacturing pursuits constitutes more than 6 per cent of the\npopulation. Rhode Island heads the list with 22.5 per cent. It is\nfollowed by Connecticut with 19.5; Massachusetts, 17.7; New Hampshire,\n17.1; New Jersey, 12.8; Delaware, 12; New York, 11.7; Pennsylvania,\n11.6; Maine, 10.8; Maryland, 9.1; Vermont, 8.6; Ohio, 8.3; Illinois,\n8.2; Florida, 7; Wisconsin, 6.9; Michigan, 6.7; Washington, 6.6;\nIndiana, 6.2; California, 6.1.\n\nIn each of these States the value of the manufactured product has\nincreased, Florida leading with a gain of 109.6 per cent; Washington\nfollowing with 107.8 per cent; New Jersey with 72.5; Indiana, 66.7;\nVermont, 50.4; Wisconsin, 45.2, and so on, Massachusetts showing the\nslightest increase, 16.6 per cent. The value of the manufactured\nproduct is of course affected by the two items, cost of material and\nmiscellaneous expenses, though in turn these are almost invariably\nreflected to some extent in the increase or decrease of the value\nof the product. When his material and his expenses increase, the\nmanufacturer, if he can, puts up the price of his product. It would be\nwholly impossible to find a ratio, for the figures show an astonishing\nvariety. In Massachusetts, for instance,--that classic State for the\nobservation and study of industrial phenomena, the State wherein\nstatistics are gathered with some approach to accuracy,--the increase\nof miscellaneous expenses is put at 16.1 per cent; of cost of material,\nat 16.8 per cent; of value of product, 16.6 per cent. But against\nthis reasonable showing New York confesses to an increase of 81.8\nper cent in miscellaneous expenses, with an increased product of but\n27.1 per cent. Miscellaneous expenses increased 131 per cent in New\nJersey, while the product increased but 72.5 per cent, and Pennsylvania\nand Indiana follow hard in the tracks of the two former States.\nPerhaps a key to the mystery is furnished in the enormous increase of\nmiscellaneous expenses in certain industries which require favorable\nlegislation. Gas, for instance, which is generally considered the\nrightful prey of certain kinds of aldermen and legislators, shows a\npayment of $8,635,399 for \u201cadvertising, interest, insurance, repairs,\nand other sundry expenses,\u201d an increase of 74.8 per cent against an\nincrease in the value of the product of but 32.9 per cent.\n\nIn each of these nineteen factory States the value of the product\nincreased. In all but one it increased more than 25 per cent, in two\nmore than 100 per cent. But in ten of these States total wages have\ndeclined, and in three of the remainder the gain is insignificant.\nWages of men workers have declined in eleven of these States, with\na fractional gain in two States. Florida, which shows the greatest\npercentage of increase in the number of wage-earners, shows the\ngreatest relative loss in wages. Maine, which gives the smallest\npercentage of increase in number of wage-earners, gives the largest\nrelative percentage of increase in wages. The four States having\nthe greatest absolute number of wage-earners all show decreases of\nwages. New York, with 849,092 workers, shows a wage-loss of 2.2 per\ncent; Pennsylvania, with 733,834 workers, a loss of 2 per cent;\nMassachusetts, with 497,448, a fractional loss; and Illinois, with\n395,110, 5 per cent.\n\nThe specific industries for the whole nation show similar results.\nRelative wages have increased in refining petroleum, in manufacturing\nice and salt, and in a few other industries. But they have decreased\nin the great majority of the industries so far reported. There is\na wage-loss in the making of bicycles, leather gloves and mittens,\nwatches, watch-cases, buttons, gas, oleomargarine, boots and shoes,\npaper and pulp, coke, needles and pins, cigars and cigarettes,\npocket-books, trunks and valises, leather belting and hose, in canning\nand preserving fruits and vegetables, in the tanning and finishing of\nleather, the slaughtering and packing of meat, the smelting of zinc,\nship-building, car-building, the weaving of flax, hemp, and jute, and\ncotton products, the brewing of malt liquors, and newspaper publishing.\nAll along the monotonous rows of figures the same lesson is generally\nrevealed,--the productivity of the laborer increases, the value of the\nproduct increases, the wages, except in occasional instances, decline\nor remain stationary.\n\nThe important point of the purchasing power of the dollar in 1890\nas compared with 1900 needs also to be considered. According to the\nexhaustive compilation of wholesale prices published in the _Bulletin_\nof the Department of Labor for March, 1902, the dollar would purchase\nin 1890 a greater quantity of beef, bacon, ham, corn meal, beans,\ncheese, eggs, pepper, American salt, Formosa tea, hard and soft coal,\npetroleum, earthenware, furniture, and glassware than in 1900. In the\nlatter year it would purchase more butter, Rio coffee, dried fruits\n(except currants), rice, sugar, onions, potatoes, mutton, and fish.\nWheat flour cheapened, but the price of bread remained the same.\nA comparison of the two lists on the basis of relative quantities\nconsumed in the average family will show the dollar to have had\nconsiderably less purchasing power in 1900 than in 1890, though the\nexact percentage is hardly computable.\n\n\nV\n\nThe new Feudalism involves not only the moderating of the present rates\nof pay for men workers, but an increase in the quantity of defenceless\nlabor--the labor of women and children. Census Bulletin No. 150 gives\nthe increase in the number of men working in manufacturing pursuits at\n23.9 per cent; of women, at 28.4 per cent; of children, at 39.5 per\ncent. The wages of women have slightly increased; that is, the increase\nin total wages is 30.8 per cent against an increase in numbers of\nwage-earners of 28.4 per cent. The figures are better for the children;\ntheir wages are stated to have increased 54.4 per cent. There are ample\nreasons why this should be so. Popular agitation in behalf of the\nlittle ones may be guessed to have had some effect in the betterment\nof their pay; and a still greater effect has been wrought by their\nvastly increasing productivity. The perfecting of the instruments of\nproduction has been carried to such a degree that many a machine may be\noperated by a nursling; and it is well-nigh inevitable that some part\nof this increased productivity should be compensated for by increased\npay of the operatives.\n\nThe number of women in factory work in the United States is 1,031,747,\nnearly one-fifth of the total. There are 230,199 in New York, 143,109\nin Massachusetts, 126,093 in Pennsylvania, 58,978 in Illinois, 53,711\nin Ohio. Eighteen of the nineteen factory States show an increase,\nMaine being the exception; and in thirteen of these States the\npercentage of gain is considerably in excess of that of men workers.\nWashington leads with a gain of 151.8 per cent; Michigan and Illinois\nshow gains of 79 per cent each; Vermont, of 63.1; Indiana, 56.4;\nCalifornia, 46.8; Pennsylvania, 44.9; New Jersey, 39.3. In States\noutside the factory list still greater increases are shown. The figures\nfor South Carolina are 158.3 percent; for North Carolina, 151.2; West\nVirginia, 130.2; Alabama, 109.1; Georgia, 82.2.\n\nIn specific industries the gains are sometimes enormous. There are\nno women reported for coke-making, and the number employed in making\nagricultural implements has declined 25.7 per cent. Car-building, too,\nshows a decline. But in refining petroleum the 60 women wage-earners\nrepresent a gain of 3200 per cent, and in bicycle and tricycle making\nthe 517 women represent a gain of 3346.7 per cent. An increase of\n2600 per cent is shown for distilled liquors, although men workers\ndecreased 23.8 per cent. A decrease of men workers and an increase\nof women workers are also shown for clay products, flouring and\ngrist-mill products, chewing and smoking tobacco and snuff, starch,\ncheese, butter, and condensed milk, watches, and watch-cases.\nThe percentage of increase is in excess of that of men workers in\noleomargarine, pocket-books, trunks and valises, tanned, curried, and\nfinished leather, and needles and pins. There are six and one-half\ntimes as many women as men in collar and cuff making, and more than\ntwice as many in the leather glove and mitten industry; in the latter,\nmoreover, the percentage of increase for women is double that for men.\nThere are 37,762 women making cigars and cigarettes, a gain of 56 per\ncent, against a gain of but 4.6 per cent for men. Malt liquors show an\nincrease of 101.6 per cent of women workers against an increase of 30.2\nper cent of men workers. Women have also increased in number in the\ncotton goods, flax, hemp, and jute, rubber boot and shoe, glass-making,\nslaughtering, and meat-packing, and boot and shoe industries, and in\nnewspaper publishing.\n\n\nVI\n\nThere are 168,624 children employed in manufactures throughout the\ncountry, a gain of 39.5 per cent. Child labor has increased in twelve\nof the factory States, remained practically stationary in two (Michigan\nand New Hampshire), and decreased in five States. The reasons for\na decrease, where it is observed, are not hard to find; in certain\nindustries child labor has been demonstrated to be unprofitable.\nBut wherever it has been found profitable it seems to have been\nincreasingly utilized. The increase in Wisconsin is 193.5 per cent;\nin Washington, 103.8; in Illinois, 92; in New Jersey, 51.4; in\nPennsylvania, 47.8; and in Massachusetts, 44.9. In States outside of\nthe foregoing list the same tendency is shown. South Carolina increased\nits child laborers by 270.7 per cent; Alabama, by 143.8; North\nCarolina, 119.2; Georgia, 81.\n\nChildren number 17.5 per cent of all the factory wage-earners of\nSouth Carolina, and 14.6 per cent of all those of North Carolina. In\nfive other Southern States (including Maryland) the percentages range\nfrom 4.3 to 7.6, while among Northern States Rhode Island children\nform 5.2 per cent of the factory wage-earners, and Pennsylvania and\nWisconsin children 4.5 and 4 per cent, respectively. If Pennsylvania is\ncomparatively low in percentage, it is because of the great mass of its\nadult workers; for in absolute numbers of child workers it heads the\nlist of commonwealths. No less than 33,135 children are employed in its\nfactories, a figure which puts to shame the puny showing of New York,\nwith 13,199, and of Massachusetts, with 12,556.\n\nIn certain industries children form more than one-fourth of all\nthe operatives for a particular locality. In the making of cotton\ngoods in Alabama 29.2 per cent of the workers are children, and in\nSouth Carolina 26.8 per cent. The figures for this industry in North\nCarolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Maryland are nearly identical. In\nPennsylvania, for the making of jute goods the figures are 26.2, and\nfor silk and silk goods, 20.2. Slightly more than one-fourth of the\nhosiery and knit-goods workers of Georgia are children and slightly\nless than one-fourth of the tobacco workers (chewing, smoking, and\nsnuff) of North Carolina. Massachusetts, with its factory law, can make\nbut the humble showing of 6.4 per cent of children in its cotton-goods\nfactories, and Rhode Island but 10.3 per cent. Glass-making is an\nindustry which has made a most literal adaptation of Jesus\u2019 invitation\nto little children; though, if the words of reputable eye-witnesses\nare to be accepted, it is not exactly a heaven into which they are\nwelcomed. Of the operatives in Pennsylvania glass works, children\nnumber 14 per cent, and of those in New Jersey glass works, 15.7 per\ncent.\n\nIn the cotton-goods industry there are 39,866 children, a gain of 70.1\nper cent. It is interesting to learn that there are 1003 children\nemployed in ship-building, and that this number is a gain of 476.4 per\ncent over 1890. There are 4521 in boot and shoe making, an increase of\n85 per cent. There are 2259 in flax, hemp, and jute weaving, nearly\ntwice as many as ten years ago. There are 316 in turpentine and rosin\nmaking, a gain of 236.2 per cent. The number has decreased for some\nreason in the making of clay products, as has also the number of men\nworkers, women having now a growing preference in the potteries. There\nare also fewer children in petroleum refining, but in button-making\nan increase of 321.6 per cent, in leather-glove making of 185.7 per\ncent, and in slaughtering and meat-packing of 138.1 per cent is shown.\nWatch-making shows a gain of 30 per cent, bicycle-making of 780 per\ncent. Children have been found comparatively unadaptable in the liquor\nindustry. Only 643 are employed in brewing and 18 in distilling. For\nall that, these figures represent an increase--in the former case of\n24.6 per cent, in the latter of 200 per cent.\n\nChildren, according to the census, are persons below the age of\nsixteen. Testimony outside of the census reports shows the extreme\nyouth of many of these operatives. Investigations among the glass works\nof southern New Jersey reveal a number of cases of child workers of\neight, nine, and ten years of age. Mr. J. W. Sullivan, a careful and\naccurate observer, who visited this district in July of the present\nyear, confirms these statements. Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House,\nfound a child of five working at night in a South Carolina mill.\nMrs. Irene Ashby-Macfadyen, who has carefully studied conditions in\nthe Southern mills, gives many instances of extremely young children\nworking incredibly long hours. Professor George Clinton Edwards, in\nthe New York _Evening Post_ for August 13th, gives other instances\nrelating to the mills of Dallas, Tex. In a later communication to the\nsame journal he quotes the statement of a mill superintendent to the\neffect that of sixty boys and seventy-six girls employed, \u201cthere are\ntwo in their tenth year, nine in their eleventh year, thirteen in their\ntwelfth year, and seventeen in their fourteenth year.\u201d \u201cThis list,\nfrom the pay-roll,\u201d writes Professor Edwards, \u201cdoes not include the\nlittle children, who, with the mills\u2019 knowledge, worked at the mills\u2019\nwork, who earned the mills\u2019 pay in the 10 or 20 per cent increase\nreceived by the relatives they assisted at piece work, and who were,\ntherefore, in fact, the mills\u2019 employees.\u201d Labor Commissioner Lacey,\nof North Carolina, reports 7605 children under fourteen in 261 mills.\nA correspondent of the Cincinnati _Post_ estimated 400 of the 1000\nchildren employed in five mills in Columbia, S.C., to be under twelve\nyears of age. Testimony by mill officials before a Southern legislature\nacknowledged in one instance 30 per cent of child workers under twelve\nyears in a spinning room, and in another 25 per cent.\n\nThe census reports bear amiable testimony to the providence of the\nmill-owners. \u201cMany of the mills,\u201d says the South Carolina report,\n\u201chave reading rooms and libraries for their employees, and nearly\nall contribute regularly to the support of the local schools.\u201d \u201cIn\nthe absence of legislation regulating child labor,\u201d says the Georgia\nreport, \u201call the cotton manufacturers in the State have signed an\nagreement to exclude from the mills children under ten years of age,\nand those under twelve who cannot show a certificate of four months\u2019\nattendance at school.\u201d In the North Carolina report we find, \u201cIn the\nabsence of legislation nearly all the mill-owners have agreed to\ndiscontinue the employment of children under twelve years of age.\u201d\nA correspondent of the New York _World_ found a like benevolence\namong the glass employers in southern New Jersey. \u201cI need the boys,\u201d\nsaid one, \u201call I can do is to treat the boys as well as I can.\u201d The\nmill-owners, one and all, demand that the State keep its hands off,\nand trust to their own benevolence for remedies. So far, in the South,\ndespite a three years\u2019 agitation, the matter is still left entirely in\ntheir control.\n\nCriticism of the mill-owners has been made to the effect that despite\ntheir benevolent professions, the children are poorly paid and that\nthey remain uneducated. Some of them work long hours for 10 cents a\nday, others for 12-1/2, 15, and 18 cents. A newspaper correspondent\ntells of a certain spinning room in a Southern mill wherein the average\ndaily pay for all children is 23-8/10 cents. \u201cI know of babies,\u201d writes\nMrs. Macfadyen, \u201cworking for 5 and 6 cents a day.\u201d The schooling which\na child working seventy-two hours a week can get may be roughly guessed\nat. Mrs. Macfadyen found 567 children under twelve years working\nin eight mills. Only 122 of these children could read or write. In\na school in a mill-town of between 6000 and 8000 persons, the same\ninvestigator found an enrolment of 90 pupils divided into two classes.\nA visit to one of these classes disclosed 22 children, only 12 of whom\nwere mill-workers\u2019 children, and 10 had worked in the mills from one to\nthree years.\n\nCriticisms based on these data are, however, generally held to be\nsentimental and irrelevant. Glass-blowing or textile-weaving, like\nanthracite mining, is, in the sententious phrase of President George F.\nBaer, of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, \u201ca business, and\nnot a religious, sentimental, or academic proposition.\u201d It is conducted\nfor the making of money, and not for the spiritual or hygienic welfare\nof the operatives. It would be well, say the employers, if things could\nbe better. But for the present they are making all the contribution\nto that end that they feel can conveniently be made. Moreover, they\ncontend--and they are supported generally by the local ministers, who\nhave in charge the spiritual affairs of the populace; by the local\neditors, lawyers, and solid men of \u201cbusiness\u201d--it is better that\nchildren should work in the mills and factories than \u201crun about the\nstreets.\u201d As for education, the contributing employers point to the\nschools, as though to say, \u201cHere are the opportunities; why do you not\ntake advantage of them?\u201d It is quite enough to provide a balky horse\nwith water, without being morally obliged to make him drink.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[4] Since the publication of the _Independent_ article the author\u2019s\nattention has been called to an address entitled \u201cThe New Feudalism,\u201d\ndelivered by Mr. Benjamin A. Richmond, of Cumberland, Md., before the\nMaryland Bar Association in July, 1898. The author had never seen or\nheard of this address. It is written from a legal standpoint, and both\nthe matter and the treatment are widely different from the matter and\nmanner of the _Independent_ article. But whatever the differences, the\nsame general idea is to be found in both papers, and it is only just\nthat acknowledgment should be made of Mr. Richmond\u2019s priority.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V OUR MAKERS OF LAW\n\n\nThe dual responsibility which our lawmakers and judges bear, on the\none hand to the people, and on the other to the Big Men, produces\na chaos of conflicting laws and decisions. For the chartering of\nbusiness corporations we have the \u201cDelaware theory,\u201d which seems to be\nto give the applicant whatever he asks for; the \u201cNew Jersey theory,\u201d\nwhich is a slight modification of the former; and the \u201cMassachusetts\ntheory,\u201d which reserves to the State a certain measure of supervision\nand control. For the fixing of employers\u2019 liability for injuries to\nworkmen we have a wide range of precedents, from States which hold to\nthe common-law doctrine that practically frees the employer from blame,\nto those which fix a liability in somewhat definite terms. Factory\nlegislation, regulations for the public health, the determination of a\nlegal workday, the restraining of corporate aggressiveness--these and\na score of like questions are variously passed upon or deliberately\navoided in the several States. Judicial decisions, too, present a\nspectacle of the widest diversity.\n\nNevertheless this chaos shows signs of a gradual reduction to order.\nThe insistent challenge, \u201cUnder which king, Bezonian, speak or die!\u201d\nwhich perpetually assails all of our legislative and judicial\nfunctionaries, sooner or later forces a decision, and naturally it is\nthe stronger rival that wins. How effective is this challenge, how\nstrong is the pressure, Mr. John Jay Chapman has strikingly shown in\nhis \u201cCauses and Consequences,\u201d and the instances that crop out from\ntime to time, like that of the recent tampering with the Supreme Court\nof Missouri, reveal only a needless confirmation of a known truth.\nLegislation in behalf of the general welfare and of the industrially\ndependent classes becomes less frequent and more guarded; and judicial\ndecisions in matters that involve class antagonisms are more frequently\ngiven to the dominant class.\n\n\nI\n\nA marked tendency of recent legislation is that toward giving increased\npowers to municipal officials. Another is that toward the creation\nof boards charged with administrative, executive, semi-judicial, and\neven police powers. The institution of these boards means simply a\nfurther removal from the people of the conduct of public affairs.\nMr. Leonard A. Blue, in the _Annals of the American Academy_ for\nNovember, 1901, gives an interesting view of the subject. \u201cThese\nboards,\u201d he writes, \u201care practically irresponsible bodies. They are\nbeyond the control of the people, or of any one who is responsible\nto the people for their actions. Appointed as they are for definite\nterms of office, they cannot be removed during that term except after\nan investigation which amounts to an impeachment. The Governor who\nappoints them in many cases can only appoint a single member, the\nterms of the others extending beyond his own, so that he can neither\nmould the policy of the board nor can he be held responsible for it.\u201d\nAnd he quotes from one of the messages of the Hon. W. E. Russell,\nGovernor of Massachusetts (1891-93), these words: \u201cThe people of the\nState might have a most decided opinion about the management and work\nof the departments, and give emphatic expression to that opinion,\nand yet be unable to control their action. The system gives great\npower without proper responsibility, and tends to remove the people\u2019s\ngovernment from the people\u2019s control.\u201d Irresponsible to both the people\nand the people\u2019s officials as they are, these boards are yet not\nwholly unsusceptible to outside pressure; they are, as is well known,\npeculiarly liable to the influence of the Big Men.\n\n\nII\n\nWhile legislation moves rapidly enough in the direction of detaching\npolitical powers from the people, it shows a growing disinclination\nto meddle with affairs between magnate and minion. Twelve or fifteen\nyears ago, in certain sections, \u201clabor\u201d legislation had a flourishing\ncareer. The number of laws so classified, passed in a single three-year\nperiod in New York State, made a record for all time. Labor was then\nrapidly combining, and its lusty organizations made emphatic demands\nfor protective laws. A Democratic Governor, not wholly regardless of\nhopes of the Presidential succession, for the time allied himself\nwith the movement and secured the passage of many of these measures.\nWith an alacrity much greater than that with which the Constitution\nfollows the flag, judicial decisions in those days tended to follow the\ngeneral policy of the party in power, and thus but slight trouble was\nexperienced in securing constitutional sanction.\n\nOther States followed, and for several years the astonishment and\nindignation of the Big Men were intermittently roused by the spectacle\nof Jacobinical legislators meddling in affairs outside their province.\nMr. F. J. Stimson, in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for November, 1897,\ninforms us that in the ten preceding years 1639 laws relating to\nlabor had been passed in the various States and Territories. This\nis an average of 3.4 a year for each legislature, though the courts\nhad modified the average somewhat by declaring 114 of these measures\nunconstitutional. Doubtless among those that escaped the \u201ckilling\ndecree\u201d of the courts were a number that benefited the worker, though\nit is doubtful if any of them served to modify his economic status.\n\nHowever that may be, it is unquestioned that the tendency toward the\nenactment of this sort of legislation has suffered a decline. It is\nhard to fix the point of culmination, though probably it lies somewhere\nabout the years 1896-97. In isolated instances, and under peculiar\ncircumstances, it is conceded there is an occasional revival. The\nPennsylvania legislature of 1897 showed a remarkable zeal, shortening\nthe workday of women and minors, limiting child labor, establishing\na bureau of mines, and making other regulations. Maryland, in 1898,\nimposed certain mining regulations and required seats in stores for\nwomen workers. Virginia and Massachusetts, in the same year, interfered\nslightly, the former with an arbitration act. In the spring of 1899,\nKansas, Illinois, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Washington,\nand Wisconsin, all addressed themselves more or less earnestly to the\nredress of certain grievances; and they were followed by Iowa in 1900,\nby Massachusetts again in the same year, and by Alabama in 1901. In\nthe present year New York, after five years of agitation, reluctantly\ngranted a moderately expressed employers\u2019 liability law.\n\nMost of this legislation, however, was enacted in the newer States,\nand served only to push them along toward the standard set in the\nolder States in earlier years. Advances of any sort are difficult to\ndiscover. As for the year 1901, the record of progressive legislation\nis almost bare. Congress suppressed the Eight-hour, Anti-injunction,\nand Prison-labor bills, and mutilated the Chinese bill. A convention\nof the National Association of Railway Commissioners, comprising\nrepresentatives from twenty-five State boards and from the Interstate\nCommerce Commission, petitioned Congress, in June, 1901, to enact\na number of measures regarding railway traffic; but our lawmakers\nappear to have been too busy with other matters. Factory legislation\nhas suffered a relapse in all of the States. \u201cThe statutes of 1901,\u201d\neuphemistically writes Mr. Horace G. Wadlin, in the New York State\nLibrary\u2019s \u201cReview of Legislation, 1901,\u201d \u201cwhich may be classed as\nprotective legislation, intended to safeguard the workman in his\nemployment or to secure to him his wages, are neither very numerous\nnor very radical.