335
M252
SOCIALISM AS A REMEDY.
Franklin McVeagh

THE LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
食
​OMNIBUS ARTIBUS
OF
REGENTS
335
M252
MINNESOTA

SOCIALISM AS A REMEDY
as
An Address
BY
FRANKLIN MACVEAGH
DELIVERED IN THE SERIES OF ECONOMIC CONFERENCES
BETWEEN BUSINESS MEN AND WORKING
MEN, AT CHICAGO.
PRESS OF THE CHICAGO JEWELER
1888
LIST OF ADDRESSES AT THE ECONOMIC
CONFERENCES.
į
April 8.
"The Aims of the Knights of Labor.".
GEORGE A. SCHILLING
April 15.
((
Banking and the Social System."
LYMAN J. GAGE.
April 22.
April 29.
"The Labor Question from the Stand-point of the
Socialist."
THOMAS J. MORGAN.
"Is the Board of Trade Hostile to the Interests of the
Community."
CHARLES L. HUTCHINSON.
May 6.
"A View from the Labor Sanctum."
Jos. R. BUCHANAN,
May 13.
"Socialism as a Remedy."
FRANKLIN MACVEAGH.
May 20.
'An American Trades-Unionist's View of the Social
Question."
A. C. CAMERON.
335
m252
4
4PR 8 '42
SOCIALISM AS A REMEDY.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Socialism gets its present prominence from the proposal
to make it a cure for the economic ills of working men.
And those who propose it assume both that these ills
exist in a very grave form, and that they grow out of our
present industrial and social systems. The most import-
ant assumption made by the proposition, however, is
that these ills are incurable while the present systems exist
because both systems are radically and hopelessly bad.
Both our industrial and social systems under this propo-
sition would therefore have to be abolished and new
ones constructed. And our political systems would have
to be either abolished or radically changed. My subject
being Socialism as a Remedy will confine me to this
aspect of that vigorous new philosophy.
ones.
The first question the subject suggests is whether the
ills complained of by working men or by the socialists in
the name of the working men, are real ills and important
This question is quite the first one, because it
would be useless to discuss a remedy for ills that are
merely supposed ones, or that are hopelessly exaggerated.
Working men and business men alike are quite full of
complaints, and both speak very freely of their ills.
I am quite willing to admit, for my own part, that in
the relations of the working man to our industrial system
there is much that is gravely out of joint, and that there
is much, therefore, that demands to be remedied.
There are, for instance, certain tendencies and facts of
our industrial system against which great outcry is made
997075
2
because they seem to make the rich richer and the poor
poorer; and because they have made the working man's
occupation less secure, and his income almost as pre-
carious as a speculator's; and again because they threaten
to re-make classes in an age whose chief promise, made
in the great name of democracy, has been the sure dissolv-
ing of class distinctions and the raising up of humanity
as a whole; and because they are responsible for a great
deal of mischief that directly and indirectly flows from
these immediate effects. This outcry is just; and these
tendencies, as surely as the sun continues to rise, must
cease to operate and these facts cease to recur. They
must cease by one means or another, and all the ills they
gave rise to must find a remedy.
Not that I admit for one moment that these or any
other tendencies of our industrial system make the poor
poorer. I think there is no ground whatever for saying
that. Our industrial system makes the rich richer
undoubtedly, and makes a few very rich. That is, it has
done so up to this time. But it has, I have not the least
doubt, made the poor richer too. I am not even clear
that it has made the rich relatively richer, but what it
has done is to make the poor not rich enough, and the
rich richer than need be.
And by making industrial operations on a very large
scale inevitable it has made employers few, and has set
them more or less apart until they look to the hasty
observer like a class. Too much apart the employers
undoubtedly are, but they are not an actual class by any
means. And as it has made employers few, so it has
made wage-workers many, and allows them to somewhat
think themselves a class; although they also are not in
the least a class or anything nearly so fixed and change-
less. There will be no classes, my friends, in any sense
in which that word has heretofore been taken, so long as
3
1
}
the greatest vicissitudes of our industries act upon capital,
and the employed of today take the place of the employer
tomorrow.
And again it has certainly greatly reduced the number
of small employers and of self-employers; and this at a
large loss to society.
For these disadvantages, and others which have come
in their train, our industrial system has given us in return
a material developement in an hundred years that we
otherwise might have groped for a thousand years.
These bad things, however, it has done too, and is respon-
sible for their numberless ill consequences.
I cannot, however, allow workingmen or socialists to
claim all the credit for arousing the world, so far as it is
yet aroused, which is indeed little enough, to a sense of
the bad tendencies and facts of our industrial system.
