Van Ornum, Co-operation, XI

Twentieth Century, July 26, 1894, 7-8.

CO-OPERATION.—FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.—XI.

BY W. H. VAN ORNUM.

A form of co-operation which is older, and has had a larger degree of development in England and America than any other in existence, is that which is appropriately known as the friendly societies in which the members co-operate together to defray funeral expenses and for mutual protection against the calamities of sickness, accident and death. Among these are included the Odd Fellows, the Foresters, the Ancient Order of Romans, the Ancient Order of Shepherds, the British Order of Free Gardeners, the Catholic Benefit Societies, the United Order of Comical Fellows, the Ancient Order of Britons, the United Order of Workmen, the Rechabites, the Independent Order of Mechanics, the Engineers and Firemen’s Friendly Society, the Order of Alfreds, the Order of Druids, the Knights of Pythias, and many others, besides a great number of variations such as twelve kinds of Odd Fellows, etc. Among these may also be classed the various temperance orders, which apply the principle of mutual help to curb the appetites; or, in the larger statement of it, the application of co-operation to the making of individual character.

Many of these orders date back more than three hundred years; and it is in them that life insurance had its real origin; although, independent of them, it was customary for private underwriters, during the sixteenth century, and for long afterward, to undertake special risks upon lives for short periods to cover contingencies of a temporary character. These were, however, only isolated cases and for special purposes. The general need for life insurance was first felt by the poor who sought a provision against the distress which might fall upon the survivors should their breadwinners be suddenly snatched away. It was in the friendly societies that plans were first developed for the systematic satisfaction of this want. The greatest difficulty they had to encounter was, the fact that no data existed on which calculations could be based of rates of mortality, or accident; nor did anyone know just what observations were necessary in order to obtain such data. Their experience tables must be made; and there was no way to make them but by the slow record of their own history with its successes and its failures. But, at the very time when it was most important to observe and record closely all the facts relating to the experience of those societies, in order to form the basis for life insurance, it is certain that their leaders did not appreciate that importance. It is probable that they regarded their societies as little capable of improvement, not realizing that the condition of their very existence, for any considerable time, depended upon reaching a basis of assessments which would closely cover the risks and expenses. That these societies, practically doing what we now know as a life insurance business, eaHy preceded life insurance as a business, may be inferred from the works of Daniel Defoe, whose “Essay of Projects” was published in 1698, in which he extolls the virtues of the friendly societies; and, in his later works, advocated the compulsory establishment of societies for mutual assurance, and for relief in seasons of distress. At the same time he was loud in his condemnation of the business of life insurance. If Defoe can be considered in any way a reflection of the popular estimation of the two at the time, then it is certain that the societies had obtained an earlier foothold than the insurance companies.

In 1723 the first act of Parliament was passed dealing with those societies. At that time they had begun to assume considerable importance and attract attention. Previous to this, their growth had been wholly in spite of the law; for, being unrecognized by the law, they were outside its protection and consequently a prey to all who were disposed to plunder them. The partial removal of those disabilities was a sort of negative assistance; but so far as any positive assistance went, in the granting of state aid in their promotion, that state aid, as it is always bound to do, was found to degrade and demoralize them. From then on they were taken up by resolute men; the principle of mutual self-help more fully developed; and, as a result, the different orders which have since grown up were evolved, spreading over a considerable part of the civilized world. But it was not until about the middle of the eighteenth century that these orders attained anything like permanence; and even then, they were constantly represented by their enemies as being based upon no scientific principle. What was meant was, that the assessments bore no scientific relation to the risks and expenses; which was true, for reasons already given. But they were based upon a deeper and more scientific principle than that. Mutual helplessness of man to man is always scientific. It is always a success. This is co-operation, and co-operation has never been a failure. It has only been where men have failed to adhere to the real principles of co-operation that their schemes have failed; or they have been killed by causes outside of themselves, like the Ralashine cornmunity.

In the ritual and work of the various societies I am informed that they are largely modelled after the masonic order; and that many of them lay claim to great antiquity. The Druids, for instance, are said to go back to the building of the ark; the Free Gardeners to Paradise; the Odd Fellows to Adam; and the Foresters to Eden. They have been vastly useful in promoting social intercourse among the people; the social benefits resulting being nearly, if not quite, as important as the cash benefits granted in times of need. The Ancient Order of Romans had for its motto, “One for all, and all for one” and this is, at bottom, the spirit which underlies them all. Theoretically their management is, and always has been democratic, requiring equal service and conferring equal benefits. But whenever autocracy has obtained in their management, an immovable junta has secured control; it has tended directly to destroy not only their usefulness, but the societies themselves.

Like all other efforts on the part of the people to better their condition by their own efforts, this has met with the most violent denunciations from both the press and the pulpit. Especially was this true of the period from 1834 to 1851, nine years after they had won complete recognition from the English law, during which that violence was only equaled by their ignorance of the subject. To them was joined the voice of such lordly idiots as the Earl of Albemarle, who contemptuously warned the English workingmen against them, declaring that they were not a brotherhood, but a humbug.

Their recognition by law was only secured after a long and stubbornly contested fight maintained down to 1842. Small concessions were made under different acts of Parliament, but they were generally coupled with conditions which hampered instead of helped the societies. The whole history of English legislation on the subject is one continued series of blundering and meddlesome interference. It is probable that the only benefit such legislation ever conferred upon these orders was to accord them an equal standing before the law with other organizations. Until then they were made a prey of fraudulent men who were only bent upon carrying forward their corrupt schemes. Every possible means were resorted to by the schemers who were interested in continuing the abuses, so much so that several of the orders were nearly wrecked. From one to two hundred of the lodges of the Odd Fellows were closed for want of funds; pamphlets and scurrilous songs were published reflecting on the order; but it was a wholesome process for purging away undesirable material and methods. When it was done the orders were stronger than ever; and they have since been extended into almost all parts of the civilized world. They contained within them that which in time triumphed and brought order out of confusion: the principle of mutual self-help. Better business methods came with a better knowledge of the special requirements and the experience tables on which they could base their calculations. From 1842 to 1857 the friendly societies were improved, strengthened and extended all over England and in English speaking countries. And well they needed to be, especially those in England; for they were about to receive the severest test to which they had ever been subjected. The Landhill colliery disaster which launched hundreds of their members into eternity, completely exhausted the funds of a large number of lodges, and was followed by sweeping epidemics which depleted the treasuries of hundreds of others. Then, on top of all, came the cotton famine caused by the war between the North and South, in America, which closed the industries from which .many thousands of members derived their sustenance; and the very fact that any survived which were subject to such a series of disasters is simply wonderful.

It will be needless to go into statistics showing the extent of the development of friendly societies in this and other countries. Statistics would convey a very inadequate idea of it at best, even if they were access- able, which they are not. To say the least, they furnish a large proportion of the life insurance, and most of the sick benefits in this country, and probably others. That they do this in a satisfactory way is evident from their constant growth and extension. They have demonstrated the practicability of co-operation to deal with the conditions which they are intended to meet. And that demonstration is all the more complete from the fact that they have had to construct their own experience tables out of their own experience, and often in spite, of fraudulent officers enjoying a practical immunity by law from punishment for their frauds.

Some will ask me what the necessity was for the expenditure of so much energy build up a co operative system of life insurance, when, under a true and adequate system of co-operation, life insurance will not be needed. I will answer: if the end was only to build up a system of life insurance, it was not necessary. Under a true co-operation there will be no room for life insurance, because there can remain no want or destitution. Private fortunes will give place to a common wealth, from which all can draw freely for the satisfaction of all wants. It is plain that under these conditions there can be no place for life insurance. But this is the smallest part of the achievement of these societies. They have proved that cooperation is able to answer the most difficult requirements of human association, and to soften the conditions which environ us. I think the time has arrived when it is destined to change those conditions, and utterly destroy capitalism, which is the author of those conditions.

Van Ornum, Co-operation, X

Twentieth Century, July 19, 1894, 8-10.

CO-OPERATION.—EUROPEAN CREDIT BANKS.—X.

BY W. H. VAN ORNUM.

In Italy, co-operative banking has developed another of its possibilities; that is, the issuing of bills of credit, or current money. The People’s Bank of Milan was the first, started by Signor Luzzati, in 1866. Within a few days after it opened its doors it was confronted by a war. The government had levied a forced loan; and a financial panic was the result. The People’s Bank promptly came to the rescue and offered to issue small bills of five, three and two lire, against security. Any person could obtain the bills by depositing approved security. The printing press was started at once, and with the most admirable success. From that moment the success of the bank was assured. At the beginning, it had but £28 capital, exactly the same as that possessed at the start by the Rochdale Pioneers; and all work was performed gratuitous. According to the last reports which are accessible, it now employs over 100 paid employees and 240 unpaid officers. It had 16,392 members; a capital of £336,752; and a reserve of £168,376, doing an annual business of £71,841,788; and distributing in dividends £46,080.

It must be remembered, however, that the Italian banks started out on a radically different plan from those of Germany. They began upon the principle that borrowing means dependence upon others; so they discarded it as the prime purpose; and largely confined their transactions to bills of exchange, discarding the principle of unlimited liability. In this, and in their share capital, their dividends and other capitalistic features they are less co-operative than their neighbors in Germany and Austria. Their method of borrowing is this: suppose A is considered good for £40; B for £30; and C for £60; on the strength of their joint signatures any one of them is entitled to a loan of £130, provided no other paper is out signed or backed by A, B and C. Then again, a tradesman, having money owing him from a customer, needs but to have the customer’s acknowledgement of the debt, when he can get it discounted. This system has been found to work well and safely. Under it banks have paid all the way from six per cent to twenty per cent dividends. Year by year Signor Luzzatti has insisted upon stopping that, but without avail. “Limit dividends,” he said, “cast away every inducement to greed.” The only lesson of value in this type of bank is, that co-operative banks can just as safely and properly issue circulating bills of credit based upon proper security as any other agency in the world. Beyond this, the banks of Signor Luzzatti do not differ widely, in the extent of their co-operation, from the banks of Schulze-Delitzsch. They are not for the very poor. They fail to reach those who are in greatest need of their help.

Realizing this fact, Dr. Wollemborg started a new type of credit bank, in Lombardy, in June, 1883, with only thirty.two members, and patterned very nearly after the Raiffeisen banks of Germany. A few peasants became borrowers. When their first quarter came around they were surprised to receive notice that they owed 1 1/2 per cent on their loans. They could not understand it. They had been used to from 30 per cent to 100 per cent; and sometimes much higher. They brought in their notices to see if some mistake had not been made. Being assured that the notices were correct they at once proclaimed the good news. The subsequent history has been a repetition of that of the Raiffeisen banks in Germany. In fact, they have followed closely the Raiffeisen lines, except in some cases carrying his principles still further. They have thoroughly met the wants of the very poor, and have produced the same moral effects among them. As to personal character, they are strict as no other. A man may be as poor as a church mouse; but it is no bar to membership. Not a penny has to be paid down for shares; but the applicant must be honest, sober, thrifty, well conducted and thoroughly trusted by his neighbors. He must also have a rudimentary knowledge of reading and writing. It is said that under these influences illiteracy, which was as prevalent as in any portion of Ireland, is rapidly disappearing. The stimulus of personal interest has proved more powerful, in habits of temperance, than all the eloquence of priests and the arguments of temperance lecturers. Just as in Germany, unlimited liability has been found to be devoid of any element of danger. Not a farthing has been lost to anybody. Even where members have left the country they have sent in their payments with regularity. The poor become self- reliant and business like; cultivation has been improved; paupers are transformed into self-supporting citizens; and the usurer finds his occupation gone. The hovels are transformed into neat and tasty houses; and thrift and order take the place of carelessness and disorder.

The credit unions of Belgium are formed on a still different plan. An indefinite number of members join, each taking one share, of say 200 francs. On this they pay 20 francs, and in some cases only 10; but the share entitles them to a credit of 200 francs on paper, to which the union affixes its signature, and becomes responsible; a modification of the issue of currency bills of credit. At first this seems extremely hazardous; but with care in accepting members this has been found to work well. The first one established proved its soundness by living through a crisis of almost unparalleled severity.

In Switzerland almost the only form of co-operative bank which has been introduced to any extent has been something like our building and loan associations: co-operation in savings. But these have flourished for more than sixty years. They pay no dividends; carry all surplus to the reserve; and have redeemed every farthing of their share capital. Their management is strictly democratic; and the same attention is given to small as to large business.

In other directions co-operation is well advanced in Switzerland. Co-operative dairy associations, which produce the famous Swiss cheese; co-operative cattle- purchase associations; cooperative Smithies, which have effected important savings; and co-operative insurance associations against hail and cattle plague, and sometimes against fire, have much reduced the cost of insurance below that charged by joint stock companies. In some places co operative butcheries exist. There are thirty-five co-operative cattle-purchase associations in the canton of Thurgan, which supply 22,230 of the population with their needed farm stock. For more than forty years have these associations kept the population in milch cows and heifers, rendering invaluable services, and receiving their money back with interest. But why with interest? If the associations are co-operative: that is, operated strictly in the interest of those who want cattle, then there is n sense in collecting interest or profit from those members; because, whatever profit is made above running expenses it must needs be divided right back to the same people again as dividends. It is something more than a suspicion, that in this particular they are not co-operative; but that capitalists, large or small, find this a means of loaning money on interest to some otherwise co-operative societies, thus reaping a return without work. There is nothing co-operative about any scheme of interest.

The war of 1870, whereby France was overrun by the German armies, swept away the small co-operative banks which had been planted prior to that time In i866 France had no less than 300, following very nearly the Raiffeisen plan, each with from 25 to 50 members, modest and obscure, but doing their work faithfully and meeting the real wants of the people at small cost to anyone. One of the largest, situated in the Fanbourg St. Antoine, in the six years of its existence loaned upwards of 6,000,000 of francs, and only had two small losses to report. The rigor of self-help; the sense of responsibility; and the humility of its work made it a success where the millionaire enterprises of the state and rich capitalists failed. It has been said that French co-operation was born of the revolution; and had for its object, not the reform of trade, but the emancipation of the workmen. The war practically put an end to co-operation in France, until it was again revived about 1887 by Father De Besse, a Capuchin monk. He has, however, deviated considerably from the Raiffeisen plan; and has been obliged to resort to indirect methods to maintain security. Being a churchman also, he has made them largely a church affair; and yet, in their way they are doing a useful work, while falling far short of the Raiffeisen banks of Germany. Members pay five francs entrance fee, and take shares of fifty francs, which bear no interest. They adhere to the principle of unlimited liability; and repayment is made by installments.

The People’s banks in Algiers and throughout French Africa, of which there are about sixty, follow closely the Raiffeisen lines; and are doing a good work in an unpretending but thoroughly useful manner.
In sharp contrast to these institutions for mutual self-help, it will be instructive to glance at a few of those conspicuous failures started on the principle of a help to be conferred upon the people by their rulers. The first Napoleon set up his Société du Crédit Agricole, with a great flourish of trumpets, upon a vast capital mainly furnished by himself. His object was to loan money to farmers with which to improve and cultivate their farms. But the scheme was looked upon with suspicion; and he could get no borrowers. At last he loaned 168,000,000 of francs to the Khedive of Egypt, which brought the bank to an end.

Another attempt (I think by Napoleon III.), was called the Chasse d’ Escompte, with a million of money, one half contributed by himself; but no one could be found to borrow. It ended quite as ingloriously as the first. The Empress Eugenia also had to try her hand. She set up the Société des Prets de l’Enfrance; and with the same result. Gambetta started one on the same principle with a capital of 50,000,000 of francs: 12,000,000 of which was subscribed; and later on, Benjamin Rampal, with 2,000,000 francs, all of which failed. They were unsuited to the wants of the people. They could not attract those whom it was absolutely necessary to reach in order to carry out their benevolent schemes. Whatever improvement in the condition of the people that is ever realized must be achieved by the people themselves. It can never come from their rulers; and that is just as true of the politicians in a republic as it is in a monarchy. The difference between them is only in the name.

There is also in France a type of co-operative supply associations among farmers called syndicates. These, while as yet limited to a small compass of activity, ambitiously aim to do almost everything, just as our granges did at one time. They are not unlikely to fall as far short of their ideal as did the grange. But they are educating the people to look to co-operation for great benefits in the future; and when the time comes that an adequate scheme of co-operation is offered the work done by those syndicates and our granges will be found a most useful preparation. Already those syndicates have rendered valuable service to the farmers of France in the purchase of fertilizers and other supplies for farm use.

Those interested in the study of European credit banks would do well to read carefully “People’s Banks,” by Henry W. Wolff, published by Longmans, Green & Co., New York, from which this and the two previous chapters are largely condensed.

Van Ornum, Co-operation, IX

Twentieth Century, July 12, 1894, 7-8.

CO-OPERATION.—EUROPEAN CREDIT BANKS.—IX.

BY W. H. VAN ORNUM.

When a Raffeisen Loan Bank is to be started, a definite district is selected, commonly containing about 400 inhabitants. Within the limits of that district members are selected with great discrimination by those who have undertaken its formation, or who have already joined, the object being to secure a membership limited to the very best materials. No difference is observed between the rich and poor, except, that as the bank is based on the unlimited liability of its members, the well-to-do are generally accorded a leading part in the administration, because they must bear the brunt of the liability. A committee of five is elected which is charged with executive work of the institution. A council of supervision is also chosen, consisting from six to nine members according to the size of the district, to supervise the work of the executive committee and overhaul all that has been done at least once a month. Both the executive committee and the council of supervision serve without pay. The cashier is the only person who receives pay for his services; and he has no voice in the administration. The bank is strictly forbidden to transact any of the ordinary business of a bank. Originally there were no capital shares or entrance fees. But Bismarck insisted that the plan should include a share capital. The associations replied by placing the shares as low as ten or twelve mark, payable by installments. Raiffeisen insisted that there should be no dividends, but again Bismarck interfered. And again the associations practically annulled the chancellor’s edict. Every farthing that is left over is rigorously passed to the reserve, which slowly but steadily grows and forms a solid basis of credit for the association. Not even in the event of the dissolution of the association is any sharing out permitted.

Borrowing is not made easy, but hard. While money must he found for all who need it, in every case the borrower must make out a good case; prove that he is trustworthy, and that his enterprise is sound. If he does this, no matter how poor, the money will be placed at his disposal. Without such proof, no matter how rich, the money is sure to be refused. He must then apply the money strictly to the objects for which he received it. The smallness of the districts enables every one to act as a check upon every other. No one can misapply the money without others knowing it.

Every three months a complete review is made by the council of supervision. If necessary better security is called for from the borrower in the interests of the association. If not forthcoming the loan is called in at four week’s notice. This, however, is almost never resorted to. It is only an expedient which may be resorted to if necessary.

Lending is almost entirely done on personal character. Notes of hand are taken, generally unbacked, or else backed by one, or at most two.

In addition to the close supervision by disinterested officers of the associations, men who serve without pay, a corps of inspectors are kept travelling from one association to another examining books and accounts, and the workings of the associations.
The associations obtain money by borrowing it from banks and individuals; which they can do by reason of the confidence inspired by their strict business habits. They are able to get all the money they want at the lowest rates of interest. So great is the confidence inspired in the stability of these banks that the law courts actually allow trust funds to be paid to them on deposit. During the two critical periods of German credit; the war of x866 with Austria, and that of 1870 with France, when deposits were withdrawn at wholesale from other banks, deposits were actually pressed upon the Raiffeisen banks for safe keeping, although it should be without any interest at all.

With a record of millions of money lent, mostly to poor people, through a more or less complicated sys. tern of business in about a thousand associations, and extending over forty three years, there have been only ten cases of embezzlement or misappropriation of funds; and in every case these were met out of the reserve, or by the sureties. No wonder they command confidence; and no wonder they can obtain all the money they want for any length of time for productive purposes, as low as per cent per annum ! Unlike the Schulze-Delitzsch banks, loans are made for long time. The record shows that about 15 per cent of the loans are made for one year; 43 per cent from one to five years; 34 per cent for from five to ten years; and 8 per cent for a longer period. So long as a borrower continues regular in his payments, and applies his loan to the objects for which the money was granted he may be sure that it will go on.

These associations have led to other co-operative schemes, such as co-operative associations to insure cattle against disease; co-operative dairy associations; co-operative hop growers’ associations, and co-operative vine growers’ associations. These latter have doubled the receipts of the cultivators in many districts. Grapes are gathered and are taken directly to a common press, where they are immediately tested for sugar, and credited to the grower according to an agreed scale. By means of their credit associations they can pay cash down, only reserving a small balance to be paid at the end of the year. The result is, the wine is made pure and cheap. A move has lately been set on foot to establish co-operative wine shops for the sale of wine from co operative associations.

Like the Schulze-Delizsch, the Raiffeisen banks are based upon the principle of unlimited liability. This is essential to their very existence; but they introduce an element of safety wholly wanting in the first. Each being restricted to a certain district, and that too a small one, the members are kept, constantly in touch One with another; each acts as a check upon the other, and none can misuse the funds borrowed without the fact becoming known to the others whose interests would be imperiled. The workings of these banks has greatly raised the standard of personal character among the people. So greatly do they prize the memberships in these associations that they cultivate a very high degree of excellence in order to obtain them. Drunkards become sober; the indolent industrious; the improvident thrifty; and the ignorant and illiterate learn to read and write that they may become familiar with their business and reports. The meetings are well attended the members taking the liveliest interest in all their affairs. These Raffeisen banks have made character a realizable asset, tending directly to develop a higher order of character among the poor.

Another element of safety that must not be overlooked is, that the work of administration is performed without compensation. The offices offer no temptation for greed ; and the fact that men can be found to do arduous and responsible work of the highest quality without pecuniary compensation speaks volumes of promise for co-operation. The failures which have attended the Schulze-Delitzsch banks are all traceable to this one fault: the carelessness and greed of their officers which was stimulated by the payment of salaries and commissions. The contrast in the results of the two systems is so marked that no room is left for doubt as to their comparative merits. The Schulze-Delitzsch, while developing more rapidly, is far less co-operative and contains many more capitalistic features. Although it has enjoyed a large measure of public confidence it has encountered many signal failures; while the Raiffeisen system has never had one.

In Russia the credit associations have been thwarted and crippled by the vicious and meddlesome interference of the government, so much so as to almost destroy their usefulness. In 1883 there were reports of a thousand associations; but they were mostly nominal. They have since dwindled until it is doubtful if there are now as many as half that number, and they of no great use. If a member borrows for a specific purpose he may divert the funds to other purposes; and the government forbids the association to expel him, thus directly encouraging people to join merely to defraud the associations. Wherever government interferes in the affairs of the people, it always does it to the injury of the people.

It is reported that in some of the provinces of China there exists a form of mutual bank, whereby the people can easily obtain the means necessary for making improvements; but I have been unable to obtain satisfactory details of their plan and workings.

Co-operative credit has recently obtained a foothold in Japan also, with every prospect of success.

Van Ornum, Co-operation, VIII

Twentieth Century, July 5, 1894, 7-8.

CO-OPERATION.—EUROPEAN CREDIT BANKS.—VIII.

BY W. H., VAN ORNUM.

We now come to a most remarkable phase of cooperative work; remarkable alike for its present achievements and for the possibilities which it suggests It has wrought a transformation scene in the condition of a large part of the working people, and often among those of the very lowest, in at least three of the principle countries in Europe; and improved their material condition in many others, just in proportion to the extent to which is h is been applied. It has opened the way for mutual self help to the very poorest, inspired them with hope; aroused their self- respect, and stimulated their spirit of independence. It has been the means of making their homes more habitable, improving the culture of their fields by purchasing machinery, procuring fertilizers and buying stock, and has enabled them to got better prices for their products and to buy supplies at wholesale But the most wonderful effects have been wrought upon the people themselves, The idle have become industrious, the spendthrift made thrifty; the drunkard forsook his cups and the tavern hunter the inn. The illiterate, even when bowed with age, have learned to read and write, A Prussian judge reports that litigation, by reason of it, especially in the collection of debt, is sensibly diminished. Even one priest reports that the co-operative bank has done more, in his parish, to reform the morals of the people than all his ministrations. Those who study co operation more to arrive at a definite working principle and plans, than as a hazy sentimentalism, should carefully consider the European Credit Banks in all their details and variations. I say European, because, while the Credit Banks had a distinctively German origin, they have had a different development in different countries, according to the special needs and circumstances found in those countries In one country they have taught one lesson; and in other countries others. Or, rather, in one place they have taught one part and in another place another part of the same great lesson, that to operation is applicable to all the wants of human association, and that the development of the individual depends upon the extent to which he is enabled to cooperate with his fellows.

