CHAPTER XXX. Industrial Republics

INDUSTRIAL REPUBLICS

While democracy as a form of government spells ruin, democracy in society spells America in her best estate. The possibility of industrial republics is suggested.

While talking about democracy in government we seem to have lost our conception of democracy in society. What better can we expect from democracy in government than France’s experience, when the voice of the people was declared to be the voice of God? But social democracy is a very different thing from a democratic form of government, and has well nigh become a lost blessing.

When the socialist talks about “Industrial Democracy” he means a democratic form of government, with all industries under popular management. That is one extreme. The capitalist demands industrial autocracy. That is the other extreme.

In a previous chapter I have tried to show that when the Fathers formed this government, their experiences, as well as their knowledge of history led them to fear the monarch. The French Revolution was about to burst into what its promoters promised should be the purest form of democracy which the world had ever seen, and the Fathers were justly apprehensive. Dreading the mass quite as much as they feared the monarch, they chose the middle course. They chose representative government.

I wonder if there be a middle course between industrial autocracy and industrial democracy. Is it possible for business concerns and manufacturing plants to create within their organizations industrial republics where each employee shall have some actual voice, and through their representatives sitting in deliberative bodies, analogous to our legislative branch, originate and recommend or approve reforms and improvements subject, of course, to a veto by a cabinet?

Many methods of profit sharing have been tried and they have usually worked advantageously, but admittedly they fall far short of the requirements. So-called cooperative industrial concerns have been created with some measure of success, yet the real problem remains untouched and as complex as ever. Labor has never established a cooperative industry worthy of the name, except as Mallock shows in “The Limits of Pure Democracy,” when the actual operation of the concern has been placed in the hands of an oligarch whose administration is as arbitrary as that of any captain of industry. Only in that way has it been possible to supply management, the most essential element, as we have seen, in any enterprise. Labor has sometimes found the capital, but capital and labor without management are impotent. A goodly number of corporations have encouraged and even assisted their workmen to buy stock, which is a very good and meritorious policy. It may tend to alleviate but it fails to cure.

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Footnote 3:

Published by E. P. Dutton & Company, New York.

Mallock clearly shows that every successful government unites the elements of autocracy and democracy. Even the Imperial German Government granted certain powers to the people, while the Constitution of the United States clothes the president with powers in certain respects rivaling those of the kaiser. The power of veto which the Constitution vests in the president exceeds any prerogative possessed by the king of England. On the other hand the power to make war rests with Congress, while in Great Britain it requires no parliamentary act. Mallock enlarges upon this thought and shows that socialist organizations and labor unions are successful only because they are arbitrarily managed. Their so-called leaders are, in fact, oligarchs. The Russian Revolution, like the French Revolution, was avowedly of democratic origin, but in fact both were as despotic as anything the world has ever seen. The strength and grandeur of the government of the United States, as established by the Constitution, lies in the most happy combination and blending of these two fundamental principles, popular sovereignty and centralized strength.

The primary difficulty in solving the so-called labor question lies, I think, in failing to recognize the individuality—the personality of the employee. Some tiny share of profits is offered in lieu of increased wages and it is accepted as a mere sop. The offer of stock at a price below the market, with easy payments, is looked upon as a cheap way of tying the hands of the employee, and as an insurance against strikes. I think I am safe in saying that in a very large majority of cases where any of these methods have been tried the men have resented them, and in some instances spurned them. Then the employer concludes that labor will not accept decent treatment, closes his ears, his mouth and his heart and proceeds to get all he can and to give as little as can possibly be forced out of him.

If the basis of masculine happiness is, as I have tried to show, the divinely implanted desire for creatorship, sovereignty and achievement, then we will find it impossible to satisfy the subconscious longings of the human heart with shorter hours, increased wages, or with some slight share of profits in lieu of increased wages. If I am right in my analysis the pathway of access to the real man in the overalls—and a real man is in the overalls and must be discovered—is by some scheme that will necessarily recognize him as a real, thinking and potential entity.

Most humans prefer to be called “citizens” rather than “subjects.” Autocrats speak of their subjects. In republics there are no subjects. All are fellow citizens. If this thought can be carried into the industrial world, the “citizens” therein will find their heart hunger appeased, their hope inspired and they will lift their heads into the clearer atmosphere of industrial opportunity, and possibility of ultimate social recognition. If the theory of evolution has any foundation in fact the species began to lift its head with the first impulse of hope, and its whole body stood erect when the consciousness dawned of being human. A free, brave and hopeful people never went mad. Desperation and failure of recognition is the parent of revolution. Most anyone will fight when called “it.”