Many a hard worker who is denied the privilege of call-
ing himself a working man, has seen these things and
has cried out quite as loudly as the working men or the
socialists; and very many more have seen them who have
not, unfortunately, the habit of much crying out. And
these hard workers who are not called working men have
worked perhaps in a larger way because they have had
no thought of classes; and because they have thought
that these are questions concerning a broader thing still
than the victory of any particular body of citizens, to-wit:
-human progress, the elevation of all men and all society.
And on this account they have thought that these ques-
tions concern all alike. And this class of thinkers and
agitators will grow if you give them a fair chance, if the
working men manage their reform movement wisely so
as to admit of others who are not working men taking a
part.
And, ladies and gentlemen, theirs is the ground upon
which all great social reforms in this great democratic
1
4
country must in the end rest their claims. Such reforms
must in our time and country establish themselves upon
the strong foundations of the general good. Not only this,
but the general good conceived of must be in the line of
the highest civilization conceivable among us. These I
know are high sounding demands, and they make reform
look difficult enough, but they are the necessary laws
of reform. because they are the necessary laws of progress;
and no mere purpose of bettering ones own circum-
stances will take their place. Reform that is not in the
line of ultimate human progress is but a makeshift.
L
But I have said, and now wish to say more specifically,
that notwithstanding the vast advantages which have
flowed to all mankind through our industrial system, and
notwithstanding that the present social system is the lar-
gest product of history and a realization of that great
dream which brightened the darkness of many an hun-
dred years; notwithstanding that to-day we stand in
nearly all respects of material, political and social life far
in advance of any other modern period, it still is true, and
profoundly true, that we must do very much more before
our industrial, political and social systems can claim to
work fair average justice. And until they do work fair
average justice between man and man we cannot have the
measure of assent necessary for the right support of social
institutions in a country politically free.
I admit, for instance, that the economic tendency to
which reference has already been made, which seems to
force just now manufacturing and mercantile operations.
to assume the largest scale and the most concentrated
form, makes a change in the social situation that is ser-
iously unfavorable. It is, therefore, a tremendous error to
go on constantly and loudly congratulating ourselves
upon the industrial spectacle of these imposing enterprises
in contented oblivion of the immense social damage they
J
5
do. We hear a great deal about the education of the
poorer people, but how shall we get our richer people
educated?
I admit, too, that our free competition, the law that we so
long thought would finally redeem economic humanity
from all bondage, is, as an unmodified economic law, a
complete failure. The activities of the industrial world,
employed and employing, are at this moment in the line
of self-protection against the operation of this very law.
But I am not one of those who sees that left to itself the
law will grind only the working man to fine powder, for I
see quite as distinctly that it grinds the business man and
capitalist to even finer powder still, if that be possible.
I admit, too, that our magnificently vigorous and world-
subduing industrial system, although it has made labor
cosmopolitan and thus given it its greatest opportunity,
has, at the same time, made the rewards of work much
more uncertain and the command of the means of exist-
ence and comfort very much less secure. We must not,
however, shut our eyes to the fact that these inci-
dental ills do not apply to the wage-worker alone,
for they certainly apply to every member of society alike.
I admit again that the distribution of wealth, or better,
of the earnings of the world, under our present system
is still an immense distance from any conceivable ideal.
We have thought too much about producing wealth, and
too little about its distribution. The inequality with
which services are compensated under the present system
is very great. The ease with which fortunes are made is
abnormal. And the complacency with which success in
acquiring a fortune is accepted as a justification of the
methods by which it was acquired is an evidence that
the rush of our great industrial system has somewhat
outstripped our less stimulated ethical system. As our
industrial system is pretty sure, I think, to strike a
6
slower pace for a while, let us hope that our ethics will
take the opportunity to catch up with it. Happily the
one has not wholly outstripped the other since industry,
undominated by morality, could only be at best barbar-
ism more or less refined.
This admission that services are rewarded with undue
inequality, and that justice is not done, does not, by any
means, involve the admission of that extraordinary claim,
which runs through all the propositions of socialism, that
labor is the only factor in the production of wealth, and
that labor alone, and labor measured perhaps by the
hour, should have all the wealth produced.
Again I admit (and I fancy you will think I am admit-
ting the whole of my side of the question away) that the
hours of manual labor are, as a rule, a great deal too
long. They ought, in the interest of general progress
and civilization, to be shortened. And that they can be
shortened throughout America and Europe to the eight
hour standard within a very limited period and without
undue disturbance to any one, if the leaders in the move-
ment shall show a capacity for leadership, goes almost
without saying. I need hardly tell you that the leader-
ship of this reform a couple of years ago conspicuously
lacked capacity. It showed, indeed, a wild incapacity.
There was an exceeding fair chance to cut the day down
universally from ten hours to nine. Not to nine, mark
you, as a finality, but to nine as a half-way stop to eight.