Herr Schulze-Delitzsch, a man of some means and a benevolent character, about 1845, observing the extreme straights to which the peasants were driven through the exertions of professional usurers, set himself to devise a plan of relief, The problem, according to his own words, was, “to procure capital without a capital of guarantee.” Passy, one of Schulze’s associates, put it, “to find means of giving credit to those who have no security to offer in exchange.” In other words, the question to be solved was, could labor be pledged for money?

Schulze’s first step was the formation of a co-operative association for the purchase of raw material, He next proceeded to the formation of a credit association, The dominating principle in this was benevolence, It was a capitalist institution, philanthropic, condescending, and was to be supplied with funds by those who did not expect to become borrowers, It looked to helping the people instead of developing a mutual self-help among the people themselves. Its weakness was, that it was not sufficiently co operative. It soon became evident that this would not accomplish the desired end; when Dr. Bernardi, a friend and fellow worker with Schulze, devised a more co-operative scheme, Still, it was sought first to protect the interests of the investor—the lender. Co-operative credit was of secondary importance. Money was borrowed from those who had money to lend; and business was done for a profit, Consequently, interest was kept at a comparatively high rate—ay, from twelve to fourteen per cent, afterward reduced to eight, Each member as required to subscribe for one share and no more, which was at first fixed at £30, payable in small installments. The bank was permitted to engage in all kinds of banking operations; but all money was to be loaned inside the association. All forms of security— mortgages, pledges, securities, bills of exchange, etc, were accepted. Loans were not restricted in amount, but must be made for short time, commonly for three months, with but one renewal. The administration was placed in the hands of a committee which drew a salary and a commission on the amount of the business done. These associations were based upon the unlimited liability of the members; that is, every member was liable for the debts of the whole association.

These associations multiplied with great rapidity. By 1883 more than 4,000 associations had been established with a membership of 1,200,000, and with a capital of £10,000,000, doing business at the rate, according to some estimates, of £100,000,000 a year, They had extended throughout Germany, Austria, Italy; and, to a considerable extent, to almost all the countries of Europe. According to Herr Schmid, of Vienna, in 1886 the total number in and out of Germany, formed on Schulze-Delitzsch lines, was 4,500, with 1,500,000 members, and doing a business of £450,000,000 annually.

From the first, the government put every conceivable obstruction in Schulze’s way. He was politically a present ed man’ officially harassed and badgered, persecuted by the courts and tabooed by the press, But he added more to the wealth of German than the entire amount of the French indemnity. When the system was started it was almost impossible for a poor man to obtain a loan. Interest ranged from 50 per cent to 100 per cent and one instance has been recorded where 750 per cent was exacted. And yet, not withstanding the great benefit which these institutions brought to the people, there is no doubt that they are more capitalistic than co-operative They are open to the criticism of Father DeBesse of France that they are “fighting usury by practicing it." Almost every feature of them is capitalistic with a definite capitalization in shares with interest, usury and dividends and with fixed salaries and commissions to the responsible officers of the institutions Their success has been wholly due to the small element of co-operation which is found in their constitution, viz.: the unlimited liability of the members. In that way the members co-operate together to protect each other's credit and enable them to obtain loans which they could not do singly With this one exception, the Schulze-Delitzsch credit banks are pure and simple capitalism and while they have had a rapid development, and transact a vast volume of business, they have been subject to the same dangers that other capitalistic enterprises encounter. Failures have been frequent. Between 1875 and 1876 (one year) no less than thirty six associations ere declared bankrupt and 176 more went into liquidation In all cases however their failure has been directly traceable to greed and carelessness on the part of the officers and not to a failure of the principles of co-operation, as will appear later.

In sharp contrast to the Schulze-Delitzsch associations was the Loan Banks devised by Raiffeisen, a burgomaster in twenty five parishes in Westerwald, Germany In almost every essential particular these banks are the direct opposites of those of Schulze-Delitzsch. Schulze placed the interests of the lender foremost and Raiffeisen those of the borrower. The first aimed at business and the second at social benefit. Still they each occupied their own separate sphere, the Schulze-Delitzsch associations reaching the middle lower class of people while the Raiffeisen did the same for the very poorest. But the history of the last has been the most remarkable and the most instructive from the standpoint of co-operation.

In his official capacity Raiffeisen was brought in daily contact with the miseries of the poor during the famine of 1846 and 1847 The population was half starved ill clad, badly housed and badly brought up. By hard labor it could hardly eke out enough to keep body and soul together. The country was under the pest of remorseless usury. The people suffered in mute despair, deeming it utterly impossible to protect themselves from the exactions of the professional usurer. The whole district was turned into a usurer's hell.

Raiffeisen determined to take the cudgel and declare relentless war against usury. His first venture was a co-operative bakery. It was a signal success. It enabled the poor to buy their bread at just half the current price. He next started a Co-operative Cattle Purchase Association, which was again a success. The usurers, however, still held their money debts. To combat these, Raiffeisen now started his first bank with £300 which he had managed to scrape together. No one ever contributed a penny in share capital and yet from this small beginning, it has grown until it distributes its millions through its thousands of channels bringing comfort and plenty everywhere that it sets its foot. The usurers were compelled to relax their grasp and the people were given a new lease of life. Starting, as it did, in one of the poorest provinces in Westerwald, it has grown to enormous proportions with its branches reaching out all over Germany, Italy Austria and Hungary, with offshoots in France and Russia

Personally modest and unassuming Raiffeisen entered upon no noisy propaganda. He was content to work in his own limited way and sphere. It was five years before his second bank was formed and eight more until the third was started. After that, it was six years to the starting of the fourth. Since 1880 they have multiplied with great rapidity When in 1888 Herr Raiffeisen died a half of Germany mourned him as a benefactor No higher tribute can be paid to his practical good sense than this, that after a history of forty three years, out of more than 1,000 institutions established on his lines, and all dealing with the very poorest in their localities, they can boast that neither member nor creditor has ever lost a penny by them. This also teaches some further lessons that co-operation when organized on national lines, is applicable to the affairs of the poorest and most ignorant; and also that men, as a whole, are honest and upright in their dealings when it is possible for them to be so. In the face of such a history who shall say that co-operation is impracticable in any direction. Almost at the same time that Raiffeisen started his Loan Bank in Germany, Proudhon began his People's Bank in Paris, with a great flourish of trumpets, parading before the world his splendid enterprise. It was big with promise and flush of funds but was destined to end in nothing but smoke in less than two months. One was the enterprise of a practical, sensible and earnest man and the other the imperfect scheme of a visionary

In the next will be given the details of the organization of the Raiffeisen Loan Banks

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CHAPTER VIII.

CONCLUSION.

If we have read man aright in these pages, if his springs of action, his natural promptings, the end and purpose of his life are as they have appeared to us in the long inquiry just ended, then he is himself the true Divinity, the sublimest fact in all nature, the crowning glory of all the sons of development from the lowest monad up to a Darwin or a Spencer. If this is true, the baseness, the greed, the vice, the crime and the brutality of men are but the remainders of an imperfect but progressive development, which only requires freedom from external and unnatural restraint to remove. If selfishness is the mainspring of human progress, and only becomes perverted from its true and natural expression into a debasing greed for wealth, as a result of legal enactments which violate the natural condition of property by setting up special rights of property, then the proper way to destroy that greed is to destroy the rights of property which have been set up by the law. The greed of wealth is but misdirected selfishness. The evils which come from it are like the inharmonious sounds which come forth from an imperfectly tuned violin. Nature is a wonderful musician, and is now tuning its instrument, eliminating its discords. The strings are bound together so that they hold each other in check. They cannot vibrate. Free those strings, and permit nature to tune them in her own way; and when she has removed the discords of poverty, vice, and crime, there will break forth such rapturous melodies, such divine harmonies that all nature shall dance together for joy. In the light of all this, and in all that our inquiry has shown, there arise [354] in thought the most enchanting visions of a social paradise that have ever flashed upon the imagination of the wildest social reformer. And those visions are endowed with a consistency, an almost present possibility, which bids us but stretch out our hands in order to grasp their substance.

The sacred fire of liberty which Prometheus stole from Zeus, in a hollow tubs, for the benefit of mortals, has remained hidden away, and concealed, cause men have not recognized its genial warmth and power. And as a result, the diseases, sufferings, and miseries which torment mortals; evils which Pandora, the daughter of the gods, released when she lifted the lid of the vessel in which the foresight of Prometheus had concealed them, have been permitted to work their way unhindered. It is for us to rekindle this Promethean spark, and again confine those torments which have plagued the whole race of mortals, and brought to naught their highest and purest aspirations.

How fair and radiant is liberty! She brings the olive branch of peace to soothe and quiet the angry passions of warring nations, to remove class distinctions, and heal the wounds that jealousy and bitter wrong have made. She brings no word of reproach, and no condemnation to the outcast, or the erring; but lovingly binds up the bleeding heart, and wipes away every tear. She brings joy, and peace, and love to the master as well as the slave, to the high as well as the low, to the rich as well as the poor. Her face is radiant as the sun, while the touch of her lips is as soft and fragrant as the kiss of a babe. But she permits no chain. She cannot be bound. Authority and obligation are alike repugnant. She does all from love, and her own desire, and nothing from duty. Duty kills, but love makes alive; the law destroys, while freedom preserves. Those who would enjoy her must also be free. They have no need to enslave themselves to authority. [356] They may not incur an obligation, assumes duty, or submit to the reign of law. Do this, and liberty flies. She brooks no restriction, and submits to no leaders.

To win her, we have only to break the chains, renounce the obligations, deny authority, repudiate duty, and give scope to man’s freest thought and act. His natural promptings are truer than the temporal or spiritual rulers would have us believe. If not, what is it that keeps those rulers aright? Wherein do they differ from us who are not rulers?

To break those chains it needs no violence; no angry passions. A widespread knowledge of the true principles of liberty is the first step toward its attainment. To this all can contribute by spreading the light, each among his own associates; and no power of any ruler can prevent it. Any efforts to do so can only help instead of hinder. Let us always seek to convince instead of to vanquish. Victor Hugo says: “I make little account of victory. Nothing is so stupid as to vanquish; the real glory is to convince.” And when the time comes to act, as I have outlined, in treating of the remedy, all that is required is steadiness and firmness, and withal kindness. The right, when it triumphs, has no need to be violent. And if the first efforts do not immediately succeed, it is only because a knowledge of those principles has not become sufficiently general; and it shows the need of further work. But every effort, whether at once successful or not, cannot do other than spread a knowledge of liberty, and kindle the hope of mankind. It is a warfare with ignorance in which there are no defeats. Every contest but makes more certain the final victory.

“A fire would cause a dawn, undoubtedly, but why not wait for the break of day? A volcano enlightens, but the morning enlightens still better.”—Victor Hugo.

Work and wait.

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CHAPTER VII.

THE SOLUTION OF EVERY PHASE OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION.

Going still further in the application of these principles, the simple, natural principles of liberty, principles which every man can easily understand, to all the multitude of human affairs, to all the relations of mankind in society, it solves every question, removes every injustice, and cures every social evil. When the absolute liberty of every individual is once clearly recognized, when no man, and no woman, can bring any sort of physical compulsion to bear upon another one to do anything in this world which he or she does not choose to do, the only way in which any one can secure a given line of conduct on the part of another will be to compel him, or her, by kindness. It cannot fail to increase greatly the sum of human kindness. Men’s selfishness will compel them to be kind, to seek the wellbeing and happiness of others, instead of crushing them as now.

While it must be plain to every one that changes like this must produce very important results, yet we need to examine the subject with considerable care before we can realize how great will be those changes.

First, what will be the condition of labor? Manifestly it will be free; but from what? From rents, from taxes, from interest, from the exactions of monopoly, free to take freely from the earth, the storehouse of nature, the materials upon which to labor, and provide for the satisfaction of desire; free from the necessity of supporting in idleness an employer, or even a lot of stock-holders in the products of labor; and free from the arrogant dictation of others as to hours of labor, or rate of wages. All nature [346] stands beckoning to every man to come and take freely from its exhaustless resources. Are men hungry? Come till the soil, and gather the fruits of it. The beasts of the field and the fishes of the sea are for your use and pleasure. Are you cold, or naked, or homeless? Here in the earth are clay and stone, and minerals of the greatest variety and utility; and in such abundance that all the people of all time cannot exhaust them. In the forest are the woods of every kind to suit the tastes or fancy of men, while the forces of nature are everywhere ready to come at your bidding and perform every service. The law is the only thing that erects a barrier between mankind and its natural and bounteous mother earth. Destroy the law, and the laborer shall plant the vineyard and eat the fruit of it. Nothing shall hinder him from exchanging freely the product of his labor with others, as suits-his convenience. The relation of master and servant, and of mistress and maid will be ended, because no one will serve another when he can just as well serve himself.

As this applies to labor in its broadest sense, it includes every one who does any useful thing in this world,—every one who derives his or her support from their labor of head or hand, as opposed to those who live upon the labor of others, such as landlords, bondholders, money loaners, stockholders in productive enterprises in which they perform no labor, professed employers who subsist upon a profit derived from the inadequate pay of those employed, those living upon royalties derived from patents, copyrights, or other forms of legal privilege, and government officers. Labor does not mean merely those who work at manual labor for stipulated wages. It includes merchants, manufacturers, and professional men, farmers, editors, authors, actors, students, all who seek to increase by their own efforts in any way, the general store of human knowledge, or enjoyment. [347]

But when we have catalogued them all, and found that they are free, it does not itself convey an adequate idea of the enormous change that will have taken place. The first effect, after the suspension of the functions of the law by stopping the appropriations for its execution, will be seen in the immediate relief from the pressure of hard times, first in the stoppage of rents, taxes and interest. People are not so much in love with the landlord as to continue payments when he has no longer the power to compel them. Those who can do so will at once take possession of vacant land and begin the erection of homes. For money, some form of mutual token will be adopted which will be generally accepted, and serve in making settlements.

Such changes in social relations make necessary long lines of changes in architecture, in methods of business, in public amusements, in education, in the learned professions, and in domestic affairs. There are very few buildings, public or private which will not require to be rebuilt. The present residences of the poor are little better than stables, and will not be used longer than until others suited to a much higher degree of comfort can be built. The middle class houses are little better, but on the whole, will remain the longest; while the present mansions of the rich will, for a time, stand as monuments of the arrogance and folly of their builders. It will be impossible to obtain servants to care for them, while for their proprietors to do it, will involve an amount of labor and care they will not long submit to; and they will either be pulled down or transformed to other uses.

Changes in methods of business will also involve changes in structures devoted to business. The great store with its multitude of employees will be a thing of the past, unless conducted on a purely co-operative plan. And the same thing is true of [348] the great manufactories. The improved condition of the people, their freedom from the necessity of constant toil during long hours to get a living, will enormously increase the demand for-public amusements; so that present conveniences bill be found totally inadequate. In education also, methods better adapted to the true purposes of education, and to the development of a high individuality, will certainly supersede present clumsy and vicious methods, and render useless the barn-like structures which now pass as school-houses.

But the changes in the learned professions will be the most radical. With the disuse of the law will necessarily come the disuse of the lawyer. His functions will be at an end. He will no longer find an honorable calling in the promotion, for pay, of the dishonest schemes of his clients. He will no longer study how much unjust advantage he can secure for his client, and still keep within the forms of law. An honorable profession will no longer be based upon making trouble to others. The priests will continue to exercise their calling as long as they can find ignorant and credulous people; but ignorance and credulity cannot last long in the face of such general prosperity. Make a man prosperous, and he becomes self-reliant, and progressive. There is no danger in religion if deprived of the sanctions and support of the law. The medical profession, also, will receive a powerful stimulus. The law will no longer protect incompetence; and physicians will maintain an honorable consideration just as long as they keep to the fore front of medical knowledge, and no longer. College professors will no longer depend for their positions upon their willingness to teach the ancient philosophies long since disproved, and avoid the more dangerous dogmas which incline men to liberty.

But in every department of science investigation will be promoted, because freedom will increase a [349] thousand fold the number of those who can prosecute original investigations. I think it is probable that these original invocators will become the teachers of the future; not as a means of subsistence or for the acquirement of wealth, but in the pursuit of distinction.

Second, what will be the condition of the farmer? Again the answer is, he will be free. From what? From debt, from taxes, from interest, from the exactions of monopoly, free to produce, and free to exchange with whomsoever he will anywhere on the face of the broad earth. There can be no custom house officers to take toll upon his exchanges, and thus reduce his earnings. Even the cost of transportation will be relieved of its greatest burden, because it will immediately destroy the stocks and bonds which now constitute fixed charges against the business of the roads, abolish interest, dividends, and salaries to ornamental officers. The operating expenses of the roads will be the labor involved by the actual workmen, plus the maintenance of the rolling stock and road. But ultimately, with the extinction of private property through universal wealth, railroad men will perform the railroad service just as other men will perform services, for the honor and distinction it will bring them, and not for any reward of wealth, because all will take freely from the common wealth.

This is a rational, tangible relief, which is clearly within reach of the farmers whenever they have the courage and wisdom to grasp it.

Third, how will it help the merchant? Just as it does the workingman, and the farmer; he will be free; free from unjust and ruinous debts, from rents, interest, taxes, and licenses, from injurious interference, and from unequal competition. The sources of advantage which the large dealer, or the department stores, have over him will be destroyed. A great store requires a large number of employees. [350] When the wages of those employees rise from five to ten times as high as they are now, as they certainly must do, these high wages, coupled with a less efficient service than where performed for one’s self, must certainly place the great store at a disadvantage by the side of the small ones operated by individuals almost without expense, or by several individuals working co-operatively. The power of the great corporation or wealthy employer lies in the law which prevent people from employing themselves, and which thus permits the employer to reduce wages to ruinously low prices. Break down the legal fences which bar men from the natural means of self-employment, and the merchant is doing two things: he is destroying the unequal power of his competitor, and, at the same time, increasing the prosperity of those whom he expects to become customers. Think what this increased prosperity means. When all the men, women and children in Chicago, or for that matter, in the whole country, are so prosperous that they can buy anything they want, will not trade be good in every line? Merchants certainly will not want for customers. But when, along with it the expenses of doing business are reduced by abolishing rents, interest, taxes, licenses, high prices for transportation, and monopoly prices for goods, I want some one to tell me how a merchant will go to work to fail in business. He will certainly be an ingenious man who can do it under such circumstances.

Then who can conceive of the inestimable boon such an emancipation will bring to the despised and outcast ones of earth, branded by the injustice of the law as criminals, and prostitutes; or who are condemned by the hard conditions of life to live incomplete and unnatural lives, with all their natural promptings suppressed, sometimes until reason itself is dethroned? The plague-spots of vice and poverty in our cities will vanish like mists before [351] the rising sun. The jails, the penitentiaries, the reformatories, [!] the alms-houses, and the insane asylums will be tenantless, while the waste places will blossom like the rose. Liberty is the true Messiah for whom we wait. We know not yet where he will be born, but his time draws nigh. It may be in the manger, or in the hovel, but when he comes, nature itself will break into singing, “Peace on earth, good will to men. And that song will be heard around the world, speaking hope and deliverance to the oppressed and downtrodden of every name and every clime; while the monopolists, the rulers, the Herods of this world, will send out to slay the young child, in the hope of preserving their power. Oh weak! Oh fools! Oh blind! Do you not know that liberty comes to you with as great a boon as to the slave? Do you not know that the emancipation of the slave is the emancipation of the master? What is all your untold wealth, when the utmost possibility of enjoyment cannot bring you a single day’s unalloyed happiness? What more can you do with it than to buy distinction? And when you have bought it you have only a counterfeit. It is the distinction of possession, instead of personal worth. It brings the idle stare of the multitude, instead of the love and esteem of a community of equals. It surrounds you with base sycophants, and flatterers, whose interest in you is in the crumbs that fall from your tables. Can you develop a personal nobility in an environment of baseness? Can you rear healthy children in an atmosphere of sewer gas? Liberty to you also brings freedom; freedom from anxiety, from care, from false friends, from a ceaseless grind to obtain and keep wealth, from baseness, and from the ingratitude of those whom you have trusted. It offers you an opportunity of attainment, and a capacity for enjoyment, infinitely greater than anything you have ever dreamed of. It invites you to a residence in [352] a society where each separate person will be the highest expression of individual attainment, each in his own way; a society into which, if your wealth would buy it, you would gladly expend it all. Liberty kindles no hatreds of man against man. It is the slavery of ignorance that does that. Liberty is peace, prosperity, and happiness for all; and if for all, none can be unhappy. It is the prime condition of association, of civilization itself.

Then why should not the rich join with us in achieving a real liberty? They give up nothing that is valuable, nothing that does not impede their own progress. Why not cast off the impediments of slavery which hamper not only others, but themselves?

I know that many will be strongly prejudiced by reason of my strictures upon religion, and the church; and will be disposed to condemn this whole work as irreligious and immoral; and for that reason to shun it. But it has been necessary to carry the examination to the full extent to which I have carried it, because religion, as represented by the church, is one of the strongest props to the law; because it necessarily teaches subjection and subordination, which of themselves are vicious; and because it directly prevents the growth of individual self-respect and independence, which are essential to the spirit of liberty. Men must be free in mind before they can achieve or appreciate freedom of the body.

Still, there is nothing in what I propose as a remedy for social ills, nothing in a combination of the people to defeat the appropriation of money to pay the expenses of government, to prevent even the most religious from joining heartily in that movement, while yet practicing all the religious ceremonies, and observances enjoined by their churches. They may reject my theories as to religion, and yet work in perfect accord in the practical measures [353] I have outlined. If I am wrong in my theories of religion, and religion has a real basis of good, the adoption of the social reforms which must result from liberty will give a powerful stimulus to that good. So that, whatever there is of value in religion will be helped, but the evil will be powerless for evil when no longer sustained by the law. In the end I think it will be proved that religion is exactly what I have found it in these pages to be: a form and method of enslavement of the mind, the more perfectly to secure the enslavement of the body. But if it has a natural or rightful basis, it needs no artificial support, and cannot be injured by being thrown upon its own resources. To deny this, is to manifest a serious lack of faith in the inherent power of religion. But religion is harmless so long as there is no law to keep men poor, and therefore ignorant and superstitious.

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CHAPTER VI.

THE SOLUTION OF THE RACE QUESTION.

One of the most portentous of the questions that loom up before the people of this country, and one that is fraught with the greatest possible danger unless settled in time, and settled aright, is the race question. To the white people of the south the possibility of negro supremacy constantly haunts them like a spectre. Increase in numbers, increase in wealth, increase in education and culture are all looked upon with extreme jealousy and apprehension. The more thrifty and enterprising the blacks are; in other words, the better citizens they become the more imminent appears the danger. What shall be done? This common fear has heretofore kept the south solid for one political party by practically disfranchising the blacks through the manipulations made possible by law and politics, or by actual force and fraud. This again furnishes other politicians with excuses for fanning the flames of race prejudice, and paving the way to an open rupture. On one side, disfranchisement by law is advocated openly in order to provide against the danger of negro supremacy; and on the other, a measure of force is urged to compel respect for the rights of the negro to the ballot. These are Just the conditions out of which are liable to come serious trouble; and many already predict a most relentless and terrible race war in the south within the next twenty-five years.

