But what is true of ecclesiastical effort in the presence of militant activities is true of pedagogic effort in the presence of political activities. For more than half a century the public-school system in its existing form has been in full and energetic operation. The money devoted to it every year now reaches the enormous total of one hundred and eighty million dollars. Simultaneously an unprecedented extension of secondary education has occurred. Since the war, colleges and universities, supported in whole or in part at the public expense, have been established in more than half of the States and Territories of the Union. To these must be added the phenomenal growth of normal schools, high schools, and academies, and of the equipment of the educational institutions already in existence. Yet, as a result, are the American people more moral than they were half a century ago? Have American institutions—that is, the institutions based upon the freedom of the individual—been made more secure? I venture to answer both questions with an emphatic negative. The construction and operation of the greatest machine of pedagogy recorded in history has been absolutely impotent to stem the rising tide of political corruption and social degeneration. If there are skeptics that doubt the truth of this indictment let them study the criminal history of the day that records the annual commission of more than six thousand suicides and more than ten thousand homicides, and the embezzlement of more than eleven million dollars. Let them study the lying pleas of the commercial interests of the country that demand protection against "the pauper labor of Europe," and thus commit a shameless aggression upon the pauper labor of America. Let them study the records of the deeds of intolerance and violence committed upon workingmen that refuse to exchange their personal liberty for membership of a despotic labor organization. Let them study the columns of the newspapers, crowded with records of crime, salacious stories, and ignorant comment on current questions and events that appeal to a population as unlettered and base as themselves. Let them study, finally, the appalling indictment of American political life, in a State where the native blood still runs pure in the veins of the majority of the inhabitants, that Mr. John Wanamaker framed in a great speech at the opening of his memorable campaign in Lancaster against the most powerful and most corrupt despotism that can be found outside of Russia or Turkey. "In the fourth century of Rome, in the time of Emperor Theodosius, Hellebichus was master of the forces," he said, endeavoring to describe a condition of affairs that exists in a similar degree in every State in the Union, "and Cæsarius was count of the offices. In the nineteenth century, M. S. Quay is count of the offices, and W. A. Andrews, Prince of Lexow, is master of forces in Pennsylvania, and we have to come through the iron age and the silver age to the worst of all ages—the degraded, evil age of conscienceless, debauched politics.... Profligacy and extravagance and boss rule everywhere oppress the people. By the multiplication of indictments your district attorney has multiplied his fees far beyond the joint salaries of both your judges. The administration of justice before the magistrates has degenerated into organized raids on the county treasury.... Voters are corruptly influenced or forcibly coerced to do the bidding of the bosses, and thus force the fetters of political vassalage on the freemen of the old guard. School directors, supervisors, and magistrates, and the whole machinery of local government, are involved and dominated by this accursed system."
But Mr. Wanamaker might have added that the whole social and industrial life of the country is involved and dominated by the same system. It is a well-established law of social science that the evil effects of a dominant activity are not confined to the persons engaged in it. Like a contagion, they spread to every part of the social organization, and poison the life farthest removed from their origin. Yet the public-school system, so impotent to save us from social and political degradation and still such an object of unbounded pride and adulation, is, as Mr. Wanamaker, all unconscious of the implication of his scathing criticism, points out in so many words, an integral part of the vast and complex machinery that political despotism has seized upon to plunder and enslave the American people. As in the case of every other extension of the duties of government beyond the limits of the preservation of order and the enforcement of justice, it is an aggression upon the rights of the individual, and, as in the case of every other aggression, contributes powerfully to the decay of national character and free institutions. It adds thousands upon thousands to the constantly growing army of tax eaters that are impoverishing the people still striving against heavy odds to gain an honest livelihood. It places in the hands of the political despots now ruling the country, without the responsibility that the most odious monarchs have to bear, a revenue and an army of mercenaries that make more and more difficult emancipation from their shackles. It is doing more than anything else except the post-office department to teach people that there is no connection between merit and benefit; that they have the right to look to the State rather than to themselves for maintenance; that they are under no obligations to see that they do not take from others, in the form of salaries not earned nor intended to be earned, what does not belong to them. In the face of this wholesale destruction of fellow-feeling such as occurred in France under the old régime and is occurring to-day in Italy and Spain, and the inculcation of the ethics of militant activities, such as may be observed in these countries as well as elsewhere in Europe, is it any wonder that the mind-stuffing that goes on in the public schools has no more effect upon the morals of the American people than the creeds and prayers of the mediæval ecclesiastics that joined in wars and the spoliation of oppressed populations throughout Europe?