And there was no reason for anger, or heat, or warfare;
but anger and heat there was in plenty. What, indeed,
strikes the observer of the average labor reformer is that
he is generally in a heat. When cool, he knows as well
as anybody else that the issues are with a system, and
not with individuals. But when he is in a heat he is
very apt to speak and act as though the issue was with
citizens, and that a street fight would be the proper
7
way out of it. Now I do not see how I can say anything
of more value on an occasion like this, than that the most
retarding influence against the labor movement today is
the habitual personal feeling against other members of
society, that almost always, and nost unfortunately, seems
to be a necessary part of its make-up. The practical
mistaking of an impersonal issue for a personal issue,
and the liability to heat in discussion and to impulsive-
ness in action, will, in a free country, handicap any
movement, no matter what it is.
Let me add this, that in the United States nothing is
really powerful, and nothing can finally prevail, without
the great support of public opinion. Ladies and gentle-
men, that is precisely why the nation grew up. It is one
of the ultimate facts of American democracy that public
opinion is absolute and absolutely overwhelming; and
another of its ultimate facts is, that public opinion, as
finally expressed, is absolutely free and can always be
secured for the right, if the cause of the right is in wise
hands; and for the right against might or against any-
thing else on earth. Some men and bodies of men have
failed to see or believe this, because the truth sometimes
lies obscured in the necessary obstacles to the develop-
ment of final public opinion. And some have, therefore,
lost hope, and some have lost patience and ceased to be
wise. But what a great faith for the wise to rest upon!
But let me specify again. Here is another, and this
time wholly inexcusable evil, that, though not originated
by our industrial system, has been greatly increased by it.
I mean excessive child labor. It is no wonder that a
great cry is going up to Heaven from thousands of good
women and good men throughout the civilized world
against this abominable practice, a practice that is both a
denial of human kindliness and a challenge to progress
and civilization.
8
Having now, Mr. Chairman, enumerated, simply enough,
of the economic ills of working men to show that
a remedy is needed, let me turn to the other division of
my subject, and ask whether socialism is the remedy
that is required. I ask this, and intend to answer it in
the negative, because I think there is a great deal of
the valuable forces of the community wasted in behalf of
what I believe to be an impossible, undesirable and
unnecessary proposition. Mark, if you please, ladies
and gentlemen, that the objections I make to socialism as
a remedy for the evils of our industrial system are, that it
is impossible, undesirable, and unnecessary-three sweep-
ing objections which I will explain in turn as well as I
can.
When I say that socialism is impossible, I mean that
it is impossible for it to be a practical remedy.
If socialism is coming in at all it is either coming in
in the course of a peaceful evolution, or it is coming in
through revolution. The revolution may be one of two
kinds, first, constitutional, that is worked out without
fighting by ordinary political methods; secondly, it may
be revolution by fighting, by war. So that socialism
might come in, if it should come in at all, by either of
these ways-by evolution, by political revolution, or by
forcible revolution. It cannot come in in a fourth way.
In neither of these forms does socialism seem to me any-
thing but impossible as a remedy.
Let us take up the way by evolution. I do not say
that a socialistic form of society may not slowly evolve
itself out of individualism, out of our present form of
society. But granting all that any one may generalize in
favor of a socialism historically and organically evolved,
what then? Granting that when our present form of society
wears itself away it will change organically into social-
ism; granting that men will at some time find them-
7
1
9
selves capable of
of the
the habitual substitution of
social for individval motives, of unselfish for selfish
motives, how can all that be of importance to a remedy
for the present troubles of society? Such a state of
society might be brought about in say five hundred
years. But can our Chicago working men comfortably
wait five hundred years? If they are so patient as that
I think anything may be safely promised them, since
everything comes to him who waits ;" and no man can
be fairly asked to wait longer than five hundred years.
No, Mr. Chairman, our socialist friends cannot, it seeïns
to me, be looking for help from evolution. Social
evolution is very slow, to say the least. It is almost a
synonym for slowness. If there is anything slower I do
not know what it is. Indeed its wholesomeness abides
in that. The socialist must, it seems to me, mean a
socialism more immediate.
I cannot assume a definite meaning for them, of course,
since they do not yet agree among themselves. I have
a shrewd suspicion that none of our Chicago socialist
leaders have yet found a form of society to take the place
of our present one, the full details of which he is willing
to submit to criticism. Up to now I think he is content
to be mysterious—giving out, like some of the shrewder
prophets of the old time, glittering generalties that serve
as attractive environments for such meanings as listeners
may fit into them.
