VI.
Dear Friend: The longer I stay here the more I am impressed with the profound melancholy which appears to have taken possession of this people. The men, particularly, seem sunk in a torpor of dejection and settled apathy. The women, although by no means so vivacious and vigorous as our women, are, however, far more animated, and seem to have a keener relish for life, than the men. Probably the comparatively recent emancipation of the women, their new political and social freedom, adds a zest to the routine of life here which men do not feel.
So universal is the dreary aspect of the people, whether at work or play—and they play, I observe, far more languidly than they work—that the type of face among them has undergone a strange and interesting transformation. You remember in the old prints the typical “Yankee” face, with its keen, penetrating eye, its courageous, determined chin, its intelligent brow, and its extraordinarily shrewd and intently alert expression. This vivacity and energy, once the chief charm of the American face, has entirely disappeared. In its stead, imagine wooden, almost sodden features, heavy, dull eyes, receding chins, and a brow on which dulness that very nearly approaches stupidity is writ in large letters. On all the faces is a stereotyped expression, a mingling of discontent and dejection. There is the same lack of variety of types among the faces I have noticed, as there is a want of contrast in the houses and streets. The entire population appears to have one face; wherever one turns one sees it repeated ad infinitum, whether it be that of man or woman, youth or old age.
I have accounted to myself for this curious physiological uniformity by finding in it simply a reflection of the uniformity seen in the life and occupations of this people. The race having been leveled to a common plane, there has been a gradual dying out of individuality. The inevitable curtailment of individual aims, individual struggle, individual ambitions, has naturally resulted in producing a featureless type of character, common to all. Since, of course, it is character alone which moulds feature, this people, being all more or less alike, have come, in process of time, to look alike. Nature, after all, is only clay in the potter’s hand; man, with his laws and creeds, fashions in the end his own face.
I found it, however, far more difficult to account for the cloud of melancholy and dejection which appears to have settled upon this people, than to seek the causes of the above physiological aspect. I asked myself, again and again, why should this people, of all people, be full of this discontent and unhappiness? Haven’t they come to the realization of all their dreams? Have they not attained to the very summit and to the full glory of the possession of their social, civic and political desires and aspirations? Is there not equality of sex? Has not leisure instead of labor become a law? Is not private property abolished—is not the land the property of the State—the wage system become a thing of the past, and the possession of capital made a crime punishable by law? Does not the State also exist for the people, educating them, training them for their work in life, distributing among them any surplus funds that the public treasury may accumulate, and furnishing for their amusement and leisure a vast system of educational clubs, educational theaters, public games, museums and shows? If a people are not happy under such conditions, what will insure content?
Yet come with me. Let us walk through the principal thoroughfares, and watch the multitudes of people wandering listlessly up and down the streets; let us see them as they drift aimlessly into the theaters, museums, clubs; let us look in on them as they idly finger the new books and newspapers, yawning over them as they read, and you will agree with me, that the entire population seems to have but one really serious purpose in life—to murder time which appears to be slowly killing them.
After much thought on the reasons of this strange apathy, this inertia, and sloth of energy, I have come to two conclusions which have helped me to solve the problem of this people’s unhappiness. My first conclusion is that the people are dying for want of work—of downright hard work; my second conclusion is that in trying to establish the law of equality, the founders of this ideal community committed the fatal mistake of counting out those indestructible, ineradicable human tendencies and aspirations which have hitherto been the source of all human progress, to which I alluded in my last letter.
First, let us take the subject of work. As all work, men and women alike, and as machinery has been brought here to a wonderful degree of perfection, the actual labor necessary to maintain the people is, of necessity, very light. At first, a hundred or so years ago, in the early days of the community, the time of labor was fixed at five hours per day. But every decade, with the growth of the population, the labor hours have been diminishing. Recently a law has been put into effect, forbidding any one’s working more than two hours a day. This latter law has been found to be an actual necessity, from an economic point of view, as a provision against surplus production. A man, therefore, has the whole of the rest of his day on his hands, to spend as best he may.
The original hope and belief of the founders of Socialism was that if the people could only be given sufficient leisure, the whole race would be lifted to an extraordinary plane of perfection; that, were men given time enough, each man and woman would devote himself and herself to the development and improvement of his or her mental tastes and capacities. At first, I believe, such was the case. For at least thirty years there was an extraordinary zeal for learning and self-improvement. But in time, a reaction came. The founders had forgotten to make allowances for the mass of sluggards, idlers, and ne’er-do-wells who are always the immovable block in the reformer’s path of progress. Two parties were soon developed; the party of enlightenment and the conservative party. Learning being the sole channel for the exercise of individual capacity or individual ambition, the old baneful system of competition soon developed itself. A superior class, a class composed of scholars, students, artists and authors, arose, whose views and whose political ideas threatened the very life and liberties of the community. The aristocracy of intellect, it was found was as dangerous to the State as an aristocracy founded on pride of descent or on the possession of ancestral acres. It became necessary, therefore, to make a law against learning and the sciences. All scholars, authors, artists and scientists who were found on examination to be more gifted than the average, were exiled.
A strict law was passed, and has since been rigidly enforced, forbidding mental or artistic development being carried beyond a certain fixed standard, a standard attainable by all. Quite naturally learning and the arts have gradually died out among this people. Where there are no rewards either of fame or personal advancement, the spur to mental or artistic achievement is found wanting. The arts particularly have languished. Art, as is well known, can only live by the strength of the imagination—and the imagination is fed by contrasts of life and degrees of picturesqueness. One of the old American sages, Emerson I think it was, well said of the artist, “If the rich were not rich, how poor would the poet be!” Quite naturally, in such a civilization as this, no conditions exist for either creating or maintaining artistic ability.