At the close of the late civil war it was widely believed that the negro race was so inferior that when brought directly in competition with the white man, free from whatever protection slavery was supposed to afford, his natural inferiority would [337] place him at such a disadvantage that he would be unable to hold his own; and, like the Indian, would rapidly diminish in numbers, and finally become extinct. But the truth appears now that in some parts of the south, at least, the negroes are increasing more rapidly than the whites. And, although I know of no reliable data upon which positive conclusions can be based, I think it will be found that where emigration has not sensibly decreased their numbers, they are everywhere increasing more rapidly than the native white population. I have come to this conclusion notwithstanding the statement of Robert P. Porter, superintendent of the census of 1890, in one of the advance bulletins of that census. He states that, “during the last decade the colored population of the south has not held its own against the whites in the region where climate is most favorable.” But it will only take a moment’ s examination to see that the census upon which Mr. Porter based his hypothesis is utterly worthless for any purposes of generalization. For instance: in Alabama, in the period from 1860 to 1870, the white population decreased 0.93 per cent. but the blacks increased 8.62 during the same time. Turning to the census of 1890 we find the whites increased from 1880 to 1890, 25.46 per cent. while the blacks only increased 13.55 per cent. during the same time. What was it that gave the whites so much greater increase? Without doubt it was immigration. During the last decade a considerable tide of white immigration has been pouring into all the southern states. On the other hand there has been a counter current of blacks northward and westward. Superintendent Porter shows that in Arkansas from 1860 to 1870, when changes from immigration were slight, the whites increased 11.71 per cent. while the blacks only showed 9.81 per cent. of increase; but from 1880 to 1890 the ratios were 38.03 of increase for the whites, while the blacks were 47.40. What was it [339] that made the blacks so much more fertile than the whites in the last decade, when they were less so in the other? And what should make the increase in both of them so much greater than in Maryland for the same period, where the whites increased 13.72 per cent. against the blacks’ 3.70 per cent? Evidently it was owing again to shifting populations. Those migrations of population have been sufficiently great to destroy any value which generalizations would have, based upon any census showing of a stable population. This is even more strikingly shown in the case of the Virginias. In old Virginia, the increase in white population from 1880 to 1890, was 15.19 per cent. while the colored population only increased 1.46 per cent. In West Virginia, right along side of it, the white population increased during the same time 23.07 per cent; but even that is left far in the rear by the colored, which shows 29.44 per cent. increase. Are we to understand that the ratio of fecundity of the blacks between old Virginia and West Virginia is as 1.46 in the former to 29.44 in the latter? If the census figures are intended to show a lower degree of vitality on the part of the black population than exists among the whites, they are utterly worthless for the purpose. But there are other evidences which go to show that the blacks, as a race, possess a vigor and tenacity which were little expected twenty-five years ago.

Whatever the truth may be as to numbers, mere numbers are of slight consequence. As we have seen, numbers count for little in the control of public matters, if by public matters is meant the control of government, and the shaping of the state. The real thing that does control is wealth.

Now the blacks are a progressive race, not only as regards population, but they are extremely thrifty. While their standards of living have undoubtedly risen on the whole since their emancipation, [340] both can and do live with greater frugality than the whites. Their earnings are hoarded until they can be safely and profitably invested. One characteristic, I am told, is that they seldom if ever buy subject to a mortgage, but nearly always pay all cash down. This relieves them of the danger of losses by foreclosure, and the burden of interest charges, as in the case of men who buy on time. While they undoubtedly do work for small wages, this very fact tends to keep them constantly employed; and their frugality enables them always to save a portion, so that with almost all of them there is a steady accumulation.

A recent writer, in treating of this subject, stated that according to a late census of the state of Georgia, the colored population in that state were paying taxes upon $15,000,000 of valuation of real property. As the assessed valuations in that state are regularly made upon the basis of one half of the actual value, this would indicate that at least $30,000,000 of the real estate of Georgia is already in the hands of the colored population. This writer saw in this, grave danger to the continued supremacy of the whites. He looked forward to the time when the wealth of the state would be mainly owned by negroes; and as wealth also confers power, they would be the employers of labor, could dictate the policy of the state, and would come to rule the descendants of their former masters. To him there was no other solution of the difficulty but to take away at once their political power before it became fortified by accumulated wealth. The alternative he presented was, that within the next twenty-five years would come a war of extermination between the whites and blacks, with all the horrors such a war would involve.

There is no doubt of the danger he portrays. Nor is it any less serious than he indicates. But the remedy he proposes, so far from averting the [341] danger would be the surest possible means of precipitating it. Any such general injustice enacted against the blacks must inevitably change an industrious, frugal, and contented people into a bitterly hostile one. It would not prevent their acquirement of power, because the power lies in the wealth instead of in the elective franchise. The simple and natural way is to take away the power which wealth gives. Then they may accumulate wealth to any extent, and it offers no menace to any one. It is true, it involves an abandonment of the supremacy of the whites; but it sets up no supremacy of any other in its place. It is a settlement that is perfectly just and equal. It is liberty to both whites and blacks. So long as either is supreme: so long as either rules the other, the question as to who shall rule will return to plague us and our children after us, until it is settled right, or settled in blood. So long as there is a law to administer, the question as to who shall do the administering will destroy the peace, and haunt both sides with hideous dreams of slavery, or tempt with visions of authority. Justice and liberty is the only desirable thing; it is the only safe thing for either side.

The foregoing is addressed to the mass of the whites irrespective of condition. I have something now to say to that portion of the white population of the south which does not enjoy any form of monopoly, the great middle and lower class. If trouble ever comes between the two races, the weight of the burden of it must certainly fall upon you. You are sure to be the sufferers. The supremacy of the government, is not your own supremacy. It is the supremacy of monopoly; and you are not the beneficiaries of monopoly. You have everything to lose by trouble between the races, and nothing to gain. A man from among your ranks may occasionally be elected to an office; but it cannot help the mass of the class itself. Monopoly cares no more for white [342] supremacy than it does for black, so long as it can maintain its own position. If it can do so to advantage it will use the blacks to crush the whites just as quickly as it will the whites against the blacks. This is proven over and over again by mine owners, and others, who hire a force of blacks to take the place of the whites on strike, just as quickly as they will hire whites to replace blacks. Monopoly secretly foments strife between races in order to plunder both of them; so that with the most combustible materials placed in such close proximity to each other, as the whites and the blacks of the south must continue to be placed, and then with another capable of igniting them, and whose interests are in igniting them, it is certain that there is going to be a fire. That combustibility may be destroyed, along with the interest any one could have in kindling the fire of discord, by doing away with the principle of government itself. Government is only useful to sustain the artificial rights of property set up by the law, in the interest of those who have the most property.

As an instance of the way that monopoly, or government, foments strife between races, in order to plunder them both, I may mention the Russian agitation against the Jews. The laws of property operate in Russia just as they do in the south, or in any other place in this world. They enable the Jews, who, like the negroes, are extremely industrious and frugal, whose expenses of living are kept much below the average standard, but who still prefer earning something, even though it be little, to idleness, to accumulate constantly. But the Jew adds to all this, the faculty of loaning his accumulations for usury; a power which is conferred by the law. He simply takes advantage of the law, just as other people do when they can. Their accumulations have gone on until it has become an object for the governing classes, or the government [343] itself, to plunder them; and it is an easy matter to stir up the ignorant prejudices of the people against the usurers, and get them expelled from the country, after being despoiled of their hoards. Does any one suppose that the poor people of Russia are benefited by the plunder and expulsion of the Jews? They certainly are not one particle. They are made to play directly into the hand of their real masters, the governing classes of Russia. Even admitting all that any one can allege of the Jews as to their extortionate practices, the fact remains that the only thing which makes those practices possible is the laws of property. It is the most inhuman barbarity to visit the popular indignation upon those who have only taken advantage of what the law permitted them to do. It is precisely what I should do, if I were to arouse the popular phrensy against the wealthy monopolists of our own country to plunder them, and then expel them empty handed. The Jews were not to blame, nor are our monopolists to blame, for doing what the law places within their power to do. It is our ignorance that permits the law. The law is the only effective means of oppression; and the only way to destroy oppression is to destroy the law.

The same principles are applicable to all the disputes between different races in this, or in any other age. Without government to erect a supremacy of one over the other, or to stir up the passions of one against the other, there could no disagreement arise between them as races. If individuals differed, it would remain an individual matter, not involving others in the least; because the personal interests of other individuals would so strongly be on the side of peace that it would be impossible to dragoon them into a dispute not their own.

The Indians and the whites could not possibly get into war one with the other if there were no domination of one over the other by law. There is [344] certainly room enough for all; and there is not the slightest occasion for either to feel the least jealousy or bitterness against the other. The only reason which makes the world seem crowded, and why it is crowded in places, is that the laws of property keep most of it idle, while a small part of it is crowded. Destroy the law, and throw open the resources of the world to the people of the world, and race disputes will be no more likely to arise, than disputes between people who have black eyes, with those having blue eyes.

All this involves no question of enforced association of one race with another. That will take care of itself. Each individual, white, black, or yellow, will consult his own tastes and inclinations in selecting associates. And when he has selected them no other individual has any right to interfere, and could not interfere effectively in the absence of law. Liberty is peace, plenty, security, and fraternity between individuals and peoples, and between nations and races; while the law is slavery, discord, poverty, strife and war between them all.

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CHAPTER V.

THE SOLUTION OF THE WOMAN QUESTION.

There remains now to examine those principles of liberty which we have reached in the course of our extended inquiries, in their application to the various branches of the social question. This is necessary for two reasons: one is, to be able to forecast the practical results to be obtained from a realization of a condition of unqualified liberty, and the other, to see if a platform and plan of work looking to such a realization will afford common standing ground for all genuine reformers of every name.

One of the most important as well as delicate of those branches is the relation of the sexes. The necessity for some relation of intercourse between them obviously arises from the most imperative necessity of mankind itself. And the natural forces impelling the sexes to assume and maintain relations of intercourse have been made powerful commensurate with that importance; therefore the law, when dealing with those relations, is meddling with the most powerful factors of human association. Even admitting that any sort of regulation, other than those natural instincts which prompt and control that association, is necessary or possible, it is manifest that it should be undertaken with the greatest caution, and carried out with the highest wisdom. But considering those who make the laws, there is nothing either in their habits or training which would lead us to expect even an average degree of wisdom. The methods by which legislators are chosen are such as almost preclude the possibility of obtaining any other than the grossly vulgar, and corrupt. Nor is there anything in the manner in which laws are suggested, or enacted, which [332] would remove the difficulties one particle. They rather thicken as we advance, rendering more and more remote the possibility of, even by chance, the enacting of a good law.

But we are not left to hypothesis in this matter. The evidences are positive and overwhelming of the most serious evils which come from efforts to regulate the relations of the sexes by law. Ill-assorted marriages, violations of the marriage contract, tyrannical and abusive treatment by one of the parties, jealousies, quarrels, constant friction, often culminating in appalling tragedies, are some of the more direct effects which flow from arbitrary legal restraints.

Scarcely less direct, in fact often forming steps to these disagreements, are the results which come from the laws of property. Instead of sexual relations being the result of inclination, of love, they are made to depend upon sordid considerations as far removed from the natural object of such a union as it is possible to conceive. The first consideration is made a support, and afterward, social position. Wealth, conferring distinction, is sought for the sake of the distinction; and the degree of distinction,—the social position, depends upon the degree of wealth. Even where love exists, and would assert itself, poverty stands in the way. Herbert Spencer says:

“Where attachments exist what most frequently decides for or against marriages? The possession of adequate means. Though some improvidently marry without means, yet it is undeniable that in many instances marriage is delayed by the man, or forbidden by the parents, or not assented to by the woman until there is a reasonable evidence of ability to meet the responsibilities.”

In the face of such obstacles, with natural instincts so powerful, is it any wonder that artificial standards of morals are often violated? The mother instinct in women, while differing somewhat in intensity, is universal. It is manifested even in infancy [333] in the passion for dolls. It grows in strength with increasing years until it either finds its proper expression, or is crushed by adverse circumstances at the expense, not to say of happiness, but of health of mind and body, and may be of life. This mother instinct, just in proportion to its intensity, imparts a sweetness and grace to the personal character, which most powerfully attracts the opposite sex. If, under the influence of these powerful attractions, manifestly the most natural as well as the most exalted, artificial standards of morals are violated, is it not because the law has set up barriers against the natural gratification of desire? Society then steps in with its unwritten laws, but which are just as despotic, and just as arbitrary, to finish the work begun by the statute, and destroy, often the purest and truest of womanhood, and consign them to lives of dishonor. In this case, just as we have found in many other cases, the best and noblest qualities are made the ones which most surely bring dishonor and ruin. That this is the character, in a very large degree, of those who have entered upon a life of prostitution is shown by a great many circumstances, often small in themselves but exceedingly significant. The honesty of their dealings with their washerwomen, and the shopkeepers who trust them while inmates of houses of prostitution, is a matter of frequent note, although in many cases they are shamefully victimized. Another thing, still more significant, is the experience of physicians at Blackwell’s Island Hospital, who say that there are no nurses so tender and devoted to the sick and dying, as those girls. Yet some of our most earnest and conscientious people continue to uphold, not only the law, but the pretended standard of morals, although frequently their own children are the victims; and they will speak of their honor as having been violated by a beloved daughter, whom they feel called upon to disown and [334] discard. Dishonor? Yes. But the dishonor lies in their own weakness and ignorance which permits them to enact such a monstrous injustice to a beloved child.

But some women enter into the ranks of prostitution, just as other women marry, for money. Some of them do it from necessity, and some from choice. But what have they done more than those who marry for the same reasons? They have each sought for support,—for wealth. The only difference is that one method is legalized, and the other is not. The cold blooded social pharisees, who would cut all others to their own measure, are made respectable by law, while their more unfortunate sisters are not.

Everywhere it is the same question,—that of a support, whether in marriage, or out; and it is the same in all the other phases of the woman question, that of equality of opportunity in employments, equality of wages, equality in the family, and equality in political power. It all resolves itself at last into the question of a support. How then will perfect freedom from the restraints of the law act upon this question of a support for women? Precisely as it will for men. It will destroy privilege. It will take away the power that one man or one woman, or some men and some women, exert over other men and women. It will make support infinitely easier for all, at once; and soon will bring about a common possession of property for both men and women; so that the question of a support will be settled in the most complete and substantial way, leaving the relations of the sexes to be determined by natural inclination, or love. Support will no longer be an element in determining those relations. There will be no longer any law to enforce subjection of one party to the will of the other, or to enforce a continuance of relations when no longer productive of happiness, the object for which they [335] were originally assumed. There can be no prostitution, because all will have the most abundant support; and the opportunity for the gratification of sexual desires will depend upon the mutual and natural promptings and consent of the parties themselves, and none other. Women, as men, can and will work at whatever they please, and as they please, not for a support, but as a means of self-culture, of improvement, and to win renown and distinction. The same path of progress will be open to them as to men; and the end will be accomplished by the same means. But now, if a brutal husband knows that he can force his suffering wife to obey him, that she risks starvation, or still greater suffering in mind or body by refusing, while he is practically exempt from any injury to his reputation as long as he maintains a semblance of respectability, be will be extremely careless of criticism and make the life of his wife a burden. He now has a power over her which no person in this world should possess over another. It is precisely the power which the master has over his slave. The only difference is in the extent to which he can carry it.

What then will be the condition of the family: that institution which the law so persistently professes to protect? I do not know; nor do I care to stop to consider. If it is a natural institution, and suited to the wants of humanity, it needs no artificial support like the law to sustain it. And if it is not, it will give place to something that will better express the needs of humanity. In any case it will be purified from the imperfections which are imposed upon it by law. But if the family can only be preserved at the expense of preserving poverty, prostitution, subjection of women to men, domestic infelicity, and the blight and ruin which always follow in the wake of the law, then we had a thousand times better give up the family. It is too high a price to pay even for a good article. [336]

I suppose these sentiments will, at first, find small favor among the professed leaders in social reform. Leaders are only so many rulers in their way. Almost invariably they are infected with the itch of governing. Their ideal of equality and liberty is the equal liberty of scrambling for an office, that they may lord it over the people while in office, and enjoy the emoluments and honors while they are able to retain office. If the leaders in the woman’s movement to obtain equal political power with men, really wish to secure the emancipation of women, they will find that they can only do it by, at the same time, emancipating men. The emancipation of men is the emancipation of women, and the law is the only thing that stands in the way of either. What is the use in wasting our energies for what has failed to produce equality among men. Agitation for right of the franchise, or any other artificial contrivance, cannot possibly do more than delay the day of emancipation, by keeping up a false and misleading issue. If, however, the purpose of the leaders is the same as that of politicians generally, and reform is only presented to hoodwink the people and secure office for the leaders, then they will utterly ignore these propositions until the people, for whom these pages were written, shall take to doing their own thinking and acting, which they must do before they can obtain relief, and act without the intervention of leaders. And really, it is not leaders that men want. So long as they submit to being led, they will be led to the advantage of the leaders. Men must do their .own thinking; and all that I can do, or any other man can do, is to hold up whatever light we have. When men and women understand where the trouble is, their natural interests, and co-operative instincts, will enable them to associate effectively to overcome the obstruction that stands in the way of freedom.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE EFFECT UPON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER.

As we have seen, one of the first results of the abolition of the law will be to remove, not only actual poverty, but all fear of poverty. When the boundless resources of nature are once opened up to the unrestricted use of mankind, and with no organized force remaining which is capable of robbing it of the fruits of its labor, not only poverty but the fear of it becomes a thing of the past. And when the possession of property confers no power by reason of that possession, it will cease to be sought as a means of distinction. Is man then less selfish than before? Not at all. His selfishness will seek new means of gratification. It will seek its natural channel of expression, instead of the artificial one. The supreme purpose of human life is the making of individual character; and in order to stimulate its development every man possesses a love of the admiration of his fellows, which I have called a love of distinction. So long as wealth alone confers distinction, men seek it with an all absorbing greed, regardless of the true aim and purpose of life. Character is sacrificed instead of promoted. But take away the power of property, by abolishing the laws which decree special rights of property, and men will seek distinction by cultivating those personal qualities which command the admiration of others, instead of depending upon property, the possession of which is more likely to indicate a want of those qualities.

Let each consider a moment how much greater will be his own powers of individual improvement when the question of a support through life, for [325] himself and for his family, is entirely eliminated, so that the acquirement of wealth will be merely a pastime, and he can follow his own inclinations to the utmost, free from all fear of want, or of the interference of his fellow man, instead of being compelled to toil unceasingly day in and day out, and year in and year out, for a mere subsistence, with a constant liability of being brought to a condition of destitution. And then contrast a whole people so situated, every individual member able to follow the utmost bent of his own desires, instead of being bound down to a brutalizing scramble for mere wealth, and we can form some idea of the vastly different results to be expected as the aggregate of human growth. When we were considering the causes that impel men to the commission of crime, it appeared that it is often the purest and loftiest impulses which most surely make men criminals. This fact ought to convince every one that such conditions are wholly unnatural; but they are no more unnatural than that men should be bound down to an everlasting grind to obtain a subsistence. Almost every person adopts some particular line of study, research, investigation, or experiment, or tries to perfect himself in some special industry, according to the bent of his, or her own mind; and make himself master of it. In the pursuit of that object he finds his greatest pleasure and enjoyment. When freed from the anxieties of getting a living, he can and will pursue that natural bent, and seek in the attainment of a high degree of excellence in that particular, the admiration of others. Herein will lie the natural development of individual character. Selfishness will here find its legitimate and healthy expression in the attainment of the highest degree of excellence possible. That degree of excellence will be that individual’s title to nobility; and the pursuit of such a nobility will be open to every one. Selfishness loses none of its intensity. [326] It is rather extended, exalted, purified, and lifted to new and higher objects, and is manifested in better ways. It is like gold refined from the dross which debases and hides the pure metal. The crowning glory of liberty will be a free and luxuriant individuality, with a title of nobility, which will be a real distinction, for everybody.

Herbert Spencer, in his ‘Social Statics,” recognizes the necessity for a constantly increasing differentiation in the constituent parts of society; and he looked for it in a differentiation as to political power. Therein was his mistake. He did not see that a differentiation in the constituent parts of society is consistent with the entire absence of political power, and a perfect freedom and equality of those constituents. He evidently saw no other place for such a differentiation except as to political power. If this were true, then slavery would be the inevitable condition of a large part of mankind; and just as civilization increases would slavery deepen, class distinctions become more pronounced, and social evils more intensified. So far from his being right, those differentiations as to political power must be obliterated before the natural, the individual differentiations, can find their legitimate expression. In the subdivision of labor may be seen an indication of the course of that natural differentiation which runs through all nature, producing specialization of function, and promoting the greatest variety of talent, while at the same time bringing all talents practically to the same level as to capacity. Here, as everywhere else, the one absolute imperative need is perfect freedom of action.

But under this condition of perfect liberty which I am contemplating, labor itself will become an emulation, a means of distinction, an expression of the highest individuality. Men will seek in the performance of labor, in the production of wealth which all may enjoy, in the doing of those things [327] which bring happiness to others, the gratification of their own happiness, and the attainment of their own honor and distinction. Man needs no laws toll compel him to do right, or to respect the rights and feelings of others. If he were to fail in these particulars, he would fail in the attainment of what most, if not all men, hold dearer than life itself,—their honor. The gratification of his own selfish desires will lead man to do more for society than he could be brought to do, if the doing of them were in recognition of any claim which society holds against him. Herein most certainly lies the pathway to that universal brotherhood the visions of which have appeared with varying clearness to social reformers of every age and clime; not in a human regeneration, not in a change in man’s nature, but in a development of that nature; not in a condition of society organized upon any plan, or according to any scheme; but in the destruction of all special organization and restrictions which hinder such a development.

I wish to caution the reader against dismissing too lightly this love of distinction as an element in the making of individual character, and in determining the course of individual action. It has been too common with writers to treat it as a weakness to be overcome, instead of an universal fact to be studied, and taken account of in all estimates of human dynamics. Milton speaks of fame as “the last infirmity of noble minds;” and this thought has run all through a large part of the literature of religion, and the teaching of a certain school of professed moral philosophers, who would make men over again after plans of their own. They would have them sacrifice their pride, humble themselves, crucify self, and become lowly and obedient. That very element which is intended to sweeten human intercourse, to awaken reciprocal feelings of love and sympathy between men, and to bring about an [328] universal brotherhood, is sought to be degraded and discredited. On the other hand, I hold that men need no other change than is afforded by a natural growth and development. Whatever I have found in the constitution of man, I have assumed that it is there because it belongs there, because it is necessary to the perfection and symmetry of his character; and that to suppress any of those constituents would be to destroy that symmetry, and produce an abnormal development. Men in all ages and climes, and under all conditions, seek distinction; and the way in which that propensity manifests itself is the surest mark of their degree of knowledge. If it is found, as in the Fiji Islander, in an ambition to be a murderer, it indicates the dense ignorance and brutality of the barbarian. So through all the gradations of human character up to our ideal condition where the possession of wealth no longer furnishes that gratification, and where labor itself becomes an emulation, we find the same active force moulding human character after its own highest ideal.

As the reader has probably already anticipated, the effect of the application of the proposed remedy upon the formation of individual character, must, as we have seen, remove every possible incentive to criminality. With universal wealth, and freedom from anxiety as to support in life, and with the possession of wealth conferring upon its possessor no power or distinction, there remains not the least object for any man to steal from another; (in fact, I am unable to see how he could possible steal at all) or to accumulate in one’s own possession more than his present needs require. Then this same universal love of distinction will surely obliterate the last remaining causes of violence, or aggression, which now come under the head of offenses against persons; and every spark of criminality must necessarily be extinguished. And this is exactly what [329] we might expect from a removal of that repressive force which now acts through the law to produce the prevailing volume of criminality.

