LOOKING
FURTHER FORWARD

Contents

LOOKING
FURTHER FORWARD

BY
RICHARD MICHAELIS,
Editor Chicago “Freie Presse.”

AN ANSWER TO
LOOKING BACKWARD

BY
EDWARD BELLAMY.

CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
Rand, McNally & Company, Publishers.
1890.

Copyright, 1890, by Richard Michaelis.

PREFACE.

Every seeker after truth and reform is entitled to recognition, even if his ways and methods are not ours. Mr. Edward Bellamy’s book: “Looking Backward”, is an effort to improve the lot of mankind and therefore commendable, but his reform proposition, stripped of its fine coloring, is nothing but communism, a state of society, which has proved a failure whenever established without a religious basis and which without such basis is en vogue today only among some barbarous and cannibal tribes.

Chicago has for the last fourteen years been the centre of the communistic and anarchistic agitation in the United States, and in defending the fundamental principles of American institutions against these theories, that were imported from the overcrowded industrial centres of Europe, I became quite familiar with them as well as with the notions and peculiarities of social reformers, who imagine themselves in possession of an infallible receipt to perfect not only all human institutions but also human nature.

Of course Mr. Bellamy holds more moderate views than those Spies and Parsons proclaimed, but he has this much in common with the Anarchists and Communists of Chicago: he has become incapable of passing a fair judgement upon our present institutions, conditions and men; he overlooks all difficulties in the introduction of his proposed changes, he really believes his socialistic air-castles must spring into existence very soon and without obstruction, and he populates his fairy palaces with angelic human beings, who would never by any possibility do anything wrong. The surmise, that men and women in a communistic state, would put off all selfishness, envy, hate, jealousy, wrangling and desire to rule is just as reasonable as the supposition, that a man can sleep one hundred and thirteen years and rise thereafter as young and fresh as he went to bed.

What queer methods reformers sometimes advocate! John Most would in the name of equal rights to all, first kill all men who are not in absolute sympathy with his opinions, then abolish all laws and all officers, and then let nature take its course.—Mr. Bellamy on the other hand would, also in the name of equal rights, deprive all the clever and industrious workers of a large or the largest part of the products of their labor for the benefit of their awkward, stupid or lazy comrades! And this would be what Mr. Bellamy is pleased to style justice and equality!

And for the purpose of reaching this state of mock-equality, Mr. Bellamy would as a matter of course have to sacrifice competition, the gigantic power that elevated us all and Mr. Bellamy with us to the present state of evolution! It is true that competition has been and is now abused, but every institution is subject to abuse and the misuse of a thing does not demonstrate that the thing in itself is wrong. Nobody can deny that competition during the centuries of Christian civilization has developed the brains and muscles of the human race and that the continuous best efforts of humanity, stimulated by competition during these many centuries, have lifted our race to a standard where the mode of living of common laborers is more comfortable and desirable than the everyday existence of the Kings of which Homer sings.

Every generation has to battle with certain problems, and it is the lot of ours to overcome the difficulties between capital and labor, that have been increased by the change in the methods of production since the discovery of steam power.

We have to find ways and means not to avoid productive work (—spoken of by Mr. Bellamy as an evil—), but to cure the brain cancer of our days: the permanent uncertainty of subsistence and the fear of poverty. And we accomplish this by co-operation and by mutual insurance companies, without retrograding to communism, that most barbarous state of society.

The imperfect nature of man characterizes, as a matter of course, all human institutions and it is the easiest thing in the world, by “looking backward”, to find fault with living men as well as with the present state of affairs and to build air castles inhabited by angels only.

I will now look forward! By demonstrating what would be the logical conclusion of Mr. Bellamy’s story, if fairly continued, I purpose to show that he first tries to establish absolute equality and then, despairing of success, advocates an inequality in many respects more oppressive than the present state of things. I intend to demonstrate, that under the regime, proposed by Mr. Bellamy, favoritism and corruption would be very potent factors in public life. I expect to set forth that personal liberty would fare so badly in Mr. Bellamy’s United States, that the proud and independent American people would never tolerate such a system, and to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, that the people would be much poorer in Mr. Bellamy’s condition of affairs, than at the present time.

I do not deny that our society stands in need of many desirable reforms; but I am not prepared to follow blindly Mr. Bellamy, John Most, or anybody else, who pretends that he is ready to deliver humanity from all evils on short notice, and I do not intend to jump head over heels into the dark.

If Mr. Bellamy and his followers are quite sure that they can establish the millennium, let them try it, like the communists of the Amana Society who have started a community in the state of Iowa on a religious basis. There are many thousands of acres of good government lands left, where Mr. Bellamy and his friends may settle and show the world what they can do! But they should not ask the people of the United States to break up their present form of government and state of society, before they have given their theories a trial and proved that their calculations are correct.

Richard Michaelis.

Chicago, April 1890.

LOOKING FORWARD.

CHAPTER I.

For the purpose of introducing myself to those readers of this book, who are not familiar with the contents of “Looking Backward”, edited by Mr. Edward Bellamy, I will recapitulate the remarkable events of my life up to the end of that extraordinary narrative.

Born in Boston on the 26th day of December 1857, I was baptized Julian West, was educated in the schools and colleges of my city, but, being in possession of a handsome fortune, did not devote myself to any particular profession or trade. I became engaged to Miss Edith Bartlett, a young lady of great beauty, and it was our intention to marry as soon as my new house should be ready for occupation. The completion of the building was frequently delayed by strikes of masons and carpenters, and I occupied still the old fashioned house, where my family had lived for three generations.

Suffering from insomnia, I had prepared in the basement and under the foundations of the old building, a large vault, where the noises of a great city would not disturb me. This vault was absolutely fire-proof, and fresh air was assured by means of a small pipe running up to the roof of the house.

To obtain sleep I was frequently forced to avail myself of the services of a mesmerist, and it happened that on the 30th day of May 1887, after two sleepless nights, I sent my colored servant Sawyer to a Dr. Pillsbury, whom I was in the habit of employing. The doctor was about to leave the city to establish himself in New Orleans, and this was therefore the last time he would be able to treat me. I instructed Sawyer to rouse me at nine o’clock the next morning, and under the manipulations of the mesmerist I soon fell into a deep slumber.

When I opened my eyes again I found that I had slept 113 years, 3 months, and 11 days.

I discovered that the old house had been destroyed by fire and that Sawyer had perished in the flames. Dr. Pillsbury had left Boston, the existence of the vault where I slept was unknown to my friends, the house had not been rebuilt and so I remained in a mesmerized condition for over a hundred years, until a Dr. Leete, the occupant of a house which was being erected on a part of the old lot, commenced to build a laboratory and unearthed my vault in the year 2000.

I learned that Edith Bartlett, after mourning my loss fourteen years, had married, that Dr. Leete’s wife was Edith Bartlett’s granddaughter, and that his daughter Edith was therefore the great-granddaughter of the young lady who had been my promised bride 113 years before.

The vigor of my manhood of thirty years overcame the shock of these discoveries. I soon felt myself at home in Dr. Leete’s house, the more so, because young Edith soon occupied the place in my heart once filled by Edith Bartlett, and it was not long before Edith Leete, a somewhat romantic, compassionate girl, consented with grace to become the successor of her great-grandmother; to be my bride.

But the turn of my own fate is even less remarkable, than the change that has taken place in the social order of things. Dr. Leete explained to me the new organization of society.

Individual enterprises have ended. The nation creates everything that individuals and corporations were producing at the end of the nineteenth century. Every able bodied man, every healthy woman belongs to the “industrial army”. They enter the force at the age of 21 and are released at 45. Only in rare cases of necessity are men over 45 years of age summoned to work.

Money is abolished, but all inhabitants of the United States receive an equal share of the results of the work of the industrial army in the form of a credit card, a piece of paste board on which dollars and cents are marked. There is one store in each ward where people can select such goods as they may desire. The value of the goods, one purchases, is pricked out of his credit card and his account is charged in the Government books with the amount of goods so purchased.

The meals are furnished by large cooking houses. Washing and repairing are done in large laundries. One may take his meals home or eat them at the cooking house. The bill of fare is very elaborate and one may have even a special dining room. The amount to be paid for the meals differs of course according to the bill of fare ordered and to the place where the meal is taken.

Each family occupies a separate house; the furniture being the property of the tenant. The rent, which depends on the size of the house, is also pricked out of the credit card.

All inhabitants of the United States are obliged to attend school until they have reached the age of 21. Then they become members of the industrial army. During the first three years of their services they are called recruits or apprentices and have to do the common labor under the absolute command of the officers or overseers. A record is kept, in which are entered the ability and behavior of each recruit.

After the first three years of service, each recruit may select a profession or a trade. As far as possible the volunteers are placed in the trades they prefer. Recruits with the best records are given the first choice. Some of them have to take a second or third choice, and some are obliged to accept positions assigned to them by their superiors.

All members of the army are, according to their ability and behavior, divided into three grades, and apprentices with a first-class record may, after their three years service, enter at once the first grades of the different trades selected by them.

The general of the guild appoints all the officers of his trade. The lieutenants must be taken from the members of the first grades. The captains are chosen by the general from the lieutenants, the colonels from the captains. The general of the guild himself is elected by the former members of the trade, that is, those who have passed the age of forty-five. The ex-members of all the guilds also elect the chiefs of the ten great departments or groups of allied trades. The chiefs are taken from the generals of the guilds. And the former guild members also elect the President of the United States, who is taken from the ranks of the retired chiefs of the ten great departments. The President, the ten chiefs of the great departments and the generals of all the guilds live in Washington.

The members of the industrial army have not the right to vote for any of the officers by whom they are governed. They have no representation during their 24 years of service; but if they have a complaint against one of their superiors, they may bring their case before a judge whose decision is final.

The judges are appointed by the President from the ranks of the retired members of the guild for the term of five years.

Courts, lawyers, jails, sheriffs, tax-assessors, collectors and many other officers have been abolished. Criminals are treated in hospitals as persons mentally ill.

The National Government regulates the production. When it sees that certain trades attract a very large number of volunteers, while other trades fall short, the administration increases the working time of the preferred trades and shortens the working hours of those needing more volunteers.

