Part 3

But when, through promises from northern doughfaces, they had brought on the war, then those who had been gradually getting rich, quietly extending their mortgages, through railroad and other speculative schemes and exorbitant rates of interest, saw an opportunity to extend, at a single effort, their grasp over the whole property of the country, and reduce the masses to servitude for all time to come, as they are reduced in England. The classes to whom I speak knew that the government would have to have money; and that it would have to come to them to get it; and they also knew that the longer the war continued the more money would be required. So, while the copper-headed bankers of the North gave the rebels all the encouragement they dared, their English brethren furnished them with arms and ammunition, and thus the war was prolonged and made a costly one. The plan was well conceived and nicely executed; the productive classes were saddled with a debt of $3,000,000,000, for which the government received little more than half that sum.

SOME TELLING FIGURES.

But they who were engaged in this scheme over-reached themselves as the South had done before them. They over-estimated the vitality and endurance of the industries, already carrying a debt of $4,000,000,000 in railroad, State, county and municipal bonds, besides paying interest on individual loans to a still larger amount. They could not bear the added burden. With gold at par with which the interest was paid on this enormous debt before the war, they managed to get along; but when the war had raised the price of gold and had added $3,000,000,000 to the debt, it was more than they could stand. On this $11,000,000,000 debt, with the interest on some parts of it at 8, 9, 10 and even 12 and 15 per cent. per annum, and allowing for the large discounts that were frequently extorted, and adding to this the premiums paid for gold and including the dividends on stocks, the industries of the country were, and still are, taxed $1,300,000,000 every year to pay interest! Think of it, you who take this interest! Think of the toiling millions who, beneath the broiling sun, or in the murky mines, or dismal shops, or in the frozen forests, give up their lives to toil! Think of it! Taxed $1,300,000,000 annually for interest, part of which goes to enrich European bankers, and the remainder to those who, in luxurious ease, idle their lives away at home. Think of it, I repeat again, and then wonder, if you can, that industry is prostrate beneath the heel of capital! Say, if you can, whether the wonder is not rather, that there is a wheel in motion in the country, or that there is a plough moving in the soil.

The total products amount to but $5,000,000,000 annually. Out of this, there is first to come the subsistence of the 44,000,000 population. On an average it cannot be said that it costs less than $100 a year per capita to support this mass. Some people spend more than that for cigars in a single month, and others double for wines and other liquors, to say nothing about establishments costing thousands upon thousands to maintain; and yet there are so many who live upon less than $100 a year, that the average cost of subsistence may be placed at that sum. This would consume $4,400,000,000 of the $5,000,000,000 products, and leave but $600,000,000 with which to pay the $1,300,000,000 interest. Hence it is plainly to be seen that the productive interests of the country are running into debt to the capitalists at the rate of $700,000,000 every year; that their mortgages on the property of the country are increasing yearly by that amount. This is a frightful showing, but it is a true one; it is one that the labouring classes are beginning to understand; it is one that you who are oppressing them should also understand, for, by ignoring it, you are challenging swift destruction. The only question is, how long can these things go on, with the wealth of the country increasing at the rate of two and a half per cent. per annum; it is a simple thing to calculate how long it will require for money, increasing at the rate of 6, 8, 10, and even 15 and 20 per cent. per annum, to consume the wealth.

THE ROOT OF THE TROUBLE.

We come now in logical order to the grand and fundamental error that has been made which lies at the back of all political fallacies, and to which are to be primarily attributed all industrial and financial ills from which we suffer, both as a nation and as individuals, since, let the Government be as good as it may, with this error lying between it and the industries, it were impossible that evil should not come upon the people. Hence, let the Government and the public service be as bad as they may; let the people suffer from bad legislation as much as they have; the fault is, after all, more to be charged against the system than against the individuals who, for the time, are its administrators. No matter how skilful the engineer may be, nor how watchful the fireman; if the engine itself be faulty in construction, it will explode; or if the engine be perfect in itself, but connected with other machinery that is not fitted to run at the same speed as the engine, then the machinery will fly in pieces. The same is true of the relations between the Government—the political organisations of the people—and the wealth producers—the industrial organisation of the people, as we shall see, for the Government is a machine constructed after the highest known principles of political mechanism, while intimately connected with it is the industrial organisation, running upon the very lowest—the rudimental—industrial mechanism. Consequently, when the political machinery runs at a high rate of speed, requiring an extra amount of fuel and water, the industrial machinery, in its efforts to supply this demand, and urged on by its connection to keep pace with the rapid motion, flies in pieces; becomes prostrated and useless, as we see it everywhere in the country now, when to keep the political machinery running at the present high rate of speed, it has to draw upon its accumulated stock of fuel, as it is doing now to the amount of $700,000,000 annually.