Pardon a little personal observation which has direct bearing upon increased efficiency resulting from no other cause than recognition and hope. Forty years ago immigrants from both Germany and Sweden came from Castle Garden to my town every few days. They had been born “subjects” and they toiled after their arrival as they had toiled before as “subjects.” They moved with the air of “subjects.” In my imagination I can see those German families coming up the middle of the street in wooden shoes, single file, the man ahead empty handed except his long pipe, the wife close behind with a baby in her arm, and a big bundle on her head, and the children in regular succession according to age, which seldom varied more than two years. There must have been some hope in the man’s heart or he would not have left his native country. But neither his gait nor his other movements betrayed it. These immigrants immediately sought and secured employment, but they were not worth much the first month or so. It did not take long, however, until it would dawn upon them that opportunity had actually knocked at their door. A few Sunday afternoons on the porch of friends who had left the Fatherland as poor as they, and who were now comfortably situated, plus a wage scale of which hitherto they had only been told, transformed those big fellows. I am not exaggerating when I say they would do without urging from fifty to one hundred percent more work six months, and often six weeks, after their arrival than when they came. They had begun “building castles in Spain.” They were dreaming dreams and the central figure in every vision was a home of their own, and personal recognition. Instead of being subjects they had determined to become citizens.

Can this transformation still be wrought? If it can all danger is past. Of one thing I am certain. It cannot be done by legislation.

CONCLUSION

I came to man’s estate thoroughly believing that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest chart of liberty ever penned by man; and nothing that I have seen, nothing that I have heard, and nothing that has transpired in all my mature life has shaken my faith.

I think I must have been born an optimist. From earliest recollection I have liked the rooster that crows in the morning better than the owl that hoots in the nighttime. And what is best of all, the surroundings of my childhood and youth were exceedingly hopeful. I have seen few hours of discouragement and none of despondency. Despising the pessimist, I have resolved, and am resolved, that nothing shall dim my hope or weaken my confidence either in my country or in the American people, and yet in spite of myself I sometimes feel a very unwelcome impulse.

I observe the teachings of Jefferson forsaken and instead of the minimum of government and the maximum of liberty, more and more of government and less and less of liberty. I see ignored the warnings of Washington against weakening the energy of our governmental system by making changes in the Constitution. I mark the trend away from representative government towards direct government, a policy that has wrought ruin whenever and wherever it has been tried. I note the growing disrespect for authority in the home, in the school and on the street, coupled with certain slurs at the forms of law, as well as for judgments and decrees rendered in harmony therewith, emphasized by bald and naked threats to undermine and, if possible, overthrow our entire judicial system. I overhear the subtle suggestion to our youth that they need give no thought for the morrow, for the government will soon insure employment; that it is folly to make themselves efficient, for the government will sooner or later guarantee wages regardless of merit; that they need not practice thrift, for the government will ultimately pension their old age regardless of profligate habits or vicious living. I discover a growing recognition of capitalistic, industrial and even servant classes, with attempts at class legislation, all subversive of republican ideas, republican traditions and republican institutions. When I realize that all this is as yet only a verdant growth from socialistic, not to say anarchistic seed sown broadcast with scarcely a protest, and knowing that a harvest must yet be garnered, I am at times apprehensive.

But I am reminded that this is the people’s government. If they want it this way it is their business and not mine. If they make a mistake they are abundantly able to respond in consequences. All of which is true, but the fact that it is true, and awfully true, only emphasizes the importance of alert men in the watch towers.

Recognizing the existence of the greatest crisis of all time, a crisis wherein all that we call Christian civilization is imperiled, and being unable to hold my peace I have produced what I hope shall be considered an argument. I have tried to prove scientifically that the fathers were wise beyond their generation. Nothing is scientific that will not stand the test of application. I consider the unschooled George Stevenson a scientist of the first order. He thought out, and worked out, a safety lamp for the protection of coal miners, who during every hour of their toil stood in imminent danger of explosions. Then to prove that he was scientifically correct he had himself lowered into the mine in the nighttime, and, standing there alone, thrust his lighted lamp into the escaping gas. The achievements of the past afford proof positive that our form of government, our policy and our purpose of government were scientifically correct. It cannot be exploded or overthrown. Its only danger is from those of its own household, the children of its own institutions, who may undermine it.

Even the most casual reader must have discovered that in a very marked degree we have departed from the teachings of the Fathers. This we have done first in our form of government, and secondly in our purpose of government, both of which tend strongly to bolshevism, sometimes called socialism, and sometimes called “pure democracy.” It might as well be called Rousseauism. The name is immaterial. The thing itself is the same old snake that first charms, then strangles, covers its victim with ooze and swallows at leisure.