But, though I fear that the socialist hasn't his new
social system ready to put into operation, he is looking
unmistakably to a change from the present one. As to
this all socialists agree. And, as it is clear he cannot
wait five hundred years for the evolution of socialism,
he must mean to revolutionize the United States, and that
pretty soon. But what reasonable hope is there of his
doing that? Does not that leave socialism still an impos-
ΙΟ
sible remedy? And if so, is it not involving a tremendous
waste of that enthusiastic thought and work which is so
sorely needed in practical ways of reform?
There are but two ways to revolutionize the United
States. The first is to make a clear majority of the
citizens—most of whom are at present enthusiastic about
their country as it is-heartily and finally convinced
that the United States as constituted is utterly obstructive
of human progress; that it is so obstructive that it is
better to raze to the ground all that our forefathers built,
and all that we have built, and build wholly anew,
unguided by any tradition and untaught by any experience.
The majority must be made eager-by mesmerism, it
would seem to substitute for institutions and habits and
laws that have grown with our growth and strengthened
with our strength through more than a thousand years
not to speak of what we have borrowed from more than a
thousand years before-substitute for all this, I say, and
that suddenly as one might change his coat, a ready-
made system of institutions, laws and ideas that it never
entered into the mind of man to try before, which never
grew up or tried to grow up anywhere, which has only
a literary parentage, and which is at present believed by
the greater part of the thinking world to be but the ill-
considered mere first thought of a great and important
movement struggling to get upon its intellectual feet.
Can any sober-minded man expect such a revolution
as this?
There is, however, another form of revolution left-
revolution by fighting, or war. Is that feasible? That
means revolution by and for a minority; for if the
majority could be convinced socialism could come in by
constitutional methods. The question then is, speaking
of course of the United States, is the minority — small
minority or large minority-likely to wage a successful
1
II
war against the majority, when the majority has the
advantage of possessing the government?
Ladies and gentlemen, the largest minority we shall
probably ever see arrayed against this nation, and which
had the full advantages of a belligerent-being for the time
a separate warrior nation in fullest feather-failed so
signally in the lesser attempt to govern themselves that
I cannot believe any one in his cool moments fancies that
a minority can, against such a people as this, enforce a
claim not, mark you, to rule themselves but to rule the
majority.
But, apart from these demonstrations, how can socialism
be seriously proposed as a present remedy for what are
esteemed pressing needs of workingmen, when socialists
are without the slightest prospect of agreement among
themselves? How is it conceivable that a set of men can
unite to make definite, clear and detailed proposals for
such immense things as a new industrial, a new social and
a new political system-proposals that must win the
assent of this free people-when they vary among them-
selves from the state socialist to the man who believes in
neither state nor socialism, nor anything else in the way
of institutions? How can we expect agreement as to
details, or principles either, between this widely divergent
set of men? Small differences can be harmonized, but
how can you harmonize a state socialist, who believes in
the most centralized and most ponderous political govern-
ment ever conceived of by mortal man a government
so centralized and so beureaucratic that the man does
not exist who has ever yet been able to state the extreme
of its interfence with men's daily lives-with that other
man who believes in as highly centralized government,
but wipes out all states of every name or nature that
now exist, and supplies their places with a fearfully con-
centrated industrial authority of some untried and undi-
1
12
1
fined sort that I, at least, cannot by any effort comprehend.
But if you could harmonize these, how under the sun
could you harmonize either one of them with that other
form of socialism which is really individualism, but
individualism turned topsy turvy and run mad—an
extreme of personal liberty and a minimum of govern-
mental action never before conceived of? And there
remains to be brought into unison that extreme left of the
reorganizers of society who, as the extremest of extreme
individualists, for the sake of a new organization of
society in the future, the forms of which they scarce care
to conjecture, are for the present content to be merely
enthusiastic disorganizers.
Does any man or woman within the sound of my voice
expect to live long enough to see these conflicting views
harmonized and represented in one distinct, detailed and
practical system of industry, government and society,
radically different from ours and so soul and mind-satis-
fying that the people will willingly exchange for them all
that has until now made up the hopeful environment of
their lives?
And thus I seek to show some reasons for my belief
that socialism as a remedy for the pressing ills of working
men is an impossibility.
There is in
controver-
It has been
But it is of
I think I know, Mr. Chairman, as well as another why
so many minds turn to a dream of socialism.
ideal socialism that which promises to end the
sies, the antagonisms, the injustice of life.
and still is the dream of many a noble mind.
the Arcadia of society that this dream should hold. Even
as the expression of a perfected humanity, of a golden
age, I cannot feel that it would be the best outcome of a
hard wrought civilization. So dominant in my mind is an
abiding faith in freedom. Arcadia, it seems to me, is after
all a home for nymphs and fauns; and I shall rather
1
7
1
13
hope that our race at the end of its civilization will need
a home for robuster people.
no
But however it might accord with a civilization not yet
realized I am very clear that it is undersirable now
less undesirable than impossible. It is undersirable, in the
first place, because it is a distinct denial of the freedom of
the individual. The free life of the individual is the very
kernel of democracy, that greatest fruit of modern pro-
gress. Socialism would deny us this marvelous boon of
free growth and free opportunity, although it is the great-
est of modern achievements. And what is even more to
be wondered at, it would deny us this before it has had
a chance to be fully realized, much less fully tested or
proved. And all because it has, like the sun, spots upon
it which no man can prove permanent.