\u201d Something better, however, as Mr. Adna F. Weber\npoints out in the same volume, was done in regard to shorter workdays.\nCalifornia passed an Eight-hour law for State work; Minnesota, with\ncertain liberal exceptions, another; while Utah penalized infractions\nof an existing law. Even Pennsylvania, generally so sensitive in\nthe matter of interfering with the rights of her workers to employ\nthemselves in any manner they are constrained to choose, made the\ndaring innovation of prohibiting a longer workday than twelve hours for\nwomen and minors in bakeries. Doubtless the lesson to be learned from\nthis is a growing inclination toward the gospel of relaxation, which\nMr. Herbert Spencer so emphatically invoked on his visit here twenty\nyears ago. An industrial Feudalism is not inconsistent with a moderate\nworkday, and it is not unlikely that some further experiments in this\nline may be made.\n\n\nIII\n\nAn average man, not overlearned in political science, and not too well\nacquainted with the ways and means of politicians, might naturally\nsuppose that the result of something more than 1639 \u201clabor\u201d laws would\nbe an almost revolutionary change in the conditions of industry. He\nmight suppose a general effect comprising these particulars: the\nsecuring of safe places and safe conditions for toil; the utmost\nsafeguarding against accidents; the fixing of liability for injuries or\ndeath suffered in the service of a master; the guarantee of the right\nof workmen to combine, to leave their work for causes sufficient to\nthemselves, and peaceably to persuade others to do so; the guarantee of\nprotection from blacklisting by employers, and the framing of all such\nlaws in a spirit so sincere and in diction so definite that judicial\ndiscretion would be reduced to a minimum.\n\n\u201cLabor\u201d legislation, however, takes on too much a form and pressure due\nto influences from above to confirm even this temperate supposition. It\nis somewhat presumptuous, and in a later time will be grossly impious,\nfor a layman not of the seigniorial class to speak querulously on\nso sacred a subject; yet it needs must be said that the mass of the\nmeasures so far framed have proceeded but little beyond the confines of\nthe common law. Many of them, indeed, are mere enactments into statute\nof that elastic, not to say elusive, body of precedent. The common law\ncomes down to us from distant times, when other conditions prevailed,\nand throughout all of it which bears on the relations of master and\nservant there runs a principle based on an unsupported theory. \u201cThis\ntheory,\u201d writes Mr. George W. Alger, a member of the New York Bar, in\nthe _American Journal of Sociology_ for November, 1900, \u201cresolutely\nclosed its eyes to common, obvious, social and economic distinctions\nbetween men, either considered as individuals or as classes, and with\na self-imposed blindness imagined rather than saw the servant and his\nmaster acting upon a plane of absolute and ideal equality in all\nmatters touching their contractual relation; both were free and equal,\nand the proper function of government was to let them alone. If the\nservant was dissatisfied with the conditions of his employment; if the\ndangers created not merely by the necessities of the work, but by the\nmaster\u2019s indifference to the safety of his men, were in the eyes of the\nlatter too great to be endured with prudence, then, being under this\ntheory a \u2018free agent\u2019 to go or to stay, if he chose to stay he must\ntake the possible consequences of personal injury or death.\u201d\n\nUnder the common law, it is true, the employer is presumed to have\ncertain duties toward his workmen. As interpreted by Mr. Stephen D.\nFessenden, LL.M., in the _Bulletin_ of the Department of Labor, for\nNovember, 1900, these obligations are as follows:--\n\n\u201cAn employer assumes the duty toward his employee of exercising\nreasonable care and diligence to provide the employee with a reasonably\nsafe place at which to work; with reasonably safe machinery, tools, and\nimplements to work with; with reasonably safe materials to work upon,\nand with suitable and competent fellow-servants to work with him; and,\nin case of a dangerous or complicated business, to make such reasonable\nrules for its conduct as may be proper to protect the servants employed\ntherein.\u201d\n\nThis common-law doctrine is, however, very seriously qualified by the\ndoctrine of the workman\u2019s assumption of risk, of his contributory\nnegligence, and of negligence on the part of a fellow-servant. Each of\nthe terms in this doctrinal trinity is of expansive elasticity, and\neven the constituent words of each term may be variously interpreted.\nSo that a workman forced to earn his bread where he can, in the face\nof constant perils, literally takes his life in his hands. If injured,\nthere may be set up and sustained against his claim for damages\nthe plea of free and unconstrained assumption, or of contributory\nnegligence, or of negligence of another workman, even though the latter\nmay be a superior who orders the victim to his dangerous task.\n\n\u201cIt is a well-settled principle of common law,\u201d writes Mr. Fessenden,\n\u201cthat where ... duties [of employers] are imposed by legislative\nenactment or municipal ordinance, it is negligence on the part of the\nemployer to fail to comply with [these] requirements.\u201d Now it happens\nthat the United States, twenty States, the District of Columbia (by act\nof Congress), and one Territory have enacted this common-law principle\ninto statute, affixing it to certain regulations of industry. Yet in\nsuch manner are the greater number of these statutes drawn that it\nis often found possible to evade them on the score of one or more of\nthe terms in the common-law theory. The record of decisions on these\nstatutes is at best conflicting and confusing. But enough can be shown\nto illustrate the frequent futility of the laws to secure either\nemployers\u2019 compliance with imposed duties or employers\u2019 liability for\ninjuries due to negligence. The Ohio Supreme Court, in 1895, held that\n\u201cone cannot maintain an action against his employer for an injury\nfollowing a violation of the act regulating coal mines, unless at the\ntime he was injured he was in the exercise of due care; that one who\nvoluntarily assumes a risk thereby waives the provisions of a statute\nmade for his protection.\u201d The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided that the\nlaw (1889) requiring the guarding or blocking of railway frogs \u201cdoes\nnot take away the defence of contributory negligence.\u201d The New York\nCourt of Appeals in the case of Knisley _vs._ Pratt (148 N. Y. 372)\ndecided that to hold that the workman could not waive his master\u2019s\nstatutory duty by continuing at work was \u201ca new and startling doctrine\ncalculated to establish a measure of liability unknown to the common\nlaw.\u201d\n\nStatute law is presumed to replace common law and to redress the\ninequities resulting from the application of old principles to changed\nconditions. But the redress of inequities is conspicuously wanting in\nmuch of the so-called \u201cprotective\u201d legislation. It is impossible to\nguess whether on the one hand in legislative indifference or unwisdom,\nor on the other hand in judicial interestedness and overwisdom, lies\nthe greater cause of these statutory failures. Some added speculations\non the subject will be found further along. But whatever the attitude\nof the judges, that of the lawmakers reveals a chronic and now\nintensifying fear of disturbing the sacred privileges of \u201cbusiness.\u201d\n\nThe contractual waiving, by the employee, of the employer\u2019s negligence,\nis a subject about which a number of legislatures have concerned\nthemselves. Two States (Georgia and Massachusetts), according to\nMr. Fessenden, have forbidden such waivers generally, one State\n(Ohio) has declared void such contracts when made by employees,\nand twelve States and one Territory have forbidden such waivers\nwhere the liability is imposed by statute. The Ohio law, however,\nwas declared unconstitutional by the United States Circuit Court\nfor the Northern District of Ohio in 1896 on the ground that \u201cin\ndenying to the employees of a railroad corporation the right to make\ntheir own contracts concerning their own labor, [it] is depriving\nthem of \u2018liberty\u2019 and of the right to exercise the privileges of\nmanhood, \u2018without due process of law\u2019;\u201d and furthermore that it was\nclass legislation. Each of these laws, moreover, can be practically\nnullified, as the courts have repeatedly held. An employer may organize\na relief organization for the payment of benefits. He may tax his\nemployees for a greater or less part of the expenses of the department.\nHe may then make employment conditional upon the workman\u2019s joining\nthe association and signing a pledge agreeing, in consideration of\nthe payment of the regular benefits, to release the employer from\nall claims for injuries. Such contracts are valid, since, according\nto the ingenious interpretation of the courts, they do not waive\ndamages, but choose between two sources of compensation. Only one State\n(Iowa) has had the temerity to declare this practice illegal, and in\nview of the action of the courts the law will probably be held to be\nunconstitutional.\n\nStatutory provisions against accidents to workmen reveal quite as much\ntimidity as do provisions regarding employers\u2019 liability. The yearly\nnumber of accidents in our industries is unknown, and can be only\nroughly guessed at. The investigation of the New York Commissioner of\nLabor, in the spring of 1899, would indicate a yearly average of 14,576\naccidents for factory workers alone in one State. In the Pennsylvania\nanthracite mines more than 400 persons are killed every year, and in\nthe bituminous mines of the same State the yearly average for the\nperiod 1895-98 was 171 killed and 421 injured. An official report made\nto the United States Geological Survey in September gives the record\nof lives lost in mining coal for the year 1901 as 1467, and the number\nof workmen injured as 3643. In the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania\n513 men were killed and 1243 injured, and in the bituminous fields of\nthe same State 301 were killed and 656 injured. The railroads provide\na yearly Gettysburg, with some 40,000 casualties to workmen alone;\nand many an industry annually furnishes its humble Bull Run or Fort\nDonelson.\n\nRegulations, however, proceed cautiously, not to say haltingly; they\nare generally tame regulations, they are frequently disobeyed, and\ntheir effect on the casualty rate is anything but radical. Though for\n1901 the increased use of safety appliances lessened the percentage of\ncoupling accidents on railroads, the percentage actually increased for\n1898, 1899, and 1900. Since 1898 there has been an increase in the rate\nof accidents in coal mining, and doubtless, also, if the figures were\nknown, an increase could be shown for factories and workshops.\n\nAlthough twenty-one States, according to Mr. William F. Willoughby, in\nthe _Bulletin_ for January, 1901, provide for an inspection service\nin factories, only thirteen impose specific provisions making it\nobligatory upon factory and mill owners to take certain precautions\nagainst accidents. Only one of these laws, moreover,--that of\nOhio,--may fairly be called an adequate and definitely expressed\nstatute. There are but five States that have enacted laws \u201cthe purpose\nof which is to make it obligatory upon directors of building and\nconstruction work to take certain precautions against accidents,\u201d\nand only one of these (New York) has given the measure an adequate\ncomprehensiveness. Twenty-three States have more or less elaborate\nmining regulations; but as compliance with these laws is usually\nleft to the honor and benevolence of the mine owner, and as mining\naccidents continue at a practically static rate, it is hard to see the\nbeneficial result. Some of the States compel railroads to block or\nguard frogs, and several have laws independent of the Federal statute\nof 1893, requiring the use of automatic couplers and power brakes. The\nformer may be evaded, however; and, in the absence of statute imposing\nliability, the evasion counts for nothing in behalf of an injured\nworkman\u2019s claim for damages. The effect on the accident rates has\nalready been mentioned.\n\nDr. Sarah S. Whittelsey\u2019s paper in the _Annals of the American Academy_\nfor July, 1902, summarizes the report of the Industrial Commission on\nthe results of factory legislation in the various States. From this\nit appears that only about half the States have passed what may be\ncalled factory acts, many of which are mere fire-escape provisions, and\nthat there are almost no factory acts in the South, nor in the more\ndistinctly agricultural States of the West. New Hampshire, Vermont,\nNebraska, and California generously permit the employment in factories\nof children ten years old; seven States put the limit at twelve years,\ntwo at thirteen, ten at fourteen, and one makes the limit fourteen\nyears for girls and twelve years for boys. Working hours have been\nmore or less regulated for women and minors in fifteen States, and for\nminors alone in nine States. Courts in three States, however, have\ndeclared acts regulating working hours of women unconstitutional. In\nsixteen States, three Territories, and the District of Columbia there\nis absolutely no limitation for persons of any age or sex. Aside\nfrom certain occasional acts relating to the payment of wages, to\ninspection, and to employers\u2019 liability, this is a complete summary of\nprotective legislation concerning the industries that employ 5,321,087\nof the Nation\u2019s wage-earners.\n\nMr. Fessenden gives a summary of the laws for the protection of workmen\nin their employment, in the _Bulletin_ for January, 1900. The most\ntimid conservative may read it with relief, for any fears of an undue\nlodgment of power in the working classes will be effectually banished\nby its perusal. Only nine States have gone so far as to enact into\nstatute the supposed common-law principle that combinations of workmen,\nformed for the purpose of seeking increase of wages and betterment of\nconditions, are not of themselves unlawful. Four others specify that\nthe provisions of their \u201canti-trust\u201d acts do not apply to combinations\nof labor. On the other hand, the anti-conspiracy laws of eleven\nStates are capable of interpretation which would penalize many of the\npeaceable methods of labor societies, and such interpretations have\nbeen frequently made.\n\nMoreover, the wording of Sections 3995 and 5440 of the Federal Revised\nStatutes, chapters 647 of the Anti-trust act, and 104 of the Interstate\nCommerce act, and the amendment of 1889 to the latter, are capable\nof interpretation to the effect that collective quitting of work on\nrailways is illegal. Decisions to that effect have several times\nbeen made in the United States courts. \u201cA strike, or a preconcerted\nquitting of work,\u201d reads the decision in United States _vs._ Cassidy\n(1895) before the District Court of the United States for the Northern\nDistrict of California, \u201cby a combination of railroad employees,\nis in itself unlawful, if the concerted action is knowingly and\nwilfully directed by the parties to it for the purpose of obstructing\nand retarding the passage of the mails, or in restraint of trade\nand commerce among the States.\u201d \u201cIt will be practically impossible\nhereafter,\u201d reads the United States Circuit Court decision in the\ncase of Waterhouse _et al. vs._ Cromer (1893), \u201cfor a body of men to\ncombine to hinder and delay the work of the transportation company\nwithout becoming amenable to the provisions of these statutes.\u201d The\nindefinite diction of many of the State laws against \u201cintimidation and\ncoercion\u201d also gives wide scope to judicial discretion, and permits the\noccasional naming of the most innocuous acts as \u201ccoercion.\u201d\n\nThe necessity of peace in an industrial society is everywhere\nrecognized; and it is, therefore, not surprising that really earnest\nefforts have been made in behalf of arbitration. It obtained, in a\nmeasure, during the older Feudalism, through the \u201ccourts baron,\u201d\nwhich considered tenantry and wage-questions; and it is becoming more\ncommon day by day. Within sixteen years twenty-one States and the\nUnited States have passed more or less effective measures looking to\nits use in labor disputes. Political coercion is also a matter that\nhas won a large share of legislative attention; twenty-nine States and\ntwo Territories have enacted laws regarding it. There is, however, an\nimportant distinction to be made. In an ordinary conflict of political\nissues, when the magnates and their retainers are to be found in both\nparties, it is obvious confusion and the unsettling of political\nconditions for the employers to dictate how their workmen shall vote.\nBut when political issues suggest a class conflict, as in 1896, some of\nthe provisions of these laws are by common consent waived. The humble\ntoiler may vote as he likes on the immaterial questions of ordinary\ncampaigns; but on questions having to do with the salvation of society\nand the preservation of the hallowed code of \u201cbusiness,\u201d instruction\nand even gentle pressure become the solemn duty of his social betters.\nThere are fewer laws, it may be observed, regarding another kind of\ncoercion. Discharges on account of membership in a labor union are\nforbidden in but fifteen states; and in two of these (Illinois and\nMissouri) such provisions have been found, after much painstaking\nstudy, to be unconstitutional. The discovery is considered a most happy\none; and according to the injunction of the Federal Constitution, that\n\u201cfull faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public\nacts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State,\u201d the\nruling will no doubt be found applicable in a number of the other\ncommonwealths.\n\n\nIV\n\nOur lawmakers are not to be blamed for decisions of\nunconstitutionality. Rather, they are to be congratulated. For the\nrecent tendency of the judges to determine for themselves what shall\nbe enacted into law has developed new refuges for the lawmakers. We\nhave now Solon, the legislator, and Rhadamanthus, the judge, in new\nr\u00f4les--the r\u00f4les of the good and bad partner of Dickens\u2019s novel. To\nthe humble voter, when the pressure from below conflicts with the\npressure from above, Solon is now able to stand as the supporter of\npopular measures, and to throw upon the less responsible Rhadamanthus\nthe onus of declaring them bad law. The fury of the magnate at Solon\u2019s\ndemagogy is mitigated, if not extinguished, when he considers the\ndifficulties of the lawmaker\u2019s position, and especially by the further\nconsideration that Rhadamanthus has the final word to say. Solon has\nother refuges, it is true; and sometimes these must be availed of,\nfor it is not always certain that a projected popular measure can be\ndeclared unconstitutional. For several years it had been considered\npossible, for instance, that an employers\u2019 liability act, if passed in\nNew York, would stand the test of the courts. It became the custom,\ntherefore, when an adequate measure on this subject was introduced, for\nthe adverse interests to introduce a conflicting bill. The ingenious\nlawmaker thereupon regretfully found a divided public sentiment, and\nas a consequence no bill was passed. There are no reasons at hand\nfor accounting for the fact that at the last session of the Albany\nlegislature such a measure was actually enacted.\n\n\nV\n\nHow far our legislators are enabled to withstand public sentiment, no\nmatter how strongly based in reason and how definite in objective, may\nbe instanced in the attitude of Congress regarding the Safety-appliance\nact of 1893. Agitation for this measure had grown to such an extent\nthat action could no longer be delayed. But though action on the bill\ncould not be delayed, the terms of fulfilment of the bill could be\npostponed to a comparatively remote period. The number of railway\nemployees killed in the year ended June 30, 1893, was 2727, a number\nexceeding the Union death roll in every battle of the Civil War except\nGettysburg, and within 243 of that record. In the same year the number\nof wounded (31,729) was more than three times as great as the number\nof Union wounded at either Antietam or Chancellorsville, and more than\ndouble that at Gettysburg. Yet despite this tremendous carnage, the\nlegislators, wavering between the public demands and the demands of the\nmagnates, though they passed the bill, generously granted five years\nfor its complete observance, and then gave the Interstate Commerce\nCommission the power to grant further delays--in effect giving seven\nyears for its fulfilment. In those seven years 13,906 employees\nwere killed--a loss exceeding the Union death roll at Gettysburg,\nSpottsylvania, the Wilderness, Antietam, Chancellorsville and\nChickamauga combined--and approximately 220,000 were wounded, or more\nthan three times the number of Union wounded in those six battles. That\na great part of this casualty record was avoidable is evidenced in the\nAugust report of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which shows that\nthe number of employees killed in coupling accidents in the year ended\nJune 30, 1901, declined from 282 to 198, and the number injured from\n5229 to 2768. It was in 1893 that this generous latitude was granted\nthe magnates. Were the occasion to arise now, it is probable that the\nterm of grace would number fourteen years instead of seven.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI OUR INTERPRETERS OF LAW\n\n\nThe attitude of the judiciary in matters involving class antagonisms is\na subject upon which only the most restrained language is tolerable.\nEven general inferences which suggest such a thing as judicial bias\nmust be avoided. Faith in the rectitude and wisdom of our judges is\na virtue sedulously preached,--perhaps most insistently by those who\ndo most toward their corruption,--and though the virtue as we know\nit is rather vocal than immanent, it is sufficiently deep-seated to\nbe intolerant of spoken heresy. Were it openly questioned by any\nconsiderable body of citizens, the foolhardy persons would soon bring\ndown upon themselves the rallying onslaught of those heterogeneous\nelements which Karl Marx somewhat extravagantly pictured, \u201clandlords\nand capitalists, stock-exchange wolves and shopkeepers, protectionists\nand free-traders, government and opposition, priests and freethinkers,\nyoung street-walkers and old nuns--under the common cry for the\nsalvation of property, religion, the family, and society.\u201d Such\nheretics might have all the certainty of Paul, \u201cthat the law is good,\nif a man use it lawfully,\u201d and yet it would be a parlous thing to be\nopenly sceptical of the assumption that it is always lawfully used.\n\nBut at least one may, without attainder of anarchy, assemble and\nclassify certain instances, and point out their coincidences and their\ncontrarieties. There is, for example, a notable sameness in kind of the\nlaws which are declared unconstitutional. There is, to utter it mildly,\na vast preponderance in the number of injunctions against striking,\nboycotting, and agitating over the number against locking-out,\nblacklisting, and the employment of armed mercenaries. There is a\npractical, though not an entire, unanimity against the awarding of\ndamages to injured employees, whether the decision be based on common\nor statute law; and, finally, there is a considerable diversity between\nthe decisions usually rendered by judges elected for short terms, and\ntherefore directly responsible to the people, and those rendered by the\nless responsible judges, elected for long terms or appointed.\n\n\nI\n\nThe legislative aspects of employers\u2019 liability have already been\nconsidered. Certain judicial aspects of the matter need also to be\ntouched upon. The question is one of grave social import. The worker\nno longer owns his tools, but must use the machinery provided for\nhim. A certain element of danger inheres in the operation of probably\nall machinery; but when old, defective, or with its dangerous parts\nunguarded, injuries to its operatives are well-nigh certain. Yet for\nsuch injuries, with their awful consequences to the operative and his\ndependent ones, there is generally no redress, except in a few States\nwhere statutes have fixed the matter of liability in set terms which\nleave no room for judicial discretion.\n\nUnder the common law the workman is held to assume the risk attending\nhis employment. He is a free agent--so the legal fiction runs--and\nif afraid of injury need not work. Common law also presupposes the\nproviding of a \u201creasonably safe\u201d place and \u201creasonably safe\u201d machinery\nby the employer. It would be difficult to determine, however, from the\nmass of decisions under the common law, what is meant by \u201creasonably\nsafe.\u201d A Colorado lower court gave damages to the mother of a miner\nkilled by falling rock while removing d\u00e9bris from one of the mines of\nthe Moon-Anchor Consolidated Gold Mines, Limited. The case came finally\nto the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth District,\nand the judgment was reversed, Judges Sanborn and Adams concurring and\nJudge Thayer dissenting. The work was admittedly hazardous; in the\nopinion of Judge Thayer \u201cthe place was needlessly made unsafe by the\nmaster\u2019s negligence.