There is little in the book except what the writer considers has direct bearing upon one or the other of two major proposition. First: Representative government was the correct principle when established, and therefore is correct now and will be correct to the end of time. Second: The government was originally correct in granting liberty of action to the citizens and in limiting its own activities to strictly governmental functions. Third: Each and every departure from correct principles or wise policies has led by one pathway or another in the direction of bolshevism.

No people will ever outgrow correct principles of government any more than they will correct principles of agriculture. The fact that times have changed, that inventions have revolutionized industry and that improved methods of transportation have annihilated space, do not in the slightest degree make erroneous a correct principle of government any more than they render false a principle of nature. If the law of gravitation were a provision of the Federal Constitution, there were many in the United States who would have sought to amend it when the “Titanic” went down. They would have argued that when the principle was promulgated by the Great Law Giver, there were neither icebergs nor steamships.

The argument that the people are wiser now than they were is false. The Constitutional Convention contained a larger proportion of college graduates than any convention that has since assembled anywhere, and some of the wisest, and safest and most experienced were not college men. The people who came to America prior to 1787 came for motives as lofty as have actuated those of recent years, and in character, breadth of purpose and intelligence they compare favorably with immigrants of today. In addition, they had many advantages which we do not possess. They had time to think, the prime essential of greatness. They had neither the inclination nor the opportunity to read news items from all over the globe in three or four editions of a metropolitan newspaper, which professedly prints only news, but prints it several times each day. Meditation is necessary for a statesman whether he be required to discharge his responsibility in the halls of legislation or permitted to do so at the polls.

In defending our form of government, I have submitted a brief argument for an independent judiciary. This should be unnecessary in any country enjoying and professing adherence to Anglican liberty. In justification I plead the growing disrespect for, and the multiplied attacks upon, our whole judicial system.

I have also sought to show by the record, as well as by some reference and analysis of human aspirations and emotions, that the governmental policy pursued for many years was correct, and therefore is and will be correct forever. If I have failed to make it clear that for more than one hundred years the government fostered every industry and fathered none, I have made poor use of the material at hand. I have sought to show that the government merely safeguarded the liberties of the people, while her citizens pursued their happiness and won it in achievement, which, in regular sequence, made the nation great. If the argument has any force, it should lead irresistibly to the conclusion that if America expects to make further advancement, the only sure way is to return to these fundamental principles.

I have referred to and briefly discussed bolshevist or socialist doctrines, including confiscation of property, only because they are all involved in the departure from the policy of the fathers. When the Republic changed its course little by little away from granting liberty and affording opportunity and began to restrict and to absorb what the citizen had formerly enjoyed, the way was opened for all the elements of revolution. To understand the gravity of the situation one must study the logical effect, and to comprehend the effect some reference to similar movements in France and Russia is necessary.

I have sought to strengthen the argument against governmental interference in purely secular affairs by showing the unavoidable handicap the government is under when it enters the field of business. This has occasioned some analysis of the Civil Service system, with illustrations of its actual operations.

That my country will return to its original form and purpose, I am more than hopeful; yea, I am confident. It must be that the United States will revert to representative government in its original simplicity. It cannot be otherwise than that a wise citizenship will again select their representatives because of aptitude and will retain them in positions of responsibility until they shall have acquired efficiency through experience, gauging their worth, the while, by results rather than by subservient obedience. An ambitious people, resourceful and hopeful, virile and expectant will certainly take their government out of business, and confine its operations to the legitimate functions of government. All the traditions of the past, all the teachings of the Fathers, all the warnings of history are against paternalism. No government ever made or will make a people great except as it guarantees liberty whereby the people shall make themselves great. No people ever have made or will make themselves great by relying upon their government to do for them the things which the Almighty intended—yea decreed—that they should do for themselves.

APPENDIX A

UNSKILLED LABORERS

Treasury Department, Nov. 11, 1903.

To Civil Service Commission:

Your letter of November 4th relative to the adoption of rules governing the employment of laborers in the Federal Service at Boston is at hand. I will have occasion to take the matter up with the President, and if he desires the rules signed I shall be glad to comply. Otherwise I shall decline.

My principal objection is the fact that paragraph 6, “Definition of Classified Work,” contained in the regulations governing the employment of classified laborers, adopted July 23, 1903, has proved very impracticable. In fact that Department not only violates these rules every day, but ignores them and is compelled to do so. I am also advised that the Civil Service Commission not only violates them, but ignores them. I respect the Commission for doing this, and my respect would not be diminished if it would repeal such regulations as have to be ignored by the very men who promulgate them. The fact that they are thus ignored by the Civil Service Commission is supported by the clear and repeated statement of a member of the Commission, made in my office.

