Obviously to those who, having eyes, do see, public ownership of anything is a step in the direction of Socialism, for perfect Socialism means public ownership of everything. But “principle” has nothing to do with it. The principle of public ownership is already accepted and established. It has no visible opponents except in the camp of the anarchists, and fewer of them are visible there than soap and water would reveal. Antagonists of the principle of Socialism lost their fight when the first human government held the dedicatory exercises of a cave of legislation. Since then the only question about the matter has been how far the extension of Socialism is expedient. Some would draw the limiting line at one place, some at another; but only a fool thinks there can be government without it, or good government without a great deal of it. (The fact that we have always had a great deal of it, yet never had good government, affirms nothing that it is worth while to consider.) The word-worn example of our postal department is only one of a thousand instances of pure Socialism. If it did not exist, how bitter an opposition a proposal to establish it would evoke from adversaries of the Red Rag! The government builds and operates bridges with general assent; but, as the late General Walker pointed out, it may under some circumstances be more economical, or better otherwise, to build and operate a ferry boat, which is a floating bridge. But that is opposed as rank Socialism.
The truth is that the men of “principle” are a pretty dangerous class, generally speaking—and they are generally speaking. It is they that hamper us in every war. It is they who, preventing concentration and regulation of unabolishable evils, promote their distribution and liberty. Moral principles are pretty good things—for the young and those not well grounded in goodness. If one have an impediment in his thought, or is otherwise unequal to emergencies as they arise, it is safest to be provided beforehand with something to refer to in order that a right decision may be made without taking thought. But spirits of a purer fire prefer to decide each question as it comes up, and to act upon the merits of the case, unbound and unpledged. With a quick intelligence, a capable conscience and a habit of doing right automatically, one has little need to burden one’s mind and memory with a set of solemn principles formulated by owlish philosophers who do not happen to know that what is right is merely what, in the long run and with regard to the greater number of cases, is expedient. Principle is not always an infallible guide. For illustration, it is not always expedient—that is, for the good of all concerned—to tell the truth, to be entirely just or merciful, to pay a debt. I can conceive a case in which it would be right to assassinate one’s neighbor. Suppose him to be a desperate scoundrel of a chemist who has devised a means of setting the atmosphere afire. The man who should go through life on an inflexible line of principle would border his path with a havoc of human happiness.
What one may think perfect one may not always think desirable. By “perfect” one may mean merely complete, and the word was so used in my reference to Socialism. I am not myself an advocate of “perfect Socialism,” but as to government ownership of railways, there is doubtless a good deal to be said on both sides. One argument in its favor appears decisive; under a system subject to popular control the law of gravitation would be shorn of its preëminence as a means of removing personal property from the baggage car.
VI
When M. Casimir-Perier resigned the French presidency there were those who regarded the act as weak, cowardly, undutiful and otherwise censurable. It seems to me the act, not of a feeble man, but of a strong one—not that of a coward, but that of a gentleman. Indeed, I hardly know where to look in history for an act more entirely gratifying to my sense of the “fitness of things” than this dignified notification to mankind that in consenting to serve one’s country one does not relinquish the right to decent treatment—to immunity from factious opposition and abuse—to at least as much civil consideration as is due from the church to the devil.
M. Casimir-Perier did not seek the presidency of the French republic; it was thrust upon him against his protestations by an apparently unanimous mandate of the French people in an emergency which it was thought that he was the best man to meet. That he met it with modesty and courage was testified without dissent. That he afterward did anything to forfeit the confidence and respect that he then inspired is not true, and nobody believes it true. Yet in his letter of resignation he said, and said truly:
“For the last six months a campaign of slander and insult has been going on against the army, magistrates, Parliament and the hierarchical Chief of State, and this license to disseminate social hatred continues to be called ‘liberty of thought.’”
And with a dignity to which it seems strange that any one could be insensible, he added:
“The respect and ambition which I entertain for my country will not allow me to acknowledge that the servants of the country, and he who represents it in the presence of foreign nations, may be insulted every day.”
These are manly words. Have we any warrant for demanding or expecting that men of clean life and character will devote themselves to the good of ingrates who pay, and ingrates who permit them to pay, in flung mud? It is hardly credible that among even those persons most infatuated by contemplation of their own merit as pointed out by their thrifty sycophants “liberty of thought” has been carried to that extreme. The right of the State to demand the sacrifice of the citizen’s life is a doctrine as old as the patriotism that concedes it, but the right to require him to forego his good name—that is something new under the sun.