Who shall pass judgment upon his brother? Who will add to the load of misery he is compelled to bear through the injustice of the law? Who shall even say that he is an erring brother? The real struggles of life are enacted in secret. There is an unseen bravery against the invasion of baseness and necessity which transcends the exploits of military heroes. There are triumphs which no eye sees, no renown rewards, and no trumpet salutes. How then can any man pass judgment upon another, or by his verdict condemn him to a life of infamy, no matter what the outward circumstances, and no matter what the evidence. For myself, I could not sit as a juror in any criminal case, and by my verdict consign any man to punishment. Victor Hugo says: “There is a sublime glory in the scriptural injunction to visit those who are sick and in prison; and in the commendation, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did unto me.” Every man who believe in the truth of the doctrines here formulated can do much to bring those doctrines to the attention of mankind, by refusing to convict a fellow man when sitting as a juror; and even if rejected as a juror by reason of those opinions, the very fact of announcing such opinions becomes a protest against the injustice of the law; and the oftener that protest is entered, the stronger it becomes. Every report of such a protest published in the newspapers will serve to direct men’s attention to the truth, and aid not only to bring about a truer understanding of crime, and its causes, but of the principles of liberty.

But it is not necessary to wait until summoned on a jury before protesting against the inhuman treatment of criminals, that commonly prevails. In private as well as in public men should make that protest [330] heard We ought never to join in the popular condemnation of others for the commission of offenses, even though they shock all our own sensibilities, and tend to arouse our resentments. There is an adequate cause for all things; and somewhere there operate causes sufficient to impel the criminal to commit the crime. The commission is an effect; in other words, the causes being what they were, he could not help doing what he did. Therefore he should not be blamed. “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me.” Let us rather seek to remove the cause of crime, and the effect will disappear. The effect never can be removed until the restrictions of the law which produce it have been obliterated. We shall then see such a growth of individual character, and such improved social conditions as will remove all possible motive for crime, and develop every possible motive against it.

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CHAPTER III.

THE EFFECT UPON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

Inasmuch as the concentrations of wealth result wholly from the laws of property, to abolish those laws must produce the same effect upon property as pulling down the dam does on the mill-pond. While the multitude of the wealthy may not as yet perceive how prompt and thorough this result would be, yet they instinctively realize that in the law alone lies the secret of their advantage; therefore every influence which can be brought to the support of the law, morality, religion, education, culture, public sentiment, society, respectability and patriotism are all made to do duty, to induce obedience and submission, and to promote a reverence and respect for the law. The law is made to support all of them, that they in turn may support the law, and preserve to the rich the accumulations which have grown out of it. Under these circumstances those who attack the law must expect. to find all these influences, arrayed against them. And more: they must expect to find them backed by secret funds contributed to manufacture evidence, stuborn juries, and corrupt courts to hang and imprison those who presume to call in question the authority of the law.

There is no occasion for condemnation or resentment toward the rich because these things are done. They will tell us that we would do the same things if we were given the same opportunity, which is true. And because it is true,—because all men are constituted alike, and will always abuse special advantages and privileges, it is conclusive evidence that no such privileges should ever be granted, or if granted, they should be withdrawn. It should teach us further that anything like malice, or hatred, [318] or revenge, is wholly out of place and is unjustifiable from every possible standpoint, because they have done, and are doing, only what we should do were we placed in their circumstances. The only thing that is called for is, a calm, dispassionate inquiry into the causes of our troubles, a discovery of the best and easiest means of remedying them, and the firmness and wisdom to apply the remedy with out unnecessary offense to any.

With the laws of property abolished, the natural condition of property,—that of occupation, will assert itself, the mortgage will lose his claim upon the property of the mortgagor, whether it be in city or country; the debtor becomes discharged of both principal and interest; the tenant farmer becomes at once the rightful freehold proprietor without rent or purchase; the occupant of city or village household will be its proprietor notwithstanding any adverse claim of its former landlord to whom he previously paid rent; the tax-gatherer can then no longer take the earnings of the people to support the bond-holders, and idlers; the money monopoly will be destroyed, and business be free to provide such appliances for carrying it on as its needs may suggest, without the intervention of blundering and self-seeking politicians; transportation becomes freed from the incubus of bonded debts, of capital stocks, and ornamental high-priced officers, so that the expense accounts of the railroads, the telegraphs, the telephones, etc., will be reduced to the maintenance of the rolling-stock, and plants, and the payment of the wages of those who do the work. The present employees will simply become the co-operating proprietors, with no dividends to. pay on stocks, no interest on bonds, or big salaries to arrogant officials. Every bonded or mortgage indebtedness public and private, stocks, titles, and securities of all kinds, which are now means of enslavement, will become at once the active means for [319] restitution, redistribution, and equalization of wealth. Not one of the great fortunes can be maintained for a week. They will vanish like a bubble when it is pricked.

It is true that the rich will cry out against ‘the spoliation.” They will appeal to men’s sense of justice, and denounce it as confiscation. What! Appeal to justice to sustain an injustice, to equity to support an inequality!” Dismiss the appeal for want of equity. The appellant has no standing in court. Even the law recognizes a man’s right to recover his own, no matter in whose hands he finds it. And if those who have produced the wealth of this world, find it in the hands of those who did not produce it, who shall gainsay their right to retake it, especially where it involves no more than the destruction of the means which have been employed to wrest it from them. Certainly the rich cannot object. They are condemned out of their own law.

But even admitting the momentary spoliation, what is that to the centuries of expropriation of the poor? Will the ostentation and aggrandizement of a few be allowed to weigh against the degraded, embruted, and ruined lives, the blasted hopes, and miserable deaths of the many? Shall the Moloch of wealth continue to claim its victims by the thousands every day, and every hour, in order that a few rich people may continue in the enjoyment of wealth they never had a hand in producing?

With the destruction of the law which produces and perpetuates inequalities, the inequalities of wealth must quickly disappear, and along with them the inequalities in social condition. Men will come to be esteemed for what they are, instead of for what they have. The possession of wealth will confer no power, and consequently no distinction. Then men will seek distinction in the acquirement of personal qualities which command the admiration [320] of men, and thus promote the growth of individual character. But the thing we are now concerned with is, the effect which the application of the remedy will have upon the distribution of wealth. As already, seen it will be toward a redistribution and equalization almost immediately, the tendency being constantly toward a more perfect equalization. The first changes will naturally be from those who have most, to those who have least. The destruction of the law will at once loosen every hold upon those who are the hardest pressed, and therefore in the greatest straits. It will also relieve the necessities of those who are often compelled to oppress others in order to meet demands upon themselves. Many a man will crowd a debtor because others crowd him. But the relief will be general. No man can then oppress another, because the engine of oppression, and the only efficient engine of oppression, is the law.

The vile districts in the great cities will vanish as quickly as the vast fortunes of the inordinately rich. The law is the only thing that prevents their inhabitants from making better homes for themselves on lands lying vacant and unused, and utilizing the clay for bricks, the rocks as quarries, and the forest for timber, in the construction of those homes. Men who have been in the habit of paying a large proportion of their earnings every month to the landlord, will use those earnings to beautify and adorn their homes, make improvements, and provide comforts. This will make an enormous demand for labor, not only in the building trades for the building of new homes, and the improvement of old ones, but in the production of all the forms of wealth which minister to human wants. Under the stimulus of this demand for the products of labor, the wages of labor must necessarily increase, so that comfort, prosperity, happiness, even luxury becomes possible to all. The department stores [321] can then no longer crush, by their pitiless competition, the small merchant, because wages will rise until they will absorb their profits. They will have no advantage in taxes, in interest, or in rents, because all these things will be abolished. Trade will be emancipated from the restrictions which now hamper its freedom, and which destroy the prosperity of the people and consequently their ability to purchase. With the expenses of business so largely reduced, with the advantage which some have over others removed, and with the ability of their customers to buy increased beyond all previous calculation, such a thing as a mercantile failure will be a thing unheard of. Under such a state bf affairs the conditions outlined in the chapter on "property,” in Part II, as the end toward which property necessarily must develop, cannot long be delayed. Property must soon become a common possession, and be enjoyed by all to their fullest capacity for enjoyment. Men will become like guests at a well filled table, spread with such a wealth of abundance that none will begrudge another any possible enjoyment. Human society will then no longer be built upon the subjection of one man or one set of men to other men. Men will become free; and their freedom will have a definite significance, very different from the meaningless jargon now employed to express their subservience to their legal masters. One of the first fruits of liberty will be the extinction of property as an individual possession, not as a regulation, or as an institution definitely set up,—instituted, but as a convenience, in order to avoid the labor and the trouble of keeping accounts, of exacting payment, and the care of looking after large personal belongings. Thus will be realized a condition of socialism of “to each according to his needs,” more perfect than the dreams of a Bellamy, and without the dangerous interferences with personal freedom so essential to his proposed [322] system. It will come as naturally as the fruit comes upon the tree, through the destruction of government, instead of the extension and increase of the functions of government.

I set out, at the beginning, to carry the examination of social questions to the point where all social reformers meet upon common ground. And I have done it. I have reached the promised land, which, like Moses of old, we beheld from afar, and which, notwithstanding the mists and haze of uncertainty, was lit with the sunlight of hope; and even then appeared so beautiful. But now that we can clearly see it; can almost walk among its groves, enjoy its refreshing breezes, listen to the music of its songsters, the babble and plash of its waters, inhale the sweet fragrance of its endless variety of shrubs and flowers, and contemplate the abundance of its provisions and resources for the gratification of every human want; everything to please the eye, the ear, and every sense, as well as uplift the soul to higher aspirations, I feel that my laborious re search has not been in vain.

Here, in the destruction of all that hampers human freedom in thought or expression; which binds men down to low desires; which hinders the growth of knowledge, and diverts them from the cultivation of a rich and varied individuality, to the sordid acquirement of gold; and which is filling the world with untold sorrow and mourning; I say, in the destruction of all these, we reach the grand realization toward which men in all ages have striven, the reign of universal peace and justice.

All this brings the promise of direct, positive, and present relief to the oppressed of every name and clime; to the workingmen vainly resisting the downward tendency of wages, and the increasing difficulty of finding employment; to the merchant crowded out of trade by the unequal competition against monopoly; to the farmer who is made the [323] victim of every species of imposition and injustice, striving against hope to save his home and fireside from the grasp of the usurer; to that large and increasing class, the criminals, against whom the door of hope has been closed, and who are branded with an infamy which elsewise even death itself cannot remove; and to the social outcasts whom it is an offense even to mention in polite society: to all these, and more, it comes as a deliverer, to break every chain, and set the oppressed free. With the fire of liberty kindled here, its light will be seen around the world. No despot in this world will be able to maintain himself long in the face of a practical realization of liberty such as this.

But let us explore still further this utopia, and see what more it offers.

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CHAPTER II.

THE EFFECT UPON PUBLIC ORDER AND SECURITY.

The first thought that will arise in men’s minds will be as to what effect such a remedy will have upon public order. Will men be secure in their persons and property when the action of the law has been paralyzed? In the next chapter I will consider the effect upon property; in this I will do it for persons.

Notwithstanding our analysis of law in Part III, and the very complete proof that the law always promotes disorder, instead of order, few men can avoid a lingering fear that in the absence of law a condition of violence would be inaugurated, which would realize the popular conception of anarchy. That it would be anarchy there is no doubt, but of a very different kind from what men commonly mean when they speak of anarchy. The vulgar conception of anarchy is a condition of disorder. And this idea is promoted by the definitions given in the dictionaries. Webster defines anarchy as “want of government; the state of society where there is no law or supreme power, or where the laws are not efficient, and individuals do what they please with impunity;” and so far he is correct. But he adds, “political confusion. Hence, confusion in general,” which is not true, unless individuals, in doing what they please, please to be disorderly, which we know is not the case. The absurdity of Webster’s definition is made more apparent when defining the word “anarchical,” which he gives as, “without rule or government; in a state of confusion, as a state or society; as, anarchic despotism; an anarchical state.” But despotism implies a despot, and a despot is always a ruler or governor But anarchy [310] means “want of government,” the absence of rulers, and therefore the absence of despots, according to Webster himself. To speak of “anarchic despotism,” or “an anarchical state,” is to employ a contradiction of terms. Where anarchy is, there is no despot, and no state. Webster has only reflected the vulgar prejudices of the ignorant; and his definition is entitled to no respect whatever.

But the assumption that disorder would follow the abolition of the law is historically disproved. Thomas Paine, in his “Rights of man” says:

“For upwards of two years from the commencement of the American war, and a longer period in several of the American states, there were no established forms of government. The old governments had been abolished, and the country was too much occupied in defense to employ its attention in establishing a new government; yet, during this interval, order and harmony were preserved as inviolate as in any country in Europe. There is a natural aptness in man, and more so in society, because it embraces a greater variety of abilities and resources, to accommodate itself to whatever situation it is in.

“The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and the common interest produces common security.

“So far it is from being true, as has been pretended, that the abolition of any formal government is the dissolution of society, it acts by a contrary impulse, and brings the latter closer together.

“Formal governments make but a small part of civilized life; and when even the best that human wisdom can devise is established, it is a thing more in name and idea than in fact. it is to the great and fundamental principles of society and civilization—to the common usage universally consented to, and mutually and reciprocally maintained—to the unceasing circulation, of interest, which passes through its innumerable channels, invigorates the whole mass of civilized man, it is to these things, infinitely more than anything which even the best instituted governments can perform, that the safety and prosperity of the individual and of the whole depends.

“The more perfect civilization is the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs and govern itself; but so contrary is the practice of old governments to the reason of the case, that the expenses of them increase in the proportion they ought to diminish. It is but few general laws that civilized life requires, and those of such common usefulness, that whether they are enforced by the forms of government or not, the effect will be nearly the same. If we consider what the principles are that first condense men into society, and what the motives that regulate their mutual [311] intercourse afterwards, we shall find by the time that we arrive at what is called government, that nearly the whole of the business is performed by the natural operation of the parts upon each other.

“Man, with respect to all those matters, is more a creature of consistency than he is aware of, or than governments would wish him to believe. All the great laws of society are laws of nature. Those of trade and commerce, whether with respect to the intercourse of individuals, or of nations, are laws of natural and reciprocal interest. They are followed and obeyed, because it is the interest of the parties so to do, and not on account of any formal laws their governments may impose, or interpose.”

But Thomas Paine, with even his grand conceptions of liberty, did not grasp its full import. He did not emancipate himself from the idea that a “few general laws” are required in civilized life.

Another writer of no mean reputation who has learned the essential hollowness of the pretensions of government to preserve public order, is William Godwin. In his “Political Justice” he says:

“There is a state of society that by the mere simplicity of its structure, would lead to the elimination of offense; a state, in which temptation would be almost unknown, truth brought down to the level of all apprehensions, and vice sufficiently checked by the general discountenance, and sober condemnation of every spectator. Such are the consequences that might be expected to spring from an abolition of the craft and mystery of governing; while on the other hand, the innumerable murders that are daily committed under the sanction of legal forms, are solely to be ascribed to the pernicious notion of an extensive territory; to the dreams of glory, empire, and national greatness, which have hitherto proved the bane of the human species, without producing entire benefit and happiness to a single individual.”

Another thing which goes to show that no general disorder might be expected is the fact that our present population, made up as it is of diverse nationalities, speaking every language on earth, with widely different customs, traditions, and religions, and reared under the most different conditions, sometimes living in separate communities, and sometimes in a state of almost promiscuous admixture, and naturally subject to intense jealousies, do live in peace and harmony now. We find them dwelling in close relationship one to the other, sharing [312] each others hopes, and sympathizing with each others troubles. Almost the only things that now sow dissension between them are the troubles growing out of poverty, exhibitions of the brutality bred of poverty, and legal disputes which are themselves fostered by the presence and advantages conferred by the law, precisely as the habit of carrying weapons promotes individual quarrels. Will men be more likely to dispute about property when the power of property is destroyed; when property becomes tenfold easier of acquirement; when poverty no longer has terrors for any man; when the brutalities bred of poverty give place to an universal desire for the esteem, admiration, and love of their fellow men; and when there is no longer any law to stimulate men to meddle in the affairs of their fellows, or to exercise a repressive influence in their concerns? No! the law is always the promoter of disorder, and to abolish the law is to stop the disorder.

But even, if for a time, men did trespass upon the property of others,—steal it, or take it away violently, whose property would they steal, and whom would they rob? Of course it would be the rich. They would never steal from the man who had little when they could just as well reach one who had much. Take away the protection that the law affords to the rich, and if a man is going to steal he will go where there is most to steal. Why should the poor, whom the law cannot protect, out of their poverty be forced to pay for protection to the rich, who are abundantly able to pay for their own protection? Then if the poor combine, and refuse to vote to tax themselves to protect those who can, and ought to pay for their own protection, they are only doing what common sense, and their own natural promotings would impel them to do. If the rich want protection let them hire their Pinkertons, and special police, and pay them out of their [313] own pockets. It will undoubtedly cost them more than at present; but that is nothing that the poor need have any concern about. Another thing, the protection the rich can secure from their special private police can only extend to protection of persons and immediate possessions. It could not enforce a monopoly. In the absence of the sanctions of law, people would not submit to aggressions from such a police. But even this would soon be brought to an end by the general increase in prosperity which would raise the wages of that police along with the increase of all other classes of wages, and soon bankrupt the rich to pay them, especially as their monopolies and privileges would be cut off. Even that police would quickly find its interest on the side of the people, and would soon leave the rich to shift for themselves.

I shall be charged with directly encouraging men to steal, and to rob. But it is not true. I am only stating facts which those who will make such accusations against me, cannot themselves deny. We are trying to ascertain just what results to expect from the adoption of a certain plan of action; and to see how it will affect those who must join in the combination, if it is done at all. I shall also be acccused of urging men to repudiate their honest debts; of advocating wholesale dishonesty. But that again is just as untrue as the other. Every man must judge for himself whether or not it is right or proper for him to pay a debt. I will only take away the power of the creditor to summon to his aid the force of the whole people to crush the unfortunate debtor. I will leave debt and credit just where it was when the debt was contracted, a private matter between the parties, in which no one else has any right to interfere, with or without the instigation of either party.

But as to so-called public debts, there is no doubt that they will be wholly and absolutely repudiated, [314] There is not one single element of justice in one of them. No man can make an obligation that another is bound to pay, without the consent of that other. In all that I propose there is nothing to promote violations of the rights, or security of persons of any one. No sane man will believe for a moment that there is anything in relieving men from the burdens of public debt, from the power of the personal creditor, from the exactions of the landlord, and from the demands of all other forms of monopoly, which will impel them to disorder. Disorder springs from wrong, from injustice, from infractions of personal liberty, which are only made possible by the law.

But there is another view to take of this whole matter, and that is, its necessity. There is absolutely no way in which by ordinary political reforms labor can emancipate itself, the farmer can clear himself from debt, or the small merchant and manufacturer can prevent being crushed out by the pitiless competition in trade. There has never been a case in the whole history of the world, since we have a written history, when a class has ever thrown off its yoke through mere reforms in the law. Where it has been done at all, it has always been by the destruction, or suspension, in whole or in part, of the law. Sometimes it has come by revolution, which has permitted of a partial re-adjustment, and relief of the extreme tension; and sometimes by the arbitrary authority of some bold and powerful lawgiver, but It has always been at the expense of established forms, and legal rights. The same causes that are operating to crush out the producing classes in this country are those that the same classes contended against in ancient Rome, for more than five hundred years. Those causes are debt, taxes, monopoly, and special privilege. Reforms were sought to be brought about by the law. The privileged classes steadily opposed, and defeated the reforms, carrying their opposition to the extent of seeing [315] Rome itself destroyed rather than yield. And men are constituted now exactly as they were then. Our own monopolists are certain to present just as determined a resistance to everything that will take away anything of their own power. The reforms effected by Solon, in Athens, in the sixth century B. C. is an instance of the arbitrary setting aside of the law by a bold and courageous lawgiver. There too, the poverty and indebtedness of the farmers, and small tradesmen, brought about in the same way, had aroused demands for reform which had been resisted until a crisis was imminent. Men were actually sold as slaves, and exported, in payment of debt. Those who still clung to their small properties could, with all their pinching, barely keep their heads above water. Solon decreed the annulment of all mortgages. The rights of property established by law were set aside for the time being. The small cultivator was given a fresh start. The tension of the situation was relieved; but the relief was not permanent. Nor could it be. The causes which produced the distress in the first instance were only temporarily suspended. Privilege, established and sanctioned by law, was soon restored, and in time reproduced the same conditions as before.

Lycurgus is also said to have adopted the expedient of abolishing debt as a relief of widespread distress. But if so, he left the causes, as Solon did, to reproduce the distress at a later time. Nehemiah also, after the Babylonian captivity, resorted to the same expedient, and with the same result. It is utterly useless to remove the effect, if the cause remains undisturbed. The law is the cause of inequality; and in order to permanently remove the inequality it is only necessary to destroy the law, which is easiest done by taking away the thing that the law lives on,—the taxes. But in all this there is nothing to produce disorder, because, as already [316] shown, the disorder arises from the distress. It is an effect which will disappear with the distress which occasions it.

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PART FOUR—THE REMEDY.

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CHAPTER I.

THE ABOLITION OF THE LAW.

The vision of paradise, glimpses of which we caught at the beginning of our inquiry, and which appeared so unreal and distant, now begins to assume definite form, and character. Its gardens, fields, and wood-lands show a reality and nearness which before were only mist, haze and uncertainty. We are nearing our utopia: that dreamland of idealists, that heaven of Christians, and that paradise of all social reformers. We know that we are nearing it, because the outlines become sharper and clearer, and its objects become more distinct and real. It no longer presents the characteristics of a mirage; but we behold, only a little way in front of us, with every step of the intervening space clearly in view, rising, a splendor of reality, the perfection of which as far surpasses our previous vision as the splendor of the sunrise surpasses the first dim outlines of the early twilight.

We have found the nature, the length, the breadth, and the height of the one only obstruction to overcome before we can reach that promised land. It is an obstruction which admits of but one course of treatment: its removal. While it remains, it is almost a complete bar to human progress. At whatever cost, that bar must be removed. The law must be abolished. Time after time humanity approached that obstruction, and instead of removing it, has attempted to change it in specific ways, with the result that, instead of humanity destroying the obstruction, the obstruction has destroyed humanity—at least, has extinguished its hopes, suppressed its yearnings, and turned back civilization upon itself. Whenever the restrictions of the law have [296] been carried beyond the point of endurance, and men have risen against it, and for a time destroyed it, not understanding its true nature, they have invariably reconstructed it on such modified plans as seemed to promise better results, but which, in time, turned out to be just as bad as those which they supplanted.

Law, then, must be abolished instead of amended. It must be destroyed instead of being improved. Why? Because it is the safest course, the easiest course, and the only practicable course. All human history proves that mere changes are unsafe; in fact that at best, the new soon becomes as bad as the old, or worse. I said it was the easiest course. I say more; it is easier to destroy the whole fabric of the law than to amend it in any essential particular. And the easiest way is always the most practicable way.

But how? By violence, by fighting, by insurrection? By no means. These are the methods of revenge, of passion, of unreasoning ignorance. The problems of social life must be solved by the exercise of wisdom; but these are the negation of wisdom. Men who are actuated by passion or revenge do not reason. Reason is dethroned. Fury takes its place: a condition which easily makes men a prey to the wiles of the crafty.

There is an easier way; one that involves nonviolence, no destruction of property, and no injustice. It is one against which the courts, the police, the militia, the army, and the navy are utterly powerless. It requires no elaborate party organization, no considerable contributions to drain away the resources of those who are striving for liberty, and no long and anxious waiting for an interminable period of development of humanity before it can be realized. It only requires a clear knowledge of individual rights, a calm but determined insistence upon those rights, and the wisdom to avoid being [297] surprised into acts which would drive away friends, or give excuse for violence from enemies. It involves no long course of training in abstruse principles of political or social economy, which only the learned and thoughtful can grasp or understand. it is doubtful if any ordinary man in any walk of life would not be able to understand so much as is necessary for practical work on its first intelligent statement; or to understand its direct benefits to himself. It appeals directly to the only motive of every man’s action; his selfishness, and inspires strongly his hopes and anticipations.