The women have their own officers, generals, judges, and form an auxiliary army of industry. They receive the same credit cards as the men. Since the cooking and washing and repairing of household goods are done outside, the women of the twentieth century have more time for productive labor than had the women of a hundred years ago.

Recruits who have passed three years service, during which they are assignable to any work at the discretion of their superiors, may enter schools of technology, medicine, art, etc.; but if they cannot keep pace with the classes, they must withdraw. Physicians, who do not find sufficient employment, are assigned to work of another character.

If people desire the publication of a newspaper, they must club together and give up enough of their credit cards to compensate the nation for the loss of the work of the persons editing and printing the paper.

If one desires to publish a book, he can write it in his hours of leisure and can have it printed by giving up a part of his credit card. For the copies sold he receives again a new credit.

Preachers are in a similar way employed by persons who desire to hear their sermons.

Cripples or other people unable to do full work or any work at all, receive their full credit cards, because the fact, that they are human beings, entitles them to their full share of all good things produced on earth.

The state governments within the United States have been abolished as useless.

All other civilized nations have organized themselves on a similar basis and are exchanging goods with each other. The yearly balances are settled with national staple articles.

The new order of things enables people to live without cares, and one of the consequences is the fact, that most of the men and women of an average constitution live from eighty-five to ninety years.—

Such was the description of the new order of things given me by Dr. Leete in a number of conversations. The doctor is very enthusiastic over the organization of society of the twentieth century and does not hesitate to call it the millennium.

The fear and uncertainty which I entertained in regard to my employment were set at rest by Dr. Leete, who said, that I could, if I wished, have the position of professor of the history of the nineteenth century in the Shawmut College of Boston. I have accepted the offer and shall enter upon my duties next Monday.

CHAPTER II.

When I first entered the large hall of Shawmut College, where I was to deliver my lectures, I noticed near the door of the room a gentleman of about forty years of age. He was too old to be one of the students and as I had not seen him when Dr. Leete introduced me to the professors of the institution, I was somewhat curious to know in what capacity he honored my debut.

The cordial reception I had met at the hands of the professors, the fact that every seat of the large hall was occupied, acted as a stimulus and when Dr. White, the president of Shawmut College had introduced me with a few complimentary remarks as a living witness of the nineteenth century, I began my first lecture in the best of spirits.

My speech contained naturally many of the points that Dr. Leete had most dwelt upon, when, in his conversations with me, he had compared the organization of society of the nineteenth and that of the twentieth centuries.

I said in substance, that my hearers must not expect a synopsis of the civilization of the two centuries or a panegyric of the present state of affairs. I would point out but a few conditions, regulations and institutions that could serve as criterion of the spirit of their times.

As characteristic of the spirit of the civilization of the nineteenth century, I described the insane competition, where a man in a foul fight must “cheat, overreach, supplant, defraud, buy below worth and sell above, break down the business by which his neighbor fed his young ones, tempt men to buy what they ought not and to sell what they should not, grind their laborers, sweat their debtors, cozen their creditors,”[1] in order to be able to support those dependent on him. I showed “that there had been many a man among the people of the nineteenth century who, if it had been merely a question of his own life would sooner have given it up than nourished it by bread snatched from others.”[2] I pictured the consequences of this insane and annihilating competition as a constant wear on the brains and bodies of the past generation, intensified by the permanent fear of poverty. The spectre of uncertainty walked constantly beside the man of the nineteenth century, sat at his table and went to bed with him, even whispering in his ears: “Do your work ever so well, rise early and toil till late, rob cunningly or serve faithfully, you shall never know security. Rich you may be now and still come to poverty at last. Leave ever so much wealth to your children, you can not buy the assurance, that your son may not be the servant of your servant or that your daughter will not sell herself for bread.”[3]

[1] Such parts of Mr. Bellamy’s book as are characteristic of his manner of dealing with the present and with the future, I give with marks of quotation, adding in a foot note the page of “Looking Backward,” where the sentence may be found. The above remarks are taken from page 277.

[2] Page 277.

[3] Page 321.

And while one hundred and thirteen years ago all men worked like slaves, until completely exhausted, without having even a guaranty that they would not die in poverty or from hunger, the men of the twentieth century were walking in the sunlight of freedom, security, happiness and equality. After receiving an excellent education in standard schools and then passing through an apprenticeship of three years, the young people of the twentieth century select their vocation. Short hours of work permit them, even during the years of service in the industrial army, to spend more time for the continuation of their studies and for recreation than the people who lived a hundred years ago had ever believed to be consistent with a successful management of industries, farming or public affairs.

Free from all cares, in perfect harmony with each other, without the disturbing influence of political parties, enjoying a wealth unprecedented in the history of nations, we might verily say: “The long and weary winter of our race is ended. Its summer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens are before it!”[4]

[4] Page 292.

I had spoken with enthusiasm, yes, even with deep emotion and I expected, if not a warm, at least a sympathetic reception of my address. But only a faint and very cold applause followed my remarks. I had the impression that not one fourth of the young men present had found it worth their while to show their approval of my lecture, and that the applause of even these few had been an act of courtesy rather than a spontaneous outburst of feeling. The chilly reception was such a great disappointment to me that I could not rally courage enough to leave my chair and pass through the students as they were leaving the hall.

I busied myself at the little desk before me until everybody had gone with the exception of the gentleman who had arrested my attention when I entered the room. He remained at the door evidently waiting for me.

“You belong to the college?” I asked, to hide my embarrassment.

“Indeed I do”, he answered with a light smile, that challenged another question.

“I suppose I have the pleasure of meeting one of my colleagues”, I continued. “My name is West”.

“Until about a month ago I was Professor Forest, your predecessor in teaching the history of the nineteenth century; to-day I am one of the janitors and my chief has been good enough to recommend this room to my care.”

I had during the last few days seen and heard so many new and strange things, that I was prepared to be surprised at nothing, however astounding.

But the information, that to a professor of history was assigned the duty of cleaning the rooms, where he had once lectured, sounded so incredible and opened such an unpleasing prospect for my own career, that I could not conceal my amazement.

“And what has caused this singular change of position”, I inquired.

“In comparing the lot of humanity in 1900 and 2000 I came to conclusions very different from yours”, responded Mr. Forest.

“You do not mean to say, that the condition of the people of the nineteenth century was better than that of the present generation?” I asked with some curiosity.

“That is my opinion”, said Mr. Forest.

“The only way I can understand you holding such extraordinary views, is that you are personally quite unacquainted with the civilization of which you speak so highly,” I declared.

“I have as a matter of course, drawn my information from our libraries, and I am forced to admit that you can support your argument in regard to the civilization of the last century by pointing to your personal knowledge. But I am afraid that you are not so familiar with the present state of affairs, at the fountain of your information in regard to the twentieth century is only one man, Dr. Leete. I may therefore claim that my information of the civilization of your days is better than yours of our institutions, because mine is based on the testimony of more witnesses than one.”

“Then you must of course disapprove the views developed in my lecture?”

“Your address will undoubtedly be published in extenso in all the administration organs, that is, in nearly every newspaper in the land”, said Mr. Forest, evading a direct answer to my question.

“Administration organs you say”, I asked with surprise: “Has the administration organs, and why does it need them?”

“Of course the administration has organs”, answered Forest. “And it is both difficult and unpleasant to edit an opposition paper. Therefore we have only a few of them.”

“But Dr. Leete said: “We have no parties or politicians and as for demagoguery and corruption, they are words having only a historical significance.”[5] And yet you speak of opposition and of administration papers?” I said this very likely with an expression of some doubt in my eyes.

[5] Page 60.

My companion broke into a loud laugh, after which he asked: “Excuse, please, my merriment, but Dr. Leete is a great joker, who never fails to “bring down the house.” Well! Well! That is too good. I wish I could have seen his face when he gave you that information.”

And Mr. Forest laughed again.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. West”, he continued, when I met his merriment with silence; “but you would not only excuse but share my laughter, if you were familiar with our public life, if you knew Dr. Leete as well as I do and then learned that he had claimed, we were suffering from a want of politicians. But I wish to say right here”, added Mr. Forest in a more composed tone, “that I have not a poor opinion of Dr. Leete. He is a practical joker, a shrewd politician, but otherwise as good a man as our time can produce.”

“Dr. Leete is a politician?” I asked in the utmost astonishment.

“Yes. Dr. Leete is the most influential leader of the administration party in Boston. I owe it to his kind interference, that I am still connected with the college.”

Noticing that I did not know how to construe this statement, Mr. Forest added:

“When, in comparing the civilization of your days with ours, I came to the conclusion, that communism had proved a failure, I was accused of misleading and corrupting the students and the usual sentence in such cases: “confinement in an insane asylum”, was passed. Because, it is claimed, that only a madman could find fault with the best organization of society ever introduced. Dr. Leete, however, declared, that my insanity was so harmless, that confinement in an asylum seemed unnecessary, besides being too expensive. I could still earn my living by doing light work about the college building; and my case would serve as a warning to all the professors and students to be careful in their expressions and teachings. So I retained the liberty in which we glory and was spared doing street cleaning or some such work, which is generally awarded to “kickers” against the administration.”

“The students seem to share your opinion, at least they received my remarks very coldly,” I remarked, in order to avoid a discussion of the qualities of my host.

Mr. Forest’s keen grey eyes rested for a moment upon my face, and then he said in a friendly tone:

“I believe you were convinced of what you said, Mr. West; but did it not occur to you, that you treated your time and your contemporaries very severely? Did competition really demand, that one should defraud his neighbor, grind his laborers, sweat his debtors and snatch the bread from others? Were the majority of the men of your time swindlers and Shylocks? Were the laborers all slaves, working each day until completely exhausted? I remember distinctly, that the wage-workers of your time struck frequently for eight hours, declining to work nine or ten hours per diem for good pay. I think you had a strong, proud and independent class of laborers, who could not fairly be regarded as slaves. And as for the girls, I have seen the statements and complaints, that help for housekeeping was very scarce in your days and was paid from $2. to $5. per week, with board, so that there was no excuse for any decent girl to sell herself for bread.—Of course your state of civilization was very far from being faultless; in fact there is no such thing as perfection in anything. But your description of the civilization of the nineteenth century is painted in such dark colors, that our students, who are somewhat familiar with the history of those days, could not very well enthuse over your lecture; especially as many of these young men do not regard our present institutions with such complete admiration as you do. I speak frankly, Mr. West, and I hope you will excuse my frankness, because of my desire to serve you in describing men, things and institutions as I see them.”

