Socialism and National Efficiency
I
CONTRARY to popular anticipation, individualism in America — its theoretical support at any rate—seems now to be taking on a new lease of life. To a great extent this satisfactory result must be attributed to the widespread attention that is now being paid to all matters relating to social and industrial efficiency. It is true the machine in modern civilization still holds the centre of the stage, but from all appearances, and before long, the individual also will be called upon to give a stricter account of himself.
Some time ago a very able and convincing article on ‘Our Lost Individuality ’ was printed in the Atlantic Monthly and attracted no end of attention. So far as American individualism in art, literature, scientific research, and industry is concerned, the last nail was driven by this writer into the national coffin. Without exaggeration of any kind, the process by means of which every form of American individualism has been fully uprooted and scattered to the winds, was carefully described and scientifically accounted for. The destroying principles at work were shown to be Socialism, commercialism, and self-centred materialism. As for the future, in the opinion of the critic referred to, there was simply nothing in sight for individualism in America, with all its splendid traditions and monuments, but a sort of comfortable slide down-hill.
On the whole, reading between the lines of this article, one is compelled to recognize a very regretful, yet, as it would seem, an unavoidable state of affairs, by no means modified or brightened by this final reflection, ‘Facilis descensus Averni.’
From the point of view of the historian, taking his cue from countless external manifestations and from the tendencies and demands of public opinion, it is indeed very difficult to find a flaw in these general conclusions. But growth is a great disturber of calculations, and besides, public opinion in America, which is inclined to put individualism on the shelf in this way, is for the most part, politically managed and vote-ridden. At best it is but the outer voice of the people. Under discipline of a stronger and a deeper force, it is frequently called upon to change its face in a day. This all-powerful and directing principle in American life is private opinion, or the inner voice. This is the final court of appeal. Private opinion in America is individualistic to the core. To verify this statement, one has only to separate the workman, the manager, the minister, or the politician from his material necessities for the time being. These people have private opinions which to a great extent, and very naturally, wait upon their necessities. Questioning these men at work or in business, in nine cases out of ten we find them to be individualists at heart, but in the waiting stage. Some day they expect to be able to live up to their private opinions. The prospects of democracy in America are stowed away in this significant state of affairs.
Meanwhile conditions are improving universally, incessantly, and private opinion in places is coming cautiously out of its retirement. It works psychologically. It is forever biding its time. It comes forward, settles a question, and goes into hiding again. Sooner or later emergency calls upon it to come to the rescue, and then it is always discovered that these inner promptings and instincts are, after all, the arbiters and shapers of the national destiny.
The awakening of private opinion to a sense of its responsibility for the behavior and character of the units of society, at the present day, is unmistakable. People in America have come to that point in their history when they can actually afford to pause and give much thought to fundamentals and to the significance of current events in relation to them.
Regardless of politics and wages, people are now finding time to talk about individuality and Socialism in relation to efficiency in schools, in business life, in religion, and in industry. They are beginning to see the inconsistency of preaching one thing and practicing another. Against the current of their inner wishes they are being driven by public opinion toward Socialism, while at the same time, prompted by private opinion, they continue to glorify the American standard-bearers who in the past have conducted the democratic principle from pinnacle to pinnacle of achievement. Cutting loose from the tyranny of their present environment, some of them, once in a while, perhaps, may even open their Shakespeares and read: —
‘ What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God! ’
To the average reader this recital of human possibilities should be extremely satisfactory. But from this prospect, if he turns to his socialistic programme, this spiritual panorama will at once lose its significance. What indeed has Socialism to do with infinite faculties? No stunted growth can ever be expected to climb these heights and work out this splendid vision. For after all has been said, civilization in every age must stand the spiritual test. ‘Without soul man is common, with it he is distinct. In art, it gives him temperament, in faith, insight into the divine.’ Socialism avoids, because it cannot stand, this spiritual test. It reaches out sometimes laterally, for the most part downwards. Individualism, on the other hand, has its eye fixed on the horizon. It makes no apology for its idealism. It points the way to the stars.