\u201d The concurring judges, however, decided that the\ncompany\u2019s negligence was not responsible, and that \u201cthe deceased of his\nown free will determined to cope with these risks and hazards.... In\nthis, his own voluntary conduct, is found the intervening, proximate,\nand responsible cause of his injury.\u201d (111 Federal Reporter, 298.)\n\nEven when the employer assures the workman of the safety of a machine,\nthe risk is still, according to many decisions, the workman\u2019s. The\nCircuit Court of Shiawassee County, Michigan, refused to award damages\nto a workman for injuries sustained from a defective machine which he\nwas operating for his employer. The case went to the Supreme Court on\na writ of error, and on December 15, 1900, that court affirmed the\nprevious judgment. It had been shown that the plaintiff warned his\nemployer of the danger of the machine, and that the employer gave\nassurances to the contrary. Nevertheless, in the words of Judge Moon\n(Moore?), \u201cone cannot continue to operate a machine which he knows is\ndangerous simply upon the assurance of his employer that it is not, if\nhe has just as much knowledge of the danger arising from the operation\nof the machine as the principal has [without assuming the risk].\u201d (82\nN. W. Reporter, 1797.)\n\nThe decision, read by Judge McLennan, in the recent case of Rice _vs._\nthe Eureka Paper Company (76 App. Div. 336) before the Fourth Appellate\nDivision of New York State, would seem to indicate that the burden\nof risk is not to be shifted from the workman even when his employer\nacknowledges a defect in machinery and promises to remedy it. There is\nsome doubt, however, if such a decision, though valid in many States,\nwill stand in the State where it was given; for the Court of Appeals\nhas several times decided that liability follows from an acknowledgment\nof defective machinery. On the other hand, this highest court of\nNew York State has won the distinction of carrying the doctrine of\nassumption of risk to an extreme degree. The case of Gabrielson\n_vs._ Waydell (135 N. Y. 1) involved the question of the liability of\nthe owners of a maritime vessel for injuries suffered by a sailor in\ntheir employ. The captain of the vessel had committed a confessedly\nunprovoked and particularly brutal assault upon the sailor, who had\nsubsequently sued the owner for damages. The court decided that the\nsailor had no redress; that \u201cthe misconduct of the captain was a risk\nassumed by the seaman, for the consequences of which the owners are not\nresponsible.\u201d\n\nA fact more curious yet to the unlegal mind is the judicial contention,\ninstanced in the previous chapter, that statutory provisions for the\nsafeguarding of machinery may be waived by the workman. Evidently\nhis burden of risk, like the Hindu\u2019s caste, is born with him, and\ncannot be laid aside or escaped. The case of the E. S. Higgins Carpet\nCompany _vs._ O\u2019Keefe (79 Federal Reporter, 900) is an illustration.\nDamages for an injury received from an unguarded machine had been\ngiven a fifteen-year-old boy in the United States Circuit Court for\nthe Southern District of New York. The United States Circuit Court of\nAppeals for the Second Circuit, however, reversed the judgment. The\nplaintiff was a minor, but this fact was held to have no bearing. \u201cWe\nthink the circumstance that he was a minor of no importance,\u201d read\nthe decision of Judge Wallace. \u201cThe rules which govern actions for\nnegligence in the case of children of tender years do not apply to\nminors who have attained years of discretion.\u201d The New York factory act\nrequired guards for this particular kind of machine. But that, also,\nwas immaterial. \u201cThe provisions of the statute ... requiring cogs to\nbe properly guarded, have no application to the case, except as regards\nthe question of the negligence of the defendant. As construed by the\nhighest courts of the State, the statute does not impose any liability\nupon an employer for injuries received by a minor in his service in\nconsequence of the fault of the employee, or arising from the obvious\nrisks of the service he has undertaken to perform.\u201d To clinch the\nmatter, Judge Wallace cited the then recent case of Graves _vs._ Brewer\nbefore the Fourth Appellate Division of New York State, wherein the\ncourt held that \u201cthe liability of the employer was not changed by\nreason of the factory act requiring cog-wheels to be covered, because\nsuch protection could be waived and was waived by a person accepting\nemployment upon the machine with the cogs in an unguarded condition,\nas the danger was apparent, and one of the obvious risks of the\nemployment.\u201d The case of Knisley _vs._ Pratt (148 N. Y. 372) before the\nNew York Court of Appeals was decided in the same way, and also the\ncase of White _vs._ Witteman Lithographic Company. In the latter case\nthe plaintiff was a child of fourteen.\n\nSuch decisions are common in more States than one. Another case which\nmay prove of some interest to the lay mind is that of Gillen _vs._ the\nPatten and Sherman Railroad Company (44 Atlantic Reporter, 361). The\nplaintiff, while uncoupling cars, had his foot crushed in an unfilled\nfrog, and had been awarded damages. A motion for a new trial was\nargued before the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, and was granted.\nThe decision, delivered by Judge Lucilius A. Emery, acknowledged the\nexistence of a statute (chapter 216 of 1889) requiring the filling\nor blocking of guard rails or frogs on all railways before January\n1, 1890. It held, however, that such filling and blocking was not\nimmediately mandatory upon a railroad constructed after that date.\n\u201cSuch company is entitled to a reasonable time for compliance with that\nstatute.\u201d It was at a crossing of such a railway that the trainman lost\nhis foot. He had no right to assume that the rails were blocked, merely\nbecause a statute said they should be. The brakeman, therefore, assumed\nthe risk, and he also furnished contributory negligence, since \u201cto move\nabout over frogs and switches while coupling and uncoupling cars, even\nin moving trains, without taking any thought of the frogs and guard\nrails, or as to where he may be stepping, is negligence on his part\ncontributing to the catching his foot in them.\u201d\n\nWhen the doctrine of assumption of risk is inapplicable, when personal\nnegligence cannot be shown, and when there has been no waiving of\nstatutory provisions by the workman, there is yet, in judicial eyes,\none last resort for the defendant company--the common-law plea of\nnegligence on the part of a fellow-workman. There is some diversity of\nopinion among eminent judges as to who are strictly fellow-servants.\n\u201cThe courts of the majority of the States hold, however,\u201d writes Mr.\nStephen D. Fessenden, in the _Bulletin_ of the Department of Labor for\nNovember, 1900, \u201cthat the mere difference in grades of employment, or\nin authority, with respect to each other, does not remove them from\nthe class of fellow-servants as regards the liability of the employer\nfor injuries to the one caused by the negligence of the other.\u201d Thus\nit has happened that a workman acting in the capacity of agent for his\nemployer, and ordering other workmen to do tasks at which injuries have\nresulted, has been held to be a fellow-servant--a judgment relieving\nhis employer of liability. To the lay mind it would seem that workmen\nin different departments could hardly be classed as fellow-servants;\nand the United States Supreme Court has rendered a decision which makes\npossible, under certain circumstances, such a discrimination. Since\nthen, however, the Federal courts have suffered a reaction on the\nquestion, and current decisions tend the other way.\n\nA case before a State tribunal--the Supreme Court of Georgia (35\nSoutheastern Reporter, 365)--illustrates the possibilities which lie\nin this doctrine. A lineman, while repairing a wire for the Brush\nElectric Light and Power Company, at Savannah, Ga., was killed through\nthe act of the engineer in turning on the current. The city court of\nSavannah gave damages to his widow. The case was taken to the State\nSupreme Court, and decision rendered March 3, 1900. The counsel for\nthe plaintiff contended that the fellow-servant doctrine could not\napply, on account of the lineman and engineer working in different\ndepartments, \u201cso that there was no opportunity for the exertion of a\nmutual influence upon each other\u2019s carefulness.\u201d The court, however,\nreversed the verdict.\n\nThe disparity of opinion between inferior judges and superior judges\nin cases of this kind is remarkable. The monthly _Bulletins_ of the\nDepartment of Labor give a fairly excellent summary of court decisions\non labor questions. He who reads them will find the expression,\n\u201cjudgment of the lower court reversed,\u201d recurring with a rather painful\niteration; unless, indeed, the decision of the lower court has rebuked\nthe plaintiff, when the expression, \u201cjudgment of the lower court\naffirmed,\u201d is usually found. Mr. George W. Alger, in an article on \u201cThe\nCourts and Factory Legislation,\u201d in the _American Journal of Sociology_\nfor November, 1900, gives the following careful and temperately worded\nsummary of recent reversals in employers\u2019 liability cases in New York\nState:--\n\n\u201cThe percentage of reversals on appeal in master-and-servant cases of\nthis kind, when the verdict of the juries in the courts below had been\nin plaintiff\u2019s favor, is perhaps larger than in any other branch of\nlitigation. In New York, for example, an examination of twenty volumes\nof the Court of Appeals reports (126 N. Y.-156 N. Y.) shows written\nopinions in thirty-seven such cases. Of these: (1) in three cases\nthe juries in the lower court had found for defendant, and plaintiff\nwas the appellant; (2) in four cases the court below had dismissed\nplaintiff\u2019s case as insufficient, without requiring defendant to\nintroduce any testimony; (3) in thirty cases the juries below had found\nfor plaintiff with substantial damages. The Court of Appeals in class\n(1) affirmed all of the cases where plaintiff was defeated below. In\nclass (2) it reversed the four cases where plaintiff had been summarily\nnon-suited and sent the cases back to trial courts to hear defendant\u2019s\ntestimony: a partial victory at most for plaintiff. In class (3),\nwhere plaintiff had actually received a verdict, of the thirty cases\ntwenty-eight were reversed. These statistics are interesting as showing\nhow complete is the lack of harmony between the courts, at least\nin New York, and the moral sense of the people by whom the courts\nwere created, in regard to these cases. Twice in thirty times do the\nopinions of the learned judges of New York\u2019s highest court coincide\nwith the opinions of juries of citizens as to the requirements of\njustice.\u201d\n\nThe tendency, which is most clearly indicated by the mass of decisions\nin cases demanding damages for injuries or death, is the growing\ndisposition to make property paramount and life subordinate. It is a\ncommon practice to set aside verdicts of damages on the score that they\nare excessive. It is no less a common practice to instruct the jury to\ndecide for the defendant in order to rebuke litigation. The language of\nthe leading work on one phase of this subject--Shearman and Redfield\u2019s\n\u201cA Treatise on the Law of Negligence\u201d--sums up the matter in a few\nwords:--\n\n\u201cIt has become quite common for judges to state as the ground of\ndecisions the necessity of restricting litigation. Reduced to plain\nEnglish, this means the necessity of compelling the great majority of\nmen and women to submit to injustice in order to relieve judges from\nthe labor of awarding justice.... The stubborn resistance of business\ncorporations, common carriers, and mill-owners, to the enforcement\nof the most moderate laws for the protection of human beings from\ninjury, and their utter failure to provide such protection of their\nown accord, ought to satisfy any impartial judge that true justice\ndemands a constant expansion of the law in the direction of increased\nresponsibility for negligence.\u201d\n\n\nII\n\n\u201cLaw,\u201d wrote Sir Edward Coke, \u201cis the perfection of reason.\u201d This may\nbe true; but, if so, it tends to throw mankind over to the position of\nthe Catholics, that the reason itself needs considerable perfecting.\nThis is not only the disposition of the lay mind, but, evidently, also\nof the supreme judicial mind; for a large part of the higher judicial\nactivity during recent years has been expended in declaring null and\nvoid laws passed by two houses of the people\u2019s representatives and\nsigned by an elected Governor or President. Mr. Stimson, in his summary\nof labor legislation for the years 1887-97, found that only 114 out\nof the 1639 laws passed had been declared unconstitutional. But these\n114 comprised examples from 19 out of the 35 classes of legislation\npassed, and must therefore have reacted upon a very considerable number\nof the remainder. It is a coincidence which has been noted before,\nand need not be specially insisted upon here, that the overwhelming\nmajority of laws which fail to reach the constitutional standards set\nby our judges are those intended to safeguard the interests of the\nindustrially subordinate and to set some limitation to the powers of\nthe industrially mighty.\n\nThe judicial mind, however, affects to know no difference between high\nand low, between weak and strong; and thus its decisions, ignoring\nactual conditions, tend more and more to strengthen the powers of\none class and to weaken the powers of another. \u201cLiberty\u201d is the\nshibboleth; the citizen must be free to act as he wills. Somewhat\ncuriously, though, liberty of speech, press, and assemblage is not\nso strenuously insisted upon; and, indeed, by injunctions and other\njudicial determinations is at times rather severely limited: the miners\nof West Virginia have been recently enjoined from holding meetings on\ntheir own grounds. But economic liberty--the liberty of the dependent\nclasses to do acts which, in the nature of things, they cannot possibly\ndo--is held for a sacred principle. The doctrine of the extension of\nthe State\u2019s police power, limiting the foregoing doctrine, has gained\nsome headway since the Utah decision confirmed a State\u2019s right to limit\nthe hours of work for men in dangerous trades; but the determination of\nhow far it is to be applied rests largely with the forty-eight State\nand Territorial courts; and it is a safe guess that it will meet with\nstiff resistance if incarnated in further \u201cadvanced\u201d legislation.\n\n\u201cNo discrimination,\u201d which in effect means much discrimination, follows\nthe judicial shibboleth of \u201cliberty.\u201d Especially zealous for the\nprotection of liberty and keenly watchful of proposed discrimination\nis that eminent tribunal, the Supreme Court of Illinois. Some six\nyears ago it discovered that the statute regulating the hours of\nwomen workers in the factories contravened the Federal and State\nconstitutional guarantees of \u201clife, liberty, and property.\u201d A woman\u2019s\nlabor was her property, and any limitation of it was a deprivation\n\u201cwithout due process of law.\u201d On December 20, 1900, it fell to the lot\nof this tribunal to pass upon two labor laws,--to the lay mind entirely\ndifferent in principle,--and, by a somewhat difficult struggling along\nparallel lines of argument, triumphantly to reach conclusions adverse\nto both of them. One was the Chicago ordinance requiring union labor\nand an eight-hour day on all public work contracted for; the other\nthe State statute prohibiting discharge of an employee for belonging\nto a labor union. Regarding the ordinance, the union requirement, in\nthe words of Associate Justice Magruder, \u201camounts to a discrimination\nbetween different classes of citizens.\u201d It is therefore void, and the\neight-hour provision is also void, because it \u201cinfringes upon the\nfreedom of contract, to which every citizen is entitled under the\nlaw.... Any statute providing that the employer and laborer may not\nagree with each other as to what time shall constitute a day\u2019s work is\nan invalid act.\u201d (58 Northeastern Reporter, 985.)\n\nWithout venturing to discuss this ruling, one may at least compare it\nwith the ruling on the State statute. The latter was a law intended to\nprevent discrimination against union men. But, curiously to the unlegal\nmind, it is discovered to be discrimination in _favor_ of the union\nman. \u201cThe act certainly does grant to that class of laborers who belong\nto union labor organizations a special privilege.\u201d (58 Northeastern\nReporter, 1007.) The act was also found to \u201ccontravene those\nprovisions of the State and Federal constitutions which guarantee that\nno person shall be deprived of \u2018life, liberty, or property without due\nprocess of law.\u2019\u201d \u201cThat strain again,\u201d as Orsino, in \u201cTwelfth Night,\u201d\nexclaims. It has not, however, a \u201cdying fall,\u201d for it has been taken up\nand echoed in other quarters since.\n\nThe liberty of the employer to pay his employees in brass checks or\nstore orders was affirmed by the Kansas Supreme Court on December\n9, 1896, and the act requiring payment in lawful money was declared\ninvalid. \u201cTo say that a free citizen can contract for or agree to\nreceive in return for his labor one kind of property only, and that\nwhich represents the smallest part of the aggregate wealth of the\ncountry, is a clear restriction of the right to bargain and trade, a\nsuppression of individual effort, a denial of inalienable rights.\u201d\nAnti-truck acts were also declared unconstitutional by the courts of\nPennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and West Virginia. The Kentucky Supreme\nCourt, however, nine months after the Kansas decision, found that\nliberty and the compulsory payment of wages in lawful money were\ncompatible, so that the question is at least open. Decisions like that\nof the Kansas court, and the somewhat similar decisions rendered in\nPennsylvania, Illinois, and Tennessee, of course fasten the laborer to\nthe company store; but of this the courts usually take no cognizance.\nActual liberty may be restrained, but theoretical liberty must not be\ntampered with.\n\nWeekly payment laws are found to conflict with liberty in Pennsylvania,\nIllinois, Missouri, West Virginia, and Indiana. Moreover, the liberty\nof a legislature to determine that prevailing wages shall be paid to\nemployees of city and State must not be confused by the lay mind with\nthe liberty of the wage-earner to work under what conditions he must.\nFor the former is clearly unconstitutional, as decided in New York by\nthe Court of Appeals in February, 1901. \u201cThe effect of this statute\n[the Prevailing Rate of Wages act],\u201d reads the decision of Judge Denis\nO\u2019Brien, \u201cwas to make the city [of New York] a trustee or instrument\nfor the enforcement of the law in the interests of the persons for\nwhose benefit it was enacted, and thus the powers and functions of the\nmunicipality are employed for purposes foreign to those for which they\nwere created and exist under the Constitution.\u201d The eight-hour laws\npassed in several of the States have generally suffered the Illinois\nfate, although Kansas proved an exception. Regulation of the working\nhours of women was nullified not only in Illinois, but in Nebraska\nand California. The police-power doctrine, as voiced in the Utah\ndecision, may justify a limitation of the working day in dangerous\ntrades, but otherwise such a limitation appears to be an infringement\nof the right of contract, or a deprivation of \u201cproperty\u201d without \u201cdue\nprocess of law.\u201d Even the National Eight-hour law of 1868, while not\nstrictly unconstitutional, is held to be merely advisory. \u201cWe regard\nthe statute,\u201d says the Supreme Court (94 U. S. 404), \u201cchiefly as in the\nnature of a direction from the principal to his agent that eight hours\nis deemed to be a proper length of time for a day\u2019s labor, and that his\ncontract shall be based upon that theory.\u201d\n\nAnti-trust laws may be quite as lacking in constitutional decorum as\nare eight-hour and prevailing-wages laws; and the judiciary reserves\nto itself the right to determine what are the standards. The Texas\nAnti-trust law of 1889, for instance, overleapt judicial sanction. \u201cIt\nis not every restriction of competition or trade,\u201d reads the decision\nof District Judge Charles Swayne (February 22, 1897), \u201cthat is illegal\nor against public policy, or that will justify police regulation, but\nonly such as are unwarrantable or oppressive; and a State statute which\nprohibits combinations formed for the purpose of reasonably restricting\ncompetition violates the rights of contracts guaranteed by the Federal\nConstitution.\u201d (79 Federal Reporter, 627.) Another legislature, with\nthis lesson before it, will know better where to set bounds to its\nattempt at interference.\n\nOne cannot pass this phase of the general subject without recurring to\nthe pertinent advice of the wise Sir Francis Bacon. \u201cJudges,\u201d he wrote\nin his essay, \u201cOf Judicature,\u201d \u201cought to remember that their office is\n_jus dicere_, and not _jus dare_, to interpret law, and not to make\nlaw.... Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverend than\nplausible, and more advised than confident.... A judge ought to prepare\nhis way to a just sentence, as God useth to prepare his way, by raising\nvalleys and taking down hills; so when there appeareth on either side\na high hand, ... cunning advantages taken, combination, power, great\ncounsel, then is the virtue of a judge seen to make inequality equal;\nthat he may paint his judgment as upon an even ground.\u201d Wise counsel!\nthough it seems to have lacked something in observance two hundred and\nseventy-five years ago, and may be suspected, even yet, of not always\nand everywhere reaching entire fulfilment.\n\n\nIII\n\nWe have the testimony of no less eminent an authority than United\nStates District Judge John J. Jackson, of the Northern District of\nWest Virginia, that in all his experience on the bench he could not\nrecall a single occasion when any court, either Federal or State, ever\nabused the writ of injunction in strike questions. It is a definite and\nauthoritative pronouncement; and the restrained and careful language\naccompanying it, wherein the officials of labor unions are described\nas \u201ca professional set of agitators,\u201d and \u201cvampires that fatten on the\nhonest labor of the coal miners,\u201d certainly proves that it cannot be\nan _ex parte_ statement. Yet, for all that, there is a widely diffused\nsentiment that the writ of injunction has occasionally been abused in\nstrike questions. In the same locality, at about the same time, an\ninjunction issued by United States District Judge B. F. Keller, of the\nSouthern District of West Virginia, declared, among a multitude of\nother prohibitions, that the strikers \u201care further inhibited, enjoined,\nand restrained from assembling in camp or otherwise,\u201d even on grounds\nleased by them for their meetings.\n\nA pamphlet, prepared by five members of the New York Bar and issued\nby the Social Reform Club, of New York City, in the summer of 1900,\ngives the substance of a number of injunctions that have been issued\nagainst striking workmen. \u201cIn the case of the Sun Printing and\nPublishing Company _vs._ Delaney and others in December (1899),\u201d says\nthe pamphlet:--\n\n\u201cThe Supreme Court of New York, among other things, enjoined the\ndefendants from the exercise of their right to give the public\ntheir side of the controversy with the _Sun_ as an argument against\nadvertising in a paper which they claimed had treated them unjustly; it\nalso forbade them from attempting to persuade newsdealers from selling\nthe paper; and finally wound up with a sweeping restraint \u2018from in\nany other manner or by any other means interfering with the property,\nproperty rights, or business of the plaintiff.\u2019 It should be added\nthat, on appeal, the Appellate Division struck out these commands;\nbut they were so plainly subversive of fundamental rights that it is\ndifficult to see how they could have been granted in the first instance.\n\n\u201cIn still another case last year--The Wheeling Railway Company _vs._\nJohn Smith and others (so runs the title of the action without naming\nthe others)--in the United States Circuit Court, West Virginia, two\nmen not parties to the action, nor found to be agents of \u2018John Smith\nand others,\u2019 whoever they may have been, were punished for contempt of\ncourt, for, among other things, \u2018reviling\u2019 and \u2018cursing\u2019 the court?\nnot at all, but for \u2018reviling\u2019 and \u2018cursing\u2019 employees of the railroad\ncompany. If these men had not actually served out an imprisonment in\njail for thirty days as a punishment for contempt of corporation,\nit might be thought that your committee had taken this example from\nopera bouffe. The legality of this punishment was never passed on by\nthe Supreme Court, for the reason, as your committee understand, that\nthe parties were unable to bear the expense of taking it there, and so\nserved their term in jail.\n\n\u201cDuring the final drafting of our report a temporary injunction has\nbeen granted by a Justice of the Supreme Court in New York City....\nThis injunction forbids the defendants [certain members of the Cigar\nMakers\u2019 International Union] even from approaching their former\nemployers for the laudable purpose of reaching an amicable result; it\nforbids them from making their case known to the public if the tendency\nof that is to vex the plaintiffs or make them uneasy; it forbids them\nfrom trying in a perfectly peaceable way in any place in the city, even\nin the privacy of a man\u2019s own home, to persuade a new employee that\njustice is on their side, and that he ought to sympathize with them\nsufficiently not to work for unjust employers; and, finally, it forbids\nthe union from paying money to the strikers to support their families\nduring the strike.