The warm tone of his voice and the sympathetic expression of his eyes caused me to shake hands with Forest, although everything he had said went directly against my friends, my views, my feelings and my interests. I left him in an uneasy mood and walked home revolving in my mind his criticism of my lecture.

I met Dr. Leete and the ladies, and Edith inquired whether my debut as professor had satisfied my expectations.

I have always tried to be frank and true: so I gave Dr. Leete and his family a synopsis of my speech, mentioned the cool reception of my address and my disappointment. I spoke of Mr. Forest’s criticism, leaving out, of course, his observations relative to Dr. Leete, and confessed that his censure was not wholly undeserved inasmuch as I had gone too far in charging upon the whole people the bad qualities which reckless competition had stamped on certain individuals.

Dr. Leete was evidently not altogether pleased with my remarks. After a short pause he said: “I think the reckless competition of the last part of the nineteenth century could not fail to demoralize more or less, in most cases more, all the people, who were conducting a business or who had to work for a living. I think furthermore that your lecture was an excellent exposition of principles and that you have no reason to yield an inch of your position. The cold reception you met with, ought not to worry you. It is due to Forest, who has planted in the hearts of our students his idiosyncrasy, his blind admiration of competition and his aversion to our form of civilization. It is your task to enlighten the young men in regard to the comparative merits of the two orders of things.—Mr. Forest is placing a heavy tax on the patience of his fellow citizens by his persistent efforts to mislead the students.—Did he mention the fact that he was your predecessor?”

“He did, when I asked him if he were a member of the college staff of teachers. He said that he was discharged for his heresy and that he owed his comparatively lenient treatment to you.”

“It is not Forest’s habit to conceal his opinions and he may have given you a nice idea of Dr. Leete”, my host said with a smile.

I thought best under the circumstances to repeat Forest’s remarks in regard to Dr. Leete, which remarks were very good natured and rather complimentary to my host. I may add that I desired very much to know what Dr. Leete would say in answer to the charge of being a politician and a leader of the administration party.

So I said: “Mr. Forest laughed heartily when I repeated your remarks that you have no party nor politicians. He called you a great practical joker, a shrewd politician, the leader of the administration party in Boston and a good man.”

Dr. Leete smiled somewhat grimly as he replied: “That is a character I ought to be grateful for, considering that it comes from a faultfinder like Forest. Concerning his references to me as a politician I will say that I never held an office, but that the administration has occasionally consulted me and other citizens on important questions. Political parties we have not. There are of course a few incurable faultfinders like Mr. Forest and a few radical growlers, but we pay but little attention to them so long as they do not disturb the public peace. If they do, we send them to a hospital where they receive proper treatment.”

Although these words were spoken in the tone of light conversation, they impressed me deeply. “If they do, we send them to a hospital, where they receive proper treatment.” Did not this confirm Forest’s statement, that the usual sentence against the opponents of communism was confinement in an insane asylum?

My unpleasant thoughts were interrupted by Edith’s sweet voice remarking: “I think Mr. Forest is an honest well meaning gentleman and he should be permitted to express his views, even if they are wrong and queer. The students will certainly eventually be convinced that our order of things is as good as it can be made, and besides it is so entertaining to hear once in a while another opinion.”

With an expression of fatherly love, Dr. Leete placed his right hand on Edith’s thick hair and said: “The ladies of the court of Louis XVI. of France also considered very entertaining the ideas that caused the revolution and cost many of the “entertained” ladies and gentlemen their heads beneath the guillotine.—Ideas are little sparks. They may easily cause a conflagration if not watched”.

CHAPTER III.

My studies had never been directed to questions of national economy. I had never thought of comparing the merits of competition with those of communism. When Dr. Leete had explained in his positive and still fascinating manner the new order of things I had hardly noticed that it was based on communistic principles. I thought humanity had reached at last the millennium, and when Dr. Leete stated that his easy and even luxurious way of living represented the average style of the people of the twentieth century, I had no doubt that everybody was satisfied with the new order of things.

My cool reception by the students and my conversation with Mr. Forest had convinced me, that not every inhabitant of the United States in the 2000th year of our Lord considered the present order of things the millennium and I must say that I noticed the dissatisfaction with sincere sorrow. For a sweet peace, a tranquillity never felt before, had filled my heart, when Dr. Leete spoke of the absolute happiness of the men of the twentieth century.

My new profession imposed upon me the duty of studying national economy. Of course I could have pictured simply the social and political circumstances, in which the people of the United States had lived 113 years ago, but this would not have satisfied me. I desired to learn, how the civilizations of the two centuries, if impartially judged, would compare. Therefore I cultivated my acquaintance with Mr. Forest, to hear from him the arguments against the theories set forth by Dr. Leete, although a feeling of discomfort always overwhelmed me, whenever the thought came to me, that Forest’s ideas might prove victorious over the principles advanced by Dr. Leete. For a victory won by Forest could mean nothing else but a return to a state of affairs, which I thoroughly disliked, and which I knew to be full of cares and discomforts.

I confined my next lecture to an accurate description of the state of the labor market of Boston in 1887. Avoiding carefully all exaggerations, I drew only indisputable conclusions from the facts given, showing how capital and labor had lost equally by the numerous strikes in those days and complimenting the present order of things, for making such irrational economical conflicts impossible.

After my lectures I always conversed with Mr. Forest, who was quite as willing to discuss the new order of society as Dr. Leete.

“The friends of the administration are calling me a fault-finder”, said Mr. Forest, “and they are right, although they might express their opinion with more civility, if they said, that I am critically disposed. I would criticise every administration under which it chanced to be my destiny to live, however good or bad that administration might be. I do not harbor any animosity against the men, who rule the United States to-day. I even admit that they exercise a little more wisdom, energy and tolerance, than did the members of the government, which ruled twelve years ago. But the fundamental principle of their system is decidedly wrong and so the consequences must be bad;—whatever the members of the administration may do to patch up the shortcomings of their system”.

“So you think that the present system is absolutely wrong?” I queried.

“Can you entertain any doubts?” answered Forest. “Look around! Is the leading principle in creation equality or variety? You find sometimes similitude but never conformity. Botanists have carefully compared thousands of leaves, which looked exactly alike at the first glance, but which after close examination were found to possess striking dissimilarities. Inequality is the law of nature and the attempt to establish equality is therefore unnatural and absurd. Where-ever such experiments have been made, they have ended in unqualified failure. Even some of the first Christians, moved by brotherly love and charity, failed in their efforts to establish communism permanently. And the lamented Procrustes used two bedsteads in which he placed his victims. He could not get along with one size for everybody. We may just as well try to make every man six feet long, forty-two inches around his chest, with a Grecian nose, blue eyes, light hair and a lyric tenor voice, as to attempt to equalize all lives and reduce them to a communistic state.—Now consider, in connection with the difference in the mental and physical powers of men, their different inclinations and tastes, the variety of their occupations, and then say, whether the establishment of society on the basis of communism, of absolute equality, is possible.”

“If I have formed a just appreciation of the organization of your society, you have recognized the right of all men to a living by giving everybody an equal share of the products of labor”, I objected; “but at the same time you give everybody the chance to select the profession or trade most to his taste and you have graded the men, belonging to a guild, thus inciting the ambition of the worker, to reach a higher grade, and creating a diversity of positions, adapted to that dissimilarity of men, you were just speaking of”.

“Yes”, said Forest, “we first established the principle of equality and then proceeded to arrange our system upon a basis of inequality, thus avoiding an open avowal that the new organization of society was a failure in both theory and practice. The question before us is a very plain one: “Are we all alike”? If we are, then communism is the proper form of society and everybody should have an equal share of the products of labor. If we are not alike, if we differ in mental power and in physical ability, if the results of the labor of men are different, then there is no reason, why the wealth of the nation should be equally divided. But we first proclaim equality and pretend that we divide the products of labor equally among all;—and then we divide the “workers into first, second and third grades, according to ability, and these grades are subdivided into first and second classes.”[6] Here we see the workers subdivided into six classes for the reason, expressly stated, that their ability differs. That their diligence also differs is not admitted, but it is nevertheless the fact. The inequality of men is thus distinctly recognized, but the products of labor are equally divided in the name of equality! Now, everybody has a natural right to the products of his activity, but we are taking a large share of the results of the labor of a clever worker of class A of the first grade to give it to a lazy fellow of class B of the third grade. This is downright robbery, not even hidden beneath the shabby cloak of the leading principle governing all the acts of the administration; and all those who can not admire this stealing, are denounced as enemies of the best organization of society, ever known in the history of mankind”.

[6] Page 125.

“You are to a certain extent an admirer of the civilization of the nineteenth century”, I answered; “and yet in our times the employers were accused by some of the labor agitators of “stealing” a large amount of the products of work by reaping very large profits and paying small wages. I would rather favor an equal division of all properties than a system, by which a comparatively small number of employers can enrich themselves at the expense of the masses of the laboring people.”

“I am not an admirer of the civilization of the nineteenth century, Mr. West,” Forest exclaimed. “I simply maintain, that the principles of competition under which society worked a hundred years ago was far superior to the communism, under which we are laboring. The unjust profits of the employers, of which you complain, could have been easily done away with, if your workmen had organized themselves into co-partnerships or associations. There was no law a hundred years ago to prevent a dozen shoemakers renting a loft with steam power, purchasing a few sewing and other machines and making boots and shoes at their own risk. There was no law to prevent all the other workingmen buying their boots and shoes at the shop of the co-operative association, thus securing for the members of the latter the profits of the manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer and workman. The laborers of all the different trades had a perfect right to organize such co-operative societies and thus secure all the profit that was in their labor. If the workmen preferred not to make use of this chance, if they did not care to assume the cares and risks of conducting a business for themselves, if they would rather work for an employer, leaving the cares and risks of the managements entirely to him, they had certainly no reason to complain of the profit of the employer. And if they were not satisfied with their treatment they could at any time seek other employment;—a thing that the workmen of our days can not do, for there is only one employer, the national administration.—The principle, that a man has a right to what he produces, was not questioned under your form of production. But we have in the name of equality and justice established the “right” to rob an industrious man of a part of the product of his labor and give this booty to his lazy comrade. If the workingmen of the nineteenth century, instead of sacrificing enormous sums in strikes, had organized one trade after another into co-operative associations, they would have solved what they styled the social questions with comparatively little trouble. And they would have saved us from the present outrageous form of society.”