But
Now, freedom like this, with its outbursts of new energy
and force and thought and invention and enterprise, must
lead, in the very nature of things, to more or less conflict,
more or less confusion, more or less trouble of nearly every
kind. How can we expect it to be otherwise? It surely
must develop its faults before it can correct them.
why despair of it on such account? Why so soon forget
that it is this-this freedom of the individual-for which
the world has struggled and of which it has forever
dreamed in every age that had the courage to struggle or
the inspiration to dream?
Ah! my sociailst friends, it is not your ideas for which
the world has so long worked and suffered and hoped. It
was not a dream of socialism that kept alive the hope of
humanity. It is not toward the goal of socialism that the
race of the world has thus far been run. It has been the
hope of freedom that has kept the eye of long-waiting
humanity bright and its step elastic.
How, then, is it that any of us who take seriously the
history of civilizatlon and whose profoundest hopes look
I
14
to the elevation of mankind and to the betterment of every
section and every individual atom of society finds it in
his philosophy to prefer the destruction of the greatest
sccial, political and industrial fruit of time-the hope-
fullest evolution of history-before it has had time to
cease from the turmoil of conquest? Is it possible that we
should set it aside before it has had time to enter upon its
peaceful reign, before it has had time to demonstrate its
real character, before it has had time to avoid the errors
of inexperience or to correct the extravagance of a new
freedom? Or how can we think socialism desirable if it
should come in as a substitute now? Would it not with all
its sounding phrases of progress be a destructive reaction?
Socialism is undersirable for another reason. It would
necessarily be unstable. We should no sooner make the
change than we should find ourselves adrift - hopelessly
adrift. We should have change indeed, but change upon
change. Remember how impossible it is for socialists to
agree even under the immense centripetal force of a com-
mon point of attack-with the immense concentrating
pressure from without and the immense concentrating at-
traction from within-with a single hostile feeling and a
single source of agitation and movement. With all these
reasons for agreement the socialists disagree among them-
selves as far as the east is from the west.
What ought we to expect the consequences to be?
Suppose socialism should succeed, it must succeed in one
form or another for the different forms are not co-operative.
Let us say that state socialism succeeded. All socialists
would probably think it a gain to get any form of social-
ism substituted for present society and politics and would
help to carry forward the revolution. But can any reader
of history or any student of society hesitate to believe that
directly the believers in other forms of socialism found it
to be only a question between socialists they would agi-
15
tale for forms they prefer? Does any one think that a
people so fickle as to throw over our present social system
while still untried would fail to upset state socialism di-
rectly its harness began to gall? Would they not try
something else?
In brief, there would be in the situation every possibie
element of unrest, instability and revolution—and no sin-
gle element of stability. A people so volatile would nec-
essarily be like those of the South American Republics.
If we could conceive of our citizens of the United States
changing their natures and becoming like those South
Americans we might think it possible to bring in the
reign of this hubbub of revolution. But I do not see how
even then we could count it desirable.
Another reason still for calling socialisin undersirable
as a remedy is found in its artificiality. As a form of
government, or industry, or society it is purely artificial
and would have to be applied in a purely mechanical way.
Thinking as calmly as I always think of the proposals
of socialism with all the sympathy I feel for thoughts
that carry men into enthusiasm for social progress — caring
as I do for social and political and industrial systems only
as they seem to me to work together for the good of all
the people, I am obliged to confess that I see nothing in
socialism that could make it in the least desirable as a
present remedy for the ills of anybody.
As the environment of an Arcadian life—if that which
seems so unlikely should be the issue of our civilization
I can at least conceive of it as not inharmonious. In
Arcadia it might find the universal instinct of brother-
hood, and the universal social motive taking the place of
self-interest as a power to propel the world. Without
that motive socialism would be a mere gross outrageous
tyranny worse than any mankind has ever experienced.
With it the system is conceivable; but it must find that
16
motive existent. It cannot be manufactured to order or
superinduced by the change of a system as the socialists
seem vaguely to hope. Socialism might follow upon
an age in which the social motive had become finally
dominant; when the rough and tumble of our period had
passed away. But while mankind has yet but partly con-
quered nature-while it is itself but half way tamed-
while it must struggle and struggle and only struggle-
when it as yet has no promise of rest-its social direction,
its social condition cannot be changed except as they shall
change gradually under the influence of the freest and
most energetic individual life.
