Now the chief material argument for the socialistic state, the co-operative commonwealth, is that it will secure for every citizen comfort and contentment, so far as contentment is possible to restless human minds; that it will abolish at a stroke monopoly and privilege, purge society of parasites, add to the efficiency of labor and proportionately increase its rewards. All of which is measurably accomplished on the Canal Zone and the less cautious socialists—the well-grounded ones see the difference—are excusable for hailing the government there as an evidence of the practicability of socialism.
But it isn’t—at least not quite. The incarnation of the difference between this and socialism is Col. George W. Goethals. Nobody on the Zone had part in electing Goethals; nobody can say him nay, or abate or hinder in any degree his complete personal control of all that is done here. This is not the co-operative commonwealth we long have sought. Rather is it like the commonwealth of old with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector—and at that Goethals has no parliament to purge.
Photo by H. Pittier
Courtesy National Geographic Magazine
THE CATASETUM SCURRA
A curiously shaped orchid rediscovered by Mrs. H. H. Rousseau
This is a benevolent despotism, the sort of government that philosophers agree would be ideal if the benevolence of the despot could only be assured invariably and eternally. The Czar of Russia could do what is being done down there were he vested with Goethals’ intolerance of bureaucracies, red-tape, parasites, grafters, disobedience and delay. But Goethals is equally intolerant of opposition, argument, even advice from below. His is the military method of personal command and personal responsibility. I don’t believe he is over-fond even of the council of war. In a socialistic community, where every man had a voice in the government, he would last only long enough for a new election to be called. Though his popularity there is universal, it would not withstand the attacks of demagogues were there field for demagogy.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood
MARRIED QUARTERS AT COROZAL