“The strikes were an effect merely of the concentration of capital in greater masses, than had ever been known before”, I said, repeating the views of Dr. Leete on this question. “Before this concentration began ... the individual workman was relatively important and independent in his relations to his employers. Moreover, when a little capital or a new idea was enough to start a man in business for himself, workingmen were constantly becoming employers and there was no hard or fast line between the two classes. Labor unions were needless then and general strikes out of the question”.[7]

[7] Page 52.

“In your place, Mr. West, I would not endorse those sentences of Dr. Leete”, said Forest with a smile, “for the Doctor has had frequent occasions to change his mind on this subject and persists in repeating his erroneous statements, although I and others have disproved them until further repetitions of our arguments became tedious. Strikes are not, as Dr. Leete pretends to believe, comparatively late appearances on the battle fields of national economy. One of the biggest strikes that ever occurred, the “secessio in montem sacrum”, took place in Rome as early as 494 before Christ, and, during the centuries of the middle ages, strikes for higher wages frequently occurred, although in those days labor was much better organized (in trades unions, guilds and “Zuenfte”) and more powerful than capital. And as for the impossibility of laborers ever becoming employers, I can show you in the college library a copy of the German paper, the “Freie Presse”, published in the city of Chicago anno 1888, where the editor, in contradicting similar statements of the communists of those days, points to the fact, that in 1888 there were 12,000 German house owners, manufacturers and well to do or rich business men in Chicago, who all had come to the city poor. When these Germans came to Chicago only a very few of them spoke English, still they were able to accumulate fortunes. This disproves the statement, that the people at the end of the last century were in the clutches of capital and unable to free themselves.—It is the easiest thing in the world to make wild statements, but it is sometimes difficult to substantiate them. And Dr. Leete is an adapt at making statements”.

“But are you not getting along in good style?” I asked, hoping to stop Forest’s complaints, by pointing to an undisputable fact. “Are you not enjoying an unprecedented prosperity and is not this general result, the definite annihilation of poverty, an achievement worth small sacrifices?”

“We are not getting along in good style. We are not enjoying an unprecedented prosperity. You will discover very soon, that you are overestimating the character and the fruits of our civilization. And so far as the annihilation of poverty is concerned, it amounts practically to nothing but the enrichment of the awkward, stupid and lazy people, with the proceeds of the work of the clever and industrious women and men. You could have done that 113 years ago, but you were not foolish and unjust enough to commit such a robbery.”

“If the people don’t like the present organization of society, why do they not change it?” I asked. “From your remarks, I have drawn the conclusion, that you have no opposition party worth speaking of, for you said, there are only a few opposition papers published in the country. This seems to prove that the people are satisfied with the present state of affairs”.

Forest looked very severe as he answered: “You are of course under the impression, that we are acting with the same liberty you were enjoying 113 years ago. But everything in political life has changed since those days. With the exception of a limited number of government officials and a few contractors, your citizens were perfectly independent of the administration; to-day the administration rules everything, and everybody is more or less dependent upon the good will of our rulers. Whoever dares to openly oppose the ruling spirits may be sure that all the wrath and all the unpleasantness at the command of the administration, will be piled upon him and his relatives and friends. Therefore the number of men who are daring enough to challenge the ire of the government is very small, although a great many are discontented with the present state of affairs.”

“But why don’t people elect men to congress, who would pass laws, that would change a state of things, so unsatisfactory to the masses?” I asked, satisfied, that Forest in his fault-finding mood, was using his dark paint altogether to freely.

“Congress has very little influence nowadays”, Forest answered. “The power rests almost entirely with the president and the chiefs of the ten great departments. They have well nigh absolute power and resemble somewhat the council of ten in Venice, when that aristocratic Republic was at the height of its power. As it lies within their discretion to assign each and every person to a good or a poor position for twenty-four years and even to order a draft from the ranks of the men over forty-five years of age, thus being able to get disliked men back under the direct discipline of the industrial army, they have a power over all the people that no tyrant of your times ever dreamed of establishing”.

“You know of course”, Mr. Forest continued, “that all recruits belong for the first three years of their service to the class of unskilled or common laborers. It is not until after this period, during which he is assignable to any work at the discretion of his superiors, that the young man is allowed to select a special avocation”.[8] You can readily see that the young man is during these three years at the absolute mercy of his superiors. They may assign him to easy and clean work, or they may send him to do a dirty and unhealthy job. He has to obey orders. For “a man able to do duty and persistently refusing, is sentenced to solitary imprisonment on bread and water until he consents”.[9]

[8] Page 70.

[9] Page 128.

“You know furthermore, that “individual records are kept and that excellence receives distinction, corresponding with the penalties that negligence incurs.” Dr. Leete has undoubtedly told you this and furthermore “that it is not policy with us to permit youthful recklessness or indiscretion, when not deeply culpable, to handicap the future careers of young men and that all who have passed the unclassified grade without serious disgrace, have an equal opportunity to choose the life employment they have the most liking for.... Now not only are the individual records of these apprentices for ability and industry strictly kept and excellency distinguished by suitable distinctions, but upon the average of his record during his apprenticeship the standing given the apprentice among the full workmen depends....[10] While the internal organizations of the various industries, mechanical and agricultural, differ according to their peculiar conditions, they agree in a general division of their workers into first, second and third grades, according to ability, and these grades are in many cases subdivided, into first and second classes. According to his standing as an apprentice, a young man is assigned his place as a first, second or third grade worker. Regradings take place in each industry at intervals, corresponding with the length of the apprenticeship.... One of the notable advantages of a high grading, is the privilege it gives the worker to select which of the various branches or processes of his industry he will follow as his specialty”[11].... Dr. Leete has of course further informed you, “that so far as possible, the preferences of the poorest workman are considered in assigning him his line of work.... While however the wish of the lower grade man is consulted so far as the exigencies of the service permit, he is considered only after the upper grade men are provided for, and often he has to put up with second or third choice or even with an arbitrary assignment when help is needed. This privilege of selection attends every regrading, and when a man loses his grade, he also risks having to exchange the sort of work he likes best for some other less to his taste.... High places in the nation are open only to the highest class men.”[12]

[10] Page 124.

[11] Page 125.

[12] Pages 125 and 126.

“These regulations bear out what I just said in regard to the power of the administration. The lieutenants, captains and colonels, are appointed by the generals of the guild, who in turn are under the command of the ten chiefs of the ten great departments. These officers may give their young friends, who enter the industrial army as apprentices, easy jobs and good records and enable their friends on the strength of their records, as soon as they have passed the first three years of service, to enter the first class of the first grade of a trade. And such a favorite, who, backed by influential friends, has passed an easy time as an apprentice and who has received at once the first class of the first grade of his trade is immediately appointable to a lieutenantship and he can run up to the higher honors in a few years.—You can not deny, Mr. West, that our regulations permit such a favoritism.”

I had to admit that such things were possible.

Mr. Forest continued: “On the other hand, the young men, who are not the sons and friends of our leaders, are fortunate if they can secure a second grade position, with a record, that does not exclude all hopes of further promotion. Relatives of outspoken opponents of the administration, can be placed in the second class of the third grade of their trade, and their record can be so kept, that they can never hope to secure a higher position. And such a favoritism is not only possible, but it absolutely does exist. The sons and relatives of men, who are known as opponents of the administration, have practically to live worse than slaves, and are sometimes treated like foot balls”.

“Is there no court of appeals?” I asked.

“Yes, such an abused man or woman can go to a Judge”, Mr. Forest answered. “But, the minor Judges are merely men who have passed the 45th year of age and have been appointed to such a position for five years by the President. They—as Dr. Leete of course told you—adjudicate all cases where a member of the industrial army makes a complaint of unfairness against an officer. All such questions are heard and settled without appeal by a single Judge, three Judges being required only in graver cases. The efficiency of industry requires the strictest discipline in the army of labor[13]—The men appointed by the President are of course trustworthy friends of the administration and not expected to decide in such cases against the officers of the government and in favor of the “Kickers”. And as such cases are settled without appeal, the ill-used member of the industrial army has to go back to his old position, where the superior, whom he has accused, will certainly not treat him better than before. On the contrary, such an officer has a first-class chance to “get even” with his dissatisfied subordinate, especially at the next regrading, when he can put him into the last class and grade, if the unfortunate fellow is not already there. If such is the case, the offended officer can at least assign the “Kicker” to the most objectionable work”.

[13] Page 206.

The picture, thus drawn by Mr. Forest, appeared so dreadful, especially when compared by me with the descriptions of Dr. Leete, that I could not collect myself sufficiently to try an argument against the conclusions of my predecessor in the professorship of the history of the nineteenth century.

After a short pause the present janitor continued: “Now consider in connection with all the facts and institutions that I have mentioned, that “the workers have no suffrage to exercise or anything to say about the choice” of their superiors.[14]—“The general of the guild appoints to the ranks under him, but he himself is not appointed, but chosen by suffrage among the superintendents by vote of the honorary members of the guilds, that is by those who have served their time in the guild and received their discharge”[15].—So my dear Mr. West, the members of the industrial army are twenty-four years absolutely at the mercy of their superiors. If they desire to have a good time they must blindly obey orders and seek favor by all means in their power. They must influence their friends who have votes not only to stand by the administration, but to do it in a demonstrative manner. Occasional presents of wines and cigars may secure the friendship of some of the officers. Otherwise the member of the industrial army may lead for twenty-four years a life, compared with which the lot of a plantation slave or of the poorest coal digger 150 years ago would be called an enviable fate. For a plantation slave was considered a valuable piece of property and not recklessly destroyed, while the poorest coal digger could leave his job and go to some other place, until he found more suitable employment. A member of our industrial army, who has drawn down upon himself the ire of the officers of the administration or who is placed on the list of the enemies of society on account of the opposition of his voting relatives, leads a life that may be termed as “twenty four years of hell on earth”! I have demonstrated to you now, Mr. West, why congress has no influence. The vast majority of its members are continually trying to please the administration, for the purpose of securing favors for themselves, their relatives and their friends,” said Mr. Forest in conclusion. “And this is the equality of the best organization society ever had; this is what Dr. Leete calls the millennium”.