Ah! my friends, mankind cannot rest in a snug harbor
yet. Nor can it afford to think wholly about the pro-
duction and the distribution of wealth. There is much
beside the mere getting of bread for this world to do.
There is much to do for humanity besides feeding it. We
must be fed whether we labor or not. We must be better
fed than ever before. But this is not all. It is not the
body that must be first. It is the spirit that must be
nourished and lifted up; or else the feeding of the body
with whatever labor will be but idleness. All systems
must be judged by their fitness as an environment for the
growth of the spirit. All social enthusiasms, if they are
to be in the true line of progress, must get their inspiration
in the last instance from the glorious vision of the unfold-
ing of the spirit of man.
A more equal distribution of a diminished wealth is the
most that could conceivably be gained through a socialism
superimposed upon humanity before it has gotten be-
yond the need of the spur of self-interest. That conceiv-
ably might be enforced by the stern, levelling processes
of a highly concentrated socialism. But probably even
that only for a time. Unless absolute sameness of indi-
vidual reward were made independently of services it is
1
1
17
difficult to see how under that system or any system the
energetic could be kept from again getting control of the
economic forces of society. But what a loss, in any case,
would the movement of the world suffer! Inequality is
a law of social progress, as it is of any pushing forward.
There is but one way to avoid inequality, and that is to
hold back those who would be foremost to the ranks of
those who are the most backward. We can abolish the in-
equalities that the institutions of man have established
the prescriptions of class-the unfair power of wealth-the
exclusiveness of culture-the monotony of labor.
cannot abolish the inequalties fixed by nature.
beyond our power. Nature has not granted us the au-
thority to so dwarf her stature. By "our little systems"
that
"Have their day
Have their day and cease to be"
But we
That is
we can for a time hamper and obstruct these wholesome
natural inequalities that prevail from one end of society
to the other, and without which every man of every de-
gree would inevitably lose the zest of life and find himself
in the desolate case of one trying to live outside the har-
monies of nature. We can hamper them for a time, though
only for a time, by harnessing the progressive man with
the unprogressive, and thus making the slow progress or
the no progress of the laggard the measure of the devel-
opment of civilization. As in a race of horses it is only
possible to keep all abreast by forbidding the fleet to forge
ahead of either the slow or the halt or the untrained.
Do you wonder that I, who see socialism by these
lights, cannot feel that it would be a desirable remedy for
the present shortcomings of society?
And now I must hurry on with my third objection, that
it is not necessary.
This, too, is a fatal objection ifa true one. It would be
}
18
quite absurd and wanton to overturn society, politics and
and industry for a remedy that is already at our hands.
Ladies and gentlemen, I need hardly remind you again
that I am not one of those who think that our social and
industrial and political systems are all they should be. I
think they are very far from what they should be. But
I say - and what I think is one of the most important
things that can be said upon the subject-is that our
present political, social and industrial systems are decid-
edly what they should be fundamentally. Their founda-
tions are profundly right and good. And these founda-
tions, so far as we can as yet look forward-so far as the
light of the past helps us to look into the future-are
adequate to the superstructures of an immeasurable civili-
zation. Foundations so right and good, Mr. Chairman,
that to replace them with any form of socialism would be
to throw away civilization's best chance, and to commit
the unpardonable sin of selling the birthright of a man
for a mess of pottage.
Think not either that I am unawake to the growing as-
pirations and the rapidly enlarging requirements of the
working man. These are to me among the most hopeful,
the most exhilarating signs of a civilization that is dis-
tinctly marching on. A wholesome discontent is the
stimulus of progress. It is only a morbid discontent that
can possibly retard it.
Think not, either, that I do not hear the cry of the very
poor-that other remnant of that other end of society
whom the Most Wise of the wisest of all ages said we have
always with us. Would that it might appear that His
words are to be interpreted by the limitations of the civi-
iization of Rome and that under some development of ours
this remnant may be absorbed into the healthy and happy
body of the people. This is almost too much to hope of
imperfect humanity. The mere accidents of life, the mere
}
19
imperfections of birth and the unavoidable injustice of any
conceivable society must, it would seem, always prevent
some from running the race.
The reason I have for saying that socialism as a remedy
is not needed is that I believe our present political, social
and industrial systems are fully adequate to cure all that
is wrong today, and which can be cured at the present
stage of human progress and development. These sys-
tems are the chosen hand-maids of democracy, and democ-
racy (does any one doubt it?) is the new light and the
new power coming in-after long waiting, preparation
and discipline-to dominate society in behalf of the whole
people; and to give to civilization a new and wider hori-
zon and to infuse it with catholicity and universality.