If we go back and examine the evolution of government and industry, all this will be made clear; so clear that all may understand it. Certain fixed laws direct and regulate the growth of everything, and they are the same for all departments in the universe. The statement of the laws by which the sidereal and solar systems have evolved, will also describe those which the earth has obeyed, and are the laws of all material, governmental, industrial, intellectual, social, moral and religious change. This law as applied to government and industry may be stated in philosophic terms, thus: The progress of government and industry is a continuous establishment of physical relations within the community, in conformity with physical relations arising within the environment, during which the government, industry and the environment pass from a state of incoherent homogeneity to a state of coherent heterogeneity; and, during which, the constitutional units of the government and industry become ever more distinctly individualized.

If we examine the growth of industry and government, and the relations that exist between them now, in this country, we shall discover how far they have advanced from incoherent homogeneity toward coherent heterogeneity. Looking through the dim vistas of the past into the pre-historic time, we find a time when there were no aggregations of individuals larger than the family; that the family was the only government and the only organization for industry; that its head ruled with arbitrary sway, having no one to whom he was accountable, each family having to depend wholly upon itself for subsistence. The people then were in the same state politically and industrially, and this was the homogeneous or original state. Afterwards we find that, for protection or for conquest, two or more families combined in a political sense and formed tribes, having an absolute head, but remaining in the rudimentary state industrially; next, tribes came together and built cities, and cities then coalesced and constituted nations (the rulers of which still using arbitrary power), until single rulers aspired to the dominion of the world; and in a sense succeeded. But all this time, industrially, the people remained in the original state. There had been no coalescing for the purpose of subsistence as there had been for government. While politically the people had evolved through several stages of progression, industrially they were still in the rudimentary state.

Having arrived at the culmination of growth in the line of absolute power, one man having controlled the destinies of the world (thus typifying the future yet to be when the world shall be united under a humanitarian, in place of a despotic government; under the rule of all instead of that of one), a new departure was set up in the direction of this future condition, and the power to which one man aspired began to redistribute itself in limited and constitutional monarchies, down through kings and queens, nobility and republics, to the people generally, in this country advancing so far as to be divided practically among nearly one-half of the people, and theoretically among the whole. Evolution on this line will go on till every person in the world shall form a part of the government. Then the great human family will be a possibility.

SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS.

But up to the present time, what have the people done industrially? Almost nothing, save to subsist themselves on the rudimental plane! Nothing, save to make a few experiments at coalescing. There are a few illustrations of the first step in progress in this respect, which correspond to the coming together of families politically. But there are no industrial cities, to say nothing about nations. There were Brook Farm, New Harmony, and several other attempts at industrial tribes, and there are Oneida and a dozen lesser attempts still in existence, besides numerous cooperative movements. There are the railroad, the telegraph, insurance companies, banks and other corporations, all evidences that a real departure is about to be made in industrial organization; that is, that the people are preparing to depart from the homogeneous state industrially. The grange movement is the most positive evidence of the moving of the people generally in this direction, in which to protect themselves against the rapacity of merchants and railroads, they combine to purchase from first hands and realize a saving of from twenty to fifty per cent. This is an illustration of coalescing for protection. Most of the other illustrations, such as railroads, banks, etc., are for aggressive purposes; are means by which the people, while being seemingly accommodated, are really being robbed. Nevertheless, they are all evidences of progress in the industrial sense, those for aggression in the end compelling others for protection. That there are so many forms of coalescings for aggressive purposes, is conclusive evidence that the time is near when the people will be driven into organizing themselves into industrial communities, cities and nations, and eventually into one nation for the whole world. The first departure having been made, nothing can prevent industry from passing through the same stages of progress through which government has passed, and eventually becoming “at one” with government.

