French and German Socialism in Modern Times

by Richard T. Ely

The first condition is “a well-defined confrontation of rich and poor. So long as there is a middle-class of considerable numbers between them, the two extremes are kept, by its moral force, from coming into collision. There is no greater preservative against envy of the superior classes and contempt for the inferior than the gradual and unbroken fading of one class of society into another.... But when the rich and the poor are separated by an abyss which there is no hope of ever crossing, how pride, on the one side, and envy, on the other, rage! and especially in the centres of industry, the great cities, where the deepest misery is found side by side with the most brazen-faced luxury, and where the wretched themselves, conscious of their numbers, mutually excite their own bad passions. It cannot, unfortunately, be denied that when a nation has attained the acme of its development we find a multitude of tendencies prevailing to make the rich richer and the poor, at least relatively, poorer, and thus to diminish the number of the middle-class from both sides; unless, indeed, remedial influences are brought to bear and to operate in a contrary direction.”

The second condition mentioned is “a high degree of the division of labor, by which, on the one hand, the mutual dependence of man on man grows ever greater, but by which, at the same time, the eye of the uncultured man becomes less and less able to perceive the connection existing between merit and reward, or service and remuneration. Let us betake ourselves in imagination to Crusoe’s island. There, when one man, after the labor of many months, has hollowed out a tree into a canoe, with no tools but an animal’s tooth, it does not occur to another, who, in the meantime, was, it may be, sleeping on the skin of some wild animal, to contest the right of the former to the fruit of his labor. How different this from the condition of things where civilization is advanced, as it is in our day; where the banker, by a single stroke of his pen, seems to earn a thousand times more than a day-laborer in a week; where, in the case of those who lend money on interest, their debtors too frequently forget how laborious was the process of acquiring the capital by the possessors, or their predecessors in ownership! More especially, we have in times of over-population whole masses of honest men asking, not alms, but only work—an opportunity to earn their bread, and yet on the verge of starvation.”

The third condition: “A violent shaking or perplexing of public opinion in its relation to the feeling of right by revolutions, especially when they follow rapidly one on the heels of another, and take opposite directions. On such occasions both parties have generally prostituted themselves for the sake of the favor of the masses.... In this way they are stirred up to the making of pretentious claims which it is afterwards very difficult to silence.” It is in this prostitution of parties that our greatest danger in the United States lies. It is already sought to influence large classes by promises of office. The evils of political contests controlled by those who hope to gain offices and those who fear they may lose them will increase in two ways. First, the number of offices will necessarily become greater with the increase of population and the growth of public business. Instead of one hundred thousand federal office-holders, we will yet have two hundred thousand. Second, as population increases, and it becomes ever more and more difficult to gain one’s bread, to say nothing about ascending the social ladder, public offices will be coveted even more than at present, and over each one there will be waged a bitter personal warfare. What, then, we have to fear is that, as in ancient Rome, politicians will strive to influence the great masses by promises of favors—food and entertainments (panem et circenses). If a beginning is ever made in that direction the enemies of the republic will have already crossed the rubicon. It behooves us to stop in the downward path before it is too late. This can be done only by putting our civil service—federal, state, and municipal—on a sound moral basis.

The fourth condition: “Pretensions of the lower classes in consequence of a democratic constitution. Communism is the logically not inconsistent exaggeration of the principle of equality.” If you reflect upon it, you will perceive that political equality, in the course of time, very naturally leads to thoughts of economic equality—equality in the enjoyment of spiritual and material goods.

The fifth condition: “A general decay of religion and morality in the people. When every one regards wealth as a sacred trust or office, coming from God, and poverty as a divine dispensation, intended to educate and develop those afflicted thereby, and considers all men as brothers, and this earthly life only as a preparation for eternity, even extreme differences of property lose their irritating and demoralizing power. On the other hand, the atheist and materialist becomes only too readily a mammonist, and the poor mammonist falls only too easily into that despair which would gladly kindle a universal conflagration, in order either to plunder or lose his own life.” The maxim of the materialist, sunk in poverty and despair, is, as is noticed, not that noble one of our fathers, “Give me liberty or give me death,” but “Give me pleasure, enjoyment in this life, or let me die in my misery.” “The rich mammonist aggravates this sad condition of things when he casts suspicion on all wealth by the immorality of the means he takes to acquire it and the sinfulness of his enjoyments.”[196]

Turning to the internal history of social democracy after Lassalle’s death, we have first to notice the condition of the “Universal German Laborers’ Union” since that event. It was controlled for some time by the Countess von Hatzfeldt. Her former connection with Lassalle and the possession of large financial resources enabled her for some time to maintain her position as its leading spirit. She interested herself in politics, however, more on account of Lassalle than for the sake of the laborers. She wished to honor his memory and promote the cause which had been dear to him.

Before Lassalle died he mentioned the name of a man whom he recommended as his successor in the presidency of the “Laborers’ Union.” The choice was not a happy one. The new president soon made enemies of the ablest members of the Union, and finally had a falling-out with the countess, in whose house he lived, and who, for the sake of the cause, supported him. It appears that one day the countess commissioned him to purchase butter and cheese for the household. This was too much for the poor president. He regarded the performance of such offices as incompatible with his manly dignity and the respect due his high and honorable position. He did not, indeed, fail to appreciate to the fullest extent the honor which Lassalle had conferred upon him. Identifying the Union with all mankind, he was accustomed to sign himself “President of Humanity.” He compared his noiseless activity to the gentle rain, which, without thunder and lightning, gradually penetrates the hard crust of the earth.

The amenities of life among the social democrats are curiously illustrated by their dissensions during the presidency of this man—Becker by name. Becoming enraged at Marx once, he proposed that the author of “Capital” and the founder of the International should embalm himself with his International and have himself hung in the chimney as a mad herring. In return for this Liebknecht moved, in the Berlin association, that Becker should be expelled from the Union as a low-minded slanderer and a hopelessly incurable idiot.[197]

New presidents were elected yearly for two or three years, but the countess could agree with none. She finally withdrew, with her followers, and established a new association, called the “Female Line.” It never played a considerable rôle, and in a few years died a natural death.