\u201d\n\nSuch instances, as the pamphlet states, can be multiplied. Perhaps they\ndo not wholly controvert Judge Jackson\u2019s declaration. But, at least,\nthey illustrate an unbridgeable disparity between the definitions of\njustice held on the one hand by our interpreters of law, and on the\nother by the overwhelming majority of the citizenship. That disparity\nhas been great in all recent times; but weekly and daily it grows\ngreater. The stronger inclination of the judiciary to make property the\nparamount interest is everywhere observed; and the magnates, with an\nexultant recognition of the fact, make haste to enjoy the fruits of the\nnew dispensation.\n\n\nIV\n\nFrom judgeship to attorneyship of a great corporation has recently\nbecome a common promotion. The number of ex-judges who have been thus\ntranslated to higher sees is notable: one finds or hears of them in\nmany places. Republics may be ungrateful, as the adage runs, but\nnot so the magnates. The gratitude of the latter may not be wholly\nplatonic; it includes, no doubt, a lively sense of favors to come. But\nwhether prospective or retrospective, it expresses itself in deeds\nof recompense, and that is the main test. It is a discriminating\ngratitude, moreover. Keenly enough, it recognizes the comparative\nvalue of service. Other servitors of the magnates may toil faithfully,\nand receive but moderate reward. The moulders of opinion, such, for\ninstance, as the newspaper men, may ask for preferment, and be met by\nthe impatient retort of Richard III to Buckingham, \u201cI am not in the\ngiving vein to-day.\u201d But for one who can interpret the law as it should\nbe interpreted, there are glory and riches to be had for the asking.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII OUR MOULDERS OF OPINION\n\n\n\u201cThere never was a time,\u201d says Justice Brewer, in the concluding\nlecture of a series recently delivered by him at Yale University,\n\u201cwhen public opinion was more potent.\u201d Possibly the saying is true;\nbut whatever force it may have lies in the application. Public opinion\nmay make for a general passivity--an acquiescence in things as they\nare--quite as much as for a general strenuousness. Nowhere, for\ninstance, among civilized peoples, is public opinion more powerful\nthan in a quiet and isolated community, held fast to certain habitual\nmodes of speech and action. Only a brave man, or a desperate woman, so\nenvironed, would dare defy the tribal customs.\n\nPublic opinion in these United States may be more potent than ever\nbefore, but the personal attitude which it supports and encourages\nbecomes more and more one of acquiescence in the existing r\u00e9gime.\nA legislative reaction and a judicial reaction are manifested; and\na growing irritation is expressed, as from time to time those rude\ndisturbers of the public peace, the social reformers, come forward with\nplans for curing imputed evils. Social and political quietism becomes\nour everyday philosophy. An \u201cair of contentment and enthusiastic\ncheerfulness ... characterizes our society,\u201d writes Professor William\nG. Sumner, of Yale, in a recent number of the _Independent_; and though\nthe judgment might be somewhat more accurately worded, he is not far\nwrong. A keen-eyed observer from Italy,--Professor Angelo Mosso,\nof Turin,--who visited us a few years ago, gives somewhat similar\ntestimony. The fact astonishes him, as he confesses, since he saw\nmuch of political and industrial evil which he could not comprehend a\ndemocracy enduring; yet for all that the evidence was convincing.\n\n\nI\n\nAmong the causes making for this acquiescence in existing social\nconditions, there are three which may be considered here. The first is\nthe one which so strongly impressed Professor Mosso. It is the rage\nfor individual exploitation. The imaginations of most men are fired\nby the spectacle of the few achieving great fortunes; each believes\nthat a like fortune lies somewhere within his own reach, and with\nblind fatuity he tolerates conditions which he instinctively feels to\nbe inequitable, simply because he expects himself to master them. \u201cI\nbelieve,\u201d writes Professor Mosso, \u201cthat the desire to become wealthy is\nso strong and powerful in every American that, in order to reserve the\nopportunity of realizing such desire, Americans willingly submit to the\ncontinuance of laws which allow such accumulations.\u201d It is the petty\ngambler\u2019s faith, the conviction that, though everything be against him,\nhe will somehow \u201cbeat the game.\u201d And just as the petty gambler\u2019s faith\nis fostered by the runners and \u201ccappers\u201d for faro, policy, roulette,\nand keno, so the faith of the industrial underling is fostered by a\ntremendous trumpeting of the ways and means to worldly \u201csuccess.\u201d The\npreaching of \u201csuccess\u201d has become, in these last five years, a distinct\nprofession, honored and well recompensed.\n\nA second cause of the prevailing acquiescence in the present r\u00e9gime\napplies more particularly to social reformers, and to those who,\nwhile not actively enlisted as \u201ccome-outers,\u201d do yet sympathize with\nthe activities of their more aggressive brethren. It is a feeling,\nborn of years of experience in promoting some collective good, of\nthe hopelessness of achievement. Opposed at all points, frustrated\nat many, there comes a time, sooner or later, when all but the most\nresolute reformers are forced to admit that little or nothing can be\ndone. Many thereupon fall back into the ranks of the do-nothings and\nthe care-nothings; while others, in whom the fire of purpose is not\nentirely quenched, reluctantly exchange their radical and comprehensive\nplans of social changes for more narrow and immediate purposes,--the\ngiving of small charities, the doing of near-at-hand services, and the\noccasional support of a particular public measure.\n\n\nII\n\nA third, and perhaps the most important, cause is the continual output\nfrom pulpit, sanctum, forum, and college chair, of our professional\nmoulders of opinion. Now not all of this output, it is freely\nconceded, makes for acquiescence; but the overwhelming mass of it\nunquestionably does. From these instructors of the people we learn\nthat conditions, while not perfect, either are reasonably near to\nperfection, or, if evil, are not to be corrected except by individual\nregeneration. We learn of the irrationality or the moral obliquity of\ndiscontent; the viciousness or fanaticism of impertinent persons who\nseek to change things; the virtues of obedience; the obligation of\ntoil (specifically directed to those who are doing most of the world\u2019s\nwork, for the profit of others), and of the worth, benevolence, and\nindispensability of our magnates.\n\nThe denunciation of discontent becomes more common and more emphatic.\nA plentiful crop of instances is always forthcoming to any one who\ncares to look for them. The generation of Rousseau and the following\ngeneration of Jefferson set high hopes for mankind on the faculty\nof discontent. The past generation, compromising between theology\nand evolution, found in discontent a perpetual factor making for the\ncreation of a better environment. But our present reaction takes us\nback to the days of the Stuarts. The magnificent invectives of Dryden,\nvoiced in that--\n\n                    \u201cfull resounding line,\n  The long majestic march and energy divine,\u201d\n\nagainst the sedition and discontent frequently manifested during the\nreign of Charles II, might serve for a thousand texts for present-day\nsermons, lectures, and editorials. The thought, common these last\nhundred years, that discontent is usually the result of privation,\nwrong, or oppression, is given over; and our modern moulders of opinion\nrevert to the notion that it is fostered by ease and comfort.\n\n  \u201cTo what would he on quail and pheasant swell\n   That even on tripe and carrion could rebel?\u201d\n\nasks \u201cGlorious John\u201d in satirizing his rival Shadwell. Tripe and\ncarrion did not form the usual nourishment for rebellion. We find the\nsame idea constantly echoed in very recent days; and the demands of\norganized workmen for better pay are almost invariably regarded in\ncertain intellectual circles as evidences, not of need, but of the\npride and rebelliousness engendered by an already attained competency.\n\nHonors are even between churchmen and lay publicists, when it comes\nto the denunciation of discontent. The pulpit, the stump, the\ncollege chair, and the editorial sanctum are alike busied with its\ncondemnation. Perhaps a typical protagonist in the work was the late\nE. L. Godkin. The thought recurs again and again in his writings.\n\u201cI must frankly say,\u201d he avers in his essay, \u201cSocial Classes in the\nRepublic,\u201d \u201cthat I know of no more mischievous person than the man who,\nin free America, seeks to spread among them [the workers] the idea that\nthey are wronged and kept down by somebody; that somebody is to blame\nbecause they are not better lodged, better dressed, better educated,\nand have not easier access to balls, concerts, or dinner parties.\u201d\nWhereupon, to make clear his contention, he tells of the following\npathetic little episode:--\n\n\u201cTwo years ago I was in one of the University Settlements in New York,\nand was walking through the rooms of the society with one of the\nmembers. They were plain and neat and suitable, and he explained to\nme that the purpose in furnishing and fitting them up was to show the\nworkingmen the kind of rooms they ought to have \u2018if justice were done.\u2019\nTo tell this to a workingman, without telling him in what the injustice\nconsisted and who worked it if he had not such rooms, was, I held, to\nbe most mischievous.\u201d\n\nEven President Roosevelt, doubtless impressed by the modern reiteration\nof the notion, felt called upon, in his Providence speech (August 23d),\nto rebuke discontent, and incidentally to identify it with envy. \u201cNot\nonly do the wicked flourish,\u201d he says, \u201cwhen the times are such that\nmost men flourish, but what is worse, the spirit of envy and jealousy\nand hatred springs up in the breasts of those who, though they may\nbe doing fairly well themselves, yet see others, who are no more\ndeserving, doing far better.\u201d\n\nEducation, in the modern view, is largely responsible for discontent,\nand should be restricted. Judge Simeon A. Baldwin, of the Connecticut\nSupreme Court, and lecturer in the Yale Law School, is quite certain\nupon this point. His \u201csigned editorial,\u201d in the April 9th issue of\na New York newspaper published by the Yale lecturer on journalism,\nexpresses a view which is coming to be widely held. Our young men, he\nnotes with great complacency, are obliged to leave school early, in\norder to go to work; and he thereupon urges that young women also\nshould clip their education at an early age. \u201cGirls would make better\nwives and mothers and housekeepers,\u201d he writes, \u201cif they finished\nschool at from fourteen to sixteen years of age. As it is, they obtain\na smattering of many studies, which in my opinion cannot do them much\ngood. They are possessed by a spirit of unrest to-day, and develop\nambitions not compatible with the happiest homes.\u201d\n\nProfessor Harry Thurston Peck expresses the modern view more\nsuccinctly. Professor Peck, it may be stated for the benefit of the\nunenlightened, is an instructor of Latin in Columbia University. No\npent-up Utica, however, contracts his powers; he has courageously\nsallied forth from his particular domain and has taken all knowledge\nfor his province. Over this province he ranges with unconstrained\nfreedom, noting what he will, and, with something of the \u201clarge\nutterance of the early gods,\u201d making known to a waiting world his\nimpressions and beliefs. What a great lexicographer said of an amiable\npoet may be repeated in present praise: He touches nothing that he does\nnot adorn. Some intellectual limitations it is possible he may have;\nbut as a reflector of certain current views obtaining in high places he\nis probably without a peer. In his article, \u201cSome Phases of American\nEducation,\u201d in the _Cosmopolitan_ magazine a few years ago, he put the\nmatter in this way:--\n\n\u201cLinked closely with many other very serious educational mistakes,\nand from many points of view by far the most profoundly serious of\nthem all, is that curious fancy, which is almost universal among our\npeople, that education in itself and for all human beings is a good\nand thoroughly desirable possession.... There is probably in our whole\nsystem to-day no principle so fundamentally untrue as this, and there\nis certainly none that is fraught with so much social and political\nperil for the future. For education means ambition, and ambition means\ndiscontent.\u201d\n\nBut, as Shakespeare\u2019s Fluellen remarks, \u201cthe phrase is a little\nvariations.\u201d All discontent is not the same, and that which stirs\nin the bosom of Professor Peck must be carefully discriminated from\nthe sort nurtured by plain John Smith. \u201cNothing so dainty sweet as\nlovely melancholy,\u201d sang Sir John Fletcher; but what is meet for an\nElizabethan poet or a present-day philosopher may be most unmeet for\na common plebeian. \u201cNow discontent,\u201d continues this pharos of the\nunenlightened, \u201cis in itself a divine thing. When it springs up in\na strong, creative intellect, capable of translating it into actual\nachievement, it is the mother of all progress; but when it germinates\nin a limited and feeble brain, it is the mother of unhappiness alone.\u201d\n\nDr. Arthur Twining Hadley, president of Yale University, also has\ndoubts. His recent book, \u201cThe Education of the American Citizen,\u201d might\nbe supposed, from its title, to be a plea for the popular diffusion\nof knowledge. Such it is, in fact, only the author draws the line at\n\u201csociology and politics and civics and finance.\u201d \u201cWhen the plea is\nurged, as it so often is,\u201d he writes, \u201cthat they constitute a necessary\nand valuable training for citizenship, we are justified in making a\ndistinct protest. Except within the narrowest limits, they do harm\nrather than good. As ordinarily taught, ... they tend to prepare\nthe minds of the next generation to look to superficial remedies for\npolitical evils, instead of seeing that the only true remedy lies in\nthe creation of a sound public sentiment.\u201d\n\nThe term, \u201csuperficial remedies for political evils,\u201d means, in plain\nwords, social legislation; and it brings up a second matter upon which\nour moulders of opinion have made a considerable approach to unanimity.\nWe hear legislation flouted on all sides, and appeals made for\nindividual regeneration. The matter-of-fact persons who hold that sixty\nyears of factory acts have had more to do with establishing humane\nconditions in certain quarters of the planet than nineteen hundred\nyears of hortatory appeals to the individual man, are dismissed with a\nsmile of contempt; and the declaration is made that most legislation\nis mischievous, and that nothing but character counts. Mr. Godkin was\n\u201cfar from denying that legislation and political changes have been the\ndirect means of great good,\u201d though he held that \u201cevery good change in\nlegislation or in government has been preceded or brought about by an\nincrease of intelligence, of reasonableness, or of brotherly kindness\non the part of the people at large.\u201d A conclusion, to say the least,\nnot overfreighted with historical learning, since many and perhaps most\nreformatory laws have been passed by an earnest minority against the\nactive opposition of many, and despite the stolid passivity of most,\nand what mankind has heretofore called social progress has been largely\ndue to the reaction of such laws and like institutions upon individual\ncharacter.\n\nPresident Hadley differs somewhat from Mr. Godkin. Too much stress, he\nbelieves, is laid upon the mechanism of government and of industry, and\ntoo little upon the force by which this mechanism is kept at work.\n\n\u201cNot by the axioms of metaphysics on the one hand, nor by the\nmachinery of legislation on the other,\u201d he writes, \u201ccan we deal with\nthe questions which vex human society.... Conscious of its honesty of\npurpose, it [democracy] is impatient of opposition, and contemptuous of\ndifficulties, however real. It undertakes a vast amount of regulation\nof economic and social life in fields where two generations ago a free\ngovernment would scarce have dared to enter. In these new regulations\nthere are many instances of failure, and relatively few of success.\nWe have had much infringement of personal liberty, with little or no\ncorresponding benefit to the community.\u201d\n\nIn Justice Brewer\u2019s recent volume of Yale lectures, also, there is much\nregard for character, and much even for associated work in bettering\nthe life of the nation. But as to legislation as a means of achieving\nthis betterment, there is a cautious silence. There is the declaration\nthat each man in free America is a ruler--glad tidings to the persons\nignorant thereof. There are some original lines,--\n\n  \u201cThe moulds of fate\n   That shape the State\n   And make or mar the commonweal,\u201d\n\nwhich, though somewhat reminiscent of the good-natured Bottom\u2019s\nlines,--\n\n  \u201cAnd Phibbus\u2019 car\n   Shall shine from far\n   And make and mar\n   The foolish fates,\u201d\n\ndo yet body forth the noble summation:--\n\n  \u201cThe crowning fact,\n   The kingliest act\n   Of Freedom is the Freeman\u2019s vote!\u201d\n\nBut though the freeman\u2019s vote is a kingly prerogative, there is\nno suggestion that he shall use it in initiating or passing upon\nlegislation for the collective good. Rather the plea is for obedience;\nand the warning is of those violators of the public peace, the labor\norganizations.\n\nSo, too, Mr. Stimson. \u201cThe unexpected weakness of democratic\ngovernment,\u201d he writes, \u201cis its belief that statutes can amend\nboth nature and human nature.\u201d And he rejoices that the judiciary,\nconvinced, no doubt, that neither human nature nor its manifestations\ncan be amended by statutes, have actively intervened by declaring many\nlaws unconstitutional. He finds, moreover, that the general principle\nwhich has caused the adverse action of the courts, is that these\nstatutes have been \u201crestrictive of private liberty, of the right of\na free citizen to use his own property, and his own personal powers\nin such a way as he will, if so be that he do not injure others.\u201d\nA perspicuous and conclusive judgment, no doubt, considering that\nthe very point at issue is the matter of injury to others. He is\nnot satisfied with condemning legislation, moreover, but proceeds\nfurther to a gentle remonstrance with the classes of persons who have\nurged certain regulative laws. Labor leaders, he discovers, distrust\nexperience, and Socialists detest lucidity--a brace of acute judgments\nin the face of the fact that the thing actually rated highest in\ntrade-union circles is experience, and that whatever the defects of\nSocialists or of their system may be, the signal contributions of the\nbest Socialist writers to the study of political economy have been\nlucidity of thought and definiteness of expression.\n\nSo, too, Professor Sumner, Professor Walter A. Wyckoff, the\nentertaining author of \u201cThe Workers,\u201d and a host of other instructors\nof the public, the mere roster of whose names would require several\npages of fine print. Of the only two safeguards of the dependent\nclasses against complete exploitation--social legislation and the labor\nsociety--our moulders of opinion would seem to have taken the job of\ndemolishing the former, leaving to the magnates themselves the task of\nattending to the latter.\n\nWith many if not most of these publicists the criticism is delivered\nnot only at protective laws, but at the force behind them--democracy.\n\u201cEvery age,\u201d writes Professor Sumner, \u201cis befooled by the notions\nwhich are in fashion in it. Our age is befooled by \u2018democracy.\u2019 We\nhear arguments about the industrial organization which are deductions\nfrom democratic dogmas, or which appeal to prejudice by using\nanalogies drawn from democracy to affect sentiment about industrial\nrelations.\u201d Many of our moulders of opinion elaborate the argument\noften made in the writings of our literary magnates, that only men\nwho are themselves possessed of property should have any voice in\nthe disposition of wealth or the regulation of property rights. To\njustify this view recourse is had to several recently imported dogmas,\nfashioned by Mr. W. H. Mallock, author of \u201cAristocracy and Evolution.\u201d\nAll increase of wealth, all advance in knowledge and virtue, contends\nMr. Mallock, come from an aristocracy--a word which he defines as\nmeaning the \u201cexceptionally gifted and efficient minority, no matter\nwhat the position in which its members may have been born, or what the\nsphere of social progress in which their efficiency shows itself.\u201d\nTherefore, since the efficient have produced everything above the\nmaximum which the ignorant and unskilled workman can produce without\nthis higher aid, it follows that the efficient should be left in\nuntroubled possession of their holdings. The large assumption among\nothers in Mr. Mallock\u2019s argument--that those who efficiently sow and\nthose who richly reap are the same persons--need not concern us here.\nIt is sufficient to point out that his argument has been eagerly taken\nup by a number of our own moulders of opinion, fostered and even\ndeveloped to further conclusions.\n\nProfessor Peck, for instance, rather heroically improving on the\nspirit, and not infrequently following the text, of Mr. Mallock, puts\nthe matter in this way:--\n\n\u201cEvery really great thing that has been accomplished in the history of\nman has been accomplished by an aristocracy. It may have called itself\na sacerdotal aristocracy, or a military aristocracy, or an aristocracy\nbased on birth and blood, yet these distinctions were but superficial;\nfor in reality it always meant one thing alone--the community of\ninterest and effort in those whose intellectual force and innate gift\nof government enabled them to dominate and control the destinies of\nStates, driving in harness the hewers of wood and drawers of water who\nconstitute the vast majority of the human race, and whose happiness is\ngreater and whose welfare is more thoroughly conserved when governed\nthan when governing.\u201d\n\nThe argument that the gifted produce all, and the assumption that the\nwealthy and the gifted are the same persons lead up to the fervid\npraise of inequality of condition which in recent years is so often\nheard. Our literary magnates began the strain, doubtless with the\nmotive of self-justification. Since then it has been taken up by our\nprofessional instructors--from what motive is not precisely known--and\nthe result is a mighty chorus of many voices. Says Professor Sumner:--\n\n\u201cIf we could get rid of some of our notions about liberty and equality,\nand could lay aside this eighteenth-century philosophy, according to\nwhich human society is to be brought into a state of blessedness, we\nmight get some insight into the might of the societal organization:\nwhat it does for us and what it makes us do.... If we are willing to\nbe taught by the facts, then the phenomena of the concentration of\nwealth which we see about us will convince us that they are just what\nthe situation calls for. They ought to be because they are, and because\nnothing else would serve the interests of society.... I often see\nstatements published in which the objectors lay stress upon the great\ninequalities of fortune, and having set forth the contrast between rich\nand poor, they rest their case. What law of nature, religion, ethics,\nor the State is violated by inequalities of fortune? The inequalities\nprove nothing.\u201d\n\nProfessor John B. Clark, of Columbia University, also sees in vast\ninequalities of fortune the basis of a happy state. Aristotle taught\ndifferently, it is true. \u201cIn human societies,\u201d he wrote, \u201cextremes\nof wealth and poverty are the main sources of evil. The one brings\narrogance and a lack of capacity to obey; the other brings slavishness\nand a lack of capacity to command. Where a population is divided\ninto the two classes of very rich and very poor, there can be no\nreal state; for there can be no real friendship between the classes,\nand friendship is the essential principle of all association.\u201d But\nProfessor Clark, touched by prophetic fire, pictures a new society in\nwhich inequality is the great blessing. \u201cThe world of the near future,\u201d\nhe writes in his recent article on \u201cThe Society of the Future,\u201d \u201cwill\nnot be one with inequalities levelled out of it; and to any persons\nto whom inequality of possessions seems inherently evil, this world\nwill not be satisfactory. It will present a condition of vast and\never growing inequality. With a democracy that depends on a likeness\nof material possessions it will have nothing in common. The rich will\ncontinually grow richer, and the multi-millionnaires will approach\nthe billion-dollar standard.... If an earthly Eden is to come through\ncompetition, it will come not in spite of, but by means of, an\nenormous increase of inequality of outward possessions.\u201d\n\nWe must hear from Professor Peck again--and for the last time. \u201cWhen\nmen by temper and training,\u201d he writes in his recent paper on \u201cThe\nSocial Advantages of the Concentration of Wealth,\u201d \u201ccome to possess the\nability to do large things in this direct and simple way [_i.e._, the\ncharacteristic way, of the magnates], they have an immense advantage\nover those who can work only in committees, or boards, or companies,\nand they will inevitably dominate them and use them quite at will....