But to the everyday citizen, as well as to the student of affairs, the contrast between Socialism and individualism should not merely be a recital of underlying principles. From their spiritual aspects one turns to their practical and workable properties. While in the opinion of the writer, individualism as a working force in the natural evolution of society is bound to reassume its intrinsic importance, there are, nevertheless, a number of practical issues in the situation at the present day that must, in the mean time, be diligently sifted and discussed.
As it appears to the writer of this article, then, Socialism takes issue with efficiency in modern society in three very distinctive ways. It attacks the character and competency of the working classes, crippling the manager and the employee, cheapening religion, and finally materializing the ideals of the people as a whole. A somewhat discursive treatment of these topics is unavoidable.
II
To begin with, the individualist acknowledges the tremendous importance of the social and industrial problems, in the solution of which the public mind is now so seriously and unceasingly interested. During the past few years great advance has been made in the practical application of social science in its various phases. In times past, the science itself was supposed by people in general to be very indefinite in its meaning and application. It is now recognized as a practical living science, whose function it is to report, in definite and scientific terms, on the ways and means by which civilization in the future shall be steered and encouraged.
In the working-out of these problems, both social and industrial, individualism is profoundly and rightfully interested. It must be clearly understood, however, that the individualist at the present day is neither narrow-minded nor intolerant. He recognizes the fact that progress depends upon compromise and the clashing of opinions, consequently he claims kinship with all sorts and conditions of men, as well as representation in every phase of our advancing civilization. Individualism, then, is by no means a nostrum or a panacea. It is not a platform with a dozen planks for the guidance of politicians or legislatures. It is simply a personal campaign, universal in its scope, that is carried on for the purpose of defining and regulating the relationship that should exist and be maintained between vital principles and conditions of living. In other words, individualism is the leaven in human society that dignifies labor, that distinguishes art from imitation, literature from scribbling, and religion from a habit. Lacking its recognition and influence, human effort of every description becomes stale, flat, and unprofitable.
With this honesty of purpose and breadth of view, it follows that the individualist at times finds himself in agreement with the Socialist. In many directions he frankly recognizes the necessity of collective methods and action ; nevertheless, through all and over all, he has his own peculiar interests at stake, which he proposes to champion and which he is convinced the American people are not yet, by any means, willing to overlook or resign.
Now, the distinguishing characteristic of hosts of thoughtful and progressive people nowadays is mental receptiveness. While to a great extent the minds of these people are centred on problems relating to social and industrial conditions, there are really few fixed principles or ideas of progress which they now implicitly believe in, or are determined resolutely to defend. From every conceivable point of view they have studied the situation, and innumerable weak spots relating to faith and works have been discovered. Summing up, these thoughtful, progressive, and successful people have come to the conclusion that most of their old-time ideas and principles are not so much out of place or unimportant as out of order. That there is certainly something very significant and very inspiring in the old-time methods and standards by means of which they themselves climbed the thorny road to material and spiritual success, they are willing to admit; but prosperity and other influences have changed and, as it were, softened their understanding of the laws of progress, and they are now coming round to the idea that these principles, so satisfactory in their own cases, cannot and must not be applied to the situation as it now confronts them in the twentieth century. That is to say, at this point public and private opinion break ranks and adopt opposing theories of progress.
Consequently, while unavoidably congratulating themselves on their own personal work and the achievement connected with it, these thoughtful and successful people, in alliance with masses of comparatively unsuccessful people, are now busily racking their brains in an effort to devise ways and means to enable the present and future generations to climb the same ladder and secure the same satisfactory results in a quicker, easier, and withal in a more scientific manner.
Beating about the bush in this way, and bringing their theories and conclusions into contact with conditions as they are to-day in the social and industrial world, Americans of the most thoughtful type and of the most successful class have put and are putting aside their defensive armor, consisting for the most part of logical conclusions derived from the past, and are now freely assimilating a new order of ideas and impressions which they propose to put into practical operation in the different branches of social and industrial service. These people have not openly joined the ranks of the Socialists, but they are continually borrowing from their platform.
