Solaris Farm: A Story of the Twentieth Century

by Milan C. Edson

"In recruiting crusaders from the ranks of the wealthy, a special effort should be made, to have them take up the cause as a fashionable fad. They can be diplomatically led, where they cannot be coaxed or driven. In the face of any opposition they may display, it must ever be borne in mind, that the hearts of nine-tenths of the wealthy, are good and true. Their natural promptings are to do right; to use their riches for the advancement of science, and for the cause of humanity. They would do better, if they only knew how. They must be educated. The competitive system, under which they were born, trained and made rich, is at fault. By it, they have been taught, that poverty is a necessary and permanent state; to which, a large majority of the people of the earth, are assigned by the action of a divine law. Therefore, any attempt to banish poverty would be not only useless, but actually sinful. Nevertheless, prompted by a higher law, many of them annually dispense large sums in charity. Under the competitive system, charity only aggravates the malady. It is money thrown away! As the recipients are thus enabled to work for less wages; increasing the gains of competitive masters; and finally, swelling the ranks of the helpless poor. After a few trials, even the most persistent alms-giver soon discovers, that as an antidote to poverty, charity is a wretched failure. Taking it for granted, that the competitive system is a permanent one which is to endure forever, he gives up the problem as hopeless.

"It is to be the business of the New Crusade, to show why the co-operative should be substituted for the competitive system. It must teach the wealthy classes, the vast importance of the great lesson taught at Solaris. Namely, that by organized, unselfish co-operation; independent self-employment, producing an abundance for all, may be speedily and practicably substituted for every form of poverty. The Crusade must demonstrate, that ignorance, poverty and crime, are handmaidens, which cannot exist apart. That if one-half the money expended for charity during the past fifty years, had been used to promote co-operative self-employment, poverty, tramps and ignorance, would now be things of the past.

"To the people of the republic at large, must be taught the significance of the contrast between the war-like competitive system, and the peaceful methods of a co-operative association. Co-operation, makes combined individual effort, equal to the wealth of independence. The co-operator, being self-employed, no longer strives to displace a fellow workman by offering service at a lower price.

"Competition, emphasizes the poverty and helplessness of the individual, because it sets every man against his neighbor, against the whole world. The competitor deliberately shuts himself away from all gain that might come to him from the force and effectiveness of associated effort. He loses all faith in mankind; in honesty and justice. He views the good fortune of a fellow toiler, as a personal injury, which he ought to resent. In fact, he becomes too selfish to even be patriotic!

"The quickest way to convince the people of the barbarism, the cruelty, and the wickedness of such a system, is to establish a co-operative farm in every available township throughout the land. The free, healthy, trained, and well-educated social communities, growing up on these farms, will become the units of a true society; the underlying foundation, on which to build the true republic.

"Society dominates the political expression of nations. It molds and controls public opinion, business methods and commercial usage. Under the reign of competitive business and society, the market is largely composed of small wage earners, whose necessities are so great, whose tenure of employment is so uncertain, and whose wages are so scanty; that they are forced to buy the cheapest of everything. On the part of tradespeople, the fierce competition to control this cheap market, encourages the use of an outrageous system of food adulteration, and with it, every possible degree of lying, cheating, fraud and deception; until the moral tone of both business and society, has become blunted; yes, well nigh destroyed. As a result of this shameful state of commercial affairs, the successful man in any line of business, can no longer afford to be honest. He knows very well, that in competitive business, he can utterly ignore honor, conscience, and self-respect, without losing the approval of competitive society. Can such a rotten society ever become a safe foundation for the government of a true republic?

"It is to be the mission of the New Crusade to teach and to demonstrate, that under the reign of a co-operative system, and society, these conditions would be reversed. All incentives to cheapen goods, or to adulterate food products, would vanish. The co-operators would then form the bulk of the market. Buying at wholesale collectively, to sell to themselves individually; they would be in a financial condition to pay remunerative prices, for whatever was genuine, pure, wholesome, good, reliable and lasting. Inferior articles, they would not purchase at any price. The demand for cheap stuff would cease. The dominant motive of the commercial world, would be revolutionized. Among manufacturers and producers, the cry would be, not how cheap, but how excellent, can we make our goods! The long-practiced, skillful chicanery of competitive methods, would be at a discount; they would be worse than useless! Honest men could then engage in business, without violating either honor, or conscience! Cheating and lying, would no longer form a part of the business code! At all times, and under all circumstances, to respect the sacredness of life, and the natural rights of man, would become the universal watchword! Justice would dethrone charity! The high moral tone of the industrial and commercial world, would pervade the social and political. The injury of the weakest, would become the concern of the strongest. The rising tide of humanitarianism would submerge poverty. The fires of ignorance and crime, would be extinguished by its conquering flood.

"Than this, no lesson more important, could be taught to the people. The scales of selfishness having fallen from their eyes, they can be made to understand, that all of these wonderful things may be accomplished, quickly and easily, by the plain, practical methods of unselfish co-operation. Methods, whose assured results are as easily demonstrable, as the solution of a mathematical problem. Once convinced, they will make haste to discard the wasteful methods of the competitive system; substituting therefor, the co-operative conservation of national wealth. In this conservation, the wealth of the unit, will be the measure of the wealth of the nation.

"This conservation will usher in a new era, of the means of gathering, and of the higher uses of national wealth. A magnificent national fund, accumulated for the benefit, education, refinement and enjoyment of all. The swiftness of its accumulation and the magnitude of its billions, will become the marvel of the world! By contrast, all former standards of the wealth of nations, will fade and shrink to insignificance! Why must this prove true? Because, under the beneficent reign of co-operative equality, money, shorn of its power, would only be valued for its use. The store of national wealth, being for the equal use and benefit of every individual citizen; the incentive for its accumulation, would inspire all alike. As a result, the people as a mass would enjoy all the benefits of great wealth, minus its burdens, abuses, temptations and dangers. In this, any one of them might be envied by the competitive millionaires.

"Among the many lessons in addition to those enumerated, which the Crusade must teach to the people; I would strongly emphasize the following: