By Walter Lippmann
(See page [779])
You don’t have to preach honesty to men with a creative purpose. Let a human being throw the energies of his soul into the making of something, and the instinct of workmanship will take care of his honesty. The writers who have nothing to say are the ones you can buy; the others have too high a price. A genuine craftsman will not adulterate his product; the reason isn’t because duty says he shouldn’t, but because passion says he couldn’t.
The Triumph of Love
(From “Labor”)
By Émile Zola
(In this novel the French writer gives his solution of the labor problem, in the story of a young engineer who is led by the study of Fourier to found a co-operative steel mill, which in the course of time replaces all the old competitive establishments, and brings about a reign of human brotherhood)
The triumphant spectacle that Luc had now always before his eyes, that city of happiness, the gayly colored roofs of which were spread out before his window, was admirable. The march of progress which a former generation, sunk in ancient error, and contaminated by an iniquitous environment, had so mournfully begun in the midst of many obstacles and former hatreds, was to be pursued by their children, instructed and disciplined by the schools and workshops, advancing with a cheerful step, even to the attainment of aims formerly declared chimerical. The long effort of struggling humanity resulted in the free expansion of the individual, in a society completely satisfied; in man being fully man, and living his life in its entirety. The happy city was thus realized in the religion of life; the religion of humanity, freed at length from dogmas, became in itself all glory and all joy....
Authority was at an end; the new social system had no other foundation than the tie of labor accepted as necessary by all, their law and the object of their worship. A number of groups adopted the new system, breaking off from the old groups of builders, dealers in clothing, metal-workers, artisans, and farm laborers, each group increasing in number, each different, each making itself essential to the rest, and satisfying individual wants as well as the needs of a community. Nothing impeded any man’s expansion; a citizen working as a laborer might unite himself with as many groups as he thought proper....