\nThis [concentration] means, in the first place and as a first result,\nthe aggrandizement of individuals; but in the end it means the wide\ndiffusion of a golden stream through every artery and vein of our\nnational and individual life. America has already been enormously\nenriched; yet the actualities of the present are nothing when compared\nwith the potentialities of the future. Timid minds which are appalled\nrather than inspired by the vastness and magnificence of the whole\nthing shrink back and croak out puling prophecies of evil. They cannot\nrise to the greatness of it all because they lack the dauntless courage\nof the typical American, who, in Kipling\u2019s vivid phrase, can always--\n\n  \u201c\u2018Turn a keen, untroubled face\n   Home to the instant need of things.\u2019\u201d\n\n\nIII\n\nSo much for a consensus of some of our notable instructors of the\npublic on things political and social. That these opinions produce\na powerful influence on the mass, no one will deny. The wide respect\nin which our teachers--particularly our commissioned teachers--are\nheld; the general recognition of their learning, their profundity,\ntheir unquestioned liberty to speak what they will, their insulated\nfreedom from the influences arising out of seigniorial endowments,\ncompel a popular deference to their judgments. It is, therefore,\nwith pained surprise that an American reads an uncharitable comment\non their ability and learning. Such a comment is that which appeared\nlast February in the conservative and ably edited Paris _Temps_. \u201cIt\nis true,\u201d writes its editor, \u201cthat American universities pay great\nattention to social and political sciences. It is no less true that\nthey have at their disposal considerable financial resources for the\npublication of reviews. But the question is to know what the reviews\nand teachings are worth.... I believe myself sufficiently conversant\nwith the matter. By professional duty I read, not everything which is\nprinted on the other side of the Atlantic concerning these subjects,\nbut a notable part of the work which is considered the most weighty.\nWith a few honorable exceptions--honorable, but rare--I must venture to\nsay that these publications are, for the most part, without originality\nand without any real value.\n\n\u201cI imagine American professors will be the first to feel surprise at\nthe great honor [the establishment of a French school in America]\nwhich it is proposed to do them. They have a very keen feeling of\nwhat they owe to European culture. They keep in close touch with all\nthat is published in their respective specialties in France, Germany,\nEngland, and Italy. They profit by such publications, of which their\nown are sometimes--let us say things as they are--only adaptations\nor reflections. Many of them have had their intellectual training in\nold Europe, and had, at their start, no other ambition than to model\nthemselves on their masters and repeat them. The development of social\nand political studies is immense--on the surface--in the United States.\nIn depth it is not quite the same.\u201d\n\nThe _Temps_, it may be remarked, is not, on the one hand, radical, nor\non the other, anti-democratic or anti-American; and so the reasons for\nits illiberal and discourteous judgment must be left undiscerned. Its\nstartling declaration, that the sociological pronouncements of our\ndistinguished teachers \u201care, for the most part, without originality\nand without any real value,\u201d rises to the dignity of a national\naffront, and rightly calls for emphatic action from our strenuous State\nDepartment.\n\n\nIV\n\nIt may be doubted if our commissioned teachers exert so great an\ninfluence upon opinion as do our newspapers. \u201cThe newspaper to-day,\u201d\nsaid Archbishop Ireland recently before the National Educational\nAssociation, \u201cis pre\u00ebminently the mentor of the people; it is read by\nall; it is believed by nearly all. Its influence is paramount; its\nresponsibility is tremendous.\u201d There is much truth in this dictum,\nthough something of qualification is needed. The newspaper, though not\n\u201cread by all,\u201d nor \u201cbelieved by nearly all,\u201d is indeed more widely read\nthan ever before. If the census is to be believed, the circulation per\nissue of all daily, tri-weekly, semi-weekly, and weekly publications\nhas grown in the last ten years from 38,000,000 to 58,000,000 copies.\nThis is certainly a tremendous showing; but it is doubtful if the\nnewspapers exert the direct sway over men\u2019s minds which was exerted\nin earlier years. The influence effected is due less to the formal\nexpression of opinion than to the color habitually given by them to the\nnews. The eager question, \u201cWhat does old Greeley say?\u201d which was once\nso often heard, was a tribute to the power of an individual in whose\nrectitude and wisdom many thousands put a rarely wavering faith. Many\na lesser editor had also his reverent disciples, who believed as he\ntaught and voted as he urged.\n\nBut in our day the direct appeal of the newspaper is more hesitatingly\nobeyed. Frequently it has happened, in municipal elections, that a\ncandidate or candidates have been elected in the face of an almost\nsolid opposition of the press. A newspaper may be patronized for\nthis or that special feature by persons who pay no attention to its\neditorials, by others who read them merely to learn an opposing view\nof things, and by others still--a far larger class--who, reading\nbetween the lines, choose for themselves what to rely upon and what to\ndoubt. All the larger cities, and perhaps most of the smaller, have\ninstances of newspapers which, appealing to some special interest,\nsecure a considerable number of readers antipathetic to the political\nviews expressed. It happens that radicals often read conservative\npublications, and that conservatives sometimes look upon radical\nprint. The faithful devotees of a certain mercurial New York newspaper\nprobably read it as eagerly in 1884, when it supported General Butler\nfor the Presidency, as in 1892, when it supported Mr. Cleveland,\nor in 1896, when it went over to Major McKinley. But reliance upon\neditorial opinions is a wavering faith. A wiser discrimination is\nemployed, a more cynical scepticism is maintained. When the New York\nnewspaper which boasts of printing all the fit news publishes in its\neditorial columns the dictum that \u201cthe oversupply of labor in the\nanthracite region is due to the great attractiveness of the wages and\nthe conditions of work,\u201d none but the willing are convinced; and so for\nall the misjudgments, ignorant or deliberate, that are daily put forth\nby newspapers of all classes there are scoffers and sceptics as well as\ncredulous believers.\n\nFor the recognition has become general that the average newspaper is\nowned and operated as a commercial property. As Mr. Brooke Fisher, in\na recent number of the _Atlantic_, writes, the days when the editor\nhired the publisher are gone; it is now the publisher who hires the\neditor, and the counting-room determines the policy. Advertising is the\nmaterial mainstay, and the merchants and magnates who have largesse\nto distribute must be humored. \u201cPublishers,\u201d says the interesting\ncensus bulletin on \u201cPrinting and Publishing,\u201d \u201care depending more on\nadvertising and less on subscriptions and sales for financial return.\u201d\nWhether it be the sensational \u201cyellows,\u201d or the less sensational but\ncharacterless \u201cpinks,\u201d or the staid and ponderous \u201cgrays\u201d of the press,\nthe same rule holds. Even the religious journals make a like appeal.\n\u201cA superfluity of religious weeklies,\u201d says the best-known publication\nof that class, giving itself a left-handed pat on the shoulder, \u201cwith\nno other basis for existence than sectional or partisan pride, will\nnot be tolerated nor supported by the laity; nor will advertisers\nmuch longer fail to discriminate between religious journals that are\nprogressive [meaning, for example, itself] and are reaching well-to-do\nand intelligent people, and those which are not.\u201d Statements of\nenormous sales, of vast subscription lists, are published in glaring\ntype, and the phrase \u201cgreatest circulation in the city,\u201d or State, or\nnation, or world, is trumpeted to the ears of the buyers of advertising\nspace. There is still an appeal to the giver of largesse even when a\npublication cannot honestly boast of great circulation; the argument is\nthen one of a \u201cselect\u201d patronage--of \u201cfit audience, though few,\u201d but\ninferentially of great purchasing power.\n\nThe pressure upon editorial policy of this deference to the advertiser\nis constant and effective, and the result is apparent to most readers.\nEven the more rampant of the \u201cyellows,\u201d which daily shriek against\npolitical and social injustice, are affected by it. As mournful a\nphilosopher as Heraclitus might have found food for humor in the\nman\u0153uvres of the metropolitan newspapers some six years ago during the\nagitation for the passage of the Andrews bill. This measure required\nseats for women workers in all mercantile establishments. Now it\nhappened that the heads of the department stores were in nearly every\ninstance violently opposed to the bill, and it also happened that the\namount of advertising from the great stores cut a very pretty figure\nin the income of the average metropolitan newspaper. To complete the\ndilemma the bill won great favor from the public. How the masterful\npurveyors of news and opinions to the people managed to extricate\nthemselves from the difficulty, would make too long a story in the\ntelling. But that they triumphantly surmounted it, is a matter of\nhistory.\n\nWith the advertiser in so commanding a position, it is not needed\nthat a newspaper shall be owned by a magnate in order that it shall\nfaithfully reflect the special interests of \u201cbusiness.\u201d Yet that\nseigniorial funds are back of many of our important newspapers is a\nfact which to a person of intelligence needs no proof. The census\nbulletin, revealing the characteristic optimism of the compilers of the\nTwelfth Census, will have it that individual ownership is still the\nrule. The proportion of individually owned and operated publications\nis given as 63.3 per cent, of partnership concerns as 19.7 per cent,\nand of corporate concerns as 17 per cent. \u201cThese figures indicate,\u201d\nwe are told, \u201cthe complete absence of the extended combinations and\nconsolidations so frequently encountered in other industries.\u201d Yet\nthere are combinations, whether individually or jointly owned,--the\nHearst newspapers in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, the Ochs\nnewspapers of Chattanooga, New York, and Philadelphia, the Belo\nnewspapers of Texas, and those of the Scripps-McRae concern in the\nmiddle West. Only this last summer public announcement was made of a\nprojected combination--under the control of Mr. P. F. Collier, and\nwith a capital of $1,000,000--of a large number of country newspapers\nin the State of New York. The project has for the time been given up,\nbut others of a like nature may fairly be expected for the future.\nMoreover, some of the features of the industrial combinations--identity\nof product, for instance--are discoverable in the so-called co\u00f6perative\nnewspapers, which make use of plate matter or \u201cpatent-insides.\u201d More\nthan half of all the periodicals of the country are in this class.\nFinally, the chief commodity of newspapers of all classes--the news--is\na trust product, a commodity in which the Associated Press serves\nthe function of gatherer of raw material and manufacturer, and the\nperiodical the function of assorter and retailer.\n\nBut the census figures reveal little or nothing to the point.\nSeigniorial backing, when actually given, is not usually made visible\nin the form of investment in newspaper stock. It is not to the best\ninterests of the purveyor of news and opinions that it should be; for\nthe public, with a fine sense of its own independence of judgment,\nrequires that seigniorial influence shall be less obviously shown.\nThe odor of Standard oil, the fumes of American tobacco, have proved\nfatal to more than one newspaper enterprise, and even the taint of\nrailroad support has been shown to be harmful. There is thus the\ngreatest need of discretion in arranging the nominal ownership; and\nthe result is, that in many cases it is easier to discover the actual\nownership of a policy game than the actual ownership of a newspaper.\nThe curious can but surmise and wonder. When a chaste and well-ordered\ndaily publication gives to a particular magnate\u2019s house-warming the\nspace of a column and a half, while its rivals--even the \u201cyellows,\u201d\nwhich deal in that sort of thing--consider the event worth no more\nthan a half-column; or when another magnate is persistently \u201cboomed\u201d\nfor a high office, or when for another a franchise grant is skilfully\nproposed, one may put two and two together, and apply the natural\ninferences. Inferences, however, are not proof, and the conclusion must\nremain doubtful.\n\nBut whether through the influence of potential advertising or of secret\nownership, the magnate, or the magnate class, exercises a large measure\nof control, and the matter which appears is that which, on the whole,\nis agreeable to seigniorial minds. The coal magnates may be criticised,\nbut it is not so much on account of their refusal to grant concessions\nto their men as for their failure to operate in defiance of their men.\nSo, too, the trusts come in for occasional rough handling; but it is\nthe abstract trust that is at fault: the individual trust usually goes\nscathless. Certain of the \u201cyellows\u201d furnish some exception to the\ngeneral rule, though here, too, the influence of the great advertiser\nis shown, and one may vainly read the columns of the most radical of\nthe anti-monopoly dailies for a suggestion that the great department\nstores are other than abodes of comfort and joy for all the souls\nemployed therein.\n\nSuch is the newspaper bias, and the product of the hired writer must\nconform. Whether editing news or writing opinions, he must recognize\nthe divinity that hedges in the magnate class. It was a savage, and\nin some respects extravagant, picture of the function of the hired\nnewspaper worker which a brilliant journalist, now deceased, gave to\nthe world a few years ago:--\n\n\u201cThere is no such thing in America as an independent press, unless it\nis out in the country towns. I am paid for keeping honest opinions\nout of the paper I am connected with. Other editors are paid similar\nsalaries for doing similar things. If I should allow honest opinions\nto be printed in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my\noccupation, like Othello\u2019s, would be gone. The man who would be so\nfoolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street hunting\nfor another job. The business of a New York journalist is to distort\nthe truth, lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet\nof mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread,\nor for about the same thing, his salary. We are the tools of vassals\nof the rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks. They pull\nthe strings, and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our\npossibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual\nprostitutes.\u201d\n\nBut though in certain respects extravagant, it has yet faithful and\naccurate touches which are recognizable by every undeluded person\nwho earns his living in the employment of the daily press. Perhaps,\nindeed, there are not many of the undeluded; for the recoil upon\nthemselves of the character of their tasks does not, to say the\nleast, sharpen the edge of conscience, and the service of a few\nyears is generally believed to be effective in indurating the finest\nsensibilities.\n\nIt is not, as has been said, so much through their editorial\nexpressions as through their coloring of the news that the weeklies and\ndailies mould the opinions of the mass. A growing scepticism averts\nthe former influence; but against the latter there is no prophylactic.\nNews is assorted, pruned, improved, to accord with a predetermined\npolicy. From an anti-imperialist publication one gets small notion of\nother happenings in the Philippines than devastations, rapes, battle,\nmurder, and sudden death; and from an administration organ one may\nlearn only of Peace piping her \u201clanguid note,\u201d of the diffusion of\neducation, and the progress of industry, varied only now and then by\nslight outbreaks from a few ladrones. In the far more important matter\nof the irrepressible class conflict here at home, like influences color\nthe news; and as ninety-nine out of every one hundred periodicals\nsupport, in greater or less degree, the existing r\u00e9gime, the impress\nupon the public mind is overwhelming. Some of the \u201cyellows\u201d set up a\nbar to the universal pervasion of this influence; and the activities\nof the social reformers, through their weekly journals, their tracts,\nand their public discussions, somewhat affect it. But, on the whole,\nthese effects are but a ripple on the deep and powerful stream that\nfertilizes the opinions of the public.\n\n\nV\n\nOur laudatory stump orators have their measure of influence on social\nthought, no doubt; but it is one that surely declines, and the subject\nmay be passed with but scant mention. Likewise, the heterogeneous\nsmall fry of seigniorial retainers in the various walks of life,\nwhose business it is, in season and out, to glorify the prevailing\nr\u00e9gime, may be noticed and dismissed in a sentence. The influence\nof the pulpit, however, is a subject that requires some attention.\nThis influence, while greater than that of either of the groups just\nmentioned, is unquestionably less than that of either the editors or\nthe professional lay publicists. Among practical men in the upper\norders there is a widespread prejudice against pastoral interference\nin social and political matters, unless it be directed solely to\nseigniorial justification. The shoemaker should stick to his last,\nruns the adage; and no less it is urged that the pastor should stick\nto his text. He should, furthermore, discriminate and sort his texts,\nmaking careful avoidance of the ethical precepts of Jesus. For these\nare needlessly disturbing to the code that prevails in commerce and\npolitics, and both politicians and magnates resent their citation. A\nfuture \u201cpopular\u201d version of the Bible may eliminate them, and thus do\naway with a fertile cause of discord; but until that is done the better\npart of pastoral valor will continue to lie in discretion.\n\nThe sentiments of the politicians and the magnates toward the pulpit\nfilter down to the common mass of the laity, and still further weaken\npastoral influence. But weakened as it has been, it is yet felt by the\nmagnates to be an instrument of social control which by proper use can\nbe made to perform a needed service. A constant pressure is, therefore,\nbrought to bear upon pastoral utterances. It is the \u201csafe\u201d men who are\nin most request to fill pulpits; and it is the \u201csafe\u201d men who draw to\ntheir churches the largest endowments. Under the influence of this\npressure there has gradually been developed a code of pulpit ethics,\noutside the limits of which no prudent minister will dare range. The\nminister may be \u201clong\u201d on spirituality, but he must be \u201cshort\u201d on\nsocial precepts. He may preach faith, hope, and charity, and also the\nfuture punishment of the unregenerate, so long as unregeneracy is\ndepicted in general terms; but he must avoid, with the nicest delicacy,\nthe mention of tax-dodging and stock-watering as punishable sins.\nHe may denounce violence, and for a modern instance he may cite the\noccasional riotous conduct of striking workmen; but let him at his\nperil cite such venial backslidings from grace as the blowing up of a\ncompetitor\u2019s refinery, the seizure of a street for track-laying, or\nthe employment of armed mercenaries for a private purpose. Political\nevils may be denounced in the abstract, and the bribery of voters in\nthe concrete. The latter is an offence usually committed by irreverent\nward politicians, and may justly receive, without injury to the State\nand to society, the scathing anathemas of the pulpit. But he that in\na moment of inadvertence miscalls by the name bribes the \u201cgentle\nrewards,\u201d the \u201cgratuities,\u201d as they were known in Bacon\u2019s time, which\nmagnates frequently bestow upon legislators and judges, had best resign\nhis pastorate and seek some other field. Nor must any slight be thrown\nupon any of the conventional practices in the ordinary daily conduct\nof \u201cbusiness.\u201d These are hallowed by custom, and are beyond criticism.\nSuch a declaration as that of a certain minister in a recent number\nof the _Christian Endeavor World_--\u201cWhat we call Napoleonic genius in\nbusiness is sometimes simply whitewashed highway robbery on a gigantic\nscale\u201d--verges closely upon contumacy. It is relieved slightly by\nthe qualifying \u201csometimes,\u201d--much virtue in your \u201csometimes,\u201d as the\nimmortal bard would remark,--but for all that, it is a dangerous\nutterance, and one apt to cause its enunciator grave trouble.\n\nBut pastoral pronouncements on social questions are permitted--nay,\nwelcomed--if only they properly rebuke the occasional discontent and\nunquiet of the masses and the aggression of those foes of order, the\nlabor unions. Such a pronouncement, for instance, is that of the Rev.\nLyman Abbott, put forth in his recent philosophical disquisition,\n\u201cThe Rights of Man.\u201d \u201cTrades-unions ... are ruled over generally,\u201d\nhe declares, \u201cby a directory scarcely less absolute than that\nwhich governed the revolutionists in the day of Mirabeau.\u201d This is\nunexceptionably decorous, and runs no risk whatever of seigniorial\ncensorship. The recent coal strike brought forth a large number of\npastoral utterances of a like character, which must ultimately redound\nto the great glory of the declaimers. The good Bishop Potter, in his\naddress before the Diocesan convention in New York City, September 24,\nfelt called upon to rebuke envy and hatred and to deny the existence\nof social classes in the republic: \u201cWealth is unequally distributed,\nwe are told, and the sophistries that are born of envy and hatred are\nhawked about the streets to influence, in a land which refuses to\nenthrone one class above another, the passions of the less clever or\nthrifty or industrious against those who are more so.\u201d The eminent\nDr. Ethelbert Talbot, Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Central\nPennsylvania, according to his public letter of September 28, saw in\nthe coal strike only a demand upon the part of the miners \u201cthat the\noperators shall no longer manage their own business.\u201d \u201cHow can the\nquestion of whether a man has a right to conduct his own business,\u201d\nhe asks, with painfully defective forethought for what subsequently\nhappened, \u201cbe submitted to arbitration?\u201d The no less eminent Rev.\nDr. Newell Dwight Hillis, in his recent address before the Chicago\nSociety of New York, demanded a wall of bayonets from Washington to\nWilkesbarre. The Rev. Dr. Minot J. Savage of the Church of the Messiah\nalso called for arms instead of arbitration, and the Rev. Dr. W. R.\nHuntington of Grace Church echoed the good Bishop Talbot\u2019s opinion,\nand \u201cfrom the point of view of simple justice\u201d could not see \u201cthat we\nhave any reason to blame the mine-owners for refusing to allow the\nmanagement of their own business to be taken out of their hands.\u201d\nFrom Calvary, too,--or at least from the Calvary Baptist Church of\nNew York,--came a further demand for soldiery. \u201cThese labor leaders,\u201d\ndeclared the Rev. Dr. R. S. MacArthur, \u201cwith their large salaries, are\nforcing the men to be idle. They are more tyrannical than the Czar\nof Russia.\u201d These are but samples of the \u201csafe\u201d utterances on social\nquestions--the kind that involve no penalties, but on the contrary,\nreap sure harvests of glory and recompense.\n\nOccasionally from too close and exclusive reading of the synoptic\ngospels, with their recital of Jesus\u2019 specific teachings on social\nmatters, a young and ardent minister loses his perspective, and seeing\nover-large the industrial and social evils of his time, seeks to remedy\nthem. Usually, however, the mood is but transitory, and a few months,\nor at most a few years, witness the reaction. Renunciation of heretical\ndoctrines follows, and ultimately the errant is restored to the fold of\nthe \u201csafe.\u201d But let no one imagine that in seigniorial halls his sins\nare remembered against him. On the contrary, there is more joy over the\nrecovery of one strayed sheep than over ninety and nine that remain\nfaithful.\n\nSometimes, it must be conceded, there are to be found those who refuse\nto be forced or cajoled, and who hold their intrepid way in defiance of\npower. The World assails them, in the words of Matthew Arnold, with its\nperpetual challenge and warning:--\n\n  \u201c\u2018Behold,\u2019 she cries, \u2018so many rages lulled;\n   So many fiery spirits quite cooled down.\n   Look how so many valors, long undulled,\n   After short commerce with me fear my frown.\u2019\u201d\n\nBut they fear not her frown; and they teach the social precepts\nof their Master regardless of material consequences. What those\nconsequences are, the average man knows full well. They are ostracism,\na reduction, sooner or later, to the poorest livings; a hemming in\nand constraining to the narrowest fields of effort and influence--in\na word, the full sum of the forceful rebuke which it is possible for\nthe magnate class and its retainers, in the present state of society,\nto deliver. In the more developed state of the future the rebuke will\nbe yet more emphatic; for the influence of the pulpit, whatever it may\nbe in degree, must in kind be confirmatory of the right of the magnate\nclass to rule.