In a true condition of society there would be no such thing as wealth, in its present signification. It would be reduced to the requirements of men in obtaining better wealth for themselves, and for the diffusion of it among their kind. In this consideration of the uses of life, there is no more important feature of it than that of organization in all departments. Such organization as will dispose of misery, poverty, ignorance and crime. All these can be cast out of society; and it is to be sincerely hoped for, that there will be formed a political party having its basis in the necessity and the possibility of such a disposal. Such conditions cannot exist in the midst of a community without exerting their deleterious influences over the higher and better conditions. People lose sight of this fact, and in all legislation it is ignored. Government now has the power to take these conditions in hand, and none are more interested in having it do so than the so-called labor party. Why should not this party organize upon some such radical principles of reform that will reach the roots of the ills they feel society labors under?
The policy of a party that would be permanently successful must be one that will include all of the great principles of reform. If such a party is not shortly organized, there will be conditions developed which will make such a party a necessity, even without organization. It would arise as if by magic out of the conditions of the times, and leaders will rise and come to the front as though Heaven-directed, and they will be received by the people by acclamation. The force of elections will be dispensed with, and party trickery forever killed.
The whole substrata of society is in foment. The terrific strifes that have been waged, and are being waged, lift the weight from the strata, and it begins to rise into demanding such recognition as has not been accorded it. The “Moses” who shall divide the “waters of the Red Sea,” that separates them from their “Canaan,” will be their God-appointed leader, whom to oppose would be futile. Political parties have been in the hands of such leaders, and have been used for such corrupt purposes, that the people have lost all confidence in them, and they demand A New Order of Things, in which common honesty may properly find a place.
Labor and capital, lying, as they do, at the foundation of present society, and as they will enter largely into all societies of the future, so long as material wants are conducive to the true interests of humanity, should receive such consideration at the hands of the present as will so arrange their interests that there may be no violent disruption between them, when present governmental forms shall change. The sphere of government must be enlarged and made to include very many questions which are now utterly ignored, before society can ever be considered as resting upon a surely permanent foundation. To arrive at this foundation is the first and most important step for humanity to take. All minor ones are insignificant beside it, because the corner stones of this foundation must consist of a perfect individual justice, which will not be inconsistent nor at war with perfect collective justice. This condition the present inequalities between labor and capital forbid, and hence the importance of their harmonization.
New York, October 25, 1870.
PAPERS ON LABOR AND CAPITAL.
NO. XII.
Perhaps there is a no more suggestive or instructive fact in all the realm of society than that the laboring classes are the liberal classes. It is among them that nearly all social reforms begin, and among them that all governmental reforms first find moving power. The wealthy classes are systematically conservative; and by instinct they are opposed to all movements which tend to equalization. They are to social reform just what bigots are to religious liberalization. They adopt a creed which their practice is never to depart from, and it is only by the force of the large majority of the people combined against them that they ever do depart from them. The time was when it was the grossest infidelity to question any of the extravagant assertions contained in the Bible; but nearly all Christian sects now assume the right to place their own construction upon what is found therein. This construction is found to grow more human and liberal every year. Twenty years ago, the more “hell-fire and brimstone” a minister gave forth, the more Gospel it was considered that he taught. The same rule obtains in regard to all social questions, and the same rule of extending liberalization will continue, until the balancing point of equalization is reached, in which there shall be no power to determine for the individual, except himself or herself, what is for his or her individual good, or what to him or her is right.
Wealth, in its present position, is aristocratic; and Labor, in its present position, is democratic. Aristocracy always assumes to control that which is under it, in a material sense. It has always assumed this control, and whenever possible has exercised it. This assumption has been exercised so long that those over whom it has been swayed have come to regard it as something approaching a “divine right.” This condition of servitude was possible so long as ignorance possessed the masses over whom it sought control. When education began its silent yet potent work, the power of assumed “divine right” began to weaken. General education is all that the world requires to emancipate it from the rule of all kinds of aristocracy. Common schools for children, and the public press for adults, have done and are doing the work of emancipation.
It was not until quite recently that the representatives of labor began to know the benefits to be derived from organization. They do not yet know the full benefits which it is possible for them to obtain from it; much that they do obtain from it is, on the whole, deleterious rather than beneficial. They require more general knowledge. They need the aid of science to point out the paths in which they should seek to walk. Science, to the organizations of labor, is what discipline is to the army. Without it, the first is powerless, and the last dangerous to those who command and support it.