Since the path that all people under popular government as well as under forms more despotic are pursuing so energetically and hopefully leads to the certain destruction of the foundations of civilization, what is the path that social science points out? What must they do to prevent the extinction of the priceless acquisition of fellow-feeling, now vanishing so rapidly before the most unselfish efforts to promote it? The supposition is that the social teachings of the philosophy of evolution have no answer to these questions. Believing that they inculcate the hideous laissez-faire doctrine of "each for himself and the devil take the hindmost," so characteristic of human relations among all classes of people in this country, the victims of this supposition have repudiated them. But I propose to show that they are the only teachings that give the slightest promise of social amelioration. Although they are ignorantly stigmatized as individualistic, and therefore necessarily selfish and inconsiderate of the welfare of others, they are in reality socialistic in the best sense of the word—that is, they enjoin voluntary, not coercive, co-operation, and insure the noblest humanity and the most perfect civilization, moral as well as material, that can be attained.
Why a society organized upon the individualistic instead of the socialistic basis will realize every achievement admits of easy explanation. A man dependent upon himself is forced by the struggle for existence to exercise every faculty he possesses or can possibly develop to save himself and his progeny from extinction. Under such pitiless and irresistible pressure he acquires the highest physical and intellectual strength. Thus equipped with weapons absolutely indispensable in any state of society, whether civilized or uncivilized, he is prepared for the conquest of the world. He gains also the physical and moral courage needful to cope with the difficulties that terrify and paralyze the people that have not been subjected to the same rigid discipline. Energetic and self-reliant, he assails them with no thought of failure. If, however, he meets with reverses, he renews the attack, and repeats it until success finally comes to reward his efforts. Such prolonged struggles give steadiness and solidity to his character that do not permit him to abandon himself to trifles or to yield easily, if at all, to excitement and panic. He never falls a victim to Reigns of Terror. The more trying the times, the more self-possessed, clear-headed, and capable of grappling with the situation he becomes, and soon rises superior to it. With every triumph over difficulties there never fails to come the joy that more than balances the pain and suffering endured. But the pain and suffering are as precious as the joy of triumph. Indelibly registered in the nervous system, they enable their victim to feel as others feel passing through the same experience, and this fellow-feeling prompts him to render them the assistance they may need. In this way be becomes a philanthropist. Possessed of the abundant means that the success of his enterprises has placed in his hands, he is in a position to help them to a degree not within the reach nor the desires of the member of the society organized upon the socialistic basis.
In the briefest appeal to history may be found the amplest support for these deductions from the principles of social science. Wherever the individual has been given the largest freedom to do whatever he pleases, as long as he does not trench upon the equal freedom of others, there we witness all those achievements and discover all those traits that indicate an advanced state of social progress. The people are the most energetic, the most resourceful, the most prosperous, the most considerate and humane, the most anxious, and the most competent to care for their less fortunate fellows. On the other hand, wherever the individual has been most repressed, deterred by custom or legislation from making the most of himself in every way, there are to be observed social immobility or retrogression and all the hateful traits that belong to barbarians. The people are inert, slavish, cruel, and superstitious. In the ancient world one type of society is represented by the Egyptians and Assyrians, and the other by the Greeks and Romans. In the modern world all the Oriental peoples, particularly the Hindus and Chinese, represent the former, and the Occidental peoples, particularly the Anglo-Saxons, represent the latter. So superior, in fact, are the Anglo-Saxons because of their observance of the sacred and fruitful principle of individual freedom that they control the most desirable parts of the earth's surface. If not checked by the practice of a philosophy that has destroyed all the great peoples of antiquity and paralyzed their competitors in the establishment of colonies in the New as well as the Old World, there is no reason to doubt that the time will eventually come when, like the Romans, there will be no other rule than theirs in all the choicest parts of the globe.