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII GENERAL SOCIAL CHANGES\n\n\nThe historic props of class rule, according to Professor Edward\nA. Ross, in his recent volume, \u201cSocial Control,\u201d have been force,\nsuperstition, fraud, pomp, and prescription. Our present seigniorial\nclass makes use, with fine discrimination as time and occasion require,\nof each of these means of support, though unquestionably it sets the\ngreatest value upon the last named. Force is employed less openly,\nless obviously; decreasingly by the direct imposition of the magnates,\nincreasingly through their ingenious manipulation of the powers of the\nState. The superstition latent in most minds proves now, as ever, a\nmeans of ready recourse; but though supernatural sanction to the acts\nand authority of the magnates is cunningly deduced and volubly preached\nfrom a thousand pulpits, the prop fails somewhat as a constant and sure\nreliance. Even testimony so authoritative as that of President Baer\nto the effect that the Great First Cause had intrusted to himself and\nhis co-magnates the control of the business interests of the country,\nhas been flouted in a number of places. The notion of supernatural\nsanctions, as most people know, and as Professor Goldwin Smith has\nrepeatedly taken pains to point out, is losing its hold upon the\nreason of mankind; and though it still has, and will ever have, a\ncertain potency, its best days are passed.\n\nAs for fraud, both of class against class, and individual against\nindividual, attempts to practise it no doubt increase; but the\ntooth-and-claw struggle of the last generation has developed and\nsharpened the wits of the combatants, so that it tends to become a\nless profitable game. He would be a sharper indeed, according to the\nproverb, who among the Turks of the Negropont, the Jews of Salonika, or\nthe Greeks of Athens could cheat his fellow: each knows by heart all\nthe tricks and devices of which the others are capable. Matters are not\nyet at such a stage in free America: great frauds, both of the group\nand of the individual, are still practised. But the almost infinite\npossibilities of other days have been sadly restricted by the operation\nof those natural laws which tend to fit beings to their environment.\nPomp, too, is less a factor of control than in past times. It has a\npowerful grip on the imaginations of the poor, as the columns of our\n\u201cyellow\u201d journals, which devote so large a space to the ceremonies of\nthe great, amply attest; but though it charms the more, it deceives the\nless. It interests, it delights; but it does not overawe or subdue.\n\n\nI\n\nIt is by prescription--by a constant appeal to the sanctity of custom,\na constant preaching of the validity of vested rights, and of the\nbeauty, order, inevitability, and righteousness of things as they\nare--that the magnate class wins to its support the suffrages of the\npeople. Other influences aid, but this one is dominant. As Professor\nRoss pertinently writes:--\n\n\u201cThose who have the sunny rooms in the social edifice have ... a\npowerful ally in the suggestion of Things-as-they-are. With the aid of\na little narcotizing teaching and preaching, the denizens of the cellar\nmay be brought to find their lot proper and right, to look upon escape\nas an outrage upon the rights of other classes, and to spurn with moral\nindignation the agitator who would stir them to protest. Great is the\nmagic of precedent, and like the rebellious Helots, who cowered at\nthe sight of their masters\u2019 whips, those who are used to dragging the\nsocial chariot will meekly open their calloused mouths whenever the bit\nis offered them.\u201d\n\nThe magnates, as has been shown, brook small interference with\nprevailing customs. Their near dependents, retainers, and \u201cpoor\nrelations\u201d think as they think, and feel as they feel; and the great\nmajority of the professional moulders of opinion, drawing their\ninspiration from above, preach and teach as the magnates would have\nthem. The general social passivity following the pressure of all these\ninfluences upon the public mind is as certain and inescapable as a\nmathematical conclusion.\n\n\nII\n\nA powerful auxiliary to the preaching of the sanctity of custom\nis the extolling of individual \u201csuccess.\u201d At the very time when\nsocio-industrial processes are settling to a fixed routine and\nsocio-industrial forms to a fixed status,--when day by day there is\nfound less room at the top and more room at the bottom,--the chorus of\nexhortation to the men of the land to bestir themselves reaches its\nhighest pitch. Meddle not with custom and the law, is the injunction;\nleave those to abler and wiser heads--meaning, of course, the present\nformulators and manipulators thereof. Meddle not with things as they\nare, but while your companions sleep, \u201ctoil upward in the night,\u201d\nand carve out a career for yourself among the stars. Put no faith in\ngeneral social changes, except such as result from the combined effect\nof each unit concerning himself solely with his own material salvation.\nThere is no social betterment without precedent individual betterment,\nit is urged. \u201cYou cannot make a bad man good by legislation,\u201d is the\nadmonitory adage, and \u201cYou cannot make a poor man rich by legislation\u201d\nis its twin. If certain persons hold to the theory that corrective laws\nhave a definite reaction upon character, and that in every civilization\nworthy the name there are social institutions, founded in law, which\nare immeasurably in advance of the general average of sanity, sobriety,\nand honesty of the citizenship, such persons are but dreamers, and are\nnot to be taken too seriously. So, too, with the dictum regarding the\nstatutory enhancement of riches. There are those who insinuate that\nit is heard most often from the lips of the industrial magnates, the\nmajority of whom are living examples of the fact that riches may be\ngarnered by means of tariffs and other privilege-giving laws; and from\nthe _laissez-faire_ tariff reformers, whose reiterated argument against\nprotective duties is that they are law-given privileges by which the\nfew gain wealth at the expense of the many. But persons who question\nthis profound adage are unsophisticated. They fail to discriminate\nproperly. The adage is one which, like a simile or metaphor, should not\nbe stretched too far. It has its true and legitimate bearing only when\nit is applied to the very poor.\n\nPersonal endeavor toward the goal of \u201csuccess\u201d is the urgent\nexhortation. Scarcely one of the magnates who have recently entered\nliterature, or who, avoiding that province, have on occasion unbosomed\nthemselves to the interviewer, but takes pains to declare how numerous\nand how mighty are the possibilities in the path of the energetic.\nAll that is needed, according to most of the seigniorial recipes,\nare brains and health; honesty, it is true, is often included as an\ningredient in the compound, but its mention is possibly ironical, and\nneed not concern us. Brains and health are thus the two things needful;\nand though pursuing Satan may gather in, with his drag-net, a vast\narmy of the hindmost, the fortunate possessors of these two boons will\ninevitably forge to the front in the headlong race.\n\nIt is by no accident that this particular counsel from the magnates\nis heard now more frequently than any other. It is one that of course\nhas been given in all times; but it has never been given with such\nfrequency and unction as now. Consciously or subconsciously, it is\nan expression of class feeling--a revelation of the community of\ninterests and purposes of a particular division of our society. In\nwhatever cases its utterance is prompted by a general social motive,\nthat motive is the defence of class control. It is counsel that makes\nfor the acquiescence of the lower orders and the increased security of\nthe upper. \u201cThe heaving and straining of the wretches pent up in the\nhold of the slaver is less,\u201d writes Professor Ross again, \u201cif now and\nthen a few of the most redoubtable are let up on deck. Likewise the\nadmitting of a few brave, talented, or successful commoners into the\ncharmed circle above has a wonderful effect in calming the rage and\nenvy of the exploited, and thereby prolonging the life of the parasitic\nsystem.\u201d This counsel of endeavor, promulgated by the few who have\nstriven and \u201csucceeded,\u201d is thus a social sedative of great efficacy.\n\nThe professional moulders of opinion take their cue from these\nexhortations of the magnates, improve, elaborate, and redistribute\nthem. The professors, the editors, and the orators lead, and the\nhortatory pronouncements of the pulpit follow closely. The Carpenter of\nNazareth, it is true, held other views of \u201csuccess\u201d; but his precepts\nwould seem to have gone out of fashion in the fanes and tabernacles\nostensibly devoted to his worship. With all ranks and conditions\nSuccess becomes the great god; and as though there were not already\npriests and votaries enough for his proper worship, a special class\nof publications has recently arisen, which serve as his vowed and\nconsecrated ministers. These teach to the devout but unsophisticated\nfollowers of the great god the particular means best adapted to win\nhis grace; how his frown may be averted; or, if his anger be kindled,\nby what penances and other rites he is to be propitiated. They chant\nthe praises and recite the life-incidents of those who have been most\nconspicuously blessed, and to all the rest of mankind they shout,\n\u201cFollow our counsel, and some day you shall be even like unto these.\u201d\nIt is a glittering lure, and it is eagerly pursued. Sometimes, indeed,\nnot without doubts and misgivings; for a recognition that \u201call the\ngates are thronged with suitors,\u201d that \u201call the markets overflow,\u201d\nand that the settling and hardening of socio-industrial processes has\nalready begun, becomes more general, and leads many to essay the trial\nof fortune\u2019s pathway only as a desperate and forlorn adventure. But\nthese are the exceptions; the majority are still to be caught by limed\ntwigs. The gods denied mankind many gifts, and attached hard conditions\nto most of those which they granted. But for all their withholding of\ncertain gifts and their tainting of others, they sought to compensate\nby giving an extra allowance of credulity.\n\n\nIII\n\nNot only by the showering of precepts, by the encouragement of\nindividual effort, and by the dangling of more or less illusory prizes\nbefore the wistful multitude does the ruling class maintain its hold.\nIt invites, to some extent, a participation in the harvest. The growth\nof the shareholding class, of which mention has already been made, is\nby no means wholly fortuitous. New companies of small initial capital,\nand with somewhat dubious chances in the great struggle, may be glad\nenough to market their shares wheresoever they can; but something of\nseigniorial grace and condescension, though not entirely unmixed with\ncalculating foresight, is apparent in the opening of opportunities\nfor small investment in the larger and more stable corporations.\nMr. John B. C. Kershaw, in the _Fortnightly Review_ for May, 1900,\ngives an interesting account of this fostering of share-investment in\nEngland. The industrial magnates, he says, saw that the best policy for\npreventing the growth of a public sentiment favoring the encroachments\nof labor would be to increase the number of _bourgeoisie_ interested in\nindustrial affairs. Accordingly they encouraged popular share-buying,\nwith the result that \u201ca large and increasing proportion of the general\npublic is now financially involved in all industrial struggles, and our\nmanufacturers feel assured that the danger lest the workers should be\nbacked by a solid and enthusiastic public opinion in their demands for\nshorter hours or increased pay no longer exists.\u201d\n\nAs in England, so also here. The movement toward corporate ownership\nis probably more pronounced in the United States than in the older\ncountry, and it has been equally encouraged from above. Joint-stock\nconcerns increased in England from 9344 in 1885 to 25,267 in 1898. In\nMassachusetts, the State in which the preparation of statistics most\nnearly approaches the methods of science, corporations are reported\nto have increased during the years 1885-95 by more than 77 per cent.\nAs for shareholders, the nine principal manufacturing industries of\nMassachusetts for the same period show percentages of increase ranging\nfrom 13.87 in tapestry to 637.74 in leather, saddles, and harness. The\nentire country has shown a marked growth in the number of this class,\nand it would seem that no one is too poor to hold a share in some\ncorporation. Indeed, to read the arguments of the legal retainers of\nthe magnates in the Income Tax case, and in the various trust cases\nthat from time to time arise, one would think that the main body of\nthe shareholders of the nation was composed of workingmen, widows, and\norphans. In no time since the prophet Ezekiel\u2019s day have there been\nuttered words of such tender consideration for the poor and needy,\nthe widow and the orphan, and of such bitter denunciation for their\nwould-be despoilers as were tearfully put forth in opposing the income\ntax.\n\nA great number of shareholders in a particular company would seem,\non first thought, to be something of a nuisance. Unquestionably they\nwould represent a wide range of conflicting views and antagonistic\npurposes, all bearing upon the one problem of the proper operation\nof the company\u2019s property; and would thus give salient instances of\nthat unwisdom which is too often found in a multitude of counsellors.\nAt least this is the seigniorial argument against national\ncollectivism--an argument which one might naturally suppose to be quite\nas applicable to the particular collectivism of the stock company. But\nit does not so apply; the solid advantages of diffused shareholding in\nassuring general public sanction to the acts of the magnates outweigh\nthe confusion and danger which are alleged to lie in public ownership.\n\nThe social and political effect of this general participation in the\nownership of industries may be readily observed by all but the blind.\n\u201cIf the truth were known,\u201d wrote that keen-witted financier, Mr.\nRussell Sage, in a magazine article published last May, \u201cconcentration\nof wealth is popular with the masses.\u201d Partners in the great\nenterprises, the multitude of petty shareholders are led more and more\nto consider economic questions from the employers\u2019 standpoint. In the\ncontroversies between labor and capital ten years ago the average\ncitizen was but an onlooker, sometimes a weak partisan of capital, but\nvery often a neutral, with a strong latent sympathy for the \u201cunder\ndog.\u201d To-day, thanks to his holding of a single share in the steel\ncorporation or of two or three shares in some street railway company,\nhe is an employer, one of the men \u201cto whom God, in His infinite wisdom,\nhas given the control of the property interests of the country.\u201d He\nsees, thinks, and feels as a member, however humble, of the employing\nclass; and what the magnates think and do is to him all the law and\nthe prophets. \u201cBound by gold chains about the feet\u201d of his feudatory\nlords, he is at the same time a sharer in their responsibilities and a\nfaithful retainer in their service.\n\n\nIV\n\nIt would be idle to declare that all the tendencies make toward\nacquiescence. Just as in the atmosphere a prevailing drift of the\nwind is accompanied by cross currents, flurries, and rotatory motions,\nso the dominant tendency discoverable in social industry is qualified\nby many complex processes. Of the cross currents here to be briefly\nnoted, some are but trifling, while others undoubtedly reveal a\ncertain force and constancy. A small part of the public is ever in a\nstate of ferment over imputed social evils, and at rare times this\nferment becomes general. Recurring labor troubles indicate that the\nspirit of resistance, if it really be dying, dies hard. Strikes of the\nmagnitude of those at Homestead and in the Tennessee mines in 1892,\nat Chicago and other railroad centres in 1894, the several anthracite\ncoal strikes of 1897, 1900, and 1902, and the steel strike of 1901\nprove that organized labor has not wholly succumbed to the encompassing\nforces about it. The remarkable growth in numbers, these last two\nyears, of the unions composing the American Federation of Labor, is\nconfirmatory testimony. Radical political movements, furthermore, have\nnot been wanting. The Socialists have increased their voting strength\nin the nation from some 2000 ballots in 1888 to upward of 130,000 in\n1900. The Farmers\u2019 Alliance made tremendous headway in the election\nof 1890, and its political successor, the People\u2019s party, secured\nby fusion more than 1,000,000 votes in 1892 and nearly 2,000,000 in\n1894. \u201cLabor\u201d mayors and even Socialist mayors have been elected\nin several cities, and the polling of 106,721 votes for Samuel M.\nJones for Governor of Ohio in 1899 was a truly remarkable showing\nof the residual independence of the citizenship. There are also\ngeneral social movements to chronicle. Reform societies and clubs are\noccasionally heard of; arbitration movements have met with some favor;\nthere has been a considerable growth in the number of university and\ncollege settlements; and anti-trust conferences and things of that\nsort have frequently met, talked, and dispersed. Indeed, all of us\nat times grumble and find fault with general conditions. Even Mr.\nRussell Sage, in the face of his exultant panegyric on the beneficence\nof combination, has very recently given to the press a statement\ndenouncing the further consolidation of industry, and predicting, in\ncase his words are not heeded, \u201cwidespread revolt of the people and\nsubsequent financial ruin unequalled in the history of the world.\u201d\nThough only a few of us are irreconcilable at all times, all of us\nare disaffected sometimes--especially when our particular interests\nare pinched. We talk threateningly of instituting referendums to\ncurb excessive power, of levying income taxes, or of compelling the\nGovernment to acquire the railroads and the telegraphs. We subscribe\nto newspapers and other publications which criticise the acts of the\ngreat corporations, and we hail as a new Gracchus the ardent reformer\nwho occasionally comes forth for a season to do battle for the popular\ncause.\n\n\nV\n\nIt must be confessed, however, that this revolt is, for the most part,\nsentimental; it is a mental attitude only occasionally transmutable\ninto terms of action. It is, moreover, sporadic and flickering; it\ndies out, after a time, and we revert to our usual moods, concerning\nourselves with our particular interests, and letting the rest of\nthe world wag as it will. The specific social reaction of the last\nfew years has been especially marked. It has shown itself in the\nweakening or disruption of radical political movements, in the more\nhesitant attitude of the trade-unionists, in the decline of factory\nlegislation,--in fact, of all legislation tending to the protection\nof the weaker and the regulation of the stronger,--and in a general\nfeeling of the futility of social effort. The Anti-imperialists will\nhave it that this admitted reaction is due to the South African and\nPhilippine wars, to a lust of empire and a contempt for the rights\nof weaker peoples. It is a pretty theory, but unfortunately it has\nsmall basis in chronology. For the reaction had already become\napparent before either war was waged. The date of its beginning may\nbe variously guessed at; but it is probable that the time assigned\nto it in Chapter V--somewhere within the two years 1896-97--is not\nfar wrong. Before that time a very large part of the public could\noccasionally be interested in social measures and movements, and in\nsocial literature. Thousands of even the most hardened philistines read\nMr. George\u2019s \u201cProgress and Poverty,\u201d Mr. Bellamy\u2019s \u201cLooking Backward,\u201d\nand Mr. Kidd\u2019s \u201cSocial Evolution.\u201d And as for that minor section of\nthe public, the social reformers, there was then to be found among\nthem a radicalism of belief, a definiteness of aim, an ardency and\ndetermination of spirit that are sadly wanting now. Doubtless to every\none of these, as he ruefully compares the two periods, there recurs the\nsentiment of the Wordsworthian recollection,--\n\n  \u201cBliss was it in that dawn to be alive,\n   But to be young was very heaven.\u201d\n\nWhile in the bosom of every devotee of Things-as-they-are there rises\nthe sentiment of thankfulness that the mass of the people have learned\nthe wisdom of letting well enough alone.\n\nPolitical radicalism reached its culminating point in the election\nof 1896. Despite certain foolish and mischievous notions embodied in\nthe two radical platforms of that year, the combined movement was\nyet a consistent and unified attack upon class rule. The elections\nof the next two years revealed a waning of Populist and Democratic\nstrength, and in 1900 a fine sense of caution prompted the Fusionists\nto subordinate the industrial demands of their platforms to the issue\nof Imperialism. The Socialists, it is true, usually increase their\nvote; but the admitted fact of a great growth of Socialist conviction\nthroughout the land makes these slight increases at the polls appear\nbut trivial, and only further confirms the view that such radicalism\nis sentimental rather than potential. Anti-trust conferences are not\nwithout an element of humor; at least, they are the cause of much\nhumor in outsiders; and the widely heralded arbitration court of the\nNational Civic Federation breaks down on the very occasion when most is\nexpected of it--that of the anthracite coal strike. Organized labor,\ndespite its greater numerical strength, is far less aggressive than\nof old; and except in isolated instances, it observes a caution which\nwould have further distinguished Fabius. As for the growth of college\nsettlements, the fact is only an added proof of reaction. They do a\ngreat good, unquestionably; but their basis is philanthropy and not\nsocial adjustment.\n\nAs a people, we have heard enough, for the time, about social\nproblems, and prefer to interest ourselves in other matters.\nProfessor Walter A. Wyckoff, who has recently changed the scene of\nhis optimistic observances from America to England, has an article\nin the September _Scribner\u2019s_ on the English social situation. \u201cThe\ncondition-of-the-people problem,\u201d he writes, \u201clacks vitality for the\nmoment because, as one shrewd observer remarked, \u2018the public has\ngrown tired of the poor.\u2019\u201d We are feeling the same weariness here.\nOur benevolence somewhat increases, and we are willing to give, and\nmore than willing that the magnates shall give freely; but we want to\nbe troubled no more with remedial schemes. Rather, we are disposed to\ntrust to seigniorial wisdom and virtue to set things right. Some of us\nwill perhaps decline to go so far in our trust as a certain prominent\nMassachusetts lady who proposed to abolish working-class suffrage. \u201cI\nthink,\u201d said this lady in an address to a club of working girls, \u201cmany\nof the troubles between employer and men might be swept away if the\nmen could not vote. If he felt that they did not stand on just the\nsame footing as himself, that they had not quite so many privileges as\nhe, the employer might have a chivalric feeling toward them.\u201d Some of\nus may hesitate at this project, but withal we are willing to trust\nlargely to seigniorial guidance.\n\nInstead of the personal fidelity that characterized the older\nFeudalism, we are rapidly developing a class fidelity. History may\nrepeat itself, as the adage runs; but not by identical forms and\nevents. It is not likely that personal fidelity, as once known, can\never be restored: the long period of dislodgment from the land, the\ndiffusion of learning, the exercise of the franchise, and the training\nin individual effort have left a seemingly unbridgeable chasm between\nthe past and the present forms. But though personal fidelity, in the\nold sense, is improbable, group fidelity, founded upon the conscious\ndependence of a class, is already observable, and it grows apace. Out\nof the sense of class dependence arises the extreme deference which we\nyield, the rapt homage which we pay--not as individuals, but as units\nof a class--to the men of wealth. We do not know them personally, and\nwe have no sense of personal attachment. But in most things we grant\nthem priority. We send them or their legates to the Senate to make our\nlaws; we permit them to name our administrators and our judiciary; we\nlisten with eager attention to their utterances, and we abide by their\njudgment. When the venerable Mr. Hewitt, brought forth like the holy\nman Onias, in the Judean civil war between Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, to\ndenounce the opposing faction, utters his anathema against the minions\nof Mr. Mitchell, we listen in awe and are convinced. A three-line\ninterview with the chief of the magnates is read with an eagerness\nwholly wanting in our perusal of an official pronunciamento by the\nmost strenuous of Presidents. Our racial sense of humor, it must be\nconfessed, saves us from the more slavish forms of deference; we jest\nabout solemn themes and take in vain the names of great beings. Even\nthe name of the great magnate is more or less humorously played upon;\nand our latest national pastime of \u201ctrust-busting\u201d reveals a like\nlevity, though an innocent one. It shows, moreover, how far we have\nreacted from our Puritan forefathers. For it is pursued not on account\nof the pain it gives the trusts, but for the harmless pleasure it gives\nboth participants and spectators. But our subserviency, though less\nformal than that of old, is withal more real and fundamental.\n\n\nVI\n\nCurrent passivity has, however, a reverse side. To many persons a\nrecognition of the changing conditions brings demoralization or\ndespair. All are not won by the lure of \u201csuccess.\u201d To an increasing\nnumber the dangling prize in the distance is but a mirage, and\noppressed by a sense of the bankruptcy of life they seek an oblivious\nrelief. There is a drift toward the twin dissipations of drink and\ngambling, and there is an increase of suicide. The greater drink\nconsumption is a matter of common observation, and it is amply attested\nby statistics. Mr. J. Holt Schooling\u2019s figures in a recent issue of the\n_Fortnightly Review_ show an increased consumption in the United States\nof 20 per cent for the years 1896-1900, as against the years 1886-90.