[14] Page 277.

[15] Page 189.

CHAPTER IV.

“It is in conformity with the laws of nature and, therefore, right that a man should push his son, his relatives and friends, and I would not blame a man for doing this; I should rather denounce him for not doing it—always provided, of course, that said son, said relatives or friends were qualified to fill the positions to which they are appointed”, said Mr. Forest at our next conversation. “I remember that I have read in certain books a great deal about the nepotism shown at your time in the distribution of the federal patronage, and that General Grant was accused of always preferring his relatives and friends in making appointments. I sympathize with that great commander in the sturdiness with which he stood by his friends, and I am inclined to excuse the mistakes, he sometimes made in his appointments, because they were mistakes of his heart that was always true to his friends and sometimes was inclined to overestimate their ability, or sense of honor. If the ties of blood and friendship are not to be considered, what else should be? And since a man is bound to know the character and ability of his relatives and friends better than the qualities of other people, he should certainly first appoint those next to him to positions for which they are qualified.”

“But the trouble with our political and social system is, that it is bound to breed not only favoritism, but also corruption on the largest scale. One hundred and thirteen years ago, the men at the head of the National Government or those who were influential with them were also sometimes filling places, where for little work a good salary was paid, with unworthy women and men, but such sinecures were comparatively few and far between. The number of federal officials in your days was, if I am not mistaken about 80,000, and the postmasters of the small country towns, who made up the largest part of the 80,000 were paid such a beggarly commission for the sale of postage stamps, that no one could afford to accept such positions except trades people, who kept a store, where they had to be all day anyhow, and to whom the honor and small profits were an object. And then the incumbents of all the offices that could be classed as sinecures, were changed every four or eight years. Our administrations have a very long life. The one ousted twelve years ago lasted twenty-six years. And the number of positions at the command of the government is very large. There is one lieutenant or overseer to about each and every twelve men or women, not to mention the captains, colonels, etc.; and the amount of bookkeeping done, is simply enormous. We are keeping books as you know, I suppose, in all the producing as well as in the distributing departments, and more than that: every citizen has an account in the police books[16].

[16] Page 87.

“When you take into consideration our great and growing population, you can form some idea of how enormous this work is. You are aware, that the North American territory, formerly under British rule, has been annexed to the United States, and that the population, according to the census of 1990, numbered 414,000,000. It is now estimated at 500,000,000[17]. The complicated system of bookkeeping required by the communistic plan of production, and the shortness of working hours granted to the bookkeepers, who are all preferred men and women, favorites of the members of the administration, made it necessary to appoint a bookkeeper for every fifty people. Under the former administration we had one bookkeeper for every forty-two people. This gives to the government a chance to provide, at its own pleasure, over 10,000,000 of men and women with clean and easy work. Add to these 10,000,000 of positions about 10,000,000 officers of the industrial army, from the lieutenantships up to the positions of colonel; add, furthermore, the clerkships in the distributing places and many other preferred positions, and you can see at a glance what an enormous power the administration possesses and how tempting this power is.”

[17] The first census of the United States was taken in 1790, when 3,929,314 people were counted. In 1880 the population numbered 50,155,738, and in 1890 it is about 68,000,000. In one hundred years it has been multiplied by 16. If the rate of increase should continue to be the same, the United States would have in 1990, without the population of Canada, about 1,040,006,000 of people. I have figured an increase of about twenty percent for each decade, which would give for the year 2000 about 500 millions of inhabitants for the United States and Canada.

“But is it not necessary for those applying for the responsible position of a bookkeeper to have passed through a course of study in order to be qualified for such important duties?” I inquired.

“Bookkeeping is part of the instruction in our schools”, Mr. Forest answered, “and the bookkeeping in the public offices is not well done. So the responsibility, resting on the shoulders of the favorites of the members of the administration, does not harass the minds of these preferred people very much. It is, of course, impossible for an outsider to obtain an insight into the workings of the present administration, and to know how the books are kept. But when the late administration went out of office twelve years ago, an unfathomable pool of corruption was uncovered. An inventory of the goods on hand was taken, and it was stated that the books showed a shortage of more than four hundred and thirty-two million dollars. The members of the ousted administration declared this statement to be entirely false, that it had been “doctored” by the experts of the administration, for the purpose of casting discredit upon the members of the old government. The accused officers admitted that shortages were possible, for the reason, that all the clerks whose duty it was to measure goods, were inclined to give the people good weight and large measure, but that these shortages would not reach the figure of $432,000,000, and that the deficiency could not be considered as a proof of want of honesty on the part of the old officers. On the other hand, the new officers claimed, that the enormous shortages were due to the corruption of the members and prominent supporters of the ousted administration, who had always overdrawn their accounts, and had not been charged with the goods taken out in excess of their credit cards”.

I asked Mr. Forest what he thought of these charges.

“I think, they were to a large extent well founded. The temptation under our wretched system is too great. That the leaders should give to their relatives and next friends good positions would not be blameworthy, if the appointees were fit to fill the places given them. But the best places, numbering in all about twenty millions, are not filled with the best and most able men. They go, so far as they are not given to the relatives and friends of the leaders, to friends of the administration, in order to keep the latter in power. They are given to the sons and relatives and friends of the most active supporters of the government. And even this would be tolerable, if the favoritism stopped there, at the boundary of corruption and tyranny. But it does not”.

“Are you accusing the present administration and all its friends of corruption and tyranny?” I asked, feeling that I should have to end my conversations with Mr. Forest, if he should make disparaging charges, even indirectly, against my host.

“I am speaking of a system and I am mentioning only such facts and deeds as I can prove”, Mr. Forest answered. “I am not accusing men for any pleasure it gives me to do so. I know that your question refers to Dr. Leete and, though it is not a direct one, yet I will meet it squarely. I regard Dr. Leete as one of the best and purest of men among the party-leaders; but he, also, is making use of the advantages that our system offers to the men in power.”

“Will you be kind enough to substantiate what you say?” I asked quietly, but sharply.

“I will leave it to you to say, whether I am going too far in my statement”, Forest continued. “Did not Dr. Leete inform you that he has been “cherishing the idea of building a laboratory in the large garden of his house?”[18] And did he not tell you that he sent for the workmen and that they unearthed the vault in which you slept?”[19]

[18] Page 34.

[19] Page 34.

“Indeed, Dr. Leete said that he intended to build a chemical laboratory”, I admitted; “but is not the amount of his credit-card large enough to permit him such an expenditure?”

Forest looked somewhat amused and asked me, if I had ever looked at the total amount the credit-card called for. I confessed that I never had; noticing that the style of living of Dr. Leete was luxurious enough for anybody, I had not troubled myself to ascertain how much the country allowed each and every inhabitant per year.

“Well”, said Mr. Forest, “we will discuss the wealth of the nation at some other time. To-day we will continue to investigate the tendency of the communistic system to breed favoritism, corruption, servility and suppression of opponents.—As for Dr. Leete, he is building his laboratory in spite of the fact, that such an enterprise is entirely against the intention and spirit of our institutions. There is a very good laboratory of the kind in the basement of this college, and Dr. Leete would certainly be welcome, if he should ask permission to experiment there at his pleasure. His influence, if nothing else, would secure him a permit. But vanity causes him to erect a superfluous building, which will give the Radicals a new and visible argument against the ruling clique”.

“What Radicals are you speaking of?” I asked.

“I am referring to the radical communists who object to the present state of affairs, because they desire to abolish religious services, matrimony and all personal-property, institutions that are at present tolerated. We will speak of our political parties and their principles later. I simply desired to establish to your own satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, the fact, that Dr. Leete is erecting for his private use and in violation of communistic principles, a chemical laboratory, a very expensive affair, for which the credit-cards of ten men would not pay, and thus challenging the criticism of all the enemies of the administration”.

“Cannot Dr. Leete pay a fair rent for the laboratory?” I rejoined. “I should think that the abundance of labor could not be used to a better advantage than to erect buildings, the rent for which will increase the income of the nation”.

“But there is no abundance of labor, as you will discover in due time”, said Forest. “And if you will imagine what would happen, if every citizen should demand a similar outlay of labor and instruments to please his notions, you will undoubtedly see, that Dr. Leete is assuming an exceptional position, which, not only savors of favoritism but, also, involves an indiscreet abuse of power, calculated to create bad blood”.

I could not very well refute the arguments of Mr. Forest, and so was silent.

“But favoritism and the occasional abuse of power for the accommodation of men like Dr. Leete, are not the worst features of our present form of government”, he continued, “and the fact that influential men frequently receive presents of silks, furs, and jewelry for their wives and daughters, and of wine and cigars for themselves, from people seeking the intercession of these powerful men, in order to procure preferred positions for themselves or for relatives and friends, could also be borne although, of course, they are proofs of political corruption. But the worst consequences of this damnable communism are tyranny and the possibility of brutal persecution of the opponents of the administration on the one hand, and servility, adulation and calumny on the other. Every man and every body of men who have gained certain advantages or occupy desired positions will defend themselves against all attacks of their opponents. So will political parties try to keep themselves in power by rewarding their faithful workers and by crowding back their opponents. It is, therefore, very dangerous to invest a great government with arbitrary powers, which permit the rulers to make the people dependent upon the good will of their officers, even in their daily occupation, all their life long”.

“According to your description the present state of society appears to be an unbearable condition of affairs”, I said.

“If you inquire among the members of the different guilds, especially among the farmers,” Mr. Forest continued, “you will find that I am describing things just as they are. Every member of the industrial army knows that ability and industry alone will secure a desirable position only in exceptional cases, if at all; that political influence is the almighty factor in every affair of our lives, and that the industrial army is governed by officers whom the worker must try to please, by personal adulation, by presents, by a slavish devotion to the orders of the superiors, and indirectly by inducing all the members of his family and all his friends to support every measure and every member of the administration. If the members of the industrial army could elect their officers, the discipline would of course, not be so strict, as it is now; but even an occasional row amongst the men would be preferable to the present state of affairs, where every one who happens to be unpopular with the ruling party is leading a terrible existence. The number of suicides is therefore becoming larger every year and is to-day four times greater than in your times”.