Has the evolution of government proved a blessing to the people? Are we, as a people, in a better condition politically? Are we nearer the ultimate condition than they were of ancient time, when the family was the highest form of government? If we are, then we should be equally improved, industrially, if we were upon the same plane in this respect. There are no contradictions in natural growth. Like degrees of evolution bring equal good in all; the same to government, to industry, to intellect, to morals, to religion. But this development does not mean for the rich what it is inferred by them to mean, unless, indeed, they attempt to resist its progress, which if they do, the same fate will overtake them that came upon those who attempted to stay the tide of political growth. It means for them just what the development of government meant for those who held and exercised its power. The political relations of the monarch and nobility are repeated in the industrial relations of the capitalists and working men. The “levelling” politically has not been down but up. Instead of the rulers having been degraded into serfdom, the serfs have been elevated to the plane of rulers in this country. In the place of one man ruling over others, all men rule themselves, at least in theory. In this transformation no one has been deprived of anything that of right belonged to him; but the masses have received their natural rights from those who held them from them by the right of might. When the industries shall rise to the stage of growth which the government occupies, a like “levelling up” will take place; a like relinquishment of industrial power will be made in favour of the toiling masses. None who are independent now will be made dependent then; but the dependent will rise to independence. Hence the alarm of the rich is wholly without foundation. Such a move does not mean the slightest harm for them; it means equal good for all. It does not mean the taking away of any comfort or luxury from anybody; but the extension of every comfort and luxury that any have to all—to those who suffer, be it from hunger, from nakedness, from want of shelter, or other cause.

OUR NATIONAL DEBT.

If this analysis be applied to the present situation we shall see what is the matter with the industries. When the South rebelled, the North was compelled to resist, or else permit the national unity to be destroyed. Let it be borne in mind what stress was put upon the necessity of preserving the oneness of the people politically. To do this an army was required. When volunteers ceased to offer in sufficient numbers to keep the army to its necessary strength, the government, acting upon the right of a representative of a politically united people, resorted to drafting to determine which of the members of this unity should go into the army and jeopardize their lives for its preservation. This was in perfect harmony with the principles of government upon which this order rests, and was fully endorsed by the people. But what did the government do to subsist these men, and to provide the munitions of war? Did it proceed the same way that it did to secure the men? Not at all! It borrowed the money from the bankers of New York, Hamburg and London, and agreed to pay them a rate of interest double that demanded of any other first class nation, parting with its bonds to them at “60.” In other words, it borrowed $1,800,000,000, at 10 per cent., and gave $1,200,000,000 in bonds as bonus for making the loan.

Now this was the error that was committed, for, although the people were industrially upon a lower order of development than they were politically, nevertheless, since necessity knows no law save that of its own conditions, the government should have proceeded as if we were upon the same plane in both respects. When it called for volunteers to raise an army, and the ranks of industry responded liberally, it should at the same time have also called for volunteer assistance from the ranks of wealth, to subsist that army; and as it resorted to drafting to maintain the necessary number of fighting men when volunteering failed to do it, so should it have resorted to drafting the means with which to pay their expenses when volunteer assistance should have failed to do it. Had the people been one industrially as they were politically; had the industrial organization of the people been upon the same plane as their political organization, this would have been done naturally, and there would have been no bonded debt incurred.

What does this show? This clearly; that, while the government can command the lives of the working men and put them in jeopardy, even sacrifice them without stint to maintain itself, it has no power over the property of the rich to compel them to assist in that maintenance. Had it been so that the government could not have borrowed any money, it would have fallen from this disparity between the political and industrial development. Is not this clear? And if it is, does it not show a very great and grave defect in the wisdom of our institutions?

But what has been the effect of this error in this instance? The present prostration of industry, necessarily: and it has come about in this way: The armies were made up from the ranks of industry; the “rank and file” were so many men taken away from producing, and, therefore, from adding to the accumulated wealth; but the maintenance of the army was borrowed at an exorbitant rate of interest from the accumulated wealth, which was wholly in the hands of those who never fired a shot in defence of the country, nor added a dollar to its aggregate wealth by labour. While the war continued, the men who were left in the ranks of industry were called upon to pay this interest; and when it was over, those who had survived the war and returned to productive toil were included with them. And it is expected that the industrial classes will continue to pay this interest until the bonds mature, and then the bonds themselves, as I shall show you that they do hereafter; or what is more to the point, for the $1,800,000,000 that the government borrowed from the money-lenders it would compel the people to return them as bonus, interest and principal, the enormous sum of $5,000,000,000.

