What's What in America

by Eugene V. Brewster

Since one can no longer make his own shoes alone and must summon the aid of thousands of his fellows in this simple industry, so must he have the assistance of many more thousands of his fellows to supply him with the numerous other articles needed for his comfort. In exchange for their aid he gives his own labor in his chosen calling, and thus does he and every other man become a necessary unit in the vast universal organization. All men and all industries are interdependent. Without the steel industry, the shoe industry fails for want of nails, eyelets and machines. Without the paper industry the steel industry fails for want of paper, car-wheels, books, stationery, the mails and the telegraph. Without the silk and cotton industries the glove industry cannot thrive, and so on throughout the entire list.

SOME PARTY HISTORY IN PASSING.

Thomas Jefferson, the father of the present Democratic party, was an individualist. He was opposed to the expenditure of public money in repairing highways, to building state canals and to establishing even a national university. He was strongly opposed to the government ownership principle, and maintained that that government is best which governs least. The keynote of his philosophy was "free individual enterprise."

Alexander Hamilton represented the opposite school of political philosophy. He was for concentration, and centralization of power. At the root of the Hamiltonian theory is the belief that the people are not competent to govern themselves,—hence the idea of ruling from above. At the root of the Jeffersonian theory is the home rule principle and absolute confidence in the wisdom of the people. The Republican party today is somewhat consistent with the Hamiltonian philosophy, while the Democratic party is consistent with no one theory, and is composed of an heterogeneous collection of philosophers (?) from divers schools; but, assuming that the Democratic party is mainly Jeffersonian, it should be the last party seriously to suggest the government ownership idea. Yet, if we are to follow Jefferson's "Free individual enterprise" philosophy, we cannot consistently destroy the Trust, for that would be interfering with free individual enterprise. The word "free" was used by Jefferson in the sense of freedom from governmental interference. However, there are those who claim that the Trust destroys free individual enterprise because of special governmental favors, such as tariffs, patent and copyright laws and legislative discrimination, which contention is more or less well founded, and these persons therefore wish the government to refuse these favors, claiming that then the Trust cannot exist, and that then there will be free individual enterprise. But this appears to be an erroneous conclusion, in view of the enormous advantages and economies of co-operation, and by no manner of logical reasoning is it possible to construct a permanent remedy from such proposed action.

Briefly, there is nothing to be found in the traditions and philosophy of either the Democratic or the Republican party, nor the various socialist parties, to meet the situation.

Whether we approve of the collectivist school of philosophy, of which Karl Marx was the illustrious head, or of the individualistic school, of which Proudhon was perhaps the ablest exponent, whether we are followers of Hamilton or Jefferson, we find we must seek out a new ground or a middle ground somewhere, for the old theories will not meet the situation and solve the problem.

There is some truth and virtue in everything that is false and evil, just as there is some evil in everything that is good. We must discover and appropriate the virtues of Jefferson and Proudhon, Hamilton and Marx, and carefully discard their faults.

PART VI.

A PARABLE.

A family was once shipwrecked upon a large island. There were five members of the family all able to work, and by a proper division of their labor they managed to provide themselves with food, clothes, and shelter. After a time another family was shipwrecked upon the same island. The second family followed the example of the first, and each prospered independently of the other. During the next year a third and fourth family were also stranded upon the same island, for it was unmarked on the charts and many a ship had met its fate upon its rocky shores. As each family developed and multiplied, each having selected a different part of the island, four little villages, some distance apart, sprang up. During the daily hunts several other similar villages were discovered in the interior, each representing a shipwrecked family of previous years. As time wore on, and each village grew, and other shiploads of people from all nations were deposited upon the island, it came to pass that the island became quite densely inhabited, and the villages almost touched one another at their outskirts.