It is a plan upon which all reformers, having in view the ultimate objects of all social reform, and who are not wedded to particular methods of attainment, can combine. The single taxer, who cares more to abolish poverty, to free the land, and to bring about the reign of universal and exact justice, than to levy the single tax, will find it the readiest means of reaching his goal The state socialist who desires to destroy cut-throat competition, to inaugurate an universal co-operation, and a perfect human equality, can secure it without repression, or doing violence in the least to human liberty. The anarchist at one stroke reaches the utmost limit of his highest ideal of liberty. The workingmen, including clerks and professional men, can, and naturally will unite upon such a platform. Small tradesmen and manufacturers will do the same; and the farmers must. It is their only hope. Circumstances, and their own inclination and interests, will all impel them to do so. They cannot possibly pay their mortgages. From the time that public agitation on this line is once begun, monopoly and government are doomed.

When this government was first established the people had just cast off the chains of another despotism. That despotism had claimed the right to tax them without their permission. And the rupture [298] had come mainly through the attempt to enforce that claim. Therefore it was quite natural that they should try to guard against subsequent attacks upon their liberties from that direction. So they provided both in the national constitution, and in the constitutions of all the states for an effective veto upon the acts of their rulers through control of the appropriations. I do not suppose that they contemplated the possibility of being called upon to use this measure for the destruction of all law, but only as a defense against obnoxious and tyrannical laws But they builded wiser than they knew. When they understand that all law is tyrannical they will look upon it all as obnoxious.

That plan of action is simply the withholding of taxes; not the refusal at first to ay taxes, but the refusal to appropriate them. Appropriation bills, like all other legislative acts, require the concurrence of both houses of the legislature, and the governor. An appropriation for national expenditures must pass both houses of congress and be approved by the president. If it fail of one house, it can go no further. In municipal affairs, money must be appropriated by the city council, and the bill be approved by the mayor, before the officers can get their pay. Even town and county boards in country places hold the grip upon the purse strings if they choose to use it. Taxes to the government machine are like steam to an engine. Without them the machine is powerless. All that is necessary is to combine, and elect a majority of one house, lo do no/king. It is not necessary to repeal a law, or to amend a law; simply refuse to pass any law. Elect men to one house only, absolutely pledged to do nothing, except to be present at every meeting, and vote "no" on every proposition, except motions for adjournment. Without appropriations the militia cannot be called out to put down a strike, a court cannot enforce a single process, a mortgage cannot [299] be foreclosed, a tenant cannot be evicted, a tax cannot be collected, the police must quit, and every office holder must go home about his business.

In municipal, or town, or country affairs, let the people who are not interested in monopoly combine to elect a majority of the city council, or the town or county boards, and the thing is done. They have only to see that those whom they elect perform precisely the duties they were elected to perform, and no other.

Such an agitation cannot long be carried on along these lines without attracting the attention of every man to its merits, or before a majority of the national house of representatives can be elected. When that is done the whole governing machine must stop. Freedom will have been achieved. Free production, and free trade will have become an accomplished fact, because there will be no one capable of interfering with trade or production. The whole system of internal revenue will be wiped out at one stroke; men will become emancipated from the bondage of government debts and taxes of all kinds. Monopoly cannot then enforce a single one of its demands. The land becomes free to whoever will use I it, for there will be none who are able to keep any one off it. All this can be done by only getting control of one of the three co-ordinate branches of government. To amend the law requires all three.

No tax is better than one tax, or many taxes. It is easier for men to understand, easier to attain, and easier to pay; and then, as already seen, it will give far better results. It reaches the full realization of liberty; that is, a condition where mankind is without restriction. It emancipates men form the bondage of public debts, and every other form of privilege. It takes away the club which the landlord, and the lendlord, and every other kind of a lord wields over mankind to compel submission.

This plan of work does not violate in the slightest [300] particular the fundamental objection of anarchists to political action. It is not a political move in the ordinary sense, but rather a co-operative one of mutual defense. It is purely defensive. It merely seeks to pack one house of the legislature with men pledged to refuse any appropriations for the execution of law; and by doing so, it is a perfect check upon all action by the other house and the executive. By electing men for this purpose we are not setting them up in authority over us, because they can exercise no authority. We need not elect, or even nominate any other officers than members of one house of congress, of the legislature, of city councils, and of county and town boards. This is a very different thing from present political methods, where two houses and an executive must be elected, and then to proceed to change the law by amendment or re-enactment in the face of active and powerful opposing interests, skilled in all the arts of intrigue and corruption.

At the last meeting of the Kansas legislature the farmers bad a clear majority in the house of representatives. Had they have taken the stand of refusing to appropriate a dollar to pay the expenses of the state government, instead of wasting their energies in a long struggle to elect one man to an useless office, one where for a long time to come at least, that officer is powerless to help them even if he wished to, they would have sounded a note which would have been heard around the world. Every tyrant would have understood it; and every victim groaning under the heel of oppression would have taken new heart. It would have given encouragement to the oppressed of every land under the sun. In our own country the farmer’s party, long before this, would have been the producer’s party against the idlers and monopolists. The republican and democratic parties would have been forced to coalesce and make common cause against it. The [301] farmers of Kansas would have found practically the whole farming community of this country behind them; and not only them, but all other classes of wealth producers also.

Until this issue is made, both the old parties will stand, one as the representative of conservatism, and the other of liberalism, according to the bias of the person who considers them, while they both practically represent the same thing. The difference between them is not enough to quarrel about. When there comes a real danger to the interests they stand for, they will permanently unite, as they did temporarily in Kansas, in the face of the farmers. While they remain apart it is a certain indication that they see no danger. But when they join hands, we may know that the end is near.

After a most careful survey of the whole situation I am convinced that this issue, of “no taxation,” is the true line of attack. It is the most vulnerable point in the whole position of monopoly. It is the one most easily assailed, and most difficult to defend. From the moment this issue is made, government itself is put upon the defensive. It will, and inevitably must try, at least, to show what good it does; by what right it exists,—what it does to justify that existence, which it cannot do. When it undertakes it, it is lost, as I have abundantly shown throughout this whole work. Thus, the contest must be carried on along lines, the mere discussion of which will bring out the essential principles of liberty and show the utter hollowness of the pretensions of government.

But other effects must follow almost immediately, of the same character as when the credit of any other corporation is attacked. It must not be expected that the beneficiaries of government,—the monopolists, are going to sit idly by and see the government credit attacked without an effort to rescue it. The men in Chicago who gave $500,000 in [302] five years into a secret fund to crush out anarchy, and boasted that they would make it ten times as much, if necessary, will pour out money like water at first. But they cannot make it effective. For a considerable time our agitation can only look to the enlightenment of the people. It can only be a campaign of education. The contributions of the rich can only be used to arouse prejudice, and meet the arguments put toward for liberty. And for this they will be harmless. The more bitterly they assail it the more they direct public attention to it. In fact, it is highly desirable that monopoly should present the best case it possibly can, in order to show how weak it is. There is not the least danger in that. I see only one more way in which it can use such contributions against a movement of this kind, conducted on perfectly peaceful plans. That is, by secret assassination of men foremost in this move. This would be no worse, and not much different from the methods adopted to kill off the Chicago anarchists; but it will be a plan extremely dangerous to those in whose interest it is adopted. Just now the wealthy men are badly frightened over the attempt upon the life of Russel Sage, in New York; and they will be slow to inaugurate a war which might provoke reprisals; and millionaires are painfully conspicuous persons when such dangers threaten.

As a means of propaganda and instruction of working men in the principles of liberty, co-operative unions can be organized in every shop or factory and on every railroad or other corporation on any basis which is found satisfactory to the men, to take up and carry the business right on as soon as the destruction of the law has enabled them to rid themselves of present so-called owners. The whole of the earnings will then go to those who do the work, with nothing for rent, interest, dividends on stock, royalties on patents, profits to useless employers, high salaries to ornamental officers, or corruption funds to buy [303] courts and legislatures. It matters but little on what terms those co-operative unions are formed. As soon as the law, by means of which unjust regulations can be enforced, is destroyed, there will be such a rearrangement of industry as will naturally correct any inequalities in the terms of those cooperative unions at first.

When however, the farmers, the workingmen, the small merchants and manufacturers, and the social reformers of all the varied schools, become sufficiently acquainted with the advantages of this plan of work, for any considerable number of them to combine upon a platform of “no taxation,’ the credit of the government is then seriously called in question. Its bonds will depreciate in value. It will become harder for it to raise money. Bonds held in foreign countries will be sent home for redemption. As soon as it reaches the point where the legislature refuses to make appropriations, a panic will ensue: not a commercial panic, but a panic in government securities. What funds happen to be on hand in public treasuries, will disappear in a twinkling. Every officer will try and look out for himself, and save what he can from the general wreck. The government cannot borrow. It requires legislative sanction even to do that. Capitalists are extremely careful to have all the forms of law complied with before they will buy a single public bond, or advance money in any way, even where the people are as submissive as lambs. But in the face of such a movement, not a capitalist in the world would put up a dollar, especially if the bonds were not sanctioned by all the forms of law, which sanction they cannot get. The army, the navy, the militia, the police, and employees generally cannot, and will not continue in service beyond the time they get their pay, especially if a strong party exists pledged to the stoppage of their pay. It is extremely doubtful if even the greatest monopolists, [304] those who have most to lose would advance a dollar to pay the running expenses of the government in a crisis like that, because the government could not possibly give an obligation to repay it, which would be recognized by its own law.

It can produce no commercial panic, because people will at once be relieved of their burdens. Rent paying will at once cease, which will be a present, palpable relief to more than nine out, of ten of the people. It will be impossible to throw a man into bankruptcy for failure to meet his notes when due, or to seize his goods, and close up his business. Taxes will be stopped; the patent monopoly will be broken; and if men with patent articles will not sell them for what they are worth, other people will make the articles. The hundreds and thousands of acres of vacant land in the city of Chicago, and unused land everywhere, will be open to whoever want it; and people will seize it, as starving men seize bread. Homes will rise everywhere like magic. Labor will be in the greatest demand, and wages will rise. If that is a panic, it is one that most people would like to see.

There are other considerations which commend such a plan. It needs no elaborate party organization, or considerable expense. A few plain simple statements which every one can understand can be issued cheaply in large numbers and generally circulated. Meetings can be held in parlors of private residences to talk over the details, and make all acquainted with its merits. Farmers’ and working- men’s organizations already in existence, and more or less in communication with one another, can be quickly instructed in all the important particulars. This is all that is necessary until it is time to make nominations for town or county boards, the common council, the legislature, or for congress, the only officers to be nominated.

No government and no police regulations can [305] prevent people from meeting peacefully and discussing methods for improving their own condition. Those discussions should always be carried on openly, temperately, but earnestly. On no account, and under no degree of provocation, should denunciation be indulged in. It only furnishes excuse for police interference. And besides, it is uncalled for. The rich are no different from the poor; and deserve no more censure. Both are injured by their ignorance. Present conditions are equally the result of the ignorance of the rich and the poor. There is no occasion for either to denounce the other. I would even invite the police to attend, and listen to the discussions, and to participate in them if they desire. And besides, the rich are precisely like the slaveholders of the south before the war. They have grown up under present institutions. Their minds have received a definite training. They have been taught to believe that the present social and industrial system is a wise and natural one. They have had no occasion to call it in question because it has treated them with very great favor. The slave-holders too, believed that slavery was wise and natural, equally beneficial to master and slave. These men are all just as much the creatures of their circumstances as are the criminals, the prostitutes, and the poor generally. There should be no resentment against any. Nor can the government prevent people from voting for whom they wish, or on whatever platform they like. And when those representatives have been elected they are entitled to their seats if properly qualified. The very fact that appropriation bills must be submitted to them for their approval implies their right to disapprove. If they may vote for a measure, they may vote against it. No one can legally exercise any compulsion upon them.

But some one will say; suppose our representatives should be bribed, and vote for appropriations [306] in violation of their pledges? I answer: this is a very unlikely thing to occur, because almost always when men are elected to office for any one specific purpose, whatever that purpose may be, they will do that thing. No matter how corrupt they may be in other matters, or how much they may violate pledges of a general character, it is very rare for any man to violate his pledge where its violation would be open and notorious, where that pledge is the only one upon which he secured his election, and where it involves the whole principle of his party. But even if, for the time being, such a defeat were encountered, it would only be temporary. It would make the determination of the people all the stronger to win in the end. It would have still another advantage; it would give more time for men to study, and familiarize themselves with the real principles of liberty before being called to the exercise of it. The longer men contemplate the sublime, and infinite possibilities of liberty, the better they appreciate it, the more determined they become in its pursuit, and the more tenaciously will they cling to it when it is once attained.

Such a political party will only be a temporary expedient. It will require no permanent organization; and can offer no great prizes to be scrambled for. Those elected to office can reap little, if any advantage, but to wear the laurel crown, a real distinction which in after years will be prized. The first practical lesson in voluntary co-operation on a large scale, will then be the united action of the people in such a party.

The next question that will be asked is, is it just? Let us see! What is justice? It is scarcely necessary to go into all the nice distinctions and use of the term, justice, as defined in the lexicons. It is only necessary to say that it is everywhere made synonymous with equity, which means even, equal. So justice is equality. But there is no equality in [307] taking from the poor by law to confer upon the rich. There is no equality in calling upon the poor to vote taxes upon themselves in order to enable the, rich to maintain an inequality in condition between themselves and the poor. Where is the equality that imposes upon the farmer the support of the machinery which will foreclose his mortgage, and evict him from his home; that will compel a man to defray the expenses of his own eviction when he is unable to pay his rent, or for the seizure of his stock when he cannot meet his obligations on time? When these wealth producers, through their representatives, are asked to vote these burdens upon themselves, what more natural, and equal, and therefore just than for them to decline to do anything of the kind? But in addition to ask men to pay for the employment of spies, and informers, as the government does, to pry into their most private and delicate affairs, to tempt them into some violation of regulations set up by other men, and then visit penalties upon them, passes the bounds of all proper conceptions of justice. Whatever may be thought of it at first, this issue cannot long be delayed. Although the attention of the people has not been seriously directed to government itself as the real cause of the evils they complain of, circumstances are likely to occur at any time to do so. When they do, the contest will be a short one. Any great crisis like a commercial panic or general railroad strike may precipitate it at any time. It is true, we have had political crises, and commercial crises, many times before, without producing this effect; but never when the conditions were like the present. Knowledge is more generally diffused than ever before; wealth is more easily produced, while times are harder; social topics have been more studied, and are better understood. Let such a crisis take place now, and it would take very little to focus the whole responsibility upon the government. [308]

Then, once establish liberty, and if a sufficient time is given to permit a vigorous growth of individuality it will become extremely difficult ever again to subjugate such a people to government control.

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CHAPTER X.

SUMMARY.

We are now prepared to sum up the results of our inquiry. We have made an exhaustive examination of the character and functions of government, covering the nature of its corporate organization, and actual workings. We have found that all governments are precisely alike in all essential particulars; that popular governments are a total failure so far as the people’ s exercising any real power and authority in legislation, or their ability to correct abuses or secure justice; that all governments are but the development of the ancient robbers and pirates who, in more barbarous ages, plundered the peaceful; that they have not changed one iota of their real character, although their methods have undergone steady changes to meet the changes in human society; and that the poverty of the poor, the vast wealth of the rich, the vice, the crime, the ignorance, and the brutality which still exist among men, notwithstanding the progress in the arts, sciences, general knowledge, and facility of production of wealth, all come from the law, as certainly as a stream flows from its fountain. We find human society built upon human subjection, in degrees like the markings upon a thermometer, all set up and maintained by the law. Instead of society being the free, natural and voluntary, association of equals, it is made by the law the association of master and slave. Instead of a garden of infinite variety of plants and flowers, where the rose, while maintaining all its distinction of fragrance and beauty, can claim no superiority over the lily; where each vies with the other in offering the utmost wealth of his own personal character and attainments for the admiration [286] of all others, it is made a wilderness of human passion, greed, and avarice in which honor, love, and sympathy are choked and obliterated.

We have found also, that the real functions of government are radically different from its ostensible one; but that the ostensible one is never realized,—that the state does not promote the security of the people at home or aboard; that it is a constant source of embroilment, exciting and inciting wars, invasions, and desolations, destroying and preventing civilization, instead of promoting it; and that it is not even necessary as a means of defense against invasions. The ambitions, jealousies and intrigues of politicians, statesmen, governments, and rival monopolies produce wars, and wars give excuse for increased taxes, offices, and public burdens. Man is not the enemy of man, and only becomes such through the meddling of governments. All his hopes and all his interests are in peace. The distrust of other men is preceded by ignorance of other men, and develops into hatred, thence into war against them. Rulers set up barriers to intercourse, keep men ignorant of their neighbors, excite distrust, provoke hatreds, and foment strife and war. A cause of war is inconceivable between free peoples. The history of governments, the history of law and politics, has been a record of wars abroad and intrigues at home, and of constant interference with the rights of other communities, and encroachments upon the rights of their own. Instead of giving security they have always laid the world in blood and ashes. By reason of them the trail of blood is across every page of human history.

Regarding the history of its civil administration we have found it, first, under the pretense of protecting the possession of property violating the natural conditions of property, by setting up artificial rights of property, and then. riveting the chains of industrial slavery upon the people through land [287] grants and laws relating to land tenure, through special privileges to favorites, franchises, joint stock companies, and bonded indebtednesses, until a few men without labor are able to absorb vast fortunes from the unrequited toil of those who do labor; and then we find it bringing the whole force of the law and the machinery of government to enforce the claims of these monopolies, and protect the rich in their ill-gotten possessions.

We have found that even in the exercise of those functions which have most to do with the public at large, such as the carrying of the mails, the management of railroads, and telegraphs, the law inevitably works to the advantage of the rich, and that its administration involves the same corruption, the same inefficiency, and the same wastefulness as manifest themselves in every other department of government. We have seen that an extension of the functions of government in this direction to include the ownership and management of the various means of communication would be but to transfer to the large monopoly those functions now performed by several small ones; that it would not in any respect free them; but that it would give opportunity for an enormous increase in the bondage of debt and taxation.

Coming to the consideration of crime, the prevention, detection, and punishment of which forms so large a part of the ostensible functions of government, we found that its prevalence depends upon the degree of prosperity or adversity of the people; and that inasmuch as the expenses of maintaining the machinery of government imposes burdens upon the people which reduce the degree of prosperity, they directly increase the volume of crime. We found more: we found that governments in all civilized countries are in possession of the most abundant and conclusive evidence that all their efforts in this direction are utterly useless; and that crime [288] continues to be committed with unvarying regularity notwithstanding all their efforts to suppress it; and yet they continue to amuse the people with pretended attempts to suppress or punish crime, knowing full well that is useless.

So far there is no room for a difference of opinion. The proof is conclusive beyond all possibility of question or cavil. But the facts all point to still more startling conclusions, conclusions which will be slow at first of general acceptance, but which rest upon all the facts of the nature of man, the principles which govern his actions, and all that is known of the laws of nature. In time it must come to be recognized that criminals are exactly like other men, and that their crimes are only the natural and justifiable resistance induced by the repressions of the law against their natural liberty. The crime is only the pressure of resistance against the pressure of unjustifiable force; so that an increase in the force of the law must always increase exactly by so much that resistance, or crime. And, on the contrary, a decrease, even to extinction, of the force of the law must decrease, even to extinction, the resistance, or crime.

Proceeding then to the treatment of crime, we have found that all attempts at punishment are merely the exercise of brutal vengeance, and must continue to be, so long as punishment is attempted at all. When human knowledge has become extended and expanded as it is destined to be extended and expanded, it will be found that there are no bad men or women no bad plants or herbs, and no bad lands: that all things in nature are good; and that our condemnations only express our own ignorance of their uses an adaptabilities.

Public education also, as practiced in the public schools, we found to be false in theory and pernicious in practice; suppressing individuality, super-inducing uniformity, in cultivating a spirit of submission [289] and obedience wholly at variance with the spirit of independence and self-reliance which are the sure marks of a free people.

Then passing to the consideration of the way in which laws are made, we found that the conditions attending the making of all laws are such as preclude the possibility of obtaining just or equal results; and that the evils of legislation are inherent in the principle of law-making itself, and cannot be remedied by any improvement in administration. This exactly agrees with what we were led to infer from the analysis of man himself in Part II of this work, as well as with all the known laws of nature. The course of human progress from the slavery and barbarism of ignorance to the freedom of light, of knowledge, of science, and of civilization must be as free as possible from the impediments of one man, or of some men, placed in the way of other :men. Those impediments are always expressed in legal regulations and restrictions, and can never accelerate the current of that progress but must always retard it.

Men embark upon the sea of life full of hopes and aspirations. They spread their sails to catch the breeze of opportunity, never doubting that the voyage before them will be a prosperous and happy one. With timbers sound and staunch, and every rope taut, they speed gaily over the waves, never fearing for storms and tempests which may come. Carrying a rich freight of joyous anticipations, of brightest hopes and yearnings of loved ones, self stands at the helm to guide the good ship safely on her course. But across that course pirates have built a huge sea wall against which bark after bark in endless succession are wrecked, until the sea itself is covered with the debris. Every profession, calling, or walk in life presents many times more wrecks than of anything else.

Our merchant of limited means, carrying on a [290] small retail business, sees his trade steadily slipping away from him, going down town to the great department stores. He finds on investigation that he is being undersold. With almost unlimited resources of cash; buying in large quantities, their goods cost them less; nearly every item of their expenses are much less in proportion to the business done; their taxes are far less in proportion; they are able to present greater attractions of every kind; and finally, they sell for cash, and of course have no bad debts. Against this, the small merchant buys comparatively little and must pay a high price. His expenses and taxes are comparatively high. If he receives credit he must pay interest. And then he must charge a high price. The only trade he can hold is the most undesirable trade, that which requires credit. If he does not fail altogether he is soon driven out of business, and there is another man looking for a job. Conditions remaining as they are the small trader, just like the small artizan, will soon be a thing of the past. The department stores will completely supersede them. Our merchant will be fortunate if he is able to get a situation at a small salary in the big store.

These department stores are yet in their infancy. They are constantly perfecting their organization; making new arrangements by which they can obtain greater results with less expenditure; and perfecting their systems. Just in proportion to their efficiency is their power increased; and we may look for their rapid extension to smaller and still smaller country places.

Farmers, workingmen, and small manufacturers are all going the same way. They are being wrecked upon this same rock,—the law.

Reader, how do you like the prospect? These are the cold unvarnished facts. They stare us; and not only us, but our children, and our children’s children squarely in the face. Notwithstanding it [291] is almost infinitely easier to bring wealth into being to-day than it was twenty years ago; yet it is harder for a poor man to get a living. And it is growing harder. You may not yet have struck the rock; but it is only a question of time when you get there. The salvation of the people rests wholly with themselves. It is the madness of folly to expect relief either from changes in the law, or in the administration of it. I have before me a circular of “The World’s Congress Auxilliary, of the World’s Columbian Exposition,” inviting those interested in labor problems to hold a labor congress under the auspices of the World’s Fair authorities in Chicago, during the time of the World’s Fair; which is like inviting the sheep to hold a congress under the auspices of the wolves. The circular specifies seven general topics for discussion, none of which are of the least practical value. None of them reach the root of the evil. Nor would a question that did be permitted before a congress held under such auspices. Victor Hugo says: “The last thing owls wish is a candle.”

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CHAPTER IX.

HOW LAWS ARE MADE. THEIR EFFECT.

In most cases our inquiry would stop here. Having examined the whole field of the law, and finding it, in all cases, and under all circumstances, operating to the disadvantage of the mass of the people, plundering the poor and industrious, promoting and producing the very evils it would ostensibly ward off, and setting up and maintaining a class of rich and idle ones in the enjoyment of special privileges, this ought to be sufficient to condemn it. But it is not. People have so long been taught to fall down and worship the fetish of the law, and ascribe to it all the benefits they enjoy, that whoever attacks it must destroy its last citadel of strength before men will realize that their fetish is only a fetish, and instead of protecting them, it offers a convenient means of enabling others to prey upon them.