The general policy of this widespread movement in modern society is distinctly socialistic in its nature. Practically speaking, it is a movement for the improvement of conditions at the expense of principles. Called upon to express itself definitely in legislation and otherwise, it is now giving t he country to understand that under stress of unsatisfactory social, industrial, and mental conditions, the hitherto generally accepted fundamentals of progressive and healthy civilization must, for the present at any rate, go by the board.
But there is a strange delusion connected with this socialistic movement for the regeneration of human society. The Socialists and their assistants propose to accomplish their ends in general by the restriction of individual initiative, and by abolishing private property and the existing competitive system. In other words, the individual as owner and director of brains and property must go.
But the Socialist does not intend to deprive the individual and his work of a certain face value. His virtues and reputation may still be used for decorative or descriptive purposes; and right here the delusion comes in. For in some mysterious way the Socialist has persuaded himself that the energy, the inspiration, and the character, that are bound up in the freedom and initiative of the individual, are playthings, over which, in the future, his control is certain to be absolute. He imagines that these all-necessary and vital characteristics, ruthlessly discouraged and trampled upon by the terms of his present propaganda, will eventually reassert themselves and reassume their basic importance, under the stimulating influence of the socialistic legislation, with which it is now proposed to inoculate the social and industrial life of the nation.
Applied to the rest of the world and to the measures people in general are compelled to take to improve conditions, this contention or prophecy is absolutely correct, that is to say, private opinion is bound, sooner or later, to straighten things out; but applied to the Socialist, and his programme, it is a ridiculous delusion. For the rest of the world has a deep-down private opinion with a spiritual background, — the Socialist has nothing of the kind. He has a bill of fare, but no conscience in the spiritual sense, for a conscience is the seat of the competitive method, and breeds all sort of individualisms. The Socialist has little faith in spiritual direction and solution of practical problems. His mind runs unswervingly in the rut of material conditions. His social and industrial eggs are all deposited in one material basket, consequently he cannot anticipate either assistance or results in the future from influences which he has consistently scorned in the past.
Furthermore, a brief consideration of results already accomplished, and of tendencies and indications which, under socialistic treatment, are even now, here and there, coming to the surface, should be sufficient to dispel any lingering doubts on this subject.
For one thing, it is absolutely fatal to good government, as well as to human progress in general, to separate the individual from his personal responsibility. The substitution of collective interest and responsibility for personal responsibility and personal interest in a business establishment, on a railroad, or in human affairs of any description, must always be looked upon as a change for the worse. Applied to society, it is simply a return to the principle of the soulless corporation. Yet this is the central idea of the up-to-date doctrine and programme of the Socialist. For the Socialists, the labor-unions, and their sympathizers, are now saying to American workers in general, and to railroad men in particular, to the men in the shops and in the offices as well as to those on the road, —
‘Exchange your individuality for your pay-roll and your conditions. Take no thought for the morrow. Look to your unions and to society for everything. Society is getting ready in bountiful measures to pension your veterans, to recompense you for injuries, to surround you with a healthy and comfortable environment, and to see to it that you are well clad, well fed, and well housed, and that your religion even is adapted and made to harmonize with your socialistic or unionized condition. All this and more of a similar and praiseworthy nature is to be secured on the distinct understanding that you must not interfere with these plans of the Socialists, of your unions and of society in your behalf, by taking any personal share or responsibility in the proceedings. Society is willing to shoulder all the risk and take all the responsibility.’
III
To a considerable extent this may truthfully be said to be a fair conception of the trend of affairs in modern industrial life. The Massachusetts Commission on Compensation for Industrial Accidents gives us an illustration of the abandonment of personal responsibility and interest in a proposed ‘Compensation Act,’ which provides compensation in cases of accidents to employees. Recovery is to be allowed in all cases from the employer, irrespective of negligence. The entire responsibility is to be placed upon the employer, without qualification, and the employee is expressly prohibited from contributing in any way toward providing a fund for his own protection.
