It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious. Turn this claim about as I may, think of it as long as I can, I cannot find that it is an exorbitant claim.—William Morris.
On the 18th of last May, while in a small restaurant on Fifth Avenue, in Chicago, my attention was attracted by a large number of men who had congregated on both sides of the street in front of the office of the Chicago Daily News. In answer to my inquiry, a gentleman at my side explained that these men were waiting to see the “Want” column of the News, in the hope of being able to secure work. “It is an old, old story,” he continued. “Day after day crowds of men gather here and anxiously wait for the News to appear, as this paper contains more ‘Want’ advertisements than any other Chicago daily.” I waited until the boys rushed from the office with the newly printed papers, and saw the men hurriedly buy copies. I noticed how scores upon scores of eyes searched the “Help Wanted” columns, and how, one by one, they started in quest of work. I noticed the countenances of the weary watchers. Among them were to be seen almost all types of faces, but all, save one, were anxious, careworn, or stolid. I shuddered as, standing inside the restaurant unobserved, I beheld this sight of appalling misery and national shame. The faces of these men have haunted me ever since. Hunger was there, hate was there, despair was hovering over more than one countenance. There were wan, dull eyes, wolfish eyes, and eyes eloquent with mute appeals for kindness. There was the hunted look of a beast at bay, and the craven expression of a broken spirit. One only among the throng seemed able to be merry, though his thin face and worn clothes indicated his wretchedness. The tragedy of these lives remains with me. I know that this awful condition is unnecessary. I know that a little more conscience, a little more love, a keener sense of justice, and a little honest concern for the rights of men and the enduring welfare of the state, a settled determination to overcome this condition and place the good of the people and the cause of justice above a shortsighted policy of selfishness, would change the whole aspect of things, now so ominous, so menacing, and so essentially unjust. This panorama of exiled industry, seeking vainly for employment, may be witnessed from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
I am not of that number who can regard these spectacles with indifference, nor can I feel, as do some others, that because the present order is essentially unjust in its practical workings it is well to turn a cold shoulder to movements calculated to arrest the downward drift of life and lessen the unfathomable misery of the poor in order that the crisis may be hastened. For while I believe that the present order is as surely outgrown as was feudalism in the sixteenth century, and though I believe most profoundly that this order must pass away or civilization perish, as have perished the civilizations of former ages, yet I also appreciate the fact, which to me is very important, that the only way to bring about the revolution peaceably is, first, to educate the brain and touch the conscience of the people; and, second, to check the growing bitterness and hate in the hearts of our unfortunates by giving them employment and treating them with justice and humanity. If a crisis is precipitated, fed by blind hate and a bitterness born of a consciousness of injustice long endured, it will assume the form of an uncontrollable storm, a blind, passionate outburst, in which the guiding influences of reason, judgment, and conscience will be absent. It will spread devastation in all directions, destroying the innocent as well as the guilty. If, on the other hand, we push forward an intelligent educational agitation, appealing to the judgment, the conscience, and the sense of right in the people, and at the same time supply means for maintaining self-respecting manhood among the unemployed until this waiting time is over, our civilization will move onward without the crash or shock of force, the destruction of property, and the loss of life incident to all struggles in which physical force and blind passion dominate. It is necessary to examine this problem on the side of human dignity and on the side of national life. The question of utility, though of far less concern in its ultimate effect on conditions, has also an important place in the discussion.
Only under conditions which are fundamentally unjust, and only where the finer sensibilities of man have been blinded and deadened, could it be possible to witness the spectacle of millions of men and women begging for work, and begging in vain, in a nation of fabulous wealth and almost boundless resources; and yet such a condition prevails in our republic to-day. It is, therefore, time for every patriotic citizen to lay aside all partisan contentions and face this great question as we would face any great danger which suddenly came upon the nation, not as partisans, but as patriots; not as warring factions seeking victory for some special body or party, but as men and women who have the welfare of the race at heart, and who appreciate the gravity of the situation. It is the eternal law of recompense that when justice is long denied and the rights of man are systematically ignored, though the sufferers may Samson-like crush themselves in the ruins of the temple, yet the temple and its inmates also must fall. Or if by some chance the ruin comes not through the strength of the burdened ones, it will nevertheless come with unerring certainty, and not unfrequently through the very excesses of those who have hardened their hearts against the cry of justice.