We will now take a look at the way laws are made, and see if there is anything in it that would throw any degree of sanctity around legal enactments.

Quickly passing over the schemes, intrigues, false pretenses, corrupt bargains, and trickery, if not actual fraud, which are a natural and necessary part of politics by which legislators are chosen; taking note of the character of the men who are chosen: men generally ignorant of all save how to flatter and cajole the ignorant, while giving no cause of alarm to the rich, we will come at once to the process of law making. Bagehot says: “The cure for admir. ing the English House of Lords is to go and look at it;” and I apprehend that the cure for respecting the law is to go and see the making of it. [278]

There are two sources from which the first suggestion of a law can come: one is from some person, class, or interest which sees, or thinks it sees, an advantage to itself which would come from its passage. Naturally, that person, or those persons do not go about proclaiming the advantage they expect to reap. That is kept in the back-ground; and every effort is made to hide it. Specious arguments are put forward to make it appear of public importance. Press and pulpit are enlisted, and all the agencies by which public sentiment is made. This is the course adopted where the circumstances admit of it: such as the building of a great public improvement, the holding of a world’s fair, or the levying of some new tax. It is only after the improvement has been begun, as in the case of the Chicago drainage canal, that the public finds that those who are benefited are the officers and contractors, and the syndicate which obtained options on the land along the route. The people must foot the bills by way of taxation, and then if they get any benefit from it, they must pay over again in rents to the landlords, or higher price for the land. If a world’s fair is wanted, that too is boomed as a great public benefit. The public is wheedled, cajoled, and bullied into its support; workingmen are almost coerced into subscribing for the stock; and taxes are voted in lavish profusion. Then what a delightful time all this supplies to an almost endless horde of very high-priced officials, in banquets, entertainments, excursions, foreign missions, honors, titles, and expenses, to the tune of a million dollars a month, for all of which the people must pay in taxes; and then, if that public wants to get any benefit from the fair,—wishes even to take a look at it, it must pay over again at the gate. The poor are made to believe that such a fair will be a great advantage to them; and then, when it brings a horde of workmen from other cities to keep wages down [279] to starvation rates, and squeezes up their rents until general public distress ensues, the only answer monopoly or the law gives to their complaint is to increase the police force, again at their expense, to suppress any expression of discontent.

Where the legislation sought is the granting of a franchise of such a character as will not bear too close a scrutiny, more covert methods are adopted. It may not even be discussed publicly at all. It is then suggested privately to some member, and inducements offered, which neither party is anxious to parade before the public, such as granting of franchises by the Chicago City Council.

The second source from which suggestions of laws may come is from ignorant but well meaning people, who see evils in society, and who think they see how those evil s are to be corrected. Naturally self-asserting, and thirsting for distinction, they busy themselves with the affairs of others, assuming that it is their province to make men over again after such improved patterns as they are able to furnish. These pestiferous meddlers serve monopoly almost as usefully as its direct tools, because they keep the public busied with their schemes and speculations, and thus divert them from their own miseries, and the cause of them. To such, monopoly always contributes a certain degree of honor, flattery, and cash. Liberal subscriptions can always be depended upon to promote agitations like that of temperance, and prohibition, or any form of religious propaganda; anything to keep the people amused and interested.

Now, with ignorant legislators, schooled mostly in the arts of practical politics, their very positions being a certificate of proficiency in those arts, and with interested schemers, or ignorant meddlers as prompters, what may people expect? Just what they get: laws made in the interest of special classes, or impertinent interference in private [280] affairs, and all gross violations of the freedom of the people. In matters affecting party politics a few party leaders govern, who take their inspiration from the great interests which stand behind them. Those interests govern the leaders, the leaders govern the party, and the party governs the people. The legislature bows to the same power. It merely registers its edicts. Were it not so, did each member of a legislative body undertake to bring to the performance of his duties, to the making of the laws, his own best individual judgment, the diversity of thought and sentiment which would be developed would be such that no agreement could be reached, and no progress whatever could be made. At the very best, popular governments must represent purely mediocrity, or selfish greed. The average must be low. Unlike a monarchy it will be free from the occasional supremacy of a driveling idiot; but it will always bow to the sway of active and capable private interests. And this is just as true in municipal management and legislation, as in state and national affairs. To what depths of rascality, what brazen effrontery in open corruption, what scandals in the passage of laws, and other scandals which never reach the public, such a legislature, constituted as all legislative bodies must be constituted, is capable of, let the possibilities of the combination suggest. The acme of shame is reached when one of the members or a lobbyist, goes into court and sues other members for his share of corruption funds collected for their common benefit, as was reported to nave been done in one state recently.

And yet, people accord the action of such bodies a degree of respect which surpasses belief. They even visit upon those who refuse obedience to their dictates the vengeance of the law, degrade- them, stigmatize them as criminals, outlaw them, and make them infamous. Government, or law, is said [281] to be founded upon the consent of the governed; but the passage of a law, like the contracting of a public debt, is justly binding only upon those who consent to it. And even if all were to consent, it could not bind the next child born. There is absolutely no way in which a law can be enacted, just as there is no way in which a public debt can be contracted, which is binding upon the people, in justice. Nor is it necessary. In most of the essential affairs of life men do govern themselves. If government is necessary in some things, why not in all? And if in some, and not in all, where draw the line?

Yet they say, “it is better to obey a bad law while it remains a law, than to violate it," which I deny. Obedience means submission, which is contrary to the spirit of liberty. Monopoly will always teach submission, depending upon its well known resources to prevent repeal. The oftener a law is violated the sooner it will be repealed or ignored.

To understand how impotent law is to remove evils, or correct abuses, we must consider, not only the manner in which legislators are chosen, and the influences to which they are exposed, but the further fact, that it is always impossible to know what will be the ultimate effect of any law which can be passed. The legislator has to deal with infinitely diverse materials of whose nature he can know nothing. In chemistry we may mix two cold liquids, and they become boiling hot; two clear ones may produce on opaque mud. Water in sulphurous acid freezes even on a hot plate. So among men, results are obtained by law which were impossible to foresee. This has been especially pointed out by Herbert Spencer, who says: “There is no truth more obvious than that generation after generation must pass before the outcome of an action that has been set up can be seen.” Seemingly little [282] things are far reaching in their results, and require a long lapse of time to observe their effects.

Sometimes however, the effect comes sooner than expected, and in a way least looked for. In Texas the farmers hoped to remedy some of their troubles by law, and secured the passage of an alien land- law. The effect was as prompt as fire applied to a powder-mill. They received notice that from $50,000,000 to $75,000,000, of foreign capital invested in Texas would be withdrawn, which would render it difficult for farmers to renew their mortgages, and would bring financial disaster upon the state. The revulsion in sentiment was quick. Those who had been foremost in demanding the “reform” were the ones most anxious to be rid of it, after they had obtained it.

The English poor laws, originally passed to discourage idleness, and prevent mendicancy, and also to meet the case of beggars too feeble to serve, is another instance where the law has produced exactly contrary effects from those intended. The people in the districts where the indigent were found were made responsible for them. Afterward the law was slightly modified to meet the cases of increasing vagrancy which the law, although establishing the severest penalties, was powerless to suppress. So severe was the law that even death, without benefit of clergy, was enacted against the vagrants. But it is reported that now, after 250 years, the law has come to be the most potent means of encouraging idleness. “The poor fund is regarded as an inexhaustible one belonging to the indigent.” The recipients bully and intimidate the officers; the women show their bastards, for which they get a pension of 1s. 6d. a week each, while honest girls starve.

In France, about the middle of the present century it was discovered that the tax of about eight cents a quart on wine had reduced the consumption [283] of wine more than one third. As a result the wine dealers were overstocked with wine which they could not sell. One of the principal industries in France was prostrated, and produced wide spread hard times. About the same time it was found that the duties laid upon the importation of cattle had decreased the consumption of meat by the people in about the same ratio as the diminished consumption of wine, with the effect that the French workmen did less work than the English, because they were not as well fed.

But we do not have to go so far away from home to see tile baneful effects of the law. Laws which were ostensibly enacted to protect the interest of our own shipping, have completely destroyed it: have driven American ships from the seas. Laws have also been enacted for the protection of manufactures; and the same thing is taking place there. However, in this case, there are other influences which operate to sustain it, and counteract this tendency: that is, the improvements in methods of production. Invention is progressing at a rapid rate; and the production of wealth generally is therefore able to withstand a greater strain of taxation than would otherwise be the case. But for people who are being devoured by the law, to clamor for more law, is like a drowning man crying “fire!”

Go where we will, it: this country or any other, under any form of government that may exist, whatever reforms have been adopted have been either in the actual repeal of law, in concession to pressure from without, or in the violent destruction of law by revolution. It has never been by positive enactment other than by repeal. Revolutions sometimes destroy one form of government, but either through the desire of leaders to govern on their own account, or through the ignorance of the people of the true principles of liberty, they have set up [284] others in place of those destroyed, which in time became as bad as the first. But enacted reforms have always been through repeal, and always as a concession to pressure from without.

That no hope is to be expected of the amelioration of present conditions, by the action of legislators in the adoption of reforms, may be inferred, first, from the ignorance and training of the men who make the laws; second, from the influences they are under, and to which they owe their places, and third, from this historic fact, that no reforms are ever brought about in that way.

Henry Thomas Buckle says: "No great political improvement, no great reform, either legislative or executive, has ever been originated in any country by its rulers. The first suggesters of such steps have invariably been bold and able thinkers, who discern the abuse, denounce it, and point out how it may be remedied. But long after this is done, even the most enlightened governments continue to uphold the abuse, and reject the remedy. At length, if circumstances are favorable, the pressure from without becomes so strong, that the government is obliged to give way; and, the reform being accomplished, the people are expected to admire the wisdom of their rulers by whom all this has been done.”

Again, “The most valuable additions made to legislation have been enactments destructive of previous legislation; and the best laws which have been passed, have been those by which some former laws were repealed. . . . . . But, it is absurd, it would be mockery of all sound reasoning, to ascribe to legislation any share in the progress; or to expect any benefit from future legislators, except that sort of benefit which consists in undoing the work of their predecessors.”

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CHAPTER VIII.

PUBLIC EDUCATION.

Another institution that is held up for the admiration of the world, as an instance of the beneficent effects which can be obtained by government, is the common schools. I will examine them also, and see what virtue they possess; and if they furnish any just grounds for maintaining an institution so essentially evil in its nature and tendencies, as we have found government to be.

The excuse used to justify the usurpation by the state of the functions of the schoolmaster is, curiously enough, the same as that for the detection and punishment of criminals. In fact, the schools are made auxiliary to the police function of government, on the ground that to educate men is to make them better citizens; and reduce the average amount of criminality. It is claimed that in this way the public security is promoted, which we have seen, is the ostensible function of government, it is because of this supposed increase of public security that men are taxed to support the schools notwithstanding they may have no children to attend the schools.

But does education reduce the rate of criminality? As a matter of fact, it does not. On the other hand it has a direct tendency to increase it. To educate a man,—that is, to increase his knowledge, is to increase his wants. Unless his ability to satisfy those wants is increased, to correspond with that increase in needs, a tension is produced under the pressure of which crime is committed. In any case, it cannot decrease that pressure because the ability to satisfy want cannot increase beyond the want. The first step in individual progress is an increase in [270] knowledge. Previous to that, the want cannot exist; for, manifestly, a man cannot want a thing of which he has no knowledge. But give him a knowledge of it, so that he formulates the want, and un‘ less he also has the ability to obtain it legitimately, he may steal it. Therefore, education can never reduce criminality; but, so far as it has any influence at all on the ratio of crime, it is to increase it by increasing the disparity between want and gratification. Increase in want, through an increase in knowledge, always carries with it increased ability to satisfy want unless something else interferes; and the only thing that does, or can interfere, is the will of other men exerted through the law in some form. Where the resources of nature are monopolized by law, to educate men without at the same time increasing their freedom; that is, relaxing the law,—decreasing the power of monopoly, is to inevitably increase crime.

Such an increase in crime has been going or steadily in this country, at least, during the last one hundred years. This increase, in proportion to population, is so marked a feature of the moral history of the country that no one at all observant will question it. Its confirmation will be found in every table of statistics of crime and population published since the establishment of this government.

There are two causes which have contributed to this effect. One is the general increase in knowledge; and the other is, the increase in the restrictions of the law; so that, instead of the law relaxing its severity to permit of more freedom as knowledge has been increased, it has tightened its hold, and thus increased the tension from both sides. Of course, this has increased the ratio of criminality. This increased tension is shown in the increased pressure of hard times, decrease in wages, increase in rents and prices, and lessened opportunities [271] for employment and business. That a change must come soon admits of no doubt. Knowledge cannot always continue to increase on one side, and repression to do the same thing on the other. The only question is, how long before we reach the breaking point?

But this is a digression. We started out to find what influence the state has upon human progress through its promotion of the common schools. We have seen that its claim, on which it founds its right to meddle in public education, is fallacious,— that it does not and cannot reduce crime.

What influence then does it have? In answer, I will refer again to the work of Baron Wilhelm Von Humboldt. “The Sphere and Duties of Government,” from which I have made frequent quotations, and which has been of the most valuable assistance to me in my whole inquiry.

Speaking of schools under the control of the state, he says:

“A spirit of governing predominates in every institution of this kind; and however wise and salutary such a spirit may be, it invariably superinduces national uniformity, and a constrained and unnatural manner of action. . . . In proportion as state co-operation increases in extent and efficiency, a common resemblance diffuses itself, not only through all the agents to which it is applied, but through all the results of their activities.”

Again: “State measures always imply more or less positive control; and even where they are not chargeable with actual coercion, they accustom men to look for instruction, guidance and assistance from without, rather than to rely upon their own expedients. , A general state education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism of the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.”

And as to conditions of freedom from state interference in other matters, as well as in education, he says:

“Among men who are really free, every form of industry becomes more rapidly improved,—all the arts flourish more gracefully,—all [272] sciences become more largely enriched and expanded. In such a community, too, domestic bonds become closer and sweeter; the parents are more eagerly devoted to the care of their children, and, in a higher state of welfare, are better able to follow out their designs with regard to them. Among such men emulation naturally arises, and tutors better befit themselves, when their fortunes depend upon their own efforts, than when their chances of promotion rest on what they are led to expect from the state. There would, therefore, be no want of careful family training, nor of those common educational establishments which are so useful and indispensable.”

Summing up his conclusions respecting state schools, he again says:

“All such institutions, I maintain, are positively hurtful in their consequences, and wholly irreconcilable with a true system of polity.”

The one universal purpose of human life;—.the grand leading principle toward which every advance in human civilization directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity. State schools must always promote a definite form of development, so far as they do not actually repress the acquirement of real knowledge, notwithstanding the greatest precautions. Even where they seek to encourage the spontaneous development of the faculties, they must prove impracticable, because, wherever there is an uniformity of organization, there is certain to be an uniformity of result. Every institution which acts to thwart individual development, and mould men into common types, directly counteracts the current of civilization.

But it is not only in the tendency to repress the expression of individual character and development, that our common school system is bad. It will probably be found that the whole theory of crowding into the first twenty years of a child’s life, while mind and body are both in a state of immaturity, the acquirement of a knowledge of the facts and theories, which are to form the basis of a life’s work, and which people are pleased to call education, is to dwarf its development, and prevent its [273] obtaining a real and practical education. To cram the mind with a knowledge of facts without the exercise of thought in the comparison and arrangement of those facts, so as to reach an understanding of their significance, is like overcrowding the stomach with food which it cannot digest. But thought only comes with maturer years. The child does not think beyond the quick comparison of objects immediately present to its senses, or nearly so. Imagination, which is an important element in thought, only becomes possible in a methodical way, after it has been tempered by observation. In early youth the imagination runs riot: and a child can no more exercise prolonged and connected thought than a new-born babe can digest pickles. In this immature state, when every muscle and fiber of the body calls for the intensest activity, and the mind is chiefly employed in taking observations,—correcting and tempering the imagination, to prescribe a given number of facts and rules daily, which the child must memorize, and be able to repeat, is to produce a mental dyspetic, incapable in after life of thinking to any considerable purpose. It matters little whether the amount of drill applied in the school is sufficient to impress a clear understanding of those facts and rules upon the child’s mind or not. They are received before the mind is ready for them, and consequently require too great an effort to master them, an effort so great as to cripple the power of future mental action. To attempt to train a child in the essential affairs of life in the common school is like trying to teach him to swim without going near the water. He may with sufficient effort be taught the rules of swimming; but he cannot swim. A carpenter cannot learn his trade by storing his chest with fine tools, and learning to repeat the names and describe the uses of those tools. He must use them.

A child if left to itself, will seek the knowledge [274] it wants, and will not require any severe mental process to master it. It will develop its own individuality and not another’s. It will become capable of strong, vigorous, and independent thought, a thing impossible under any system imposed from without.

But carry our examination closer to the administration of the schools themselves, and what have we? I speak from personal observation. Generally the local school boards in country districts have for their leading member the richest man in the district, regardless of his qualifications, with one or more, according to the number of members, whose action he can control. It is often the case that he has no children to send to the school; but as the school tax is the principal direct tax he has to pay, it is highly important to control its assessment and expenditure. And almost invariably he does control a majority of the board. The question of salary has more to do with who teaches the school, than the question of efficiency. And the salary is likely to be exceeding meager, unless it goes to some relative, or favorite of the leading member of the board. The same thing holds in the purchase of appliances for the use of the school, and in the care of the school property. Economy in expenditure is carried to a degree scarcely consistent with the efficiency of the schools.

I am not finding fault with this state of affairs. I only point out that it exists, and to an extent that, if efficiency were really a desirable quality, it must be a minus quantity. But I am inclined to think that they are desirable, just in proportion as they lack in efficiency.

In large cities like Chicago the members of the school board are appointed. Perhaps it i too important an office to risk to a general election by the people of the district. Some of the districts might elect troublesome men. The rich still control the [275] composition of the board just as effectually as in the country, and through that, the expenditures, and the levying the taxes to pay them.

There is no doubt that in point of efficiency, regarding efficiency to mean success in mental cram, the city schools are far in advance of those in the country; but even they are not above criticism. There have recently been published the most sensational reports of extreme inefficiency, mismanagement, neglect, and paucity of results in certain model schools in Chicago. Those reports have been strenuously denied. I have no desire to do injustice to any by giving currency to them. It is even of no consequence whether they are true or not. The real question is, are they possible under the system as it is, or any system that can be adopted? I must answer, yes.

Under any system of officialism possible, favoritism, corruption, and mismanagement are not only possible, but probable. In fact, it is impossible for any considerable time to avoid it. I have before me a paper openly charging the Chicago school board with collusion with a school book trust, by which notoriously bad text books are forced upon the people, in opposition to the united protest of the principals of the high schools; and that the principals were forced to withdraw their protests under penalty of losing their positions. That paper was published nearly three months ago; and yet, I have not even heard a denial. Again I say, these reports may not be true; and for our purpose, it is of no consequence whether they are true or not. The essential thing is that they may be true.

A former member of the Chicago School Board, and a man of undoubted integrity, and high standing in the community assured me in a recent conversation, that “if the real history of that Board could be written the speculations of Boss Tweed would smell as sweet as the attar of roses, by the side of its corruption.” [276]

There is one real, practical advantage that comes from the public schools, and only one, that I can find. They do inculcate patriotism. They teach children to be patriotic. And in a sense that pro. motes security. Patriotism is supposed to be, love of country. But love of country is made to be, love of the rulers of the country; so that patriotism as taught in the schools, means respect, veneration, and submission to those in authority: the office holders. This is varied by a worshipful respect for past rulers who are held up for their veneration, no matter how scandalously corrupt may have been their administrations; or how brutal may have been their personal characteristics. A sentiment of this kind generally prevailing in society undoubtedly promotes the security of the tenure of office of the office holders, and through them of monopoly which it is their office to protect. That is the only kind of security, that I can find, that is protected by the public schools.

Thus we have reached the same conclusion with regard to the public schools as we have in the consideration of all the other functions of government: that is, that the action of government here, as in everything else, is not only unnecessary, but injurious. Whatever government would make, it mars; whatever it would preserve, it destroys; whatever it would save, it kills.

We have covered the field. If there are any important functions of government that have not been considered, it is because they have been overlooked. But they could not change the result. That result has been too uniform, and unvarying, to admit of any material modification, by minor details not involving general principles. We are forced to the conclusion that under any and all circumstances and for all purposes, the control of some men by other men is evil, and only evil.

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CHAPTER VII.

CRIME: ITS TREATMENT.

There are four theories on which punishment for crime may be inflicted, not one of which will bear a moment’s scrutiny. The first is, that of restraint. But the crime has been committed. It is too late for restraint. The criminal can only be restrained from its repetition. But how long? An offense not capital only admits of a limited term of punishment, and consequently of limited restraint. After his release is he less liable to its commission than before? No, rather more. His self-respect has been destroyed, and there is less restraint than at first. Perhaps the immediate stimulus to its commission at first was temporary, and never likely to recur, which would render the restraint no more necessary than with others open to the same danger. Shall we arrest those others too for the offense they may commit?

Another theory is that of reform. But reform is from within. It is a growth. It is a development of self-respect, of individual character. But punishment is a destruction of self-respect, and of character. To punish a man is to degrade him. Reform can no more live in the atmosphere of punishment, than healthy physical life can exist in an atmosphere of sewer gas.

Another theory is that of example. If it is good, the more horrible the example the better it will be; which is an absurdity. Try it. Make petty thieving a capital offense. Draw and quarter men for slight causes. Apply the rack and thumb-screws. Make an example of them. The absurdity is apparent.

The last is vengeance; and it is the only consistent [261] theory of punishment. But it is the theory of the barbarian.

“Wrong begets revenge; and revenge is but a new wrong. And hence it is necessary to look for some species of revenge which does not admit of any other relations—that is, the punishment inflicted by the state, or for a settlement of the controversy which obliges the parties to rest satisfied, viz: the decision of the Judge."—William Von Humboldt.

This is probably the most favorable statement of the theory of punishment that the subject admits of; but at best, the revenge of the government is but the revenge of the bigger bully who administers his revenge without the mitigating circumstance of having a grievance. But this is, at bottom, the only theory on which all punishment of crime is founded. Men say, “The thief has offended against the law; let him pay the penalty.” “The robber has forfeited his liberty; confine him.” “The murderer has forfeited his life; kill him.” It is vengeance. But what shall be the measure of that vengeance—the degree of the punishment? There is no relation between crime and punishment,—no standard of delinquency. Such a thing is impossible until men are able to sit in judgment upon the motives, thoughts, and circumstances of other men. They profess to do it now, but it is the wolf sitting in judgment upon the necessities, motives, tastes, and circumstances of the lamb. Men are at heart exactly alike, but vary infinitely by reason of circumstances and conditions; so that no man can judge of the thoughts and needs of another. We formulate a scale of punishments, and then fit the offense to the punishment, instead of the punishment to the crime. We must do this if we punish at all, because no two crimes were ever exactly alike. Punishment is illogical, viewed in any light. Restraint is only effectual as long as it lasts. Reform is out of the question. Punishment can reform no man. The only value in the example is in an exhibition of the brutality of vengeance. And the man [262] who is once made to feel the weight of vengeance is thenceforth an enemy, with all the motives, passions, and resentments of an enemy. He is incapable of reconciliation.

The “crime against criminals” is one of the blackest in the long list of crimes which have been perpetrated by governments in all human history. I see no way in which that crime can be lessened so long as the oppressions of the law are tolerated. Something might be done by jurors, when sitting in criminal cases, if they would refuse to convict regardless of the testimony offered, if the severe examinations as to qualifications did not exclude from the jury-box those intelligent enough and humane enough to apply this remedy. But even if this were practicable it could never give •any large measure of relief. It could only apply in individual cases. The only remedy is to destroy the law.