INDUSTRY OVER-BURDENED.

Hence by this error, made possible by the false relations of government and industry, the government has not only compelled industry to furnish the men to fight its battles, win its victories, and maintain its integrity, but it also compels it to pay all the expenses of the war, besides to continue adding to the wealth of the rich. The gentlemen in whose interests it was principally fought, who have sat quietly at home in luxury, and drawn the life-blood from the poor, now go out of all the effects of the war with their fortunes trebled by having merely loaned the government the money it needed to maintain itself in the struggle.

This is a true picture, moderately drawn, of the real facts. While I do not desire to stir up the wrongs that industry has suffered in this matter, and drive the weary toilers to seek redress, it is nevertheless time, when thousands of families are suffering the pangs of hunger as a consequence of this wrong, to lay it open before the people who have been its cause and who have profited by it; it is time that the government should be shown the errors that it has committed and be told that the people are coming to an understanding of them; time that the bond-holders should know that the people are aware of the tenure by which they hold these mortgages on the industries. Let the one protest as it may and the other plead innocence under the revelations as they will, I intend to do everything in my power to rouse them to a sense of the danger in which they stand from the still sleeping masses, who, when they shall come to a full realization of the impositions that have been practised upon them, will not hesitate at any means of redress; especially will they not hesitate when the modern Shylocks, having relentlessly demanded not only the last “pound of flesh” but their very life’s blood also, demand likewise the payment of the bonds! The people already begin to learn that the government has no sympathy for their sufferings, and that it declares that it has no power to alleviate them, which they will think is strange enough since it had the power to bring these evils upon them.

WHAT LABOUR WILL SAY.

Under these conditions they will soon come to argue like this:—Was it not enough to demand of industry that it should fight the battles for the government? Was it not enough that the working-classes should lay down their lives by thousands upon a hundred fields of battle? Was it not enough that mothers and wives should give their sons and husbands to fill the soldier’s grave that the wealth of the country might remain inviolate? Was it not enough that we did all this without now being forced to give our toil year after year to return these rich, who did nothing, these loans? Is it too much to ask of wealth that it pay the expenses of the war? Should we not rather demand, in tones of thunder if lesser ones are insufficient to rouse its holders to a sense of their duty, that it shall bear its part of the burden? We have looked on quietly and seen the sufferings to which this people are reduced by the rapacity of the usurers, until we can no longer hold our peace; and if it be in our power, we intend that wealth and not industry shall yet be made to pay what it should have been made to pay at first; that it shall return to the government the bonds which the toiling masses have redeemed by the rivers of blood that they have shed, and that the government shall return the $2,000,000,000 of interest that it has already filched from industry for interest on this most unjust debt. In other words, since we gave the lives that it was necessary to sacrifice to conquer the rebellion from our ranks, we intend that the rich shall give from what they had when the rebellion broke out, to pay all the expenses of the war, and we will never rest until this be done.

These, I say, are the arguments to which the suffering labourers will resort if you permit them to is driven to desperation by hunger from want of employment. If the rich were wise, they would forestall all opportunity for such arguments to be used, by coming forward voluntarily to do them justice. If what I have suggested will be their arguments, is true, as you know that it is, then wealth should pay the expenses of the war without any further delay, because it is a gross injustice, not to say an unwarrantable imposition on good nature, to make the men who did the fighting also pay this debt, while those for whom it was mostly fought have done nothing but to speculate out of it. Perhaps you have never looked at it in this light; but if you have not, then I pray you look at it so now, before your attention shall be called to it in an unpleasant way; for, unless relief come soon to those who are suffering the pangs of hunger, by reason of your blindness, there will be an imperious demand made of you.

THE SILVER QUESTION.