I believe that all of the rational demands of the work-
ing men and the rational demands of all other men can be
answered through the conservative limitations and cor-
rections and the normal development of the profoundly
elastic and sensitive systems under which we are now
living-aided as these will be by the growth (always so
perceptible to the patient and forbearing observer) of the
voluntary social uses and obligations of private property.
As an example of the curative processes already appear-
ing, and which show the ease with which our systems are
self-corrective, let us take the law of competition. That
is not the easiest but rather the most difficult ill, for the
reason that it has so long seemed to lie at the foundation
of our free system, and to be its pet and pride; and to be
thoroughly democratic into the bargain. It fits into all
our modern systems, and is in some sense an expression
for them. It would almost seem to be an intregal part of
them, and essential to them; and that without it they
could not get on at all. And the socialists have ac-
cepted this law of competition as inevitable under the
present free system; and at the same time they have nom-
}
20
inated it unbearable. And thus the conclusion was ar-
rived at that we must replace our system with socialism
in order "to get out from under" the law of competition.
This you see is a strong and typical case. Neither
those who adhered to our systems nor those who despaired
of them believed we could master competition. It was
beyond the reach of human control, like electricity before
Benjamin Franklin caught it. But what do we see?
Competition is becoming docile. It has not come to the stage
yet, where a Morse and then an Edison will turn it com-
pletely into a drudge; but it has already ceased to be a
master. The air has long been full of the sound of successful
revolt. How can we exaggerate, for instance, the successful
resistance to the law made by working men through the
simple devices of organization and co-operation.
On every hand and at every turn we now meet limita-
tions of this formidable law of competition. The coun-
teracting forces are already as formidable as the law itself,
and are apparently as reliable and as inevitable. The
philosophical statement of the case, perhaps, would be that
the law of combination has come in to regulate the law of
competition. And this as the result of that free play of
economic and social forces that socialism would abolish.
And the work is being so thoroughly done that already
the danger is no longer that organization will not be able
to hold its own against competition, but that it will for
a time-and until it gets regulated in turn-go too far,
become guilty of excess and not allow the measure of
competition that is wholesome.
Consider, if you please, as another example of our abil-
ity to deal with our troubles without resorting to revolu-
tion, the grave question of a juster distribution of wealth.
I can at present but skirmish about such a large question.
To me it certainly seems clear, however, that it is not nec-
essary to sacrifice the great aid our free individual life
}
21
gives in the production of wealth in order to get a fairer
distribution. We have both theoretically and practically
-in our political economy and in our industrial life-
been so busy over the production of wealth that we have
until lately quite largely overlooked the graver question
of its right distribution and possession. Now that the
thought of the people is turning this way the evidence
grows that we shall be able to handle the question suc-
cessfully.
You must allow me to think at the same time that this
evil is greatly exaggerated in socialistic circles, and that
the hopelessness over it is quite excessive and feverish.
Compared with the past I do not at all see that we are
degenerating. I think that we have progressed; and that
we are progressing. We ought to have progressed fur-
ther and still must progress very far in this juster distri-
bution of the world's earnings. But that this demand is
so generally and forcibly made and so widely admitted is
the surest proof of an advanced and advancing people.
And I especially think that under our present forms of
society we are as likely, to say the least, to progress toward
the right ideal of distribution as in any other way.
Note, if you please, how the working men have increased
and are increasing their share by organization; and consider
what that points to when their organizations have
gained the advantage of experience and conserva-
tive management.
Note, again, the decreasing returns of capital, as shown
in the gradually dropping rate of interest. Great expan-
sions of industry through the tremendous outbursts of
scientific discovery and invention, the opening up of new
worlds and the birth of a phenomenal enterprise made
great fortunes easy, but the conditions are already more
or less exhausted and cannot be expected to repeat them-
selves.
!
22
Note, again, that very many of the great joint stock
enterprises are already in the hands not of a few but of
many stockholders. It is not unusual for a railroad to be
owned by seven or eight thousand different people.
There is no reason why this principle of corporation
should not later on merge itself with the principle of co-
operation, which would largely solve the question of dis-
tribution. Why shouldn't enginemen invest in the rail-
roads they run on if the investment is a good one? If you
reply that working men have no means to invest, it is only
necessary to point to the savings banks, the building asso-
ciations, the co-operative enterprises and the myriads of
homes.
The possession of means for investment depends much
more largely upon the faculty of saving than upon the
faculty of earning-a truth so important and a law of
industry so controlling that it would if rightly and wide-
ly taught, and associated with conservative organization,
largely promote the just distribution of wealth.
Then there is always open to us that next step beyond
the ordinary joint stock concern, to wit, the co-operative
establishment.