Much is said from time to time about “prison reform,” and reformatory penal institutions; and there are some men who pose as advocates of prison reform, attend prison reform conventions, and get their names into the papers as authority on the subject of reforming of criminals. One conspicuous case of this kind occurs to me now, where such a person was placed in charge of an institution in Pennsylvania, designed upon the most approved principles of prison reform. But his theories of prison reform did not work, and he was at his wit’s end, until at last he was compelled to resort to an improved paddle, and “spank” the refractory into submission. He had not advanced one step beyond the rack and thumb-screw, or any other instrument of torture. The utmost that any prison reform can do is to make successful hypocrites. The only way to reform the prison is to destroy the prison.

The fact is, that the punishment of one man by another, in any way or for any purpose, is directly opposed to nature, and can never result in good. [263] This is proven over and over again by the increase of crimes where the severity of punishments has been increased, and the decrease where that severity has been lessened. Punishment becomes more efficient as it becomes milder. Keep on; it destroys itself.

“The great ameliorations in. our penal code, initiated by Romilly, has not been followed by increased criminality, but by decreased criminality.—Herbert Spencer.

Thus, the law being itself a violation of nature, its enforcement by penalties is but a continuation of that violation; and can never become anything else but mischievous and unnecessary.

Von Humboldt says:

“If it were possible to make an accurate calculation of the evils which police regulations occasion, and those which they prevent, the number of the former would, in all cases, exceed that of the later.”

As a comparison of the expense and efficiency of two methods of treatment of criminals, one that of repression, punishment, and degradation, the method of the law, and the other a comparative degree of liberty, let us contrast the police method with that adopted by the Children’s Aid Society, of New York, already referred to.

It is useless to itemize the expenses of the first. Any one can do that for himself, and to his own liking. Take into account the losses by way of depredations of criminals, the expenses of their capture, detention, trial, and punishment, with almost the certainty that they will renew their depredations as soon as released, and with the added incentive of hostility to society for the punishment undergone, and the sum total must be large, and the results meager, whatever the basis of computation.

According to the reports of the Children’s Aid Society, the children taken from the slums of New York, directly from the ranks of the criminals, with long lines of criminal ancestry behind them, all their associations criminal, and with no hope of [264] anything better before them, were removed to homes in the country where they were adopted, reared and educated under conditions of respectability, and between 98 and 99 per cent of them became honest, industrious, and respected citizens. The average cost in each case only amounted to a small fraction over $15.

I do not infer from this that people should go into the business of removing children, or criminals to the country at $15 a head, or any other sum. But this does show beyond a possibility of cavil, that what the poor need, and what criminals need, and in fact, what all men need, is liberty; liberty to produce freely, and to have what they produce without being robbed by government, or by the creatures and favorites of government. Such a liberty is just as possible in the city as in the country; and when it is realized, not 98 per cent, but 100 per cent will become prosperous, happy, and honored citizens.

But the utter viciousness of the criminal administration of the law does not stop with the ordinary criminal procedure. The detectives and the police are actively and purposely engaged in making criminals, either for rewards offered by those interested, or to obtain credit for efficiency. Men are trapped into the commission of crime, —purposely lured into it, so that at a critical time they may be arrested and exposed. A case was recently reported where a Chicago policeman was offered $500, if he would induce a previously respected citizen to commit a burglary, and then nab him in the very act. The report was that he earned and received his reward.

And yet, this does not sound the depths of infamy to which those who profess to administer the law carry their oppressions and abuses. In every considerable city in this country, and from time immemorial, the police courts, and the police, have [265] practiced a regular system of blackmail upon those unfortunate women who have been driven to prostitution as a means of subsistence. When threats of arrest and imprisonment have not brought contributions liberal enough to satisfy the guardians of the law, they have made the arrests, and the magistrates have imposed fines or imprisonment. Over, and over again this has gone on from year to year, with never a protest except occasionally from a newspaper which desired to make a sensation whenever it ran short of other news. These facts are so well known that it is only necessary to refer to them. They are of common notoriety. A case occurred recently in Chicago which is a complete illustration of these abominable methods. A police raid was planned and executed upon some of the vilest haunts in the city. One hundred and fourteen; arrests were made, and every one of them were immediately released on giving bonds for their appearance; which means that there were one hundred and fourteen different fees for the professional bailor, and a like number, of one dollar each, for the justice (!) who signed the bonds. The Captain of Police may have “stood in” with the bailor and justice; or, he may have taught the “disreputables” to give up more freely in future whenever he should call upon them for contributions. In any case no one believes that men like that do jobs of that kind for nothing. At last, when the newspapers undertook to trace the responsibility, the department disowned all knowledge of the affair, and finally disapproved it. But did it repair the wrong done? Did the justice restore the extortions wrung from the miseries of the poor and unfortunate under threat of imprisonment? Did he compel the professional bailor to restore his share of the plunder? Not a bit of it.

The following is taken from a recent report submitted to the various labor organizations of Chicago, [266] by a joint committee, including one from the Illinois Woman’s Alliance.

We respectfully submit the following synopsis of the recent work of the alliance, as reported at its last meeting: One year ago the Illinois Woman’s Alliance began investigating the administration of justice in the police courts of the city as it affects women and children. The investigation revealed the fact that the word justice in connection with our police courts is a misnomer, for so far as their effects upon the helpless women and children are concerned the word injustice more properly applies; that these courts in connection with the police courts have for years been operated under a system by which the most wretched and helpless class in society (the female prostitutes) have been regularly blackmailed, the money obtained thereby forming such an important and unfailing addition to the wages of the police and fees of the “justices” as to encourage the most outrageous violations of the law and public decency. Liberty to walk the streets has been made dependent on the ability and willingness of the poor victims to pay the police officer his levy. Failure in this results in their being “run in.” . . . Investigation proves that not alone are the rights of these creatures violated by these representatives of the law, but the rights of the wife, daughter, and sister of spotless reputation, have been arrested on the principal streets of this town at mid-day, without process of law, by officers both in uniform and in citizen’s dress, and subjected to indignities for which no redress has been had.

Procuresses have been known to ply their nefarious business in our very justice courts, and under the eyes of the officers of the law, to whom they are known. Under the baleful influences that have controlled police stations the women matrons appointed to guard the females arrested have been necessarily of a type in keeping with the prevailing conditions. Efforts to remove especially brutal police officers and objectionable matrons have been until this time unavailing, these individuals being retained by influences coming not alone from the disreputable elements of the community, but from sources from which the public has been educated to expect naught but the purest moral force. . . . The investigation has proved to the satisfaction of the alliance that inability to find employment at living wages is largely the cause of prostitution; and we here emphasize the fact too little known that the dependent condition of women and girls makes them the easy victims of lecherous employers, managers and foremen, who, under the intimidating power of discharge in case of refusal, and additional pay and favor as reward for submission, debauch the wives, daughters and sisters of the workingmen of this city to an extent but little dreamed of by those who have not had their attention called to this phase of the social and economical relations of employers.

If a poor man is drunk, he is ‘run in” to the station. [267] If it is a rich one, he is taken home in a cab. If the poor are found with dynamite in their possession, they are railroaded into the penitentiary, if perjured evidence will do it. But if a rich distiller tries to blow up a rival in business he is not even tried. If a poor man steal food to ward off starvation he is branded as a felon. But if a wealthy one steals millions he is adjudged insane by a convenient and facile judge. If a strike of workingmen is to be put down, or a workingman’s meeting broken up, the action of the police is prompt and energetic. It deals its blow first and investigates afterward. But if it is desired to break up a gambling lay out of sporting men, it must proceed with great deliberation. It takes weeks or months to get down to business with a thing of that kind. It can pay contributions. If workingmen conspire to boycott a railroad, in order to make effective a strike, the law is strained in every possible way to convict them of conspiracy, and send them to the penitentiary. But if the directors of a great railroad fail to provide proper appliances, or take proper precautions for the safety of passengers, and people are killed and mangled, those directors may possibly be mentioned in a respectful manner in the verdict of the coroner’s jury. It is barely possible that they may be indicted, and held to bail. Such a thing has been known. But it was treated by those directors, and others, as a roaring farce. And well they might! The criminal law never was meant for them at all. It is intended to protect them, and prevent interference with their privileges. Of course, the prosecution never went any further.

I have here called attention to a few recent cases, not that they are at all singular; in fact, they are typical of the whole administration of the law. I have done so, not to arouse prejudice against the rich, but to illustrate a fact, that the law is intended to operate, and does always operate, to the advantage [268] of the rich, in the exercise of its criminal functions, precisely as it does in its civil functions. The law is never for the benefit of the poor. It was never intended to be. It is for the rich; and the richer the man, or the corporation, the more immunity he, or it, receives from the law. Whatever resentment is entertained should be directed against the law. That is the culprit, and not the rich.

It is impossible and unnecessary to go into the vast multitude of abuses growing out of, and always attending, the penal administration of the law; the wanton degradations attending arrests before conviction, and in many cases where parties are wholly innocent, the mistaken, and willfully false convictions procured by perjury, oppressive and disproportionate punishments, the over-crowding of prisons, the brutality of keepers, the open scandals in prison management, etc. They are well known and notorious. They are made possible by the false ideas generally accepted as to the nature of crime. When we understand that these same criminals are our brothers, our sisters, possibly our children, and might have been ourselves under slightly different circumstances not due to any quality, or volition of our own, but to the oppressions which we ourselves are upholding in the law, we shall have taken the first step toward banishing criminality from the world. Let us understand that all the disorders which afflict men have their origin, not in the absence of law—not in the freedom from restriction, but in the law itself, and the problem of banishing evil from the world will be near its solution.

“Men, in looking upon crime, look upon it as the law looks upon it. They have accepted the ideas of the law. They worship the law. Whom the law smites they smite. Horrible! Distinguish between what man writes and what nature writes, between law and the right.”—Victor Hugo.

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CHAPTER VI.

OF CRIME; ITS NATURE AND CAUSE.

One of the most important of the ostensible functions of government is the detection, punishment, and prevention of crime; in fact, the preservation of security is generally held to depend upon the repression of an assumed natural tendency among a part of the people to violate the rights of society, assuming that society has any rights to violate. That part of the people who are supposed to naturally prey upon others, and upon society, are called criminals; and are treated as if they were essentially different from other individuals not criminal. The difference between these, and the ordinary citizen, has come to be broadly and generally expressed as “bad,’ and “good,” the bad being understood to mean not only those actually criminal, but with strong criminal tendencies, while the good comprise those who are supposed to be devoid of such tendencies.

In the treatment of any subject it is important, at the very outset, to get a clear idea of the thing under consideration. So, in the examination of crime, we must first understand what crime is before we can reach any proper understanding of its cause and cure.

The popular conception of crime is that it consists in some lapse from a more or less generally accepted standard of virtue, arising from an inherent viciousness on the part of the criminal; in other words, a moral delinquency. This view is wholly erroneous, as is shown on slight consideration. Regarding the precept, “Thou shalt not steal,’ as a proper moral standard, does the law look upon its violation as necessarily criminal? Not at all. [244] He who takes the substance of another without recompense as rent, interest, taxes, or insufficient wages, is a highly respectable citizen. There is not the least suspicion of criminality about him; but if he from whom these sums were taken, recognizing his own property, retakes it, he is a thief, and is punished as a criminal. If an American farmer takes his wheat to market across an imaginary line called the Canadian frontier, and brings back clothing for himself and family without notifying a custom-house officer, and submitting to a robbery of a large part of the value of the clothing, he is a felon, and is punished criminally, although he has done no wrong to a living man. If under the brutalizing influences of poverty, and the stress of extreme want, one waylays and kills another, and thus obtains relief from present needs, he is a criminal—a murderer, and will be punished accordingly. But if a judge, a sheriff, a lawyer, and a jury of a dozen men organize a conspiracy to kill him, although without any of the impelling influences which prompted him to commit the first offense, they are highly respectable, will have their portraits published in the morning papers, and be looked up to, as, in a manner distinguished. And when the killing takes place it will receive the sanction and benediction of the church. If another, in a moment of anger slays a fellow man, this too is crime; but if a lot of politicians quarrel among themselves, they may organize war upon still others, against whom they had no quarrel, and slay innocent people at wholesale, and instead of an implication of criminality, the thing is “glorious war,” the amount of the glory depending upon the extent of the slaughter.

So that crime is exceedingly variable. It depends upon no recognized moral standard. It is what the law says is crime. Sometimes it says one thing, and sometimes another. It changes with every change In the law relating to crime. [246]

As this subject has to do with man in society it will be profitable at this point to recall some of the conclusions reached in Part II, in the study of man as an individual, because they throw important light upon the whole problem of crime.

Our analysis of man showed that all are actuated by the same motive; follow the same guide; and work to the same end: the making of individual character through the pursuit of individual happiness; that all possess the same mental and physical constitution; and all are subject to the same needs, and laws of growth. We found also, that society itself is but the expression of the selfish requirements of the individuals composing it; that it exists solely to gratify those needs; must be purely mutual and voluntary; and involves no surrender of any individual right. We found more; we found that men are practically equal in all those things which determine their relations to society; and that liberty is the equivalent, and resultant, of equality. These things being true, the law which violates equality by setting up artificial rights of property, and enforcing those rights by oppressive regulations which keep people poor, prevent the natural gratification of their desires, suppress their aspirations, and arrest their development, naturally and certainly operates to produce what are termed criminals. Then the nature of crime is, that it is the natural resistance, or protest, against the oppressions of the law; that law itself being a violation of natural right, is the real criminal, while those who resist it and put it to open shame are really the virtuous, and deserve the commendations instead of the curses of their fellows. This is not only true as to some crime, but if our previous analyses are correct, it must be true of all crime; and that law, which ostensibly exists to protect the persons and property of the people, directly promotes the violation of them; and thus, as in the [247] case of wars, invites the very evils it pretends to ward off. This thought is so opposed to all our old notions and prejudices that it is necessary to make such a careful and thorough examination as will leave no doubt of the truth of our conclusions.

It has, for a long time, been a well recognized fact that notwithstanding all the efforts to repress and prevent crime by law, it continues to recur with almost unvarying certainty. This has been observed and commented on by very many of the foremost writers on moral philosophy for the last fifty years, and in countries differing widely in language, customs, religion, and law. Along with those observations have gone like observations as to the variations in the ratio of marriages, and the causes of those variations, which throw a flood of light upon the main question of the cause and condition of crime.

Henry Thomas Buckle, in his “History of Civilization,” has probably given the most comprehensive and condensed summary of the researches in this direction, of any writer of his time, or even down to our own. He says:

“It becomes, therefore, in the highest degree important to ascertain whether or not there exists a regularity in the entire moral conduct of a given society; and this is precisely one of those questions for the decision of which statistics supply us with materials of immense value.

“For the main object of legislation being to protect the innocent against the guilty, it naturally followed that European governments, so soon as they became aware of the importance of statistics, should begin to collect evidence respecting the crimes they were expected to punish. This evidence has gone on accumulating, until it now forms of itself a large body of literature, containing, with the commentaries connected with it, an immense array of facts, so carefully compiled, and so well and clearly digested, that more may be learned from it respecting the moral nature of man than can be gathered from all the accumulated experience of preceding ages.”

In summing up his conclusions as to murder he says again:

“The fact is, that murder is committed with as much regularity, [248] and bears as uniform a relation to certain known circtimstances, as do the movement of the tides, and the rotation of the seasons.”

Again, in concluding his examination of the crime of suicide:

“In the different countries for which we have returns, we find year by year the same proportion of persons putting an end to their own existence; so that, after making allowance for the impossibility of collecting complete evidence, we are able to predict, within a very small limit of error, the number of voluntary deaths for each ensuing period; supposing of course, that the social circumstances do not undergo any marked change. . . . To appreciate the full force of this evidence, we must remember that it is not an arbitrary selection of particular facts, but that it is generalized from an exhaustive statement of criminal statistics, consisting of many millions of observations, extending over countries in different grades of civilization, with different laws, different opinions, different morals, different habits. if we add to this, that these statistics have been collected by persons specially employed for that purpose, with every means of arriving at the truth, and with no interest to deceive, it surely must be admitted that the existence of crime, according to a fixed and uniform scheme, is a fact more clearly attested than any other in the moral history of man. We have here parallel chains of evidence formed with extreme care, under the most different circumstances, and all pointing in the same direction; all of them forcing us to the conclusion, the offences of men are the result not so much of the vices of the individual offenders as of the state of society into which that individual offender is thrown. This is an inference resting on broad and tangible proofs accessible to all the world; and as such cannot be overturned, or even impeached, by any of these hypotheses with which metaphysicians and theologians have hitherto perplexed the study of past events. . . . Nor is it merely the crimes of men that are marked by this uniformity of sequence. Even the number of marriages annually contracted, is determined, not by the temper and wishes of individuals, but by large general facts, over which individuals can exercise no authority. It is now known that marriages bear a fixed and definite relation to the price of corn; and in England the experience of a century has proved that, instead of having any connection with personal feelings, they are simply regulated by the average earnings of the great mass of the people; so that this immense social and religious institution is not only swayed, but is completely controlled by the price of food and the rate of wages.”

But Mr. Buckle did not grasp the full significance of the facts he so clearly perceived. While recognizing the modifying influences of social conditions [249] on the ratio of crime, he did not see that its entire volume depends wholly upon the bad, or unfavorable social conditions which are brought about by the operations of the law. He saw that the ratio of marriages depends upon the prosperity of the people; “the price of food, and the rate of wages; and these are probably the same conditions which he recognized as modifying crime. But whether he saw them or not, they are precisely those conditions which diminish or increase the aggregate amount of criminality, according as those conditions are favorable, or unfavorable. And if a small average increase in the general prosperity of the people will decrease crime a little, it is reasonable to expect a much greater increase to diminish it much more. Is there any rational stopping place short of the complete extinction of crime? I think not.

But even looking upon crime according to the old standards, as a moral delinquency, this uniformity in its commission, in any given state of society, proves the utter impotence of the law, or any repressive measures whatever, to lessen it. Punishment becomes the vindictive resentment of ignorant passion, which can have no other than a brutalizing effect both upon those who punish and those who are the object of the punishment. The heart of one is hardened against every kindly impulse of sympathy, and the resentment of the other confirms him in his hostility to society, which he thenceforth preys upon as his enemy. It proves more. Taken in connection with the fact that, the more prosperous a community the less criminal will be the individual members of that community, everything which tends to lessen that prosperity will have a direct and positive tendency to increase the crime; so that, the immense establishments for the administration of the law,—the paraphernalia of protection, just so far as they add to the burdens of the [250] people in taxes for their support, reduce that prosperity, and directly increase the evils they claim to prevent. And further, if the several governments of this world are in possession of such complete information on the subject of crime, and the regularity of occurrence, as these extracts indicate, and yet they persist in the ordinary attempts at prevention, and methods of punishment, notwithstanding their possession of the most complete information that all such efforts are utterly useless and ineffective, we must conclude that their real object is not prevention, but simply to keep up the pretense, in order to furnish an excuse for their own existence,—to maintain the ostensible objects of government, the more effectually to carry out their real purpose, which is robbery.

I have assumed that crime, in its essence, is the spontaneous and possibly the unconscious but natural resistance of the criminal to the unjust restrictions of the law. But to assume a proposition is not to prove it. It is not enough to draw broad general conclusions from well established facts, without tracing the most intimate relationship between those facts and the conclusions. Let us see if there is such a close connection between the prevalence of crime, and the law, of which it is a violation, as to justify placing them in the relation of cause and effect.

Almost all offenses known to the law, and which are classed as criminal, are committed either against persons, or property; so that we may properly divide them into these two classes, for convenience of examination; those against persons, and those against property. And, inasmuch as most of those against persons grow out of offenses against property, and disputes about property, the later is much the largest and more important class. Accordingly I will consider that first. The reader must remember that in speaking of offenses against property, [251] I mean those so-called “rights of property,” which are set up by the law. If we accept the law’s definition of crime, (and it is that kind of crime we are considering) we must also of property, in treating of crimes against property.

The first and most conspicuous of the immediate incentives to infringements upon the accepted rights of property is poverty. It is among the very poor that we expect to find the greatest amount of petty thieving. People who never stole before will steal to get bread. It is comparatively easy for the rich to be honest; but when a man is out of work, and out of bread, with loved ones cold, and naked, and hungry, temptation is a thousand times more tempting. And if that man is a good, kind, and affectionate husband and father, keenly sensitive to the sufferings of his loved ones, those very ennobling qualities become whips to goad him to the commission of crime to provide for their wants. Did it ever occur to those who so readily condemn others for what they call crime, that there was anything incongruous or inconsistent in a condition that makes a noble quality an incentive to an ignoble deed? If the so-called “rights of property" were founded in nature, it would require no violation of natural instincts to respect them.

Again, men find themselves in straightened circumstances, unable to meet their engagements, with the prospect of disaster staring them in the face, involving not only themselves but those they love most, and for whose happiness, it may be, they would sacrifice life itself. It is often the case that men. like this have spent the best part of their lives in building up a character and reputation of which any man might be proud. To such, the greater his reputation, the more honorable his record, the more sensitive his nature, the more acute will be the pain and ignominy of loss of fortune, and with it the loss of friends, and the distinction earned in [252] a life of well doing. All these things are so many incentives to steal, cheat, defraud, embezzle, rob, murder, or whatever else stands between him and the preservation of his reputation. The greater the honor attained, the more bitter its loss, and the greater risks he will incur to maintain it. Again the noblest nd purest promptings are made those which most surely bring destruction.

But it will be objected, men commit these crimes who never had any reputation to lose. True I but they none the less love distinction, honor, pleasure and power; and they see that wealth, and wealth alone, brings these things, therefore, they infer, to get wealth by any means whatever, is the sure road to their attainment. This conclusion is strengthened by what they see of others. These noble promptings are still the force that impels them to commit what men call crime. To punish such a man for his crime, is to punish him for his noblest and loftiest impulses, and suppress the expression of them.

Even in the case of the confirmed criminal, who is said to have lost all sense of shame, and who persistently and systematically preys upon society like a wild beast; he had the same experience at first. He sought to obtain honor and wealth by the quickest and most direct methods. Men do these things by law, or in defiance of the law, and yet escape punishment. Is it to be expected that they ‘will always be particular to properly discriminate? The professional criminal is constituted exactly like other men. In his case the law has punished him, persecuted him, made war upon him; and even after the punishment, has sent its officers to spy upon, and inform against him. It has closed every avenue to his legitimate employment. It embittered him, confirmed and intensified his hostility until all hope of improvement is utterly destroyed. He is what he is because and only because of the [253] law. Viewed in any light, punishment can never benefit the criminal. It is unnatural and arbitrary, L and always degrades and debases him. It makes him a covert, if not an open enemy. It comes too late to prevent the crime, because it has already been committed. But it adds to the commission of the second crime the motive of revenge, which was absent from the first. This is one reason why in all the annals of crime, and notwithstanding all the efforts of all the governments in the world to pre. vent it, it recurs with unvarying regularity.

It is said that there are houses in New York well known to the sanitary and police officers where malignant fevers never disappear, where murder has stained every wall of their gloomy stories, and vice riots from one year’s end to the other. Their inhabitants are the children of poverty and vice. They will break a bank, murder, sack the city; are ignorant and brutal. They are the roughs that sustain the ward politicians, frighten honest voters, repeat, and stuff ballot-boxes. They have full credit at the saloons and exert a powerful influence in politics. They realize in some vague and dim way that the rich have always had all the good things of this world while the evil has fallen to their lot. Here the criminal is, in a large measure, under the protection of politicians, frequently officers of the law who owe their places to their criminal acts, and he is thus encouraged to recoup himself against society knowing that those officers must protect him.—But there is another and stronger reason; and one that has not only been previously stated, but one which is so obvious, from what has already preceded in the foregoing chapters of this book, that the reader has doubtless anticipated it. The law itself being an unnatural and arbitrary restriction of the liberty of the people, violations of it are but the natural resistance engendered by the [254] law. For instance, if force is applied to raise a column of water to a given height, the pressure of the water against that force, whatever form it may take, will exactly equal the force applied to raise it. And just in the same way, if laws are made, restricting the natural liberty of the people, the resistance to those laws will always exactly equal the force of the administration of the laws themselves. The greater the volume and stringency of the laws and their administration, the greater will be the criminality. And, on the other hand, the less the volume and stringency of the law, the less will be the crime. Why is crime in all the older and more stable governments exactly the same from year to year? Simply because the average burdens of the people remain about the same one year with another. If an average improvement in the harvests give a slight average improvement in general prosperity, so that bread is cheaper, and wages higher, there are more marriages, more happiness, less misery, less criminals. Then let taxes or rents be increased, sufficiently to absorb the surplus, and the improvement is lost; criminality goes back to what it was before.