As if they were not yet satisfied with the oppressions already in operation, some of those whom you have sent to Washington to conduct your business, and who have got you into all this difficulty, think that silver is not good enough money in which to pay interest, because it is not now worth proportionally quite so much as gold. Where has the wisdom and prudence of this people fled? Have they no care for what may come upon their families, that they sit by and see indignity after indignity piled mountain-high upon the people? The lives, the labour, the all of the poor may be taken for the public good; but your bonds, your money, your usury must not be touched. They are considered to be of more consequence than life and toil and everything else that the poor have got to be taken!—your revenue must be sacred, and the Shylocks must take their “pound of flesh” from the daily labourer, let it cost whatever blood it may in the cutting of it; and no wise Portia comes to stay the hand already dripping with the life of the toilers, for is not the interest wrenched from their toil, their life! Look at the poor of the country; millions of them without work and their families either starving or else on the verge of starvation. Let me read you extracts from two articles from the New York Sun of the 20th of July, so that you may see that I am not overdrawing the picture: “Starvation in New York. The sufferings among the poor are fearful. The sufferers are chiefly widows and young children, who, for lack of nourishment, are unable to withstand the intense heat. Instances of actual starvation are mentioned. A widow and her young daughter and son, who are unable to find work, had been for some time living on $2 a week. In a garret, without any other furniture than an old dry goods box for a table and a broken chair, live a widow and her five young children. In a closet are a mattress and a blanket, which at night make a bed for the whole family. An aged woman, who was once in affluent circumstances, was some time ago found nearly dead with hunger; it was only by careful nursing that she was saved. A young man, whose family were gradually starving, was driven to despair and intent on suicide. The child of another died, and not only was the father unable to bury it, but he was unable to provide food for the living.” These are only a few of the cases that come under the observation of a single church relief society. What shall we say of the great city? The other was entitled “Widespread Destitution in Brooklyn. At the meeting of the King’s County Charity Commissioners yesterday, Mr. Bogan said that there was almost as much destitution in the city now as at midwinter. The families of unemployed men who up to this time have never asked for a cent of charity, were daily besieging his office. The system of outdoor relief had been abandoned, and there was no way to provide for the needy except out of his private purse. The heads of families were forced into idleness by the hard times, and, having exhausted all their means were face to face with starvation.” Is not this a fearful picture of those who have helped to make the wealth with which the storehouses of the country are loaded? African slavery was a blessing compared with the condition of thousands of the poor. Let its evils have been as great as we know that they were, the negroes never suffered for food; the women and children never died of starvation; never suffered from cold or went naked. Oh, that some master mind, some master spirit, might be sent of God to show you the way out of this desolation and the necessity of deliverance. But I fear you will not be wise enough to avoid the penalty for neglecting to keep your industrial institutions on the same plane with your political organization, which is the only possible remedy for the present evils. The people must be made as much one industrially as they are politically. Then there would be harmony and consequent peace and prosperity.

IS CASTE A NECESSITY?

But to this the common objection is raised, that it is impossible to make industrial interests common, on account of the necessary differences in labour: that there must be caste in industry. This was the reply that the king made to the people who wanted a political republic; of course it will be the reply that the privileged classes will make to those who want an industrial republic. You know how fallacious the objection has been politically. The king deprived of his crown has not been compelled to sleep with the scavenger. It will prove equally as fallacious industrially. The money and railroad kings will not have to live with the men who do the rough work of the industrial public, unless they choose to do so, any more than they do now. The foundation stones of a house always remain at the bottom, covered up in the dirt; nevertheless, they are even more important to the safety of the house than any upper part. So it will be in the industrial structure when it shall be erected. There will always be Vanderbilts, Stewarts, Fields and Fultons—the agents of the people industrially, as there are now presidents, governors and mayors—agents of the people politically. And do you not see how perfectly this corresponds to the teachings of Jesus when He said: “Let him who would be greatest among you be the servant of all,” and with this falls the objection of the aristocrat to the industrial republic, as utterly untenable.

The real inspiration of this objection, however, springs from quite another source. Those who make it know that with the coming of industrial organisation, the power which money has to increase will fall, and make it impossible for anybody to live without labour. Money has no rightful power to increase. Its origin and sphere distinctly forbid the power, as can be clearly shown. The theory that money is wealth is false. It came to be accepted from the fact that valuable things have been used as money.