These ideas and measures, tending to separate the individual from his personal responsibility, have taken a very practical turn on the railroads of the country. Here, as perhaps nowhere else, can the elimination of personal responsibility be studied in the light of results that are being meted out to the public every day in terms of accidents and destruction of property. In face of all manner of safeguards and systems of discipline, the general position that a man is not personally responsible for mistakes and negligence is becoming more and more evident. The history of the railroad business, and of public opinion in relation to it, goes to show that if a mistake is made it is not the man, but the conditions, that are to blame for it. The cure is supposed to consist in making the worker healthier, wealthier, and happier, and in removing opportunity and temptation from his path. In this way, personal responsibility in American industrial life is resolving itself into something that resembles a hunt for germs.
Some time ago a sort of symposium of the opinion of railroad managers on the subject was printed in the Railway Age Gazette. No names were signed to the opinions, so these opinions are all the more likely to be truthful and accurate. The conclusions of the great majority of these men were voiced as follows: —
‘The efficiency of labor on railroads is decreasing because the individual is losing his identity and becoming a mere unit in an organization. The men have shown no spirit towards increasing their own efficiency; higher pay seems to result in lower efficiency, both actually and per dollar of pay; and they resent bonus methods, the piece-work system, and other plans designed to obtain higher efficiency.’
This state of affairs illustrates the sacrifice of principles for conditions. Look where we will, in labor organizations and elsewhere, this is the game that is universally being played by Socialism and the Socialist, and the results of the campaign are by no means confined to the rank and file of the workers. The employer, the manager, and the politician, are all more or less entangled in the meshes of this basic industrial understanding. Consequently, and mysteriously here and there, we find the employer and the Socialist pulling together in the same direction. To account for this we must bear in mind the menace of the politician at the present day, and the tyranny of the manipulated labor vote. On the workingman as well as on the manager and the employer the general effect of this social and industrial understanding is the same. It standardizes their movements, limits their mental output, and tends to obliterate their personality.
Just how this matter is looked upon by men of wide influence and knowledge of industrial life at the present day, makes interesting reading. One of these well-informed observers has this to say on the subject: —
’No one is so well informed as the railroad president or manager on this socialistic trend in modern industrial life. In every guise, subtly or bluntly, the schemes of Socialism confront and perplex us. Forced by circumstances to deal with single concrete cases, we can do little to fend off the socialistic programme as a whole. At times still more regrettable, it is our inevitable lot to side with communistic proposals, lest a worse befall. Under pressure of this kind we are continually called upon to recognize, and even at times to prescribe, all sorts of “drowsy syrups of the east” to put individual initiative and responsibility to sleep. From above and below, this indiscriminate assault on principles in favor of conditions continues to perplex the employer and manager. Certain extensions of the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission, for example, while admittedly hampering the free play of individualism and tending unmistakably towards inefficiency of service, were favored by the railroads as against heterogeneous regulations that the several states might impose.’
Face to face with problems relating to the public interests, and to efficiency of service from the national standpoint, brought about by the socialistic trend of labor organizations and the labor vote on the one hand, and the perplexities of the employer and the manager on the other, the federal government, taking the bull by the horns, is now assuming the control and direction of affairs. The policy of the government is summed up in the single word regulation. Just what this word means, and its method of application, has been strikingly enunciated by ex-President Roosevelt, in an article which was published a short time ago in the Outlook. In regard to the efficiency of labor, Mr. Roosevelt has taken his stand as follows: —
‘He, the workingman, ought to join with his fellows in a union, or in some similar association for mutual help and betterment, and in that association he should strive to raise higher his less competent brothers; but he should positively decline to allow himself to be dragged down to their level, and if he does thus permit himself to be dragged down the penalty is the loss of individual, of class, and finally of national efficiency’
Now, whether generally understood or not, this leveling process which Mr. Roosevelt so emphatically condemns is written either by implication or actual affirmation into the constitution of practically every labor union and socialistic platform in the country. Be this as it may, however, Mr. Roosevelt, not only detects these indications of social and industrial paralysis, but confidently points to the remedy. He affirms, —
‘We should consistently favor labor organizations when they act well, and as fearlessly oppose them when they act badly. I wish to see labor organizations powerful; and the minute that any organization becomes powerful, it becomes powerful for evil as well as for good; and when organized labor becomes sufficiently powerful the state will have to regulate the collective use of labor, just as it must regulate the collective use of capital.’