It is the immense material superiority of the Anglo-Saxon peoples over all other nations that first arrests attention. No people in Europe possess the capital or conduct the enterprises that the English and Americans do. They have more railroads, more steamships, more factories, more foundries, more warehouses, more of everything that requires wealth and energy than their rivals. Though the fact evokes the sneers of the Ruskins and Carlyles, these enterprises are the indispensable agents of civilization. They have done more for civilization, for the union of distant peoples, and the development of fellow-feeling—for all that makes life worth living—than all the art, literature, and theology ever produced. Without industry and commerce, which these devotees of "the higher life" never weary of deprecating, how would the inhabitants of the Italian republics have achieved the intellectual and artistic conquests that make them the admiration of every historian? The Stones of Venice could not have been written. The artists could not have lived that enabled Vassari to hand his name down to posterity. The new learning would have been a flower planted in a barren soil, and even before it had come to bud it would have fallen withered. May we not, therefore, expect that in like manner the wealth and freedom of the Anglo-Saxon race will bring forth fruits that shall not evoke scorn and contempt? Already their achievements in every field except painting, sculpture, and architecture eclipse those of their rivals. Not excepting the literature of the Greeks, is any so rich, varied, powerful, and voluminous as theirs? If they have no Cæsar or Napoleon, they have a long list of men that have been of infinitely greater use to civilization than those two products of militant barbarism. If judged by practical results, they are without rivals in the work of education. By their inventions and their applications of the discoveries of science they have distanced all competitors in the race for industrial and commercial supremacy. In the work of philanthropy no people has done as much as they. The volume of their personal effort and pecuniary contributions to ameliorate the condition of the poor and unfortunate are without parallel in the annals of charity. Yet Professor Ely, echoing the opinion of Charles Booth and other misguided philanthropists, has the assurance to tell us that "individualism has broken down." It is the social philosophy that they are trying to thrust upon the world again that stands hopelessly condemned before the remorseless tribunal of universal experience.
In the light thus obtained from science and history, the duty of the American people toward the current social and political philosophy and all the quack measures it proposes for the amelioration of the condition of the unfortunate becomes clear and urgent. It is to pursue without equivocation or deviation the policy of larger and larger freedom for the individual that has given the Anglo-Saxon his superiority and present dominance in the world. To this end they should oppose with all possible vigor every proposed extension of the duty of the state that does not look to the preservation of order and the enforcement of justice. Regarding it as an onslaught of the forces of barbarism, they should make no compromise with it; they should fight it until freedom has triumphed. The next duty is to conquer the freedom they still lack. Here the battle must be for the suppression of the system of protective tariffs, for the transfer to private enterprise and beneficence, the duties of the post office, the public schools, and all public charities, for the repeal of all laws in regulation of trade and industry as well as those in regulation of habits and morals. As an inspiration it should be remembered that the struggle is not only for freedom but for honesty. For the truth can not be too loudly or too often proclaimed that every law taking a dollar from a man without his consent, or regulating his conduct not in accordance with his own notions, but in accordance with those of his neighbors, contributes to the education of a people in idleness and crime. The next duty is to encourage on every hand an appeal to voluntary effort to accomplish all tasks too great for the strength of the individual. Whether those tasks be moral, industrial, or educational, voluntary co-operation alone should assume them and carry them to a successful issue. The government should have no more to do with them than it has to do with the cultivation of wheat or the management of Sunday schools or the suppression of backbiting. The last and final duty should be to cheapen and, as fast as possible, to establish gratuitous justice. With the great diminution of crime that would result from the observance of the duties already mentioned there would be much less occasion than now to appeal to the courts. But, whenever the occasion arises, it should involve no cost to the person that feels that his rights have been invaded.
Thus will be solved indirectly all the problems of democracy that social and political reformers seek in vain to solve directly. With the diminution of the duties of the state to the preservation of order and the enforcement of justice will be effected a reform as important and far reaching as the suppression of chronic warfare. When politicians are deprived of the immense plunder now involved in political warfare, it will not be necessary to devise futile plans for caucus reform, or ballot reform, or convention reform, or charter reform, or legislative reform. Having no more incentive to engage in their nefarious business than the smugglers that the abolition of the infamous tariff laws banished from Europe, they will disappear among the crowd of honest toilers. The suppression of the robberies of the tax collectors and tax eaters, who have become so vast an army in the United States, will effect also a solution of all labor problems. A society that permits every toiler to work for whomsoever he pleases and for whatever he pleases, protecting him in the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his labor, has done for him everything that can be done. It has taught him self-support and self-control. In thus guaranteeing him freedom of contract and putting an end to the plunder of a bureaucracy and privileged classes of private individuals, the beneficiaries of special legislation, it has effected the only equitable distribution of property possible. At the same time it has accomplished a vastly greater work. As I have shown, the indispensable condition of success of all movements for moral reform is the suppression not only of militant strife, but of political strife. While they prevail, all ecclesiastical and pedagogic efforts to better the condition of society must fail. Despite lectures, despite sermons and prayers, despite also literature and art, the ethics controlling the conduct of men and women will be those of war. But with the abolition of both forms of militant strife it becomes an easy task to teach the ethics of peace, and to establish a state of society that requires no other government than that of conscience. All the forces of industrialism contribute to the work and insure its success.
"This thirst for shooting every rare or unwonted kind of bird," says the author of an article in the London Saturday Review, "is accountable for the disappearance of many interesting forms of life in the British Islands."