“The number of suicides in European armies 113 years ago was very large”, I remarked thoughtfully, “although the men had everything they needed in the line of lodging, food and clothing”.

“Yes,” said Forest, “the necessities of life without liberty are of little value. The soldiers of your time threw away their lives, because they did not consider a life without freedom worth living, and still their term of service lasted only three or five years, and they had but a comparatively easy duty to perform in times of peace. The service in our industrial army lasts, at the best, 24 years of our life. The men and women are at the mercy of their officers, and they can appeal against maltreatment to other members of the administration only to judges who decide definitely such cases, generally by simply sending back the complainants to their work with an admonishment to try to win the good will of their superiors, and thus secure promotion.”

“You have been speaking about politicians, Mr. Forest”, I said. “Do many men take an active part in political life?”

“I should say they did”, my predecessor answered. “Many of the men from 45 years upwards, and many women do little else, except busy themselves with politics. They can live on their credit-cards wherever they please, and many of them prefer to spend their time in Washington, “hustling around” in a very lively fashion, trying to gain favors for their friends, and for such people as address themselves to the hustlers. The lobby in the halls of Congress in your days is described as a bad crowd, but to compare it with the hustlers of our days, would be like comparing a Sunday school with pandemonium. Millions of people who desire better work or promotion, and who have nothing to hope from the influence they are able to command at home, write to the hustlers at Washington to secure their services.”

“But what can the seekers of favors offer to those who live in Washington for the purpose of gaining favor for other people, and whom we may call the lobbyists of the twentieth century?” I inquired. “In the present day, men do not accumulate fortunes.”

“Indeed, they do not”, answered Mr. Forest with a smile. “But some people desire to have occasionally a “high time” and to spend five or ten times the amount of their credit-card during each year. Some of our administration leaders keep, what we may style, a “great house”. They receive guests and entertain them with delicacies and wine. Some of the most prominent lobbyists do the same thing. An applicant for favors has to give up a part or perhaps nearly all of his credit-card, and he may look to his future subordinates for a rich compensation”.

“But why are people not satisfied with their legitimate income”? I asked, painfully surprised to see that wire-pulling and corruption were quite as prevalent as they had been 113 years ago. “Is not the income a credit-card affords sufficient to support people?”

“You can never satisfy the people”, Forest said. “Nowadays the clever and industrious part of the people feel that they are robbed for the benefit of their lazy, awkward or stupid comrades, that they have to submit to the impudence and blackmailing of some of their superiors, or else undergo humiliating treatment. And even the men and women of the lowest ability, who are benefited by our present system, are not all of them pleased. Some of them would rather do away with personal property and separate housekeeping. In fact, but a very small portion of our citizens are really satisfied.—And people who are fond of good cooking, costly meals and Havana cigars, certainly cannot pay for such luxuries, and have to depend upon others if they desire to enjoy them. We have in Washington, also, a great many young women, who prefer flirtation, fine meals and a fast life to the regular employment in the industrial army or the life of an ordinary good wife”.

“Then prostitution still flourishes in Washington”, I exclaimed with amazement.

“Indeed it does”, Mr. Forest assented. “Of course, these girls hold clerical positions in the different departments, but these positions are sinecures. I understand from friends who have seen part of the secret life at the capitol, (and it is not so very secret either) that some of the higher officials spend fifty times the amount of their credit cards with these women. A part of their income is obtained from those seeking favors, who willy-nilly give up a part of their credit cards. Another part of the values squandered by influential persons, comes from the public storehouse, where only a small proportion of the value taken out by the influential people, is pricked from their credit cards by the clerks, who are fully aware what is expected of them, if they desire to retain their positions; for if they should treat the leaders of the ruling party like common laborers, they would be degraded to class B of their third grade. The glitter of corruption proves attractive to many men and women, as I have stated before, and the population of Washington, therefore, exceeds that of any other city on the American continent.”

“But, I cannot understand, why the people tolerate such a corrupt and tyrannical government as you describe,” I said, “and I am satisfied that your hypochondriac disposition is befogging somewhat the keenness of your eyesight and the clearness of your judgment.”

“It is your own fault if you remain in doubt as to the perfect correctness of my statements”, Mr. Forest said. “If you, for instance, should desire to take a vacation for the purpose of giving our rulers in Washington one of your enthusiastic lectures, you will cheerfully be granted leave of absence from your duties as professor and will be received at the capitol in grand style. For the enthusiasm displayed by you for our institutions, as compared with the civilization of the nineteenth century, will pour water on the mill wheels of our administration. You will find the state of affairs precisely as I have described them to be, and by conversing with the rank and file of the supporters of the administration, you will find that they are upholding the present state for the reason that they despair of their ability to improve public affairs, and because they are afraid of a rule still worse, under the radicals”.

“How could a state of public affairs be worse than the one you have pictured to me in your conversations”, I exclaimed.

“Many people are afraid that the Radicals would prohibit marriages and would force free love with all its consequences upon the people. In fact, the radical newspapers—the only sheets that speak out boldly against the administration and strike from the shoulder—are denouncing religion, marriage, separate house-keeping and the limited amount of property people are permitted to own”.

“But, how can the tone of the Radical press be reconciled with your statement that the administration is treating its opponents so badly”? I asked. “If it is the custom of the government to confine its opponents in insane asylums, why are the Radical newspapers permitted to advocate such abominable principles”?

Mr. Forest laughed and replied: “The Radical editors are favored exceptions. They are doing good service for the administration in scaring the mass of the people into submission. Whenever an election of generals of the guilds is near at hand, the Radical press is permitted to howl to the best ability of its editors. Then, a few days before the election, the administration organs copy extracts from the rabid and nonsensical utterances of such papers, and ask the people, if they desire that kind of government, urge the voters to stand by the administration which can, of course, not please everybody in all points, but which is the best any people on earth ever had, and so forth ad infinitum”.

“Then the Radical editors are simply tolerated as bugbears, while the more moderate writers are not permitted to oppose the administration?”

“Exactly”, rejoined Mr. Forest. “But I am afraid, the government is playing a very dangerous game. The Radicals are undoubtedly gaining ground and have amongst their followers very desperate men, who may at any time raise the black flag of destruction. If we had a free and independent people, the danger would not be so great. Then the masses of free men would rally to the defence of their beloved institutions. But as matters now stand, the masses are accustomed to submission under a rule of a minority, and the determined uprising of a body of desperate men would find but a comparatively small number of citizens ready to fight for the present order of things. And it will be a bad day for humanity, when the Radicals come into power”.

“But, you said that about twelve years ago the government lost an election. That shows, that it can be beaten in a square fight, and you further said that the present rulers are better citizens than the men that formed the last administration”.

“There is certainly some improvement, but it is nothing very remarkable. It amounted, in substance, to a change of men, but not to a change of system. Favoritism, corruption and prostitution have decreased somewhat, but they have not been stamped out. They still flourish. People who were very enthusiastic at the time of the election and hoped for a clean and popular administration, have now lost all confidence, that under the communistic rule there can be such a thing as a just government. In substance, it has been, as I said, merely a change of personalities and, therefore, the confidence of the people in the prevailing system has been destroyed. Consequently, the change has actually done more harm than good. The strongest and most reliable element to-day in favor of good government is the farming population; but although the farmers are very numerous, they represent one guild only. They have but one general and one department chief, and are outvoted by the representatives of the other guilds. And on account of the opposition of the farmers to the administration they are not treated as well as the members of the other guilds”.

“Do they not receive the same credit cards as other people”? I queried.

“They do, but they complain that they receive the poorest goods, and that their share of public improvements and benefits is comparatively small; and whenever there is a chance to discriminate against their representatives, that chance is not lost. The farmers would be the most reliable opponents to the Radicals, but the treatment they are receiving from the administration, has created so much dissatisfaction amongst the farming population, that we cannot count upon them in a fight for the maintenance of the present system or the present government. To give you an instance of the discrimination against the farmers, I will mention the erection of music halls, theatres and other places of evolution, recreation and amusement. It is, of course, impossible to build a theatre or a concert hall at every country crossroad, but the number of such public places erected in the cities is entirely out of proportion to those erected in the country towns and villages. The administration relies for its support upon the city people, upon such guilds as are recruited from the population of the cities, and, therefore bends all its energies to benefitting them. Then there is another thing to be taken into account. The nation is frequently left with small lots of goods on its hands, through changes of taste, unseasonable weather and various other causes. These have to be disposed of at a sacrifice, and the loss charged up to the expenses of the business[20]. These goods the administration can dispose of at any time when it chooses to claim that the best prices can be realized. The members of the administration are also judges as to what goods are to be sold at a sacrifice. It has been charged by the representatives of the farming population that such of these goods as are of poor quality are largely given out to farmers, while other things that are in first-class condition are disposed of in the storehouses of the cities, at reduced prices, and that in such instances favoritism and corruption are coming in. I do not care to endorse all the complaints, our farmers make. They may lack foundation to a great extent, but they prove the existence of a deep dissatisfaction, and such charges could simply not be made if our administration were not clothed with power hitherto unheard of in the history of mankind. It is the system itself that breeds all these evils”.

[20] Page 186.

“Have you not, besides the radical and the administration parties, other organizations fighting for the control of the government”?

“We have the temperance people who have organized themselves; but they are simply striving within the administration party to secure the control of the government. The administration does not discriminate against the members of this organization. It gives them a chance to do their very best, but so far they have not succeeded in making much headway”.

“I notice that you are not giving the present system of society much credit for anything done under its auspices. Don’t you think that the abolition of absolute poverty, the elevation of all men and women to a standard at least nearly equal, is a great and priceless gain to humanity? I remember too well the inexpressible sufferings of some of the poor people of my days, and while I am not sufficiently familiar with the present state of society, to endorse or to contradict your statements, yet I prize the abolishment of poverty so high, that I still cling to the hope, in spite of your arguments to the contrary, that the present form of society and of production may overcome all the difficulties inseparable from all human efforts and institutions”.

