The pauperization of labor depends on the monopoly of land combined with the monopoly of machinery. It cannot occur in a new country, but must develop when all the land is monopolized and worth a hundred dollars an acre. The independence of the laborer owing to cheap vacant land is more than restored by a Department of Productive Labor which establishes a minimum of wages below which they cannot be forced, and gives a standing ground on which exaction can be resisted permanently by the laborer.
The Department of Productive Labor may be made a charming feature of the government, on which philanthropists may expend their skill; and its beautiful plantations, especially in the highlands of the Carolinas and Georgia, and in California, may be looked to as a haven of repose by all who are disappointed in life, who may find in these rural homes something more attractive than the co-operative societies to which some are rushing now. The voice of the red flag anarchist will be quieted, and the agitators who endeavor to stir up dissension will find most of their grievances redressed when the laborer has an assured home.
There is no obstructive limit to the achievements of the army of labor. Aside from agriculture and manufactures, there are roads to be built, buildings to be erected, improvements of many kinds, and there are about a thousand million acres of arid land, needing irrigation, the necessary works for which could employ more than would probably apply, for the wages should not be such as to attract men from profitable employments. The army of labor may not at first be wisely managed, but anything is better than the vast national losses by enforced idleness. It is not extravagant to anticipate an ultimate governmental administration of railroads, mines, manufactures, and government farms that may employ many hundred thousands. There is no apparent hindrance to the extension of the Department of Productive Labor until it shall embrace all who desire the comfort and security it gives, while those who prefer the strife of competition can remain outside of the experiment, and thus the governmental and the individual systems be fairly tried in competition with each other. Thus far no formidable difficulty appears in abolishing pauperism, but we find a more difficult task when we propose the abolition of Plutocracy, by what may be called a REVOLUTIONARY MEASURE.
Having thus gotten rid of the increasing army of paupers and tramps, providing, as it seems, a sound basis for a republic, we have the other problem of getting rid of the growing aristocracy—the plutocratic princes, the syndicates and trusts, who constitute the other great danger,—of whom we may say we must either master them or they will master us by managing our senators, governors, and presidents. They have already swallowed some such legislatures as we have been able to elect, with such facility as to show that it will not be long before they can swallow the entire government, and when it has been swallowed it may not be as fortunate as Jonah in getting out again, for there is some very important legislation necessary to this republic which the plutocracy may be expected to resist with all its power, and when the conflict comes it will be a grand one.
They will probably combat with all their might the doctrine which must sometime be presented, that the nation must rule itself on democratic principles, and that the dead shall not rule the living by entail, mortmain, or will. When a child is born it must become a member of the republic on conditions compatible with the safety of that republic. It cannot be allowed to come in as the born master of a hundred thousand fellow-citizens equally competent to serve the republic. Our young citizens approach us from a generation that has passed away.
It sleeps in the graveyard, or it leads a better life in the better world. It has left vast masses of wealth, surrounded by wretched areas of desolate poverty. Was it wise or just to do so,—to ignore brotherhood of man, and to perpetuate all possible inequality? No, a thousand times no. There is not one, perhaps, of the millionnaire dwellers in the better world who does not regret and mourn his earthly selfishness, and who would not order a more just and generous distribution of his estate if his voice could be heard.
But we need not ask them. We know what is just and we will correct the mistakes of the departed. We know that this hoarding in families is unjust to the republic and unjust to the Brotherhood of Humanity,—an injury to all, a benefit to none. Therefore it must not be permitted.
Already the law is beginning to recognize this principle, which is destined to revolutionize all the world; but we are not the leaders in this democracy, because our plutocracy is too strong. Switzerland in its mountain homes carries the banner of democracy, and has gone farther than any other country in asserting the rights of the commonwealth over inherited wealth. New York has ordained a little infinitesimal inheritance tax which, according to the Herald, in 1886 produced $60,000, in 1887 $500,000, in 1888 over a million. That will be enough to build schoolhouses for the 20,000 children kept out of school in the city of New York for want of room. The proposition is under discussion in Massachusetts, and if we do our duty Massachusetts may set the example of the greatest social revolution ever accomplished by law. If Boston received the benefit of such a tax on its own population, it might be adjusted to raise from one million to more than ten millions a year; at any rate a succession tax might produce more than all other taxes produce at present, and it would bring about such radical changes that it would be expedient to make the change gradual, and gradual it must be, for it will meet determined opposition, and we must enforce our principle by every argument of justice and expediency, for it is both just and expedient. What right have the millionnaires to say how the world shall be managed after they have left it? What right to say that when they have established a dangerous inequality, posterity shall be compelled to make it perpetual. The robber barons established inequality by the sword, and by the same power made it perpetual. The posterity of kings and barons, however worthless, corrupt, criminal, or imbecile, continue to occupy the saddle upon the public donkey. But inherited royalty is going, and inherited aristocracy must also go. We who survive are the responsible parties, and (as the Romans charged their rulers in times of danger) we must see that the republic does not suffer, and that aristocracy shall not be its permanent master.
What right has the millionnaire to direct from the grave, that the wealth which he has left shall be used in the manner most dangerous and most injurious to society. He has no such right. He has no right in the matter, but what we in our justice or in our good-nature may give him. If these views are just, they must in time rule the world, but they are not yet asserted by those to whom the world looks for counsel.[3]
The sacred right of the living citizen in that which his industry has created, has no application here. It is a totally different case. It is the question what right has he to rule the world after he has enjoyed his full share and more, and gone away. We do not ask whether he got his wealth by fraud, or robbery, or industry. He has left it; he is done with it; he is dead in fact and ought to be dead in law! The law has no jurisdiction over him now, and he has no possible interest in what is done, nor any power to rectify his mistakes. To perpetuate his fictitious personality, and make the opinions which he has left in writing an authority like the acts of a living man, is a tremendous stretch of the imagination, much like the old superstitions which made a law by the preface “thus saith the Lord.”