But the only definite end this article hints at is the destruction of those monopolies that make light and transportation dear. But it is conceivable that this may be done without a resort to nationalistic socialism. And this, which he says is the first step, may be a step in any one of several different directions. And if what he is after is to come only as the result of a natural evolution, when everybody wants it, and not as the result of a social catastrophe, then it would seem to be difficult to tell the difference between it and individualism. “The rounded development of the greatest number of individuals,” he himself sets forth as the motive and end of his kind of nationalism. Now if somebody is going to make me take on a “sounder development,” that is one thing, but if everybody is only going to let me do it, that is quite another thing. Mark Twain’s “Buck Fanshaw” was going to have peace, if he had to “lick every galoot in town” to get it. This may well stand for Edward Bellamy’s military nationalism. But if we are only going to have peace when everybody wants it, and will behave himself, why this seems like the Rev. Francis Bellamy’s nationalism, with the “military” left out. And this, I say, looks to me very much like the kind of individualism which I believe in.
I pass by, completely, the philosophical discussion as to what constitutes “a nation.” This I do, because it does not seem to me relevant to the matter in hand. If my individual liberty is interfered with, I cannot see that it helps me much to reflect that a nation, or “the nation,” is not a “sand-heap,” but is “an organic being.” The oppression is the matter; and I had as lief be oppressed by a sand-heap as by an organic being. What I object to is being oppressed by either of them. And, whatever may be in the future, when men get to be something different from what they are, so far in the history of the world it has been true that all kinds of governments have oppressed the individual. And, so far, the only safety of the individual has been such guarantees of personal rights and liberties as have limited the governmental power. And until some one can give the world assurance that human nature is to be transformed, it will be just as well to maintain the guarantees, instead of putting still more power into the hands of the government—whether it be called one thing or another. While even one wolf is abroad, the wise shepherd will not get rid of his dog.
But, while the Rev. Francis Bellamy has “come down,” to the extent of virtually giving up any kind of nationalism definite enough to fight about, he nevertheless goes on with his arguments against the editor’s positions just as though nothing at all had happened. He stands up for “nationalistic socialism” as though it were something clearly in mind. And he argues at length that the state of things covered by this term will not be open to such dangers as have been found to exist under all other forms of government. Either human nature is to be changed—though he does not tell us how—or there is to be some charm in “nationalistic socialism” that is to change the nature of “politics,” disarm prejudice, make philistinism broad-minded, and turn bigotry into tolerance. Wonderful is the power of my particular panacea!
Neither of the brothers Bellamy expect or propose any sudden change in human nature. “Looking Backward” plainly and positively disclaims any such expectation. So we are not only at liberty to deal with social forces and factors as they have been, and as we know them, but we are even compelled to do so. Let us, then, take up some of Mr. Flower’s points against nationalism, and see whether Mr. Bellamy has adequately met them.
Mr. Flower thinks that nationalism would mean governmentalism and paternalism—in the historic sense of those terms—raised to the highest degree; and that these are both bad things. Mr. Bellamy admits that they have been bad things in the past; but claims that something in nationalistic socialism is to change their nature. As, in the millennium, the lion is to “eat straw like the ox,” so, in this coming Edenic condition of affairs, the age-long oppressors of the individual are to lose their man-eating proclivities. The world is open to conviction on this point; but it will take more than words to produce the result. When we see a lion eating grass, while the sheep play about his feet, we will believe in his conversion. For—let the reader take earnest heed—it is not the conscious evil in men that has been oftenest the oppressor of their fellows; almost always the plea for it has been the general good. Church and State both have set this propensity down among the great cardinal virtues. As Saul of Tarsus thought he was doing God service when he persecuted the early Church, so the Church herself sang Te Deums over St. Bartholomew, and believed verily that the groans of the Inquisition and the fires of her autos de fé were for the glory of God and the good of man.
The curse of the whole business is just here—that a set of men should fancy that they know better what their brothers ought to think and do than the brothers themselves know. Mr. Bellamy himself lets out, in a most curious way, his own advanced (?) idea of “toleration.” By the way, I would like to know how it happens to be any of his business, for example, to “tolerate” me. Who sets him, or anybody else, up on high to look down with “toleration” on other people?
But let us note his idea of “toleration.” He says, with great emphasis, “A man may prove to me by inductive data, reaching uninterruptedly over ten thousand years”—I did not know he was so old—“that my own nature is intolerant; he may even corroborate his proof by pointing to my occasional acts of thoughtless disregard for another’s opinion; yet all this array does not overwhelm me, for I know [Italics mine] that I am not intolerant.” This superlative confidence in his own goodness makes me think of the congressman of whom it was said, “He is the most distinguished man in Washington. I know he is, for he admits it himself.”
But a little later on creeps out an indication, in the light of which we have a right to interpret this claim. Mr. Flower, in his editorial, had shown how a Christian Scientist had been arrested in Iowa for this offence. In the words of the indictment, “She had practised a cure on one Mrs. George B. Freeman.” After the physicians had pronounced the case hopeless, and had given her up, this criminal woman had actually dared to “cure” her. The heinousness of the offence was admitted. It was not, in the ordinary sense, malpractice; no medicine had been given, no pain was inflicted, no harm done. But she had been presumptuous enough to “cure,” and not after the “regular,” the orthodox way. Now the Rev. Francis Bellamy shows his “tolerance” in regard to this crucial case, by saying, “But it is certainly true that the State has the right to prevent malpractice—a right none of us would wish renounced.” Just what this has to do with an instance where the only malpractice even charged was that she “had practised a cure,” after all the physicians had given her up, is not very plain to the worldly minded. But he goes on,—“And as soon as there are sufficient data to convince an intelligent (sic) public opinion that the theory, with its perilous repudiation of all medical skill, is not fatal to human life, it will receive an ungrudged status.”
“Here’s richness,” as Mr. Squeers would say. Mr. Bellamy’s “tolerance” then is limited carefully to what has an accepted “status” as judged by “public opinion.” It begins now to be plain as to what “tolerance” is to be in the millennial era of nationalism.
But there is one more hint in Mr. Bellamy’s article, without which this new and improved definition of tolerance would not be complete. He says, “It is hard to discover what individualism is surrendered except bumptiousness.” But who is to decide what is “bumptiousness”? Why, “an intelligent public opinion,” of course. And who is to settle as to what is “an intelligent public opinion,” that has the right to put down “bumptiousness”? Why, the “intelligent” public, of course. So it comes back always to this,—we, the ruling majority, are intelligent, and we have the right to decide as to what shall be and shall not be permitted.