“My dear Mr. West, I am glad to see you using now in your last remarks in defense of communism the same arguments the defenders of the old form of production used against the communists of your days. This simply proves two facts, viz.: that nothing is perfect under God’s sun, and that every form of government is forced to admit this. The abolition of absolute poverty could have been accomplished as I can and will prove later on, beyond a reasonable doubt, without a descent into communism and the terrible consequences of this worst system of production. The fact, that the members and the officers of the administration may, at their pleasure, treat the friends of their opponents, members of the industrial army, like slaves; that even the friends of the government’s opponents who have gained comparatively good positions, can be placed in the second class of the third grade at the yearly regradings, and that favoritism is shown to all friends of the administration, has caused adulation, servility, calumny and corruption, and there was never a time in the history of the Saxon race when there were in public business and social life so little independence and manhood among the citizens. When two hundred and thirty years ago England tried to levy a tax upon tea, the Americans rose up in arms, because they would not permit the government to collect a tax unless it granted to the Americans representation in the parliament which imposed this tax. To-day the government controls the labor of all men and women for twenty-four long years, without giving the flower of the American people a chance to cast a vote, which shall shape the form and policy of the government in conformity with the wishes of those who produce the wealth of the nation. This state of slavery which never existed before in the history of civilized nations, can not last many years longer. It will go down in an ocean of blood. For as the German poet Schiller says: Fear not outrages from free men; but tremble when slaves break their chains”.

CHAPTER V.

From a heaven of peace and joy, from an ideal state inhabited by good people only, Forest had thrown me into a deep dark sea of pity and doubt.

Dr. Leete and his family noticed, of course, the disturbed state of my thoughts, and while the doctor was evidently waiting for me to bring about a discussion of the social problems, Edith was anxious to console me. She seemed to think that the strangeness of my surroundings and of my present position was depressing me.

I carefully avoided an explanation. I had resolved to continue the conversations with Mr. Forest, but to form a clear opinion of my own by examining into the actual state of things, and thus find if the real facts bore out the statements of Dr. Leete or those of Mr. Forest. Therefore on my way to and from the college I strolled along the streets and conversed with all the people I met. I noticed with some surprise that everybody was reserved, yes even shy, when I commenced to ask about the administration of public affairs, about the principles underlying our form of government, about the behavior of the officers, the management of the storehouses, and whether the people were satisfied and pleased, or not.

Hardly ever did I meet an expression either of cheerful contentment, or of decided dissatisfaction. Only a few Radicals expressed themselves in strong language against the present state of things and against the leaders of the country, and a few women said that they did not like the work in the factories at all. But, although people were very reserved in the expression of their feelings and thoughts, I became convinced that contentment is as rare a flower in the garden of communism as it was in the United States of 113 years ago. The abominable language used by the Radicals against the highest officers of the country could not, of course, convince me that the latter were guilty of the charges preferred. But I could not elicit from any other man or from any other women of the rank and file of the industrial army a defense of the accused men. They evidently did not care to antagonize anybody when they were not called upon by one of their superiors to stand by the administration.

Thus, I was forced to the conclusion, that communistic rule did not create the universal happiness I expected to find after my conversations with Dr. Leete. But I was inclined to think that people lived well enough, without great cares, neither on the one hand particularly content with their lot, nor on the other inclined to change their system of production. And it seemed to me that most of the people were rather dull and did not take much interest in anything. One day when I reached the house of Dr. Leete after one of my promenades through the streets of Boston, as I entered the hall, I heard a very loud conversation in one of the rooms. The first words that arrested my attention, spoken in a deep voice, trembling with emotion, were: “Miss Edith has encouraged me to repeat my visits”.

“We are always glad to see you here, Mr. Fest”, Dr. Leete replied. “We have all invited you.”

“Yes, you have; but you understand very well what I mean”, the deep voice continued. “I have called here so frequently and have to-day asked Miss Edith to become my wife, because your daughter has encouraged my hopes to win her love. And now I am coolly informed that I have made a great mistake, and I see my suspicion confirmed, that this Bostonian of the nineteenth century, dug out by you from his grave in your garden, is the man whom Miss Edith prefers to all others, even the one she encouraged until a few days ago”.

“Mr. Fest, I wish you would represent the civilization of the twentieth century with more dignity when you are speaking of my daughter and of my guest”, said Dr. Leete with some emotion in his voice.

“Of course, I must preserve my dignity when I have been fooled by a base flirtation for over a year, and make the discovery that the girl I love is to marry a man 143 years old, in preference to me”, Mr. Fest said in deep bitterness and somewhat sneeringly.

“How can you utter such cruel and untrue words,” Edith exclaimed with angry excitement. “Never has the thought entered my mind that your feelings toward me, your friend for over ten years, were anything but brotherly affection”.

“It is time to end this conversation”, interposed Dr. Leete, “after the explanations given, Mr. Fest undoubtedly feels, that our relations can not be continued”.

“Of course, our relations can not be continued”, cried Mr. Fest in a rage. “I leave you now, and give you, now and here, fair warning that I shall not enter your house again as a friend. If I ever come again, it will be as an enemy to be avenged for the destruction of my happiness and the peace of my heart. Beware of that day”!

The reckless manner in which this man addressed Edith and her father aroused my anger, and, entering the room I said; “Please save your cheap pathos for amateur theatricals and leave this room at once”.

The man before me was about six feet and three inches tall, with broad shoulders and two heavy fists. He looked down upon me with an ironical glance and said: “I will spare you this time, old man, but the next occasion that you indulge in impudent language, I will put you in a bag and dump you into Massachusetts Bay”.

Before I could answer this pleasing threat, Mr. Fest had left the room and the house.

“Who is this man?” I asked, turning to Dr. Leete, with no attempt to conceal my displeasure.

“He is a machinist, a very able man in his trade and a captain in the industrial army”, explained the doctor. “His parents lived next door and when he was a boy, he used to play with Edith”.

“If I were to judge the social manners of the officers of the industrial army, by the experience of this hour, I should have to say that civilization has moved very slowly and rather backward than ahead”, I remarked.

“It is an extraordinary case of atavism”, said Dr. Leete. “Such hotheadedness is very rare in our days”.

I did not care to begin just now, a conversation that might have a very unpleasant termination. But I could not repress the thought that 113 years ago the manners and morals were such, that lines were drawn between the two sexes that were invisible but still recognized by every one having a little sense of propriety, and that a man would hardly have felt as if he had been encouraged, if it were not the case. I entertained not the slightest doubt that Edith had behaved as well as any girl of her time. It was the consequence of the tendency to equalize everything that had, perhaps, effaced to a certain degree the fine lines existing 113 years ago between good women and men. I remembered my question put to Dr. Leete: “And so the girls of the twentieth century tell their love”? and the doctor’s answer: “If they choose. There is no more pretense of a concealment of feeling on their part than on the part of their lovers”.[21]—Yes, if girls tell their love just as men do, then the fine lines between the two sexes must be obliterated, and a feeling of repulsion and uneasiness took possession of me.

[21] Page 266.

“It may become necessary to place Mr. Fest, at least for a few months, under medical treatment”, remarked Dr. Leete thoughtfully. “He is certainly in a high state of excitement, and it is not unlikely that he may commit a rash act which he would repent afterwards”.

“One hundred and thirteen years ago we would have placed such a man under bonds to keep the peace,” I said, considering with terror the idea, that a man could be placed in an insane asylum for uttering a few rash words.

“And if, in violation of his bond, he committed a breach of the peace”, said the doctor, “what did you then do with such a man”?

“We punished him according to the laws covering the case, either by imprisonment or by a fine, or in cases of murder, by putting the criminals to death”.

“We place a man in whom atavism makes its appearance, in a hospital where competent physicians take care of him until they consider him sufficiently cured to be released”, said Dr. Leete, with an expression of great satisfaction and kindness, as he lighted a fresh havana cigar.

“I think you are running no great risk, papa, if you allow that man to attend to the duties of his position”, Edith remarked. “He is quick tempered and hot headed; but he will soon become composed”.

“I am not so sure about that”, Dr. Leete said slowly. “I remember that he has always shown deep strong feeling whenever he had set his heart upon anything. He may, and he may not, calm down. It is dangerous to take any chances with such a man”.

Conflicting sentiments and ideas filled my heart and head. I felt that if I continued the conversation it might end in a conflict with Dr. Leete, and I was in no mood to engage in any discussion with him. So I excused myself on the plea of a bad head ache, and left the house to take a walk.

The experience of the last hour did not savor much of the millennium. Here was a man holding the rank of an officer of the industrial army, and roughly and rudely accusing Edith of flirtation. His behavior certainly did not correspond with the high praise Dr. Leete gave to the culture and education of the young people of the twentieth century. At all events this conflict between Fest and the family of Dr. Leete demonstrated that contentment is not secured to humanity by the simple introduction of communism, by securing for everybody lodging, clothing and a sufficient quantity of good food. Envy and jealousy threatened our love, and Mr. Fest seemed to be just the kind of a man to make his displeasure felt. The manner in which Dr. Leete proposed to prevent a rash act of the enraged lover appeared to me even more disagreeable than the prospect of a personal encounter with Mr. Fest. And again the question arose before my mind whether Edith Bartlett, my fiancée of 1887 would ever have given a man an opportunity to accuse her of flirtation or to assert that she had encouraged him to declare his love.

When I met Mr. Forest after my next lecture I remarked: “I understand the girls of the twentieth century are somewhat of the style that we would have called emancipated”.

With a short but sharp glance at my pale face which testified that I had passed a sleepless night, Mr. Forest replied: “The mad endeavor to equalize the variety, established by nature, has not spared the relations between women and men. Both sexes belong to the industrial army, both have their own officers and judges, both receive the same pay. The queen of your old-fashioned household has been dethroned. We take our meals in great steam-feeding establishments, and if our Radicals, who are in fact the logical communists, are victorious, we will all live together in lodging houses accommodating thousands of people. Marriage will be abolished, together with religion and all personal property; free love will be proclaimed and we will live together like a flock of rabbits. The natural sense of propriety which is a distinguishing quality of the finer sex, fortunately prevents most of our women and girls becoming victims of the low and degrading theories of communism. But the real girl of our period is a very remarkable although by no means agreeable specimen. Do you know Miss Cora Delong, a cousin of Miss Edith Leete”?

