Our Benevolent Feudalism

by William J. Ghent

The social and political effect of this general participation in the ownership of industries may be readily observed by all but the blind. “If the truth were known,” wrote that keen-witted financier, Mr. Russell Sage, in a magazine article published last May, “concentration of wealth is popular with the masses.” Partners in the great enterprises, the multitude of petty shareholders are led more and more to consider economic questions from the employers’ standpoint. In the controversies between labor and capital ten years ago the average citizen was but an onlooker, sometimes a weak partisan of capital, but very often a neutral, with a strong latent sympathy for the “under dog.” To-day, thanks to his holding of a single share in the steel corporation or of two or three shares in some street railway company, he is an employer, one of the men “to whom God, in His infinite wisdom, has given the control of the property interests of the country.” He sees, thinks, and feels as a member, however humble, of the employing class; and what the magnates think and do is to him all the law and the prophets. “Bound by gold chains about the feet” of his feudatory lords, he is at the same time a sharer in their responsibilities and a faithful retainer in their service.

IV

It would be idle to declare that all the tendencies make toward acquiescence. Just as in the atmosphere a prevailing drift of the wind is accompanied by cross currents, flurries, and rotatory motions, so the dominant tendency discoverable in social industry is qualified by many complex processes. Of the cross currents here to be briefly noted, some are but trifling, while others undoubtedly reveal a certain force and constancy. A small part of the public is ever in a state of ferment over imputed social evils, and at rare times this ferment becomes general. Recurring labor troubles indicate that the spirit of resistance, if it really be dying, dies hard. Strikes of the magnitude of those at Homestead and in the Tennessee mines in 1892, at Chicago and other railroad centres in 1894, the several anthracite coal strikes of 1897, 1900, and 1902, and the steel strike of 1901 prove that organized labor has not wholly succumbed to the encompassing forces about it. The remarkable growth in numbers, these last two years, of the unions composing the American Federation of Labor, is confirmatory testimony. Radical political movements, furthermore, have not been wanting. The Socialists have increased their voting strength in the nation from some 2000 ballots in 1888 to upward of 130,000 in 1900. The Farmers’ Alliance made tremendous headway in the election of 1890, and its political successor, the People’s party, secured by fusion more than 1,000,000 votes in 1892 and nearly 2,000,000 in 1894. “Labor” mayors and even Socialist mayors have been elected in several cities, and the polling of 106,721 votes for Samuel M. Jones for Governor of Ohio in 1899 was a truly remarkable showing of the residual independence of the citizenship. There are also general social movements to chronicle. Reform societies and clubs are occasionally heard of; arbitration movements have met with some favor; there has been a considerable growth in the number of university and college settlements; and anti-trust conferences and things of that sort have frequently met, talked, and dispersed. Indeed, all of us at times grumble and find fault with general conditions. Even Mr. Russell Sage, in the face of his exultant panegyric on the beneficence of combination, has very recently given to the press a statement denouncing the further consolidation of industry, and predicting, in case his words are not heeded, “widespread revolt of the people and subsequent financial ruin unequalled in the history of the world.” Though only a few of us are irreconcilable at all times, all of us are disaffected sometimes—especially when our particular interests are pinched. We talk threateningly of instituting referendums to curb excessive power, of levying income taxes, or of compelling the Government to acquire the railroads and the telegraphs. We subscribe to newspapers and other publications which criticise the acts of the great corporations, and we hail as a new Gracchus the ardent reformer who occasionally comes forth for a season to do battle for the popular cause.

V

It must be confessed, however, that this revolt is, for the most part, sentimental; it is a mental attitude only occasionally transmutable into terms of action. It is, moreover, sporadic and flickering; it dies out, after a time, and we revert to our usual moods, concerning ourselves with our particular interests, and letting the rest of the world wag as it will. The specific social reaction of the last few years has been especially marked. It has shown itself in the weakening or disruption of radical political movements, in the more hesitant attitude of the trade-unionists, in the decline of factory legislation,—in fact, of all legislation tending to the protection of the weaker and the regulation of the stronger,—and in a general feeling of the futility of social effort. The Anti-imperialists will have it that this admitted reaction is due to the South African and Philippine wars, to a lust of empire and a contempt for the rights of weaker peoples. It is a pretty theory, but unfortunately it has small basis in chronology. For the reaction had already become apparent before either war was waged. The date of its beginning may be variously guessed at; but it is probable that the time assigned to it in Chapter V—somewhere within the two years 1896-97—is not far wrong. Before that time a very large part of the public could occasionally be interested in social measures and movements, and in social literature. Thousands of even the most hardened philistines read Mr. George’s “Progress and Poverty,” Mr. Bellamy’s “Looking Backward,” and Mr. Kidd’s “Social Evolution.” And as for that minor section of the public, the social reformers, there was then to be found among them a radicalism of belief, a definiteness of aim, an ardency and determination of spirit that are sadly wanting now. Doubtless to every one of these, as he ruefully compares the two periods, there recurs the sentiment of the Wordsworthian recollection,—

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven.”

While in the bosom of every devotee of Things-as-they-are there rises the sentiment of thankfulness that the mass of the people have learned the wisdom of letting well enough alone.

Political radicalism reached its culminating point in the election of 1896. Despite certain foolish and mischievous notions embodied in the two radical platforms of that year, the combined movement was yet a consistent and unified attack upon class rule. The elections of the next two years revealed a waning of Populist and Democratic strength, and in 1900 a fine sense of caution prompted the Fusionists to subordinate the industrial demands of their platforms to the issue of Imperialism. The Socialists, it is true, usually increase their vote; but the admitted fact of a great growth of Socialist conviction throughout the land makes these slight increases at the polls appear but trivial, and only further confirms the view that such radicalism is sentimental rather than potential. Anti-trust conferences are not without an element of humor; at least, they are the cause of much humor in outsiders; and the widely heralded arbitration court of the National Civic Federation breaks down on the very occasion when most is expected of it—that of the anthracite coal strike. Organized labor, despite its greater numerical strength, is far less aggressive than of old; and except in isolated instances, it observes a caution which would have further distinguished Fabius. As for the growth of college settlements, the fact is only an added proof of reaction. They do a great good, unquestionably; but their basis is philanthropy and not social adjustment.

As a people, we have heard enough, for the time, about social problems, and prefer to interest ourselves in other matters. Professor Walter A. Wyckoff, who has recently changed the scene of his optimistic observances from America to England, has an article in the September Scribner’s on the English social situation. “The condition-of-the-people problem,” he writes, “lacks vitality for the moment because, as one shrewd observer remarked, ‘the public has grown tired of the poor.’” We are feeling the same weariness here. Our benevolence somewhat increases, and we are willing to give, and more than willing that the magnates shall give freely; but we want to be troubled no more with remedial schemes. Rather, we are disposed to trust to seigniorial wisdom and virtue to set things right. Some of us will perhaps decline to go so far in our trust as a certain prominent Massachusetts lady who proposed to abolish working-class suffrage. “I think,” said this lady in an address to a club of working girls, “many of the troubles between employer and men might be swept away if the men could not vote. If he felt that they did not stand on just the same footing as himself, that they had not quite so many privileges as he, the employer might have a chivalric feeling toward them.” Some of us may hesitate at this project, but withal we are willing to trust largely to seigniorial guidance.