The italics are the present writer’s. Mr. Roosevelt, however, is clearly reckoning without his host. As a matter of fact, neither the socialistic propaganda nor the organization or principles of union labor are amenable to state or any other regulation. True, you may bring the industrial horse to this particular brook, but you cannot force him to drink. The state can regulate the railroad, the capitalist, and the manager, because it can block their progress and compel them to do as the law directs in their public capacities as caterers to the public service. But the teachings of Socialism and the unwritten laws and influences of organized labor are not subject to legislation of any kind. The leveling process in modern industry, the blocking of individual ambition and initiative, and the elimination of personal responsibility, are beyond the reach of human laws.
As Mr. Roosevelt correctly affirms, these influences threaten the foundation of national efficiency. At this problem of national efficiency the writer of this article has from the beginning leveled his arguments and illustrations. As he looks at it, Socialism and national inefficiency are synonymous. Some of the dangerous tendencies that threaten society in this respect have been noted. But, contrary to Mr. Roosevelt’s ideas on the subject, the remedy must come from within, and not from without. The key to the situation lies in the inevitable outbreak of what is at present latent private opinion. The reality of this force at the root of American civilization is not open to doubt. Among the workers themselves it is awake and awakening. To think that any class in the community, with the exception of the most radical socialists, will consent in the long run to national inefficiency, is the height of absurdity. The question now remains, in what manner and along what lines can Socialism best be discredited, and the universal private opinion on the subject be aroused to a proper appreciation of its impending duties.
IV
But before a final word is said on the nature and efficacy of American private opinion, there are yet one or two shafts in the quiver of the Socialist to which passing attention must be directed.
For one thing the Socialist has no use for the capitalist. The individualist, on the other hand, does not wish to shirk any responsibility in the matter. He boldly pins his faith to the method and the man. He believes in the activities and utilities connected with money, when properly applied, just as he believes in the brains of the Socialist when they are utilized in a sane and conservative manner. Broadly speaking, in the wholesale abuse of the American capitalist, public opinion and the Socialist join hands. Private opinion in thought, word, and deed does nothing of the kind. For the capitalist idea is born with every human creature. It is at the root of every known and approved educational and civilizing process. Every man, woman, or child, including Socialists, who is not a capitalist, in thought, word, and deed, is a social failure. A capitalist, of course, is not only a banker, a mill-owner, or an employer of groups of working people; he represents, in fact, the accumulating and distributing process by means of which in times past, as well as to-day, fabulous fortunes, the wonders of engineering skill, the progress of industry and art, as well as all that is best in national thought and sympathy, together with many great social wrongs, of course, have been brought into being, kept alive, and encouraged.
In dealing with the capitalist principle, however, you cannot separate the man from the process. It is impossible to cut the capitalist or the competitive principle into fractions. To encourage industry, thrift, and honorable emulation in the young, and then refuse to manhood their natural exercise and remuneration is the height of social and economic absurdity. To destroy the one is to uproot the other. As the individualist looks at it, then, the capitalist principle covers the earth, upon the whole, with beneficent influence.
The capitalist and the competitive system, of course, go hand in hand. Basking in the sun of unprecedented success in every branch of human endeavor, the present generation is apt to lose sight of the aggressive nature of the socialist campaign in America. The Socialist is the most aggressive factor in modern society, yet he scorns the competitive method. He poses as a lover of peace; he believes in cooperation, particularly among those who accept the principles of Socialism. He bows to the majority, although he attaches very little significance to majority verdicts when they are not in his favor. As a rule, he believes in peaceful methods of adjusting difficulties and securing reforms. When unable to make his point however, or when he is defeated at the polls, he usually assumes a Micawber-like attitude. He is willing to wait for something to turn up, — until the intelligence of the people, for example, is able to grasp and comprehend the beatitudes contained in his principles and programmes. The attitude of Socialists all over the world toward the matter of war between nations is generally understood. The party is receiving considerable credit for this attitude. Socialists would have peace at any price. But, although the principle is the same, and the profit-and-loss is at times somewhat similar, industrial peace does not seem to appeal to them in the same way.