\nThe percentage of increase is slightly less than that of those\nindustrially exploited nations, Germany and France, but considerably\nmore than that of Great Britain and Ireland. The annual figures\npublished in the _World Almanac_ for 1902 give more pertinent lessons.\nThe unsettled and troublous year, 1893, witnessed an enormous increase\nin drink consumption; but the succeeding hard times of 1894 and 1895,\nwhen drink-money was increasingly hard to obtain, induced a greater\nsobriety. With 1896 drinking became more general, or at least more\nenergetic; and except for a slight falling off in 1899, the consumption\nof liquors and wines has risen steadily, reaching the enormous total\nof 1,349,176,033 gallons in 1900. Much of this gain is confined to\nbeer, the cheapest of alcoholic beverages; but there has also been a\nphenomenal increase in the consumption of spirits. From 71,051,877\ngallons consumed in 1896 there has been a steady annual rise to the\ntotal of 97,248,382 gallons in 1900, a gain of 36.8 per cent.\n\nThe recent increase of petty gambling is still more noticeable. Playing\nfor high stakes, a custom common enough in the late years of the\neighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth, has long\nbeen given over or transferred to the domain of \u201cbusiness.\u201d But what\nis colloquially known as \u201ctin-horn\u201d gambling has advanced, these last\nfive years, by leaps and bounds. Doubtless the high precedent of our\nnational Monte Carlos, the stock exchanges, is ample cause for much\nof it; but other causes are also in operation. With those persons\nthat hearken to, but heed not, the seigniorial exhortation to bestir\nthemselves and conquer \u201csuccess,\u201d petty gambling is an expression of\nunbelief. They know that the prizes advertised in the great industrial\ngame are not to be won; they see nothing ahead but a dull routine\nof poorly remunerated labor, and they turn to gambling partly for\nrecreation and partly for profit. With those, on the other hand, who\nnot only hearken but heed, gambling is merely the application of their\nambitious plans to the branch of industry which promises, however\nvainly, the most immediate returns.\n\nFaro, keno, and roulette may have suffered some decline in favor. If\nso, statutes and the police, instead of a growing aversion to gambling,\nmust be held responsible. It is one of those conventional puzzles which\nnone can explain, that it is possible in our cities to restrict table\nand wheel gambling, but seemingly impossible to restrict certain other\nforms. Poker, for instance, maintains its hold, unawed by statute and\nunhampered by authority; while policy and race-betting, the special\nrefuges of the desperately poor and the desperately fatuous, win new\nand lasting converts day by day. Indeed, the growth of race-betting is\none of the striking phenomena of our time. It has become a habit, a\ndisease; and its confirmed victims are held in as slavish a thraldom\nas are the victims of opium and hasheesh. One need not penetrate\nto a pool-room or journey to a race-track to discover evidences of\nits general diffusion. He may hear of it on every side, and he may\nfind definitive proof in the daily journals. In nearly all of these\nthe space given to the reports of races, the lists of betting odds\nand accounts of great winnings, is generous; and in some three or\nfour of the metropolitan dailies the subject rises to the rank of a\nspecialty. The flaunting advertisements of the \u201ctipsters\u201d in one of\nthese newspapers rival in extent of space used and opulence of bargains\noffered, the announcements of the dry-goods merchants. The glittering\nlures dangled before the multitude by the seigniors seem trivial by\ncomparison. Uncertain, and at best remote, they prove no match for the\nnear-at-hand prizes to be won in gambling; and as a consequence tens\nof thousands pin their hope of \u201csuccess\u201d in this world to a series of\nfortunate winnings.\n\nThe meaning of the increase of suicide is clouded by a number of\nfactors, and it is impossible to ascribe the tendency to one cause\nalone. Were we to accept the explanation of the pulpit, we should see\nin it the awful consequences of the decline of faith. Pathologists,\nhowever, while not denying this influence, enumerate many others.\nRacial and temperamental factors, drink and vice, are all concerned in\nthe matter, and even climates and seasons are influential. But whatever\nthe effect of these may be, the intensifying struggle for life these\nlast few years, and what appears to many minds a darkening outlook for\nthe future, must be acknowledged as powerful agents in increasing the\nrate of self-destruction. The rate is highest in the great industrial\ncentres, where the struggle is fiercest, where the richest stakes are\nwon and lost, where luxury is most flaunting and poverty most galling;\nand it is least where the struggle is in some measure relaxed. The\nrecent census shows for the decade an increased rate per 100,000 of\npopulation from 8.8 to 9.9 in the States where registration of deaths\nis required, from 11 to 12.7 in registration cities, and from 10.3 to\n11.8 for the entire registration record. There are a few anomalies\nin the figures which are difficult of explanation; the workaday\ncities of Fall River and Allegheny have low rates of suicide, the\nresidence city of Los Angeles a high rate, while San Francisco reveals\nthe abnormal rate of 49 per 100,000. With all allowances, however,\nthe rule holds good: the more distinctly industrial and commercial\ncities have remarkably high rates, the less distinctly industrial\nand commercial cities remarkably low rates. In the first group are\nChicago, with a rate of 21.8; Milwaukee, 21; St. Louis, 19.1; Boston,\n14.4; Cincinnati, 13.5; New York, 13.1; Philadelphia, 12.2; Baltimore,\n12; Pittsburg, 9.3. In the second group may be instanced Atlanta,\nwith a rate of 6.6; Denver, 6; Albany, 3.2; Hartford, 1.3; Richmond,\n1.2. These suicides are the unfit, say the complacent philosophers of\nthe day, and are quite as well off dead as alive; but they prove at\nleast that some slight qualification is needed to Professor Sumner\u2019s\noptimistic generalization that \u201can air of contentment and enthusiastic\ncheerfulness ... characterizes our society.\u201d The winners in the race\nare doubtless enthusiastically cheerful, and the great mass that keeps\nsteadily on, fed by the delusion of ultimate \u201csuccess,\u201d are at least\ncheerful without enthusiasm; but back of these are the losers and the\nmany who have seen the hollowness of the world\u2019s promise, whose outlook\nupon life is one of intensifying despair.\n\n\nVII\n\nAll of our general institutions reflect the changes in public thought,\ntaste, and feeling consequent upon the changing conditions of the\nsocial r\u00e9gime. But on none of them are these changes writ more clearly\nor in larger characters than on the institution of letters. Along with\nthe morganization of industry steadily proceeds the munseyization of\nliterature. We are a free people, our politicians tell us, and are\nstrenuously resolved to remain so. But if we are to be judged by our\npopular literature, the verdict can hardly be other than that we have\nreached an advanced stage of subserviency, and that the normal mood\nof the overwhelming majority is one of complacence with its lot. Our\npopular magazines regularly keep before us a justification, actual or\ninferential, of things as they are; and though it is couched in less\nargumentative phrasing than that of the newspapers, it is, no doubt,\nfor that very reason, a more plausible and effective expression of\nthe plea. There are panegyrics on our captains of industry, tales\nof their exploits in the great industrial battle, descriptions of\ntheir town-houses and country-seats,--all, in fact, that makes for\nthe emulation of their wisdom and virtues, and particularly of their\nfaculty of acquisitiveness,--with a multitude of recipes for the\nwinning of \u201csuccess.\u201d Along with this is provided a vaudeville of idle\nentertainment: wonder tales, short stories, a gallery of pictures of\nstage-folk, who, whatever their merits may be, bear but a problematic\nrelation to literature; and finally an amorphous compound of sedative\nmiscellany that not only charms the mind from serious thinking, but in\ntime paralyzes the very power of thought.\n\nSuch of these publications as indulge in the gentle art of reviewing\ngive further evidence of changing conditions. Reviewing, as now\npractised, studies the amenities of life, with a particular regard\nfor the counting office, \u201cwherein doth sit the dread and fear\u201d of\nthe publisher who has advertising to distribute. With a few notable\nexceptions the reviewing journals make it their business to be \u201cnice.\u201d\nThey do not damn, not even with faint praise; they commend or extol.\nIt is not that they praise insincerely a bad book--reviewing is too\nhighly developed a craft for such crudity. But in a bad book all\nthat the widest exercise of charity can pronounce even passably good\ncomes in for praise; and what is weak or poor, or inclusive under\nold John Dennis\u2019s favorite term of \u201cclotted nonsense,\u201d is mercifully\nomitted from mention. So it is when the advertising publisher is a\nfactor in the game. But a reviewing journal must uphold a reputation\nfor impartial judgment, and must thus mingle blame with praise. Its\nopportunity comes when some inglorious Milton of Penobscot or Butte\nprints his verses at home at his own expense. A copy drifts into the\nreviewing office and effects a transformation. The angelic temper upon\nwhich so many and such large drafts are made becomes exhausted, and\nthe humble poet is treated to the sort of thing which Gifford used to\ndeal out to the Della Cruscans and the ireful Dennis to the poetasters\nof Queen Anne\u2019s time. It was perhaps the last regret of the late J.\nGordon Coogler, of Columbia, S.C., that instead of printing his amiable\nverses on his own press, he had not guaranteed the cost of their\nproduction, and secured their publication by a metropolitan firm.\n\nThe literary distinction of former days has taken wings. Whether or\nnot Wordsworth was right in his lament over the state of England in\n1803 may be questioned; but a like lament uttered for our own land and\ntime would be in large part justified. We have the two extremes of\nexceedingly plain living and of wildly extravagant living; but high\nthinking seems to be the accompaniment of neither. For several years\nthe only really salable books have been novels, and among these popular\nfavor has centred almost wholly on the kind called historical--called\nso not because the stories bear any relation to history, but because\nin them the action is put in a past time. Lately, it is true, there\nhave been signs of a reaction; but let none imagine that it is due to a\ngrowing taste for stronger meat. Rather it is an evidence that in our\nlove of novelty we have tired of one trifle and now demand another in\nits stead.\n\nFor the recent indications of declining favor for the historical novel\nare accompanied by no signs of reviving favor for more serious works.\nThe Huxley Memoirs, it is true, unexpectedly achieved the degree of\nfavor usually given to a fifth-rate novel; but the work, despite its\nscience, philosophy, and religious controversy, was yet an entertaining\nstory, and won its way for that reason. No more in fiction than in\nother branches of literature is there promise of better things. Even\nthe \u201cproblem\u201d novel, which, though often crude or hysterical, was yet\nan attempt to deal with some of the deeper facts of life, has been\nbanished, and is not to be permitted to return. \u201cOur publishers,\u201d says\nthe well-known literary supplement of a New York daily newspaper, \u201care\nseeking on all sides for wholesome stories, dealing optimistically\nwith life, and reaching happy conclusions.\u201d It is a true judgment, and\nreveals most clearly the present standards of public taste.\n\nOur popular magazines most accurately reflect the public mind.\nPictures and stories are the substance of its childish delight. Among\nperiodicals we have nothing in any way comparable to the _Edinburgh_,\nthe _Quarterly_, the _Nineteenth Century_, the _Fortnightly_, the\n_Contemporary_, the _Athen\u00e6um_, the _Spectator_, the _Saturday Review_,\nor even the _Academy_. Whatever tendencies of late have seemed to\nindicate the future planting of such reviews on these shores, have very\nrecently been extinguished. Of three publications in which articles of\nsome thought and some importance were occasionally printed, two have\nrecently found a monthly issue more frequent than the public taste\nrequired, and have accordingly transformed themselves into quarterlies,\nwhile the third has been forced to make concessions to the general\ndemand for \u201clightness and brightness.\u201d For these are the qualities\nwhich pay. \u201cMake it light and bright,\u201d is the order which the literary\ncontributor hears in the editorial offices when he submits his wares;\nand though the terms may be variously interpreted, he understands\nwhat is meant: he must write down to the level of childish minds and\ncomplacent natures. Accordingly, he writes so, to the best of his\nability, and so, to that limit, do all his fellows. The collective\nresult is seen in the character of the greater number of our books, our\nmagazines, our Saturday and Sunday supplements. On all sides is poured\nforth a flood of print which deludes the hope or flatters the vanity\nof the mass, and which insures a state of mental subserviency,--the\nnecessary requisite of the economic subserviency imposed by the ruling\nclass.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX TRANSITION AND FULFILMENT\n\n\nUpon all the heterogeneous but coalescing units of the social mass\nthe group of magnates imposes its collective will. There are still\ndisputes and rivalries among the rulers, and may ever be; but these are\nfor the most part minor differences, to be settled among themselves\nand their mutual arbitrators, the judges, and qualify in no way\nthe facts of a recognized community of interests and of collective\npurposes and plans. Whatever the individual rivalries, they result in\nno deliberate betrayal of class interest; practically every magnate\nmaintains, at all hazards, his fidelity to the group. A sense of group\nhonor may in most instances prompt this fidelity, but a lively sense\nof apprehension is also influential. For should any magnate become\npossessed of heretical notions, and thereupon make common cause with\nthe public against a particular interest of his class, he would by that\nact banish himself from communion with his fellows, and jeopard his\npossessions to the last dime. There is, as every one knows, a definite\nseigniorial resolve that no strike of workmen on transportation lines\nor in public utilities shall succeed; and when such a strike occurs,\nevery resource of the magnate class is brought to bear to resist and\ndefeat it. Often there are attendant circumstances which might tempt a\nrival, for his own interests, to interfere on behalf of the workers.\nBut the thing is never done; and he who should do it would declass\nhimself as effectually as a medi\u00e6val nobleman would have done by\nenlisting in a peasants\u2019 rebellion. There is, furthermore, a definite\nseigniorial determination to withstand to the utmost the agitation\nfor public ownership; every magnate, with his intellectual retainers\nbehind him, makes of himself a modern Stonewall Jackson in resistance\nto this movement. Here, again, industrial rivalry might at times prompt\na desertion to the public cause. But there is no such case; here, as\nelsewhere, the ruling class maintains its integrity. As is known,\ngreat strikes are sometimes won; and occasionally, in isolated places,\nan advance is made in the direction of public ownership. But neither\nis accomplished through desertions in the seigniorial group, and the\ninstances prove only that its rule has not yet become supreme.\n\n\nI\n\nThe new Feudalism will be but an orderly outgrowth of present\ntendencies and conditions. All societies evolve naturally out of their\npredecessors. In sociology, as in biology, there is no cell without a\nparent cell. The society of each generation develops a multitude of\nspontaneous and acquired variations, and out of these, by a blending\nprocess of natural and conscious selection, the succeeding society\nis evolved. The new order will differ in no important respects from\nthe present, except in the completer development of its more salient\nfeatures. The visitor from another planet who had known the old and\nshould see the new would note but few changes. _Alter et idem_--another\nyet the same--he would say. From magnate to baron, from workman to\nvillein, from publicist to court agent and retainer, will be changes of\nstate and function so slight as to elude all but the keenest eyes.\n\nAn increased power, a more concentrated control, will be seen. But\nthese have their limitations, which must not be disregarded. A sense\nof the latent strength of democracy will restrain the full exercise\nof baronial powers, and a growing sense of ethics will guide baronial\nactivities somewhat toward the channels of social betterment. For\ndemocracy will endure, in spite of the new order. \u201cLike death,\u201d said\nDisraeli, \u201cit gives back nothing.\u201d Something of its substance it\ngives back, it must be confessed; but of its outer forms it yields\nnothing, and thus it retains the potentiality of exerting its will\nin whatever direction it may see fit. And this fact, though now but\nfeebly recognized, will be better understood as time runs on, and\nthe barons will bear in mind the limit of popular patience. It is an\nelastic limit, of a truth; for the mass of mankind are more ready\nto endure known ills than to fly to others that they know not. It\nis a limit which, to be heeded, needs only to be carefully studied.\nMacaulay\u2019s famous dictum, that the privileged classes, when their\nrule is threatened, always bring about their own ruin by making\nfurther exactions, is likely, in this case, to prove untrue. A\nwiser forethought begins to prevail among the autocrats of to-day--a\nforethought destined to grow and expand and to prove of inestimable\nvalue when bequeathed to their successors. Our nobility will thus\ntemper their exactions to an endurable limit; and they will distribute\nbenefits to a degree that makes a tolerant, if not a satisfied, people.\nThey may even make a working principle of Bentham\u2019s maxim, and after,\nof course, appropriating the first and choicest fruits of industry to\nthemselves, may seek to promote the \u201cgreatest happiness of the greatest\nnumber.\u201d For therein will lie their greater security.\n\nThe Positivists, in their prediction of social changes, give us the\nphrase, \u201cthe moralization of capital,\u201d and some of the more hopeful\ntheologians, not to be outdone, have prophesied \u201cthe Christianization\nof capital.\u201d So far there is not much to be said confirmatory of either\nexpectation. Yet it is not to be denied that the faint stirrings of\nan ethical sense are observable among the men of millions, and that\nthe principle of the \u201ctrusteeship of great wealth\u201d has won a number\nof adherents. The enormous benefactions for social purposes, the\nconstruction of \u201cmodel workshops\u201d and \u201cmodel villages,\u201d though in many\ncases prompted by self-interest and in others by a love of ostentation,\nare at least sometimes due to a new sense of social responsibility. A\nduty to society has been apprehended, and these are its first fruits.\nIt is a duty, true enough, which is but dimly seen and imperfectly\nfulfilled. The greater part of these benefactions, as has already\nbeen pointed out, is directed to purposes which have but a slight or\nindirect bearing upon the relief of social distress, the restraint of\ninjustice, or the mitigation of remediable hardships. The giving is\neven often economically false, and if carried to an extreme would prove\ndisastrous to the community; for in many cases it is a transmutation\nof wealth from a status of active capital, wherein it makes possible\na greater diffusion of comfort, to a status of comparative sterility.\nBut, though often mistaken as is the conception and futile the\nfulfilment of this duty, the fact that it is apprehended at all is\none of considerable importance, and one that carries the promise of\nbaronial security in the days to come.\n\n\nII\n\nBondage to the land was the basis of villeinage in the old r\u00e9gime;\nbondage to the job will be the basis of villeinage in the new. The\nnew r\u00e9gime, absolving itself from all general responsibility to its\nworkers, extends a measure of protection, solely as an act of grace,\nonly to those who are faithful and obedient; and it holds the entire\nmass of its employed underlings to the terms of day-by-day service. The\ngrowth of industries has overshadowed the importance of agriculture,\nwhich is ever being pushed back into the West and into other and\nremote countries; and the new order finds its larger interests and its\ngreater measure of control in the workshops rather than on the farms.\nThe oil wells, the mines, the grain fields, the forests, and the great\nthoroughfares of the land are its ultimate sources of revenue; but its\nstrongholds are in the cities. It is in these centres of activity,\nwith their warehouses, where the harvests are hoarded; their workshops,\nwhere the metals and woods are fashioned into articles of use; their\ngreat distributing houses; their exchanges; their enormously valuable\nfranchises to be had for the asking or the seizing, and their pressure\nof population, which forces an hourly increase in the exorbitant value\nof land, that the new Feudalism finds the field best adapted for its\nmain operations.\n\nBondage to the job will be the basis of the new villeinage. The\nwage-system will endure, for it is a simpler and more effective\nmeans of determining the baron\u2019s volume of profits than were the\n\u201cboon-works,\u201d the \u201cweek-works,\u201d and the _corv\u00e9es_ of old. But with\nincreasing concentration on the one hand, and the fiercer competition\nfor employment on the other, the secured job will become the laborer\u2019s\nfortress, which he will hardly dare to evacuate. The hope of bettering\nhis condition by surrendering one place in the expectation of getting\nanother will be qualified by a restraining prudence. He will no\nlonger trust his individual strength, but when he protests against\nill conditions, or, in the last resort, strikes, it will be only in\ncompany with a formidable host of his fellows. And even the collective\nassertion of his demands will be restrained more and more as he\nconsiders the constantly recurring failures of his efforts. Moreover,\nconcentration gives opportunity for an almost indefinite extension of\nthe black-list: a person of offensive activity may be denied work in\nevery feudal shop and on every feudal farm from one end of the country\nto the other. He will be a hardy and reckless industrial villein indeed\nwho will dare incur the enmity of the Duke of the Oil Trust when he\nknows that his actions will be promptly communicated to the banded\nautocracy of dukes, earls, and marquises of the steel, coal, iron,\nwindow glass, lumber, and traffic industries.\n\nThere were three under-classes in the old Feudalism,--free tenants,\nvilleins, and cotters. The number of tenants on the farms has\napproximately doubled in the last twenty years, while in the great\ncities nearly the whole population are tenants. The cotters, with their\nlittle huts and small holdings in isolated places about the margin\nof cultivation, are also in process of restoration. The villeins are\nan already existent class, more numerous proportionately than ever\nbefore, though the exact status of their villeinage is yet to be fixed.\nBut modern society is characterized by complexities unknown in any\nof its predecessors, and the specialization of functions requires a\ngreater number of subordinate classes. It is a difficult task properly\nto differentiate them. They shade off almost imperceptibly into one\nanother; and the dynamic processes of modern industry often hurl,\nin one mighty convulsion, great bodies of individuals from a higher\nto a lower class, blurring or obscuring the lines of demarcation.\nNevertheless, to take a figure from geology, these convulsions become\nless and less frequent as the substratum of industrial processes\nbecomes more fixed and regular; the classes become more stable and show\nmore distinct differences, and they will tend, under the new r\u00e9gime,\nto the formal institution of graded caste. At the bottom are the\nwastrels, at the top the barons; and the gradation, when the new r\u00e9gime\nshall have become fully developed, whole and perfect in its parts, will\nbe about as follows:--\n\nI. The barons, graded on the basis of possessions.\n\nII. The court agents and retainers.\n\nIII. The workers in pure and applied science, artists and physicians.\n\nIV. The entrepreneurs, the managers of the great industries,\ntransformed into a salaried class.\n\nV. The foremen and superintendents. This class has heretofore been\nrecruited largely from the skilled workers, but with the growth of\ntechnical education in schools and colleges, and the development of\nfixed caste, it is likely to become entirely differentiated.\n\nVI. The villeins of the cities and towns, more or less regularly\nemployed, who do skilled work and are partially protected by\norganization.\n\nVII. The villeins of the cities and towns who do unskilled work and\nare unprotected by organization. They will comprise the laborers,\ndomestics, and clerks.\n\nVIII. The villeins of the manorial estates, of the great farms, the\nmines, and the forests.\n\nIX. The small-unit farmers (land owning), the petty tradesmen, and\nmanufacturers.\n\nX. The subtenants on the manorial estates and great farms\n(corresponding to the class of \u201cfree tenants\u201d in the old Feudalism).\n\nXI. The cotters.\n\nXII. The tramps, the occasionally employed, the unemployed--the\nwastrels of city and country.