“I have not the pleasure”.

“You will not escape her”, Mr. Forest predicted with a smile of amusement. “Miss Cora is very enthusiastic over the absolute equality of women and men. And since some of our young men are courting their young lady friends, Miss Cora thinks it but fair and proper that she should court some of the young men. She does not hesitate to tell them that she admires their good looks, that she loves them; she asks them for kisses, invites them to a drink—just as young men talk to young girls and just as they invite them to have a plate of ice cream.—She smokes cigars and plays billiards with her male friends, and is doing all she can to “equalize” the sexes. And Miss Cora as well as the other “girls of our period” complains very loudly that she cannot abolish all the differences between woman and man”.

“I am not very anxious to make the acquaintance of Miss Cora Delong”, I confessed. “And I agree with you from my own personal experience that the old style of housekeeping is very agreeable. I would prefer it. But do not the women of the twentieth century lead a more comfortable life than even the wealthy ladies of my former days? And are you not getting more toil out of the women than we did? Dr Leete says you are”[22].

[22] Page 266.

“Dr. Leete is a great optimist whenever communism is discussed”, answered Mr. Forest. “It is, of course, impossible to state with any degree of certainty, how much the girls and women of the year 1887 produced. But I doubt very much the statement of your host that we are getting a great deal more toil out of our women than you did”.

“The separate cooking, washing and ironing at the end of the nineteenth century must have caused a great deal more work than the present way of doing these things”, I remarked. “And Dr. Leete said: There is no housework to be done”[23].

[23] Page 118.

“This is one of the many wild statements of Dr. Leete”, Mr. Forest answered. “Who is sweeping the rooms, making the beds, cleaning the windows, dusting the furniture, scrubbing the floors? I have no doubt that Dr. Leete’s family is an exception, because women of the industrial army do a great deal, if not all, this work in the house of the leader of the administration party. Have you ever seen Mrs. Leete or Miss Edith doing any housework of the kind I have mentioned”?

I had to confess that I never had, and, indeed, Miss Edith had never done anything except arrange a bunch of flowers. If she were a member of the industrial army, it must be in a capacity, where there was but very little work to do. She had never mentioned that she had duties to perform, and I remembered that Dr. Leete had once spoken of his daughter as an indefatigable shopper[24], thus indicating that she had much spare time.

[24] Page 99.

“In the houses occupied by the rank and file of our industrial army the women have no help from other members of the auxiliary corps (the women of the industrial army). These women have to do all the work I have mentioned, and for them the cooking in the public eating houses is not such a great help as Dr. Leete seems to believe”, began Mr. Forest. “These women have to change their dresses three times a day, for they cannot appear at the table in the wrapper they wear while working at home, and they have to wash and dress their children, if they have any. And I am inclined to believe that by having the cooking done in the public eating houses, a great deal of material is squandered that would be saved in a private house. Besides, the public cooking houses have to prepare a large bill of fare, and there is, as a matter of course, a great deal left over that can not be used afterwards.—Therefore, the women who are members of the industrial army find actually very little time to do any work besides the labor connected with housekeeping, and the majority of them would rather do the cooking at home. They could do it while busy with their housework, without losing more time than the dressing and undressing for breakfast, dinner and supper consume. And the complaint has frequently been made that families with many children would fare much better, and the mothers of such families save much time if the cooking were done at home. When there is sickness in the family, it is very annoying to the healthy members to be obliged to go to the eating houses to procure proper food for the invalid. A Mrs. Hosmer said to me the other day, she and her seven children had frequently missed a meal, because she could not wash all her little ones and dress herself and the children in time”.

“How do you employ the married women”? I asked.

“This is a very weak point in our social system”, Mr. Forest replied. “Most of the married women do not at all relish doing outside work, and they make all kinds of excuses to avoid it. Trouble with their children and personal indisposition are frequently used as excuses for the absence of married women from their positions in the industrial army”.

“I suppose it is very difficult, even for the physicians, to ascertain whether such statements are well founded or not”, I remarked.

“Of course, in the majority of cases it is impossible to make the charge of shamming and prove it”, Mr. Forest continued. “It is this trouble with the married women, and their excuses that their small children prevent them doing any duty in the industrial army, that the radical Communists are using in support of their demand for the abolition of private housekeeping. The Radicals claim that their system would be more prosperous than ours. It would be much cheaper to lodge hundreds or thousands under one roof, than to have houses for one, two or three families. They furthermore claim that if marriages were abolished and free love introduced as the principle governing the relations of the two sexes, the passing alliances of men and women would produce better children than the offspring of the present marriages. These children would be kept and nursed, after they had passed their first year, in large nurseries, so that the mothers would have nothing to do with them and could attend all day to their work as members of the industrial army”.

“How beastly are these theories”! I exclaimed. “To establish all human institutions, the relations of the sexes, simply on a basis of calculation, and to separate the mothers from their children, because it is cheaper to raise two hundred mammifers by the bulk even if the mortality should be ten and twenty percent larger”!

“But the Radicals are the logical Communists”, Mr. Forest said. “The fundamental principle of communism is equality. You can base the demand for the equal division of the products of labor on that principle of equality only, and if we are all equal, then there is no reason why we should live in houses of different architecture, why we should wear different clothing, why we should have a variety of meals, why one man should not have just as good a right to the love of a certain girl as any and all other men, and why one girl should not have just as fair a claim to the love of any man she may select as any other girl has. And there is no reason, why one baby should have more care than another and why one mother should spend more time on her child than another, thus perhaps losing time that would have enabled her to make herself useful by peeling a plate of potatoes. The Radicals are the only Communists”.

“But every girl can not love all the men, and every man can not very well love all the girls”, I objected, somewhat amused by the grim humor displayed by Mr. Forest, although my deep disgust for the abominable brutality preached by the Radicals, prevented real merriment.

“Our radical reformers have never been able to explain to my entire satisfaction how the principle of free love should be regulated, if regulated at all”, Mr. Forest answered. “Some of them seem disposed to grant permission to live together, so long as both parties like each other. But the more radical and logical communists object to the stability of an institution as incongruous with the spirit of institutions based on the principle of absolute equality. Perhaps they favor the choosing of a new partner every day, and in order to place both sexes on equal footing they would give the right of choice to the women on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and to the men on the other three week-days, leaving the Sundays in addition to the ladies. And to avoid strife, when a number of reformers demand the love of the same girl, or when more girls than one fall in love with the same man, they could draw lots or could raffle for the first chance, thus doing justice to all”[25].

[25] The well known naturalist, Professor Karl Vogt in Germany, famous by his nickname “Monkey-Vogt,” is a radical philosopher, who gained this sobriquet as an advocate of the theory of evolution, claiming Monkeys to have the same progenitors as man. But even Vogt’s radicalism revolted against the doctrines set forth by Russian, French and German nihilists and anarchists; during a “convention” held in Switzerland, Karl Vogt dedicated the following lines to them:

“Wir wollen in der Sonn’ spazieren,

Wir wollen uns mit Fett beschmieren

Und ausgelöscht sei Mein und Dein.

Wir wollen uns mit Schnapps berauschen,

Wir wollen uns’re Weiber tauschen,

Wir wollen freie Männer sein!”

A free translation of which reads:

We will walk in the sun, boys, with ease,

We will cover our bodies with grease,

For poverty there is no need.

We’ll all get as drunk as a loon,

We’ll swap our wives every noon,

And thus be true freemen indeed.

“It is inconceivable”, I said, “that men, proudly considering themselves the crown of creation, or if they do not believe in God, at least considering themselves intellectual free-thinkers, can breed in their brains such horrid theories. I should deplore the fate of womanhood if these theories should ever become victorious, if free love in this damnable form should ever be proclaimed; or if the nursing and education of children should be taken away from the mothers and entrusted to others”.

“I should consider it the most terrible blow ever aimed at humanity if the nursing and the first education of the young children should be transferred from their mothers to other persons. No women or men, however good and noble they may be, can feel the love and the patience for a child that fills a mother’s heart. The ties that bind women and men together, marriage and the family, are institutions which even our communistic Solons have so far respected. Humanity is doomed to barbarism on the day family life is broken up, when mothers are separated from their children, when men are alienated from the constantly elevating influence of good women, when the relations of men and women are stripped of that sublimity conferred upon matrimonial life by the permanent exchange of feelings and thoughts, when these relations are degraded to nothing but sexual intercourse. Nearly all our good qualities can be traced back to the influence the unfathomable love and patience of the mother, in her efforts to make her beloved child good and true, have exercised upon our minds and hearts. Nearly all great men had good mothers. There is nothing on earth that could compensate a child for the loss of its mother, or that could indemnify humanity for the loss of the beneficial influence mothers have on the growing generation”.

“Do you suppose that your Radicals will ever have power enough to dethrone the mothers and to abolish matrimonial life”? I asked, with great curiosity.

Mr. Forest’s reply to this question sounded very cheerful and confident, more so than anything he had thus far uttered in my presence.

“The Radicals may rise and overthrow the present government, they may change many things”, he said, “and they may not meet with much resistance, because the great mass of the people simply tolerate the present rule, have no love for it, and will not rally to its defense. But the experience of our Radicals will be very unpleasant if they attempt to separate man and wife, mother and child. Almost every mother will fight like a lioness before she will give up her children, and I know one man who does not care a straw for the overthrow of the present government, but who would fight to his death before he would yield to a separation from his spouse. For a good and loving wife always has been, is, and always will be the greatest blessing of God, and no man of honor and courage will permit anybody to rob him of her”!

CHAPTER VI.

“Now, Mr. Forest”, I said when I again met my predecessor as professor of the history of the nineteenth century, “please tell me how much is the average yearly income of every inhabitant of the United States of America”?

“The average yearly income was figured up to be $204.”, Mr. Forest answered.

“Two hundred and four dollars you say. Is that all”? I queried with astonishment. “I expected from the statements of Dr. Leete and his style of living that it amounted to at least three times that sum”.

Forest smiled. “How much was the average income of the people of the United States in your days”? he asked.

I was forced to admit that I had not the faintest idea.

“It was $165.”, said Mr. Forest, “or about twice the average amount earned by the people of Germany or France”.