At the recent International Congress of the Socialists, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, the proposition to resort to a universal strike in the event of war was seriously considered and finally given to the International Bureau to be studied and inquired into. This congress, representing many millions of able-bodied men, took a very strong position in favor of stopping war by every means.
Standing by itself, the position of Socialism in regard to these modern wars and armaments is entirely commendable. Cooperation, brotherly love, and sufferance have their place in modern society, and glorious missions at that; nevertheless, above all and through all, from the progressive point of view, the most indispensable, perhaps the greatest, thing in the world is simply friction. Humanly speaking, the principle spreads itself out into all manner of life-giving, life-energizing undertakings. All life seems to have some kind of a frictional outset. At this point the competitive system of the universe begins its career. The competitive, the aggressive principle is simply the growing principle; and in these days when so much that is vital to the community is being sacrificed for the sake of harmony, and when the Socialist is making so much capital out of his pacific doctrines, a few additional words on the nature of competition and its significance will not be out of place.
Contention of every kind is, of course, a matter of degree and method. A fight may be the outcome of greed, hatred, or love. True, there is a kind of person who has no use for competition or a row in any form, and by the way, you cannot have the former without a sprinkling of the latter, for the very good reason that probably ninety-five per cent of the people one meets on the street, Socialists included, have this competitive and aggressive spirit tucked away and in tapable form somewhere in their anatomies. But here again, and in a marked degree, public and private opinion are usually opposed to each other. Private opinion is continually projecting peaceful methods and ideas into the future.
The individualist, however, merges a good deal of his idealism in the stern logic of things as they are and as they have been. If we allow the history of individuals or of the race to speak for itself, it will inform us that progress on the whole is the result of positive and negative human batteries. In order to start human activity of any kind, a natural contention between the elements is absolutely essential. It remains for us to guide and humanize the activities without destroying the competitive nature of the human battery.
The individualist makes no apology for war under any pretense. He would do away with it now and forever. As a matter of fact, the individualist is inherently more pacific than the Socialist, in the same way and somewhat for the same reason that an individual is usually less excitable than a crowd. As for the past, the individualist can neither defend the principle of war nor account for its persistent manifestation in every age and in almost every country unless he looks upon it as a relic of barbarism, destined to be obliterated, as in fact it is being obliterated, with the gradual disappearance of barbaric ideas. To give an intelligent reason for warfare in ages gone by, it would certainly be necessary to fathom and to be versed in the psychology of the barbaric mind. This is beyond the ken or the reach of the historian. But in defending the competitive method as a whole, it is pardonable for the individualist to take note of some of the compensations which seem to have accompanied the history of warfare in all ages.
For one thing, successful warfare is at all times a personal matter. Thus a nation is successful in war, not altogether because of its well-planned collective arrangement, its large army and navy, or even because its soldiers and sailors are particularly well-trained, but because it has the power of its manhood and its fighting blood at its back.
The Socialist, of course, will not listen to this argument. He has declared war against the competitive and capitalist systems from beginning to end, and the battle between the opposing forces must now be fought to a finish on competitive planes in the arena of life, by modern methods of discussion and experiment.
But to put a stop to war between nations is only an incidental feature of the Socialist’s programme. He desires not only to eliminate competitive ideas and methods between nations and individuals, but also as much as possible between the individual and his environment. Here he touches the very heart of things. The design itself in all its nakedness, its application, and manifest effect on organic life has been aptly illustrated by an experiment recently performed by a German professor, whose object was to investigate the action of the competitive method on the organism. It is not necessary to agree with this professor from beginning to end in order to appreciate the drift of his story. The experiment was described in the New York Herald somewhat as follows: —
The professor started his experiment with the idea that eating, sleeping, love-making, and warfare are the four main physiological actions necessary for the maintenance of the human race on this extremely slippery globe. He took for his purpose a number of frogs in the embryo state. Some of these he brought up in a sterilized tank, on sterilized food, giving them nothing but sterilized water to swim in. No ills or troubles could possibly affect them. Each could, so to speak, sit under his own fig tree and enjoy the fruit of his own vineyard without fear of attack from boy or microbe. The rest of the frogs he brought up in the natural way, exposing them to all chances and enemies, especially microbes. Now, what happened? Of the unprotected frogs, a few died from the diseases and severities to which they were exposed, but the remainder grew up into fine healthy frogs, a credit to their class. Of the protected frogs, on the other hand, all grew to froghood, but they had been happier dead, for they were miserable anæmic creatures, a disgrace to their class. The former had been reared on the individualistic diet of freedom and competition, the latter upon the misdirected brotherhood and protective method of the Socialist.
Reduced to concrete form, this illustration simply raises the question as to whether it is better, healthier, and wiser that a given community should be constituted of about nine hundred and fifty strenuous individuals, battling in all the ups and downs of a competitive system of progress, or of one thousand listless creatures, dreamily satisfied and inevitably headed towards extinction.
Finally, the individualist does not propose silently to submit to the domination of public opinion, political for the most part, in these matters of social and industrial development. Private opinion is forever working out into higher standards of public opinion. True, Socialism is aggressive and has many allies, but luckily the individualist also is a born fighter. To have and to hold is his avowed slogan. The burden of ages is upon his back. He believes that when men are as individuals free to work, to earn, to save, and use their earnings as they see fit, the capable, the industrious, the temperate, and the intelligent, everywhere tend to rise to prosperity. The real interests of society are bound up, not so much in the completely conditioned individual as in him, in every walk of life, ‘that overcometh.’ Workingalong these lines the individualist has hitherto always been looked upon as the all-necessary and paramount unit in social and industrial progress. To-day, as never before, he is called upon to defend this position and reassert these principles. National efficiency itself is at stake.
Among other characteristics the individualist has the plain-speaking habit. Some time ago, in a public debate, Mr. George B. Hugo, president of the Employers’ Association of Massachusetts, addressed a body of Socialists as follows: —
‘Do you as Socialists,’ he said, ‘for one moment believe that the unjust taking or confiscating of property by the simple act of the stroke of the pen will be accepted peaceably by individuals who now own property? Individual freedom and the private ownership of property will not be superseded by slavery and collective ownership without a struggle.’
Mr. Hugo is right, for it is quite as reprehensible to confiscate the ambition of the worker as it is to steal the property of the capitalist. But the struggle and the constructive work in the future are to be in the main, and to begin with, an internal movement. It is to be a revolt of American private opinion against Socialism and national inefficiency. One of the principal agents in this revolt is likely to be the enlightened, well-paid, well-conditioned, and well-organized laboring man. Religion, industry, and political science are all vitally interested in the leveling-up process. In reality, they are all of one private mind on the subject. The struggle in the future will consist in bringing these facts to the surface.
Personally, however, the present, writer has no desire—probably no business — to preach a sermon on the principles and prospects of American democracy. Its traditions and antecedents are not his. Years ago he appeared on the scene like a ship on the horizon, drifting languidly on the waters, with sails flapping in a spiritless breeze. Since then his opportunities have been great; his gratitude is still greater. He has inhaled the democratic atmosphere, absorbed what he considered to be its spirit, and appropriated to his own use what he could of its splendid lessons. In his opinion it is no mean privilege to be even heir-at-law to such a heritage. He makes no apology either for his opinions or his egotism. The ship, meanwhile, sails on, full-rigged and bountifully freighted; no longer becalmed but with a number of ‘bones,’ socialistic and otherwise, ‘in her teeth.’