And this is not all. It is well nigh impossible to secure from the skilled laborer register of the Commission persons who are willing to perform the menial service which is required of unskilled laborers. The rule referred to forbids our taking unskilled laborers from our payroll to perform this menial service, and permit them incidentally to perform service that requires a knowledge of reading and writing. We are now in the midst of a prolonged correspondence with the Civil Service Commission over a case arising at San Francisco where the offense was that an unskilled laborer, assigned to handle merchandise, was permitted to go to a pile of bales and boxes on the docks and select a package that was needed for examination, and exercised his ability to read the number on the package. Had some skilled laborer gone with the unskilled laborer, to read the number, and had then informed the unskilled laborer that that package bore the desired number, all would have been well. Under the rules for which you are contending it requires two men to get a package, when either one can get it alone, and then it takes a man and a stenographer in this office to conduct the correspondence that grows out of the offense of allowing either one to do it unaided by the other. If the President wants this condition inaugurated at Boston and other ports, as well as at San Francisco, I shall be very glad to see that it is done.

I will be very glad to co-operate with the Civil Service Commission to improve the service in this Department, not only in Boston but in every port. I am a firm believer in Civil Service, and, I may add, in the machinery of Civil Service but I am more interested in improving the product than in perfecting the machine. So far as I am concerned I will not voluntarily sign and promulgate rules for the mere sake of signing and promulgating rules. I will co-operate to the fullest extent in anything that will improve the service.

Very respectfully, LESLIE M. SHAW.

REQUIREMENTS FOR MALE UNSKILLED LABORERS

Treasury Department, Jan. 26, 1904.

To the Civil Service Commission:

Your letter of the 14th inst, submitting for approval a statement of physical requirements for male unskilled laborers is received.

I am unalterably opposed to a graduated scale of physical ability. If a man of medium weight, 130 lbs., and minimum height, 5 ft. 3 in., and with strength to carry a minimum weight, 150 lbs., is to be marked 70, as you propose, then a man weighing 200 lbs., 6 ft. tall, and able to carry 200 lbs., would I supposed be marked 80; and a man weighing 300 lbs., 6 ft. 5 in. in height, and able to carry 500 lbs., should be marked 100. No one would have such a man around. He would be physically incompetent. Either a man is physically competent or he is not. Most of the defects referred to as sufficient to justify rejection are all right. I have no objection to a list of competents being made and from that list we will select. But I would rather base my judgment upon the appearance of an applicant who would come into the office and say “good morning” and retire than all the physical examinations that the Civil Service Commission can give.

I do not care to prolong the correspondence; I simply will not consent to accept unskilled laborers on a graduated scale of physical ability. I do not care whether a man can lift 150 lbs. or 400 lbs. when there be only 10 lbs. to lift.

Very respectfully, LESLIE M. SHAW.

APPENDIX B

TEA EXAMINER

Treasury Department, Dec. 15, 1904.

To the Civil Service Commission:

I am in receipt of your communication of November 21st certifying three names from which to select a Tea Examiner.

I hereby file objection to each and all of the persons so certified because of mental unfitness for the position for which they apply.

There is no tariff duty on tea and the sole purpose of examination of tea is to protect the American people from cheap and deleterious preparations. A competent tea examiner must be able to pour hot water on a sample of tea and by tasting, tell within five cents per pound of what it is worth, and to determine accurately whether the sample is composed of tea or of some imitation or preparation thereof, and whether it has been adulterated. Whether he can speak the English language or sign his name is immaterial. If he knows tea, and is honest and incorruptible, the American people will get protection. These men know no more about tea than you or I and they are as unfit for the place as either of us.

In proof of the foregoing, one of the names certified is that of a clerk in the Customs Service and is known to this Department to be wholly unfit for Tea Examiner. He is a clerk and not a Tea Expert.

Another is a bookkeeper, and has been continuously thus employed since 1886, and knows nothing about tea and does not pretend to.

The third is now an opener and packer in the Customs Service and admits that all he knows about tea is the fact that he once sold coffee. The serious side of this matter is the absolute and literal truth of the foregoing.

Some conception of the importance of the position may be gained from the fact that over three hundred packages of alleged tea have been excluded in the last ninety days at that port alone.

Very respectfully, LESLIE M. SHAW.

The balance of the correspondence is unimportant in view of the Commissioner’s letter of Dec. 9, 1905, practically one year thereafter, quoted page 173, and in which the Commission states that after two examinations, on its recommendation the place was excepted by the President and filled independent of Civil Service.