AN OBJECT LESSON IN PATERNALISM
Even among those who have devoted their lives to the study of sociological problems, there is much difference of opinion as to the quantitative and qualitative influence of certain social conditions in producing the generally admitted bad or adverse phases of human society.
At one time we read that poverty degrades men morally, and we peruse carefully prepared and apparently veracious tables showing that in the older countries there is an unfailing correspondence between criminal statistics and the price of bread; the per cent of offenses against persons and property increasing with the cost of the necessaries of life and diminishing with the amount of human exertion required to obtain them. Such is the generally received opinion of the common people, and we hear from the political platform and see in the publications of reform parties the assertion that it is useless to preach morals to those whose minds are mainly occupied in devising means to keep the wolf from the door.
Those of our citizens who have given special attention to the debauching effects of the drink habit, call upon all to come to the rescue of American homes and American institutions, by banishing the American saloon, to which comes the response that poverty is the principal cause of intemperance and its incidents, and that the first duty of patriots is to remove poverty.
Equally certain and circumstantial, on the other hand, are those who affirm that there is no necessary connection between poverty and criminality, and that, as a general rule, debauchery and consequent decadence of moral faculty go hand in hand with material prosperity; and if mixed coincidence can establish casual connection, they are not at fault, for long before Goldsmith wrote of the time "When wealth accumulates and men decay," keen eyed observers had connected a general laxity of morals with the abundance and diffusion of wealth. The failure of intertropical countries to furnish high grade men of morals and intellect, Doctor Draper attributes, not more to the enervating influence of heat, than to the ease with which human beings supply themselves with the necessaries of life. Coming down to the present period, it is common knowledge—the expanding profligacy and criminality of the mining camps where men could obtain extravagant wages in gold for services which in other pursuits would yield them a scanty living.
Probably from such lump comparisons and crude observations, under complex conditions, have arisen two schools of social economists, one whose principal and primary aim is to abolish poverty as the chief obstacle in the way of human progress, and the other whose purpose is not definitely stated, but which conservatively clings to the laissez faire doctrine of letting every man's condition depend upon his individual exertion; and as so far, in the world's history, poverty has been the condition of the great mass of mankind, in spite of individual exertion, the anti-poverty school of necessity, must resort to collective or state control of the industries of men, and thus relieve them from want and the fear of want, which are thought to be so depressing upon their energies.
Just how or to what extent the state is to interfere with the individual's management of himself, or to what extent or in what manner he shall be relieved when he has failed to provide for his own wants and the wants of those depending upon him, are at present outside of any satisfactorily practical programme, and hence collectivism may be held to include all socialistic schemes from Bellamy up or down.
In fact, collectivism is entered upon the moment the state is organized, for in the rudest criminal code there is a manifest attempt to relieve the individual from the otherwise caution and care necessary to defend his person and property; and in truth, as government has advanced, so has collectivism advanced, until now in the United States of America the commonwealth is giving children primary education, supporting and caring for the deaf, blind, idiotic, insane, and criminal classes, beside stimulating certain industries with bounties upon production or relieving them from the disastrous effects of free competition, by levying taxes upon competing products. It does much more. Commerce and agriculture have been relieved of their old time dread of the elements, for government now keeps watch and ward over the wind and waves, and gives timely notice of approaching disaster by land and sea. In the endeavor to pass benefits around, hatcheries for fish, experiment stations, laboratories, and various commissions have been organized and conducted at public expense; likewise the mails are carried, the public lands distributed to actual settlers or given to railroad companies, patents issued to inventors, bounties paid for the destruction of wild animals, noxious weeds exterminated, public officers appointed to examine food products, to conduct experiments upon flocks and herds, and to destroy those infected with contagious diseases.
All this and much more are the results of collectivism, and there seems to be a constant tendency, as well as a constant demand, for more in the same direction. Individualism is alarmed and socialism hopeful; the former, at the encroachments upon personal liberty and the discouragement of personal exertion, and the latter, from the prospect of a complete disappearance of the competitive principle from social life.