\n\nThe principle of gradation is the only one that can properly be\napplied. It is the relative degree of comfort--material, moral,\nand intellectual--which each class directly contributes to the\nnobility. The wastrels contribute least, and they are the lowest. The\nunder-classes who do the hard work lay the basis of all wealth, but\ntheir contribution to the barons is indirect, and comes to its final\ngoal through intermediate hands. The foremen and superintendents\nrightly hold a more elevated rank, and the entrepreneurs, who directly\ncontribute most of the purely material comfort, will be found well up\ntoward the top. Farther up in the social scale, partly from \u00e6sthetic\nand partly from utilitarian considerations, will be the scientists and\nartists. The new Feudalism, like most autocracies, will foster not only\nthe arts, but also certain kinds of learning--particularly the kinds\nwhich are unlikely to disturb the minds of the multitude. A future\nMarsh or Cope or Le Conte will be liberally patronized and left free\nto discover what he will; and so, too, an Edison or a Marconi. Only\nthey must not meddle with anything relating to social science. For\nobvious reasons, also, physicians will occupy a position of honor and\ncomparative freedom under the new r\u00e9gime.\n\nBut higher yet is the rank of the court agents and retainers. This\nclass will include the editors of \u201crespectable\u201d and \u201csafe\u201d newspapers,\nthe pastors of \u201cconservative\u201d and \u201cwealthy\u201d churches, the professors\nand teachers in endowed colleges and schools, lawyers generally, and\nmost judges and politicians. During the transition period there will\nbe a gradual elimination of the more unserviceable of these persons,\nwith the result that in the end this class will be largely transformed.\nThe individual security of place and livelihood of its members will\nthen depend on the harmony of their utterances and acts with the wishes\nof the great nobles. Theirs, in a sense, will be the most important\nfunction in the State--\u201cto justify the ways of God [and the nobility]\nto man.\u201d They will be the safeguards of the realm, the assuagers of\npopular suspicion and discontent. So long as they rightly fulfil their\nfunctions, their recompense will be generous; but such of them as have\nnot the tact or fidelity to do or say what is expected of them will be\npromptly forced into class XI or XII, or, in extreme cases, banished\nfrom all classes, to become the wretched pariahs of society. At times\ntwo divisions of this class will find life rather a burdensome travail.\nThey are the judges and the politicians. Holding their places at once\nby popular election and by the grace of the barons, they will be fated\nto a constant see-saw of conflicting obligations. They must, in some\nmeasure, satisfy the demands of the multitude, and yet, on the other\nhand, they must obey the commands from above.\n\n\nIII\n\nThrough all the various activities of these classes (except the\nwastrels and the cotters) our Benevolent Feudalism will carry on the\nNation\u2019s work. The full measure of profit is its aim; and having the\nsubstance of its desire, it shows a utilitarian scorn of the mummeries\nand ceremonials by which the overlordship of other days was formally\nacknowledged. The ancient ceremony of \u201chomage,\u201d the swearing of\npersonal fidelity to the lord, is relaxed into the mere beseeching\nof the foreman for work. Directness and efficacy characterize its\nmethods. The wage-system, with its mechanical simplicity, continuing\nin force, there is an absence of the old exactions of special work.\nA mere altering of the wage-scale appropriates to the noble whatever\nshare of the product he feels he may safely demand for himself.\nThus \u201cweek-work,\u201d the three or four days\u2019 toil in each week which\nthe villein had to give unrecompensed to the lord, and \u201cboon-work,\u201d\nthe several days of extra toil three or four times a year, will\nnever be revived. Even the company store, the modern form of feudal\nexaction, will in time be given up, for at best it is but a clumsy\nand offensive makeshift, and defter and less irritating means are at\nhand for reaching the same result. There will hardly be a restoration\nof \u201crelief,\u201d the payment of a year\u2019s dues on inheriting an allotment\nof land, or of \u201cheriot,\u201d the payment of a valuable gift from the\npossessions of a deceased relative. Indeed, these tithes may not be\nworth the bother of collecting; for the villein\u2019s inheritance will\nprobably be but moderate, as befits his state and the place which God\nand the nobility have ordained for him.\n\nPractically all industry will be regulated in terms of wages, and the\nentrepreneurs, who will then have become the chief salaried officers\nof the nobles, will calculate to a hair the needful production for\neach year. Waste and other losses will thus be reduced to a minimum.\nA vast scheme of exact systematization will have taken the place of\nthe old competitive chaos, and industry will be carried on as by\nclock-work. The workshops will be conducted practically as now. Only\nthey will be very much larger, the individual and total output will be\ngreater, the unit cost of production will be lessened. Wages and hours\nwill for a time continue on something like the present level; but,\ndespite the persistence of the unions, no considerable gains in behalf\nof labor are to be expected, except such as are freely given as acts\nof baronial grace and benevolence. The owners of all industry worth\nowning, the barons will laugh at threats of striking and boycotting.\nNo competitor will be permitted to make capital out of the labor\ndisputes of another. There may or may not be competitors. A gigantic\nmerger of all interests, governed by a council of ten, may supplant the\nindividual dukedoms and baronies in the different industries, or these\nmay continue as now, the sovereign units of a federated whole. But in\nneither case can labor carry its point against them. Nevertheless,\ndissatisfaction must be guarded against as a possible menace to the\nr\u00e9gime. Wages and dividends will be nicely balanced with a watchful\nregard for the fostering of content; workshops and villages of yet\nmore approved models than any of the present will be built, and a\nthousand Pelzers and Pullmans will arise. Old-age pensions, or at\nleast the promise of them, will be extended to new groups, and by all\npossible means the lesson that protection and security are due only to\nfaithfulness and obedience will be made plain to the entire villein\nclass.\n\nGradually a change will take place in the aspirations and conduct of\nthe younger generations. Heretofore there has been at least some\ndegree of freedom of choice in determining one\u2019s occupation, however\nmuch that freedom has been curtailed by actual economic conditions.\nBut with the settling of industrial processes comes more and more\nconstraint. The dream of the children of the farms to escape from their\ndrudgery by migrating to the city, and from the stepping-stone of a\nclerkly place at three dollars a week to rise to affluence, will be\ngiven over, and they will follow the footsteps of their fathers. A like\nfixity of condition will be observed in the cities, and the sons of\nclerks and of mechanics and of day laborers will tend to accept their\nenvironment of birth and training and abide by it. It is a phenomenon\nobservable in all countries where the economic pressure is severe, and\nit is yet more certain to obtain in feudal America.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe outlines of the present State loom but feebly through the intricate\nnetwork of the new system. The nobles will have attained to complete\npower, and the motive and operation of government will have become\nsimply the registering and administering of their collective will.\nAnd yet the State will continue very much as now, just as the form\nand name of the Roman Republic continued under Augustus. The present\nState machinery is admirably adapted for the subtle and extra-legal\nexertion of power by an autocracy; and while improvements to that end\nmight unquestionably be made, the barons will hesitate to take action\nwhich will needlessly arouse popular suspicions. From petty constable\nto Supreme Court Justice the officials will understand, or be made\nto understand, the golden mean of their duties; and except for an\noccasional rascally Jacobin, whom it may for a time be difficult to\nsuppress, they will be faithful and obey.\n\nThe manorial courts, with powers exercised by the local lords,\nwill not, as a rule, be restored. Probably the \u201ccourt baron,\u201d for\ndetermining tenantry and wage-questions, will be revived. It may even\ncome as a natural outgrowth of the present conciliation boards, with\na successor of the Committee of Thirty-six of the National Civic\nFederation as a sort of general court baron for the nation. But the\n\u201ccourt leet,\u201d the manorial institution for punishing misdemeanors,\nwherein the baron holds his powers by special grant from the central\nauthority of the State, we shall never know again. It is far simpler\nand will be less disturbing to the popular mind to leave in existence\nthe present courts so long as the baron can dictate the general policy\nof justice.\n\nArmed force will, of course, be employed to overawe the discontented\nand to quiet unnecessary turbulence. Unlike the armed forces of the old\nFeudalism, the nominal control will be that of the State; the soldiery\nwill be regular, and not irregular. Not again will the barons risk the\ngeneral indignation arising from the employment of Pinkertons and other\nprivate armies. The worker has unmistakably shown his preference, when\nhe is to be subdued, for the militia and the Federal army. It is not an\nunreasonable attitude, and it is hardly to be doubted that it will be\nrespected. The militia of our Benevolent Feudalism will be recruited,\nas now, mostly from the clerkly class; and it will be officered largely\nby the sons and nephews of the barons. But its actions will be tempered\nby a saner policy. Governed by those who have most to fear from popular\nexasperation, it will show a finer restraint.\n\n\nV\n\nPeace will be the main desideratum, and its cultivation will be the\nmost honored science of the age. A happy blending of generosity and\nfirmness will characterize all dealings with open discontent; but\nthe prevention of discontent will be the prior study, to which the\nintellect and the energies of the nobles and their legates will be\never bent. To that end the teachings of the schools and colleges, the\nsermons, the editorials, the stump orations, and even the plays at the\ntheatres will be skilfully moulded; and the questioning heart of the\npoor, which perpetually seeks some answer to the painful riddle of the\nearth, will meet with a multitude of mollifying responses. These will\nbe: from the churches, that discontent is the fruit of atheism, and\nthat religion alone is a solace for earthly woe; from the colleges,\nthat discontent is ignorant and irrational, since conditions have\ncertainly bettered in the last one hundred years; from the newspapers,\nthat discontent is anarchy; and from the stump orators that it is\nunpatriotic, since this nation is the greatest and most glorious that\never the sun shone upon. As of old, these reasons will for the time\nsuffice; and against the possibility of recurrent questionings new\napologetics will be skilfully formulated, to be put forth as occasion\nrequires.\n\nCrises will come, as in the life of all nations and societies; but\nthese will be happily surmounted, and the r\u00e9gime will continue, the\nstronger for its trial. A crisis of some moment will follow upon\nthe large displacements of labor soon to result from the shutting\nup of needless factories and the concentration of production in the\nlarger workshops. Discontent will spread, and it will be fomented,\nto some extent, by agitation. But the agitation will be guarded in\nexpression and action, and it will be relatively barren of result. For\nmost ills there is somewhere a remedy, if only it can be discovered\nand made known. The disease of sedition is one whose every symptom\nand indication will be known by rote to our social pathologists of\nto-morrow, and the possible dangers of an epidemic will, in all cases,\nbe provided against. In such a crisis as that following upon the\ndisplacement of labor a host of economists, preachers, and editors will\nbe ready to show indisputably that the evolution taking place is for\nthe best interests of all; that it follows a \u201cnatural and inevitable\nlaw\u201d; that those who have been thrown out of work have only their own\nincompetency to blame; that all who really want work can get it, and\nthat any interference with the prevailing r\u00e9gime will be sure to bring\non a panic, which will only make matters worse. Hearing this, the\nmultitude will hesitatingly acquiesce and thereupon subside; and though\noccasionally a radical journal or a radical agitator will counsel\nrevolt, the mass will remain quiescent. Gradually, too, by one method\nor another, sometimes by the direct action of the nobility, the greater\npart of the displaced workers will find some means of getting bread,\nwhile those who cannot will be eliminated from the struggle and cease\nto be a potential factor for trouble. Crises of other kinds and from\nother causes will arise, only to be checkmated and overcome. What the\nbarons will most dread will be the collective assertion of the villeins\nat the polls; but this, too, from experience, they will know to be\nsomething which, while dangerous, may yet be thwarted. By the putting\nforward of a hundred irrelevant issues they can hopelessly divide\nthe voters at each election; or, that failing, there is always to be\ntrusted as a last resort the cry of impending panic.\n\n\nVI\n\nGradually the various processes in the social life merge, like the\nconfluents of some mighty Amazon, into a definite and confined stream\nof tendency. A more perfect, a better co\u00f6rdinated unity develops in\nthe baronial class, and the measure of its control is heightened and\nextended to a golden mean which insures supremacy with peace. The\nunder-classes settle in their appointed grooves, and the professional\nintermediaries definitely and openly assume their dual function of\nadvisers to the barons and of interpreters to the people of the\nbaronial will and ways. Laws, customs, the arts,--all the institutions\nand social forces,--change with the industrial transformation, and\nattain a finer harmony with the actual facts of life. All except\nliterature, be it said, for this has outdistanced its fellows in the\ngreat current and already reflects the conditions, the moods, and\nideals of the society of to-morrow. Here, at least, the force of nature\ncan no farther go, and no change is to be anticipated for the present.\nBut the other institutions and social forces are gradually transformed,\nand when the full coalescence of all the factors is attained, our\nBenevolent Feudalism, without a shock, without so much variance as will\nenable any man to say, \u201cIt is here,\u201d passes to its ascendency, and the\nmillennium of peace and order begins.\n\nPeace and stability it will maintain at all hazards; and the mass,\nremembering the chaos, the turmoil, the insecurity of the past,\nwill bless its reign. Peace and stability will be its arguments of\ndefence against all criticism, domestic or foreign. An observant\nvisitor from some foreign State may pick a defect here and there;\nbut the eloquent defender of the r\u00e9gime will answer: Look upon the\ntranquillity that everywhere prevails, and reflect upon the inquietude\nand anarchy of the past. The disturbances of labor have ceased, and\nsedition, though occasionally encountered, is easily thwarted and put\ndown. The crudities and barbarities of other days have given way to\nordered regularities. Efficiency--the faculty of getting things--is\nat last rewarded as it should be, for the efficient have inherited\nthe earth and its fulness. The lowly, \u201cwhose happiness is greater\nand whose welfare is more thoroughly conserved when governed than\nwhen governing,\u201d as a twentieth-century philosopher said of them,\nare settled and happy in the state which reason and experience teach\nis their God-appointed lot. They are comfortable, too; and if the\npatriarchal ideal of a vine and fig tree for each is not yet attained,\nat least each has his rented patch in the country or his rented cell\nin a city building. Bread and the circus are freely given to the\ndeserving, and as for the undeserving, they are merely reaping the\nrightful rewards of their contumacy and pride. Order reigns, each has\nhis justly appointed share, and the State rests in security, \u201clapt in\nuniversal law.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n  A\n\n  Abbott, Rev. Dr. Lyman, quoted, 150.\n\n  Absolutism, of heads of combinations, 24;\n    \u201cenlightened,\u201d 60.\n\n  Abstinence, seigniorial, 44.\n\n  Accidents, to railroad workers, 65, 100-101;\n    to workmen generally, 94;\n    laws regarding, 93-96.\n\n  Adams, Professor Henry C., 49;\n    quoted, 50.\n\n  Addams, Jane, 79.\n\n  Agriculture, 9, 19, 21, 47-57, 184.\n\n  Alger, George W., quoted, 89, 110.\n\n  Anacharsis the Scythian, quoted, 38.\n\n  Anarchist-Communism, 4.\n\n  \u201cAnticipations,\u201d 1, 3.\n\n  Arbitration, legislation in behalf of, 97-98, 151.\n\n  Aristotle, quoted, 136.\n\n  Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 152.\n\n  Ashby-Macfadyen, Irene, 79;\n    quoted, 81.\n\n  Automobiles, 37, 38, 39.\n\n\n  B\n\n  Bacon, Francis, quoted, 117.\n\n  Baer, George F., quoted, 27, 81.\n\n  Baldwin, Judge Simeon A., 127;\n    quoted, 128.\n\n  Barons, _see_ Magnates.\n\n  Benefactions, of the magnates, 9-10, 39, 45-46, 59-66, 80, 149, 151.\n\n  Benevolence, of the magnates, 9, 39, 40, 45, 46, 60, 64, 160-161,\n    183, 191, 196.\n\n  Blacklisting, 89, 185-186.\n\n  Blue, Leonard A., quoted, 84-85.\n\n  Brewer, Justice David J., quoted, 120, 131-132.\n\n  Bryan, Hon. W. J., 5.\n\n  \u201cBusiness,\u201d main cult of magnates, 28;\n    cultural effect of, 28;\n    honesty of, 30;\n    sacred privileges of, 92, 98.\n\n\n  C\n\n  Capital, independent, persistence of, 19, 20;\n    transformation of, 20.\n\n  Carnegie, Andrew, quoted, 28, 29, 32.\n\n  Census, bulletin on industrial combinations, 11;\n    on agriculture, 51;\n    on wages, 68-79;\n    on printing and publishing, 141-143.\n\n  Chapman, John Jay, 84.\n\n  Child labor, 76-82;\n    abuses of, 79-81.\n\n  Clark, Professor John B., 3, 6;\n    quoted, 136.\n\n  Coke, Sir Edward, quoted, 112.\n\n  Colorado Fuel and Iron Co., 60-61.\n\n  Combinations, industrial, 11, 12;\n    recent growth of, 13, 14;\n    commercial, mining, and transportation, 14;\n    unification of, 15;\n    absolutism of heads of, 24.\n\n  Commissions, state, 84-85.\n\n  Competition, decline of, 5.\n\n  Conspicuous consumption, 40-41.\n\n  Contract-labor law, violations of, 35.\n\n  Court agents, 186, 187-188.\n\n  Courts, 86, 93, 96, 97, 99, 102-121.\n\n  \u201cCourts baron,\u201d 98, 193.\n\n\n  D\n\n  Davies, Professor Henry, quoted, 7.\n\n  Democracy, persistence of, 182-183.\n\n  Discontent, 66, 125-129, 191, 194.\n\n  Disraeli, Benjamin, quoted, 182.\n\n  Dodd, S. C. T., quoted, 29, 34.\n\n  Draper, William R., 49, 55.\n\n  Drink consumption, 170-171.\n\n\n  E\n\n  Edwards, Professor George Clinton, quoted, 79.\n\n  Emery, Judge Lucilius A., quoted, 108.\n\n  Employers\u2019 duties (legal), 90-91, 104.\n\n  Employers\u2019 liability, 26, 83, 87, 99-100, 103-112.\n\n  Endowments, _see_ Benefactions.\n\n  Engels, Friedrich, 2.\n\n  Entrepreneurs, 187, 190.\n\n\n  F\n\n  Farmers, _see_ Agriculture.\n\n  Fellow-servants, 108-109.\n\n  Fessenden, Stephen D., quoted, 90, 91, 96, 108-109.\n\n  Feudalism, 9, 10, 26, 66, 74, 88, 98, 181-199.\n\n  Fisher, Brooke, 141.\n\n  Flint, Charles R., 29;\n    quoted, 30.\n\n  Fowler, Thomas P., 31.\n\n  Frick, H. C., 33.\n\n\n  G\n\n  Gambling, increase of, 170, 171-172.\n\n  George, Henry, 5.\n\n  Godkin, E. L., quoted, 126-127, 130.\n\n  Gould, George, 33.\n\n\n  H\n\n  Hadley, Dr. Arthur Twining, quoted, 129, 131.\n\n  Hall, Dr. Stanley, 7.\n\n  Hanna, Hon. Marcus A., 29.\n\n  Harriman, E. H., quoted, 35.\n\n  Hewitt, Hon. Abram S., quoted, 32, 169.\n\n  Hill, James J., 28.\n\n  Hillis, Rev. Dr. Newell Dwight, 151.\n\n  Honesty, in \u201cbusiness,\u201d 30, 158.\n\n  Huntington, Rev. Dr. W. R., 151.\n\n\n  I\n\n  Immigration, of farmers into Canada, 49-50.\n\n  Income Tax, 162.\n\n  Industrial Commission, 95.\n\n  Industries, petty, numerical growth of, 18;\n    limitation of, 22;\n    subordination of, 23.\n\n  Injunctions, against automobilists, 38;\n    against workmen, 103, 118-121.\n\n  Interstate Commerce Commission, quoted, 34, 87, 101.\n\n  Ireland, Archbishop John, quoted, 139.\n\n\n  J\n\n  Jackson, Judge John J., 31;\n    quoted, 118, 120.\n\n  Jones, Hon. Samuel M., 164.\n\n  Judiciary, 25, 83, 92, 99, 102-121.\n\n\n  K\n\n  Keller, Judge B. F., quoted, 118.\n\n  Kelly, Edmond, 2.\n\n  Kershaw, John B. C., quoted, 161.\n\n  Kidd, Benjamin, 2, 3.\n\n  Kropotkin, Peter, 2, 4, 5.\n\n\n  L\n\n  Labor, seigniorial praise of, 30;\n    in factories, 66-82;\n    of children, 76-82;\n    attitude of lawmakers toward, 85-89;\n    attitude of judges toward, 103 _et seq._;\n    under new feudalism, 184-186, 190, 191-192.\n\n  Lacey, B. R., 80.\n\n  Lawmakers, 25, 83-101.\n\n  Legislation, \u201clabor\u201d and social, 85-89, 112, 130-133.\n\n  Literature, present state of, 175-179.\n\n  Lloyd, Henry D., 2, 3;\n    quoted, 28.\n\n  Low, Seth, 36;\n    quoted, 37.\n\n\n  M\n\n  MacArthur, Rev. Dr. R. S., quoted, 152.\n\n  McLennan, Judge Peter B., 105.\n\n  Magnates, 8, 9, 16, 23, 24, 26;\n    self-consciousness of the, 27;\n    cult of \u201cbusiness\u201d of the, 28;\n    invasion of literature by the, 28-29;\n    praise of labor by the, 30;\n    attitude toward trade-unions of, 30;\n    attitude toward government of the, 32-39;\n    benefactions of the, 9-10, 39, 45-46, 59-66, 80, 149, 151;\n    ostentation of the, 39-44, 183;\n    \u201cliberality\u201d to employees of the, 59-66;\n    control of legislation by the, 83-89, 99-101;\n    influence upon judiciary of the, 121, 133, 135;\n    praise of the, 137;\n    influence upon the press of the, 143-148;\n    influence upon the pulpit of the, 148-153;\n    general influence upon society of the, 154-170;\n    influence upon literature of the, 175-179;\n    class consciousness of the, 180-181;\n    increased power of the, 182-183, 185, 187, 191, 192-193, 196-198.\n\n  Magruder, Justice B. D., quoted, 114-115.\n\n  Mallock, W. H., quoted, 134.\n\n  Manufactures, census of, 68-79.\n\n  Marx, Karl, 2;\n    quoted, 102.\n\n  Matson, Clarence H., 49.\n\n  Militia, under new feudalism, 193.\n\n  Mitchell, John, 31.\n\n  Model workshops and villages, 60-61.\n\n  Morganization of industry, 25, 175.\n\n  Mosso, Professor Angelo, quoted, 123.\n\n  Munseyization of literature, 175.\n\n\n  N\n\n  Neo-Jeffersonians, 5, 6.\n\n  Newspapers, 25, 139-148, 188.\n\n\n  O\n\n  O\u2019Brien, Judge Denis, 116.\n\n  Old-age pensions, 61-66, 191.\n\n  Ostentation, of the magnates, 39-44, 183.\n\n\n  P\n\n  Pastors, of churches, 148-153, 188.\n\n  Patton, Professor Francis L., quoted, 15.\n\n  Peck, Professor Harry Thurston, quoted, 128-129, 134-135, 137.\n\n  Pensions, old-age, 61-66, 191.\n\n  Potter, Bishop Henry C., quoted, 16, 151.\n\n  Production, small-shop, 17.\n\n\n  R\n\n  Railroads, combinations of, 14;\n    resistance to law and justice by, 34, 111-112;\n    commissions for control of, 35;\n    accidents upon, 65, 100-101.\n\n  Relief organizations, 61, 62, 93.\n\n  Retailers, small, decline of, 22-23.\n\n  Richmond, Benjamin A., \u201cThe New Feudalism,\u201d 58.\n\n  Rockefeller, John D., Jr., quoted, 29.\n\n  Roosevelt, Theodore, quoted, 127.\n\n  Ross, Edward A., 154;\n    quoted, 156, 159.\n\n  Russell, George W. E., quoted, 41.\n\n  Russell, Hon. W. E., quoted, 85.\n\n\n  S\n\n  Sage, Russell, quoted, 29, 163, 165.\n\n  Sanborn, Judge Walter H., 104.\n\n  Savage, Rev. Dr. Minot J., 151.\n\n  Schooling, J. Holt, 170.\n\n  Seigniorial mind, renascence of, 27;\n    instances of, 28, 29, 30, 32, 37, 39, 45, 180-181.\n\n  Shareholders, increase of, 17, 18, 160-163;\n    subordination of, 23, 24, 163.\n\n  Shearman (Thomas G.) and Redfield (Amasa A.), quoted, 111.\n\n  Single-Taxers, 5, 6, 7.\n\n  Socialism, 5, 6, 7.\n\n  Socialists, 2, 164, 167.\n\n  Social Reform Club, pamphlet of, quoted, 118-120.\n\n  Spencer, Herbert, 88.\n\n  Steel combination, magnitude of, 13, 16, 31, 66.\n\n  Stimson, F. J., 86, 112;\n    quoted, 132.\n\n  \u201cSuccess,\u201d 156-160.\n\n  Suicide, increase of, 173-174.\n\n  Sullivan, J. W., 79.\n\n  Sumner, Professor William G., quoted, 122-123, 133, 135-136, 174.\n\n  Swayne, Judge Charles, 117.\n\n\n  T\n\n  Talbot, Bishop Ethelbert, quoted, 151.\n\n  Tenantry, 9, 19;\n    increase of, 21, 50-55, 186.\n\n  Thayer, Judge Amos M., 104.\n\n  Tolstoi, Lyof N., 2, 3.\n\n  Trusts, _see_ Combinations.\n\n\n  V\n\n  Value of dollar, comparative, 73-74.\n\n  Vandervelde, Emile, quoted, 22.\n\n  Veblen, Thorstein, quoted, 40, 43.\n\n  Villeinage, the new, 59, 184-185, 187.\n\n\n  W\n\n  Wadlin, Horace G., quoted, 87-88.\n\n  Wage-earners, 58, 66-82;\n    number in manufactures, 71;\n    child, 76-82;\n    women, 74-76.\n\n  Wage-scale, adjustment of, 66;\n    comparisons of, 66-79.\n\n  Wage-system, continuance of, 185, 190.\n\n  Wallace, Judge William J., quoted, 106.\n\n  Warman, Cy, 49.\n\n  Webb, Sidney, 3.\n\n  Wells, H. G., 1, 3.\n\n  Whittelsey, Dr. Sarah S., 95.\n\n  Willoughby, William F., 94.\n\n  Wright, Colonel Carroll D., 66-67.\n\n  Wyckoff, Professor Walter A., 133;\n    quoted, 168.\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s note:\n\nFootnotes have been relabeled consecutively through the document, and\nthe one footnote not associated with a table has been moved to the end\nof its chapter.\n\nPunctuation has been made consistent.\n\nVariations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in\nthe original publication, except that obvious typographical errors were\ncorrected.","title":"Our Benevolent Feudalism","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":51267}