Such is the interdependence of the units in national life that a wrong committed against one injures the whole people; and when that wrong is inflicted upon a large number of the units, and is of long duration, its fatal effects become very apparent. You cannot crush a finger or a toe without causing your whole body to suffer in consequence. You may disregard the hurt, you may ignore the wound until mortification sets in, but the result means death or the loss of one of the most valuable members of your body. It is precisely so with national life; for such is the divine economy, such the inevitable law of progress, that only by conscious recognition of human brotherhood, and of the rights and obligations which it implies, can any nation or civilization move onward and upward without those great periods of depression and decline which too frequently end in total eclipse.
Shortsighted, indeed, is that policy which places gold above manhood. When lust for gain stifles the voice of conscience, and the cry of the disinherited is heard throughout a land of marvellous wealth, a nation is confronted by a deadly peril which calls for a supreme effort on the part of every man and woman of conviction.
It is useless to close our eyes to the fact that the rising tide of bitterness is turning into hate, and that hate darkens the eye of judgment, obscures reason, and deadens conscience. A few years ago, when I wrote a brief paper on the menace of the unemployed, I was assured that the deplorable condition then present was temporary, that in a few months at most it would be a thing of the past, and that therefore it was not a problem calling for the intervention of the government; but to-day there are far more unemployed than there were then. The problem is assuming gigantic proportions, and the instincts of self-preservation second the demand of humanity in calling for immediate measures for the relief and the maintenance of self-respecting manhood. Whenever a workingman becomes a tramp or sinks into the social cellar, as tens of thousands are now doing, the nation suffers a real injury. Present conditions call for prompt action. The unemployed must receive that succor which will in no conventional sense be charity, but which will elevate instead of degrade. And this can be done by the state allowing those armies of men who now unwillingly represent unproductive labor to become armies for increasing the wealth of the country, by extending the productive area of the nation’s domain, and by providing against the ruin which constantly menaces tens of thousands of industrious people in such a way as to stimulate business in all its ramifications by placing in circulation the equivalents for the work performed and the wealth earned. The ancient Romans understood the importance of having great works substantially built. The mighty highways which centred in the Eternal City, and the great public works which contributed so much to the comfort and happiness and grandeur of Rome, while not constructed with a view to affording employment to the unemployed, were wise measures for the benefit of the state, and it is safe to say that no expenditures were more serviceable or contributed more to the greatness and essential wealth of the empire, save the money spent in the patronage of education.
The ancient Peruvians went further. They argued that the happiness, welfare, and prosperity of one was the concern of all. They banished poverty by giving every person productive work, and by their system transformed every foot of tillable land into productive gardens, enabling them to support in affluence an immense population, only a small fraction of which could have subsisted under conditions such as prevail with us. In our country to-day we have vast areas of useless land, only waiting to be transformed into tillable acres second in richness to no land in the country. To-day we have necessary work in the way of internal improvements which is imperatively demanded, and which, but for the slothfulness and indifference of our government, would be performed, thereby enormously increasing the wealth of the nation; while the performing of the same would give productive employment to millions of idle hands.
A striking illustration of the criminal neglect and shortsightedness of our government was seen this last spring in the devastation created by the floods in the Mississippi Valley, rendered possible through the inadequate levee system. Here the losses to crops and in stock killed are said to have been considerably over twelve million dollars, to say nothing of the enormous outlay which will be required to patch up the levees and make the devastated farms again habitable. This great loss would have been averted had the government acted upon the suggestions which I made some years ago in a paper on “Emergency Measures for Maintaining Self-respecting Manhood,” in which it was shown that a permanent levee was practicable, and could be built in such a way as to resist the floods, reclaim many hundreds of thousands of acres of rich land, and protect millions of dollars’ worth of property which is now under a yearly menace through danger of floods.
In this enterprise, which I shall again touch upon, we have a striking illustration of a practicable work which would immediately increase the national wealth far beyond the outlay required, while it would also change an army of idle consumers into an army of wealth-producers.