Even with this slight enumeration of them may we not
fairly conclude that within the environment of society, as
now constituted, there are inexhaustible ways of bringing
about the fair distribution of the earnings of the people?
If it is an unfair distribution that is sought, that of
course is quite another thing.
How little permanent, after all, are the present inequali-
ties! How little do the fortunes which dazzle us abide.
The rich man of today is the poor man of tomorrow, and
the poor man of today is the rich man of tomorrow.
A very large per cent, ninety-five some authorities say, of
all business men fail, ground in the hopper of competition.
And of the five per cent-or whatever the small remain-
•
23
der may be very few, singularly few, are followed by
successful children. How little reason there is to fear the
establishment of classes, or to envy the fleeting riches of
our neighbors. All only brings grist to the mills that are
grinding out, as if they were the mills of the gods, a more
equal distribution of wealth.
Meanwhile let us treasure the right and the opportunity
to accumulate individual property for the rich man and
for the poor man alike. For if we should take away these
we should lose one of the greatest agencies both of mate-
rial progress and of high civilization. But let us at the
same time teach all men the right use of wealth and the
proper recognition of its public duties.
The crudeness of our individualism shows unmistakable
signs of the mellowing influence of the right social in-
stinct. So that what with such correctives as the volun-
tary acknowledgments of private property, the limitations
of the law of competition, the concessions to organized la-
bor, the division of capital in joint stock companies and
its organization in co-operative forms, the reduced and re-
ducing returns of capital as new worlds cease to offer them-
selves to the conqueror, the reduction of all men's labor,
the spread of education, and, finally, the ever growing
harmony of the people under the reign of a victorious
democrary all is tending toward the reduction of the inequa-
lities of life to the measure of the justifications of nature.


~

DEMCO
LIBRARY SUPPLIES

Madison
Wis.
New Haven
Conn.

WILSON
ANNEX
AISLE 59
wils
335 M252
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
MacVeagh, Franklin.
Socialism as a remedy.
3 1951 002 096 847 R
0123456
0123456
0123456
QUAWN
4
2
3
1
QUAWN--
EXTAWN-I

654321
A4 Page 8543210
AIIM SCANNER TEST CHART #2
4 PT
6 PT
8 PT
Spectra
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",/?$0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:”,./?$0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:',./?$0123456789
10 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
Times Roman
4 PT
6 PT
8 PT
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:'../?$0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
10 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
4 PT
6 PT
8 PT
Century Schoolbook Bold
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
10 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
4 PT
6 PT
News Gothic Bold Reversed
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:'',/?$0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:',./?$0123456789
8 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
10 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
4 PT
6 PT
8 PT
Bodoni Italic
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?80123456789
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
10 PT ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;:",./?$0123456789
ΑΒΓΔΕΞΘΗΙΚΛΜΝΟΠΡΣΤΥΩΝΨΖαβγδεξθηικλμνοπορστνωχ ζ=7",/St=#°><ΕΞ
Greek and Math Symbols
4 PT
6 PT
8 PT
ΑΒΓΔΕΞΘΗΙΚΛΜΝΟΠΦΡΣΤΥΩΧΨΖαβγδεξθηικλμνοπφροτυωχψί=7",/S+=#°><><><=
ΑΒΓΔΕΞΘΗΙΚΛΜΝΟΠΦΡΣΤΥΩΧ Ζαβγδεξθηικλμνοπόρστυωχψίπτ",./St##°><><><Ξ
10 ΡΤ ΑΒΓΔΕΞΘΗΙΚΛΜΝΟΠΦΡΣΤΥΩΧΨΖαβγδεξθηικλμνοπορστνωχ ίΞτ",/St=#°><><=
White
MESH HALFTONE WEDGES
I
|
65
85
100
110
133
150
Black
Isolated Characters
e
3
1
2
3
a
4
5
6
7
о
8
9
0
h
B
O5¬♡NTC
65432
A4 Page 6543210
A4 Page 6543210
©B4MN-C
65432
MEMORIAL DRIVE, ROCHESTER, NEW YORK 14623
RIT ALPHANUMERIC RESOLUTION TEST OBJECT, RT-1-71
0123460
மய
6 E38
5 582
4 283
3 32E
10:
5326
7E28
8B3E
032E ▸
1253
223E
3 3EB
4 E25
5 523
6 2E5
17
分
​155自​杂
​14 E2 S
1323S
12E25
11ES2
10523
5836
835E
7832
0723
SBE 9
OEZE
1328
2 E32
3 235
4 538
5 EBS
6 EB
15853
TYWES
16 ELE
14532
13823
12ES2
11285
1053B
SBE6
8235
7523
◄ 2350
5 SER
10 EBS
8532
9538
7863
ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ONE LOMB
PRODUCED BY GRAPHIC ARTS RESEARCH CENTER