The laws establishing and enforcing “rights of property” are a complete demonstration of the truth of this proposition. The one invariable condition of natural property is occupation, or possession. Under it no man could oppress another. Under it no man could have any object to steal from another. Under it every natural impulse of man would find scope for gratification. There would absolutely be no crimes against property. Property itself would very soon cease to be an individual possession, and become common; not by law, and not by any regulation, but by common consent, in order to avoid the labor and inconvenience of individual attention. The production of property would become, through improvements, an universal pastime; while the real [255] business of life would be the development of individual character in all its varied manifestations. For a fuller treatment of property, see Chap. VI., Part II.

But, as I have already pointed out in the chapter on property,” already referred to, this condition, of occupation, or possession, is the first one that the law violates; and through that violation makes possible every abuse, every injustice, every slavery in this world. It makes men criminals by denying them the means for the natural gratification of their desires, and thus forcing them to resort to unnatural means. It invests property with unnatural powers, so that the possession of property carries with it those powers, which are wielded over those who have none. And finally, it builds up gigantic f or- tunes in the hands of men who did not earn them, while those who did, remain in abject poverty and want. There is not a single crime against poverty which cannot be traced directly to this primary wrong of the law, in violating the natural condition of property,—in making property in law, what it is not in nature.

While I have not mentioned directly more than a very small number of crimes against property, it is scarcely necessary to do so. I have indicated the way in which they stand to the law in the relation of cause and effect. To go over the whole list would be but a tiresome repetition, and unnecessarily enlarge this work. The principles laid down can be easily applied to all forms of crime against property, and to crimes against persons growing out of attacks upon property, and disputes about property.

Turn now to crimes against persons, and we shall find that they also spring from legal restrictions which are violations of natural liberty; and that in the absence of law very few, if any of them could ever occur, because there would almost never be a [256] motive for their commission; but, on the other hand, every motive in the world against it.

A large proportion of the crimes against persons occur in the domestic relations of people. But even in these, most of them have their source in property troubles. Questions of the succession of estates, occasioning disputes which lead to violence, and even tragedies, could never occur if the possession of wealth did not carry with it a larger degree of gratification, and increased power, and influence. Again, the pressure of want embitters domestic relations, and is the exciting cause of quarrels, estrangements, desertions, etc., which often culminate in violence. And beyond the outbreak of violent acts, the brutality itself in which those quarrels have their ultimate source, is promoted by poverty. In fact, the course of human development through increase in knowledge, the gratification of desire, the refining influences of association under conditions of comfort and leisure, is arrested. So that the operation of the law, mainly in relation to property, is directly responsible for the conditions of brutality from which come all those crimes of violence, the repression and punishment of which forms so large a part of the ostensible functions of government.

But there are other crimes of violence which are not so directly the result of property troubles, and yet are just as directly traceable to the law as those we have just considered. The laws relating to marriage are founded upon the idea that each of the parties to the marriage owes to the other certain obligations, which it is the province of the law to enforce. The law, in all so-called civilized countries, and in all time, has been made by men; and as a matter of course, has been made in the interest of men, on the principle of the subjection of women; so that, while certain mutual obligations have been imposed, the bulk of the obligations are [257] on the side of the women, and the benefits on that of the men. This is an illustration of the way in which the law always protects the weak against the strong? The real trouble arises from imposing obligations on either side. The marriage contract works just like every other contract; it offers a premium to fraud and deception in the first place, and then calls upon the law to enforce the fraud. Domestic tragedies and crimes of violence in domestic life almost wholly arise from efforts to enforce or resist those obligations, or to compel others to assume obligations and relations that are repugnant to them. Obligations, however imposed, and however enforced are based upon the control of some, by others; and are necessarily violations of natural liberty. The only thing that makes them injuriously effective is the law which puts a club into the hands of either party with which to worry and harass the other. Freedom in domestic relations is just as necessary as in anything else; and legal restrictions produce the same unhappiness, violence, and crime there that they do in other things. The only just relations are those that are mutually voluntary; and they can only be mutually voluntary as long as they are just, which is to say equal.

It is unnecessary to carry the examination of this class of offenses any further. The same principles will be found in full operation in every possible form in which crimes against persons may be found. In one way or another, or in many ways, the law acts directly to stimulate the perpetration of crime, and to prevent the growth of civilization, which would in time abolish crime.

There remains still another class of offenses which are denounced by the law as crimes, but which are neither offenses against persons, or against property, unless they may be regarded as offenses against the persons of their perpetrators, if a person can be said to commit a crime against himself. I speak of [258] crimes against what is called “public morals,” whatever that may mean. Here we spend more than ever upon the law to designate what constitutes “public morals.” I have never been able to find any authoritative code of either public or private morals, even in the law. In one city, or in one state, the public morals seems to be one thing, while in another it is quite another thing; but in all, it depends wholly upon the law. For instance, in one place it is highly immoral for the public to gamble, work on Sunday, or to sell whisky; while in others any one may do all these things provided he submit to blackmail on the part of public officers openly in licenses, and taxes, or covertly in contributions to the prosecuting attorney, to campaign funds of political parties, or to the police authorities of the district. Another difficulty; I have never been able to see how the public could be either moral, or immoral, and therefore how there could be any such thing as “public morals.” This is one of the absurdities of the law; but I do not wish to be querulous. I will admit, for the time being, that there may be such a thing as “public morals;” and I will consider one class of offenses that is most generally regarded as a violation of public morals; that of prostitution.

Regarding prostitution as the law does, a crime, we have presented, in the most striking manner, the baneful effects of the law; and an instance of the way in which it promotes the very thing it condemns. While the statistics as to the causes which lead women to adopt the life of a prostitute are very meager, as well as unreliable, enough is known to justify the conclusion that in a vast majority of cases the cause is poverty. The conditions of life have been made so hard through the operations of the law, that vast numbers of people are kept just on the verge of starvation. They find themselves cut off from all hope of anything but a slavish existence [259] of severest toil in poverty and rags; and they accept what appears a promise of more comfort, more enjoyments, and less toil. Sometimes this is the result of sudden misfortune, and at others of a long continued pressure of adverse circumstances; sometimes a disappointment in love where poverty prevented the natural consummation of the womanly instincts, and again it is resorted to secretly at first to eke out a scanty provision, and enable them to make a better appearance in the world, or enjoy greater comforts. Even where passion, or dissipation was the immediate cause, it will be found that in a considerable proportion of cases the dissipation was resorted to to drown sorrow, or disappointment; and, if passion, they were denied the natural and legitimate gratification of desire, and were thus driven to unnatural gratification. In all of them it will be found that somewhere the natural and proper instincts have been suppressed, and this is the inevitable revolt against the arbitrary limitations which hamper the free play of their activities. The law interferes in the relations of the sexes, forbids the gratification of natural desires except in certain prescribed ways, and, just as in all other things, it excites resistance exactly corresponding in amount to the force of the law itself.

What I am trying to make clear, and what I think has been abundantly shown, is, that all criminality in this world has its source in the law itself, and that in the absence of law there would be neither offenses against persons, or property, regarding property in the light of what nature made it.

Van Ornum, Why Government at All? - Part III, Chapter 5

[235]

CHAPTER V.

ITS RELATION TO PUBLIC ENTERPRISES, AND PUBLIC WORKS.

We will now see what truth there is in the claim that government can perform certain public functions better or cheaper than the people can do themselves without the intervention of government, or through private enterprise.

The one great and conspicuous enterprise to which all those who would have government undertake almost everything point, as an example of what government does, and what might be expected in other things, is the mail service. Those who would have the government run the railroads, operate the telegraphs, telephones, institute gas and water plants, furnish public baths, places of amusement and recreation, all tell us what a model of perfection the postoffice department is, and what a fine thing it would be to have cheap and efficient service in all these important matters.

To begin with, it is impossible to know whether the postal service is cheap, or dear. The rates of postage on different classes of mail matter are established on purely arbitrary rules, and without regard to the cost of the service. Some cheap congressman who is desirous of gaining credit at home, of making himself popular with his constituents, introduces a bill to reduce postage, and other congressmen with a like ambition join in its support. The senators, swayed by the same considerations, either concur, or fail to oppose it, and so it reaches the president. He, too, is looking to another term in office, or to party advantage, and dare not veto it; and finally the bill goes through, notwithstanding the returns already show a deficit in the receipts [236] as compared with the expenditures of the department.

I have before me the annual report of the secretary of the treasury covering the fiscal operations of the government for the year ending June 30th, 1891. According to it the total net receipts of the government during the year, from the postal service, were $65,908,909.36. The total expenditures and liabilities for the same account, during the same time are given as $72,069,114.55, leaving a deficit of $6,160,205.19 which has to be made up by taxation In other words, the government performs a service for a part of the people for less than the cost of that service, and then taxes the whole people to make good its loss.

But here again the advantage goes to the rich. Those who use the mails the most, are the great corporations, the wealthy individuals, or those who have extensive connections and interests extending over wide territories. There are many such who will write, or send, more letters in a single hour than the average citizen would do in a whole year. In order to carry an occasional letter at less than it costs, for a countryman who will not write one in weeks together, the government performs the same service for the monopolist who sends hundreds, or may be thousands, every day or hour, which is a beautiful arrangement for the monopolist, but decidedly not so for the countryman, especially as he is taxed to pay the deficit. So, the many are fleeced for the benefit of the few. Again, a letter will be carried clear across the continent and be delivered in some far out of the way town, or at a street numb’r remote from the office of delivery for the same rates that are required to send it a half dozen squares. The rate is not regulated by the service performed.

Another inequality is in the classification of the mail. While one class must pay thirty-two cents [ 327] a pound, another requiring little, if any less labor to handle it, gets off for one cent. This however is on the plea of promoting the circulation of information,—intelligence among the people; really it is a direct bribe to the newspapers to support a system of spoliation and robbery such as all governments practically amount to.

Another thing, it places in the hands of the politicians, and through them of the monopolists who stand behind them, the supervision and control of the private correspondence of the people; and not only of their private correspondence, but of the literature they read. Already the claim is set up of the right to open and inspect private correspondence; and every postoffice of importance is supplied with all the necessary appliances for opening letters. This claim is only put forward as to the correspondence of those who are “suspected” of something. But of what? No matter. It may be of anything from prohibition to anarchy, from petty theft to high treason, or from heresy to atheism. If a man can be suspected of one thing he can of another. It is only necessary that he be suspected. But by whom? By the politicians, of course; or by the monopolists whom the politicians represent. This is the first step toward placing in the hands of the monopolist complete information of every movement by the people looking to the destruction of monopoly. It is the same kind of despotism that has always been practiced in other governments which make no denial of their despotic character. There is not a letter that passes through the mails that cannot be opened and inspected with impunity upon the whim of any postoffice inspector, on the plea of “suspicion.”

Then as to the press, already the government claims the right to control what shall be published. A lottery advertisement may exclude a paper from the mail, and possibly subject the publisher, or advertiser, [238] to penalties for the “improper use of the mails.” But people who buy lottery tickets are only doing what they will with their own. What right has the government, or any one else to interfere? If interference is proper in this thing, it is in others. Where is it to stop? This is but the first step toward a censorship of the press, such as prevails in the most despotic governments of Europe. But for Anthony Comstock to use the mails to deliberately tempt and decoy men into a breach of the law, for the sake of punishing them afterward, or blackmailing them, is a highly proper use of the mails, in the eyes of the virtuous politicians.

Then as to efficiency, there isn’t any worth mentioning. From the very nature of the case it is impossible that there should be. With every change of administration there is a change in at least the principal officers of the department. Men are chosen, not because of any special fitness, but because of political influence. With changes in the heads of departments come changes among the subordinates sufficient to, for a time at least, throw the department into confusion. Tenure of office depends upon personal or party service more than upon merit and efficiency, consequently more attention is paid to politics than to business. These things are not chargeable to any particular political party, but are concomitants of all of them. These abuses are inherent in the principle of politics itself, and will continue so long as the system continues. If the postoffice department is to be taken as a model of public service it certainly is not one that is highly inviting. Inefficiency, irresponsibility, political and personal favoritism, and impertinent meddling in private affairs are its most characteristic features.

If the railroads and telegraphs were taken under government management there is no reason in the world to expect different results from those already [239] realized in the mail service. There would be the same tenure of office, the same disproportion in the use of them between the rich and the poor; the same inducement to politicians to reduce the tolls below the cost of the service, and to throw the burden of the deficit upon the people as a whole. Then telegraphic messages are open to inspection, and therefore are even more subject to espionage than letter mail, consequently there are still greater facilities for political and business favoritism, especially in relation to the press. In the delivery of press dispatches alone, at critical periods in political campaigns the power would be enormous.

But there is no way in which the railroads and telegraphs can be acquired by the government under a continuation of present political conditions without involving an amount of fraud and corruption in their purchase which is simply appalling, and which would saddle an amount of debt upon the people beside which their present burdens would be but a bagatelle.

Prof. W. S. Jevons says of the English proprietors of the telegraphs, that when they transferred them to the government, they did so at about twice their previous value. They made enormous profits’ out of the sale. It could not be expected that the owners of the American railroads and telegraphs would be any the less grasping. With such men as Jay Gould, the Vanderbilts, Huntington, and a dozen others that could be named, on one side, and a lot of politicians on the other, the people would fare badly in such a trade. It is useless to talk about taxing them out, or acquiring the properties in any other way than by a purchase in which the monopolies would have the best of the bargain. Even if this were a reform at all, it is impossible to effect any reform, which can really disturb monopoly, by political methods which are controlled by those monopolies. And after the purchase has [240] been effected, and the bonds issued in payment, the people are just as badly off. They have only shifted their slavery from a railroad and telegraph monopoly to a bonded debt. They have taken their load off one shoulder and put it onto the other, and in doing so have greatly increased it.

But after the people have obtained their railroads and telegraphs they at once come under the control and manipulation of politics. Cheap politicians will reduce freight and passage to give an appearance of cheapness, and to curry favor with special interests among their constituents, and then charge up the deficit to the whole people. In Paris the telegraph charges were reduced from one franc to a half franc, which multiplied the business ten fold; but the expenses were not reduced proportionate to the increase of business. The telegraph is not subject to the same conditions as the postoffice. Increase in business does not admit of considerable decrease in the cost of doing the business. Not only in Paris, but all over France, England, Belgium and Switzerland the telegraphs are worked under government management at a loss. The London District Telegraph has not succeeded in paying a profit although low charges have brought plenty of business. In Germany the complaint comes of government favoritism in the use of the telegraphs. Newspapers in opposition to the government find their special telegrams suppressed, or delayed; and liberties are taken with private messages. The ordinary privacy of a private letter is impossible in a telegram, and the political party in control of the telegraph necessarily knows the nature of the news sent. To increase the scope and function of government is but to aggravate the evils that men complain of Government, or law, being a violation of liberty, cannot possibly promote liberty.

The same considerations apply to all the other undertakings of government, whether in the management [241] of a continuous business, the construction of public works or public buildings, the purchase of materials, or the adoption of improvements. Everywhere where there has not been downright jobbery, and corruption, there has been inefficiency, incompetence, and wastefulness.

The corruption in the construction of public buildings is so open and notorious as to scarcely excite remark. It is not even necessary to cite instances. I do not think there is a single public building in this country of any considerable proportions which has not had its public scandal in its construction; and the same is true of every large public work that was ever attempted. If the scandal did not come to the surface it was not because the materials were not there.

The demand for navy, coast defenses, iron-dads, etc., comes from contractors, and those who wish to secure jobs; and from politicians who expect to reap a benefit in the lettings, and in obtaining contributions to their political campaigns. The wastefulness of them all is shown, especially in war materials, in the rapid advance in improvement, by which the most improved kinds are made obsolete even before they are finished.

The wastefulness of political management is strikingly shown in the treatment of the sewage of cities. Chicago alone wastes not less than an equivalent of 400,000 tons of guano a year, which at $50 a ton would give $20,000,000. Contrast that with the efficiency of private management. The appliances for the slaughtering of animals for the Chicago market have been so greatly improved in the last few years that the blood, hair, hoofs, manure, etc., which formerly went to waste, are now all utilized, and are sufficient to cover the whole cost of the slaughter of the animals, and the preparation of the meat for the market.

I am also told by those who are entirely competent [242] to know, that if the street sweepings in any of the great cities were properly gathered, dried, and pressed into convenient form for shipment, they would form a cheap and convenient fertilizer which would find a ready market among the farmers throughout the country, and yield a net income sufficient to defray a large share of the municipal expenses.

The same characteristics of government are shown in other countries as well as our own. Prof. W. S. Jevons, in an address before the Manchester Statistical Society, in April 1867, stated that “in England, the state manufacturing establishments, especially the dockyards, form the very types of incompetent and wasteful expenditure. They are the running sores of the country, draining away our financial power.”

Officialism is more than corrupt and wasteful; it is always inefficient; and delays the adoption of improvements long after their merit has been abundantly proved. A striking instance of this is shown in the introduction of lemon juice into the English navy. It was not until more than two hundred years after its specific qualities had been demonstrated, and forty years after the chief admiralty officer had given conclusive evidence of its worth, before it was regularly supplied to naval vessels as a part of their stores, notwithstanding that during that time the scurvy carried off more victims than all the battles, wrecks, and other casualties of sea life put together.

Legislators make high sounding speeches in favor of reform, and economy in general, and when a special appropriation is to be made from which friends or constituents are to profit, they logroll and work in its favor as if their political existence depended upon its passage, which it often does. Thus private and political interests are unseen factors in the passage of every law except such as are purely acts repealing previous acts. The greater the [243] number of undertakings which government assumes, the wider the scope of these private and political interests, and the more corrupt does government necessarily become. Law is like what Walter Bagehot affirms of the English monarchy. He says, “Our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it. You must not let in daylight upon magic.” When you begin to poke about the law, to find out what the law does, and why and how it does it, you can no longer reverence it. No man can study the history of legislation in any country for a considerable time, and trace its effects, without being struck with the uniform viciousness of it. Who would increase the power of such a hydra? Rather kill it. “Sovereign power, without sovereign knowledge is something which contradicts itself. “—Thomas Paine.

Herbert Spencer describes the state thus:

“A cluster of men (a few clever, many ordinary, and some decidedly stupid) we ascribe to it marvelous powers of doing multitudinous things which men otherwise clustered are unable to do, we petition it to procure for us in some way which we do not doubt it can find, benefits of all orders; and pray it with unfaltering faith to secure us from every fresh evil. Time after time our hopes are balked. The good is not obtained, or something bad comes along with it; the evil is not cured, or some other evil as great or greater is produced. Our journals, daily and weekly, general and local, perpetually find failures to dilate upon: now blaming, and now ridiculing, first this department and then that. And yet, though the rectification of blunders, administrative and legislative, is a main part of public business—though the time in the legislature is chiefly occupied in amending, until after many mischiefs implied by those needs for amendment, then comes at last repeal; yet from day to day increasing numbers of wishes are expressed for legal repressions and state management.”

Van Ornum, Why Government at All? - Part III, Chapter 4

[220]

CHAPTER IV.

THE REAL SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF CIVIL ADMINISTRATION.

Having considered the protection that government affords against foreign enemies, we will now turn to its functions at home, and see how far the order that exists in human society is due to its action; and what effect that action has upon security.

We have already learned that government is lineally descended from ancient robbers and pirates, who plundered the people as occasion offered. At no period in the line of that descent has it changed its nature. Its methods, however, have undergone constant changes, from time to time, to meet changes in the development of the people; but its essential character remains.

Another thing we have learned is, that “property rights,” to sustain which government exists, is a purely artificial and arbitrary arrangement, existing wholly by virtue of the law; that for all its representing anything in nature, it might as well have been entirely different, as to be what it is; and that, so far as that arrangement violates the natural conditions of property, it is a violation of the natural rights of persons to property.

The real functions of government being to sustain an institution of property which is itself a violation of natural right, and which has its source in privilege, can only perform its functions by the protection and extension of privilege, so it grants titles of nobility, makes grants or sales of land, issue corporate franchises of every variety and kind, co tracts public bonded debts, authorizes stocks, and bonded debts of corporations, issues patents and [221] copyrights, sets up monopolies, loans its credit for private gain to its favorites, taxes some for the advantage of others, and then enforces these privileges with the whole power of the government.

I propose to show that almost the whole effective action of government, is directed to such an enforcement; and that if it undertakes more, it is in the nature of meddlesome and pestiferous interference in the private affairs of people, which always does more harm than good, and is always intended to divert attention from the primary purposes of its action; or else it is to make an excuse for fresh appropriations.

Prof. W. S. Jevons, in an opening address before the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Liverpool, in September, 1870, said: “The laws of property are a purely human institution, and are just so far defensible as they conduce to the good of society;” and he makes that fact the justification of a recommendation to government to confiscate to its own uses private bequests which had been made to charitable purposes.

It is a well recognized fact that the laws of property are wholly artificial, and therefore no natural right will be violated should the people conclude to abolish them.

Although in this country government issues no titles of nobility as such, yet the privileges granted by law hereby the grantee are enabled to subsist upon the labor of other men without labor themselves, amount to the same thing. When the government grants a tract of land in aid of the construction of a railroad, as hundreds of millions of acres have been granted, it simply places in the hands of those who exploit the construction of the road (not those who construct it) the power to absorb the unrequited labor of those who must use that land. The government has granted to individuals precisely what in substance other governments [222] grant to individuals when they confer titles of nobility. The same thing is done too when the railroad franchise itself is granted; and the telegraph,telephone, gas, water, street-car, patent or copyright franchises are given. Wherever a privilege, immunity, or special right is conferred upon one man, or set of men, it is in its nature the same as a grant of nobility; and it has exactly the same effect.

Public bonded debts is another form of privilege which enables the holders of those bonds to live without labor upon the labor of the taxpayers who must pay the interest on those bonds, and finally the principal; and for which those taxpayers do not receive one dollar of benefit. Interest itself is made possible only by conditions produced by the law; and those who pay interest get absolutely nothing in return for it. A bonded debt is one of the forms of slavery whereby the monopolists, through the action of government, which is the instrument of the law, secures and maintains the bondage of the people. No bonded debt can ever carry with it the rightful obligation of the people to pay either principal or interest. It is neither good in law or justice. Even the law, if it were consistent with itself, would condemn it, because no man can be legally held for an obligation which he did not make, or authorize another to make for him. At the very most a bond can only bind those who actually voted for that bond. And if it were possible that at the time of its issue it had received the direct sanction and authorization of every man, woman, and child in the community, it would not bind the next child born. No man can sign away the rights of another without the consent of that other. And if he cannot sign away his rights, it follows that he cannot vote them away; and much less the rights of unborn generations yet to come. There is not a public bonded debt in this world that is worth the paper it is written upon except [223] in so far as the people can be kept in ignorance of its true character, and humbugged into the idea that their own honor is at stake in its payment. The only honor that is at stake is the honor of the governing corporation that issued the bonds. Here again, the honor of the master is the disgrace of the slave. If the slave is so ignorant as to be unaware of the true nature of the bond, and so subservient and submissive as to pay that bond, it is to his everlasting disgrace. But if he sends the bondholder to the men who issued the bond, and tells. him to look there for payment, the disgrace is on the master. His credit is destroyed, and he will have to withdraw from the business of governing The maintenance of the so-called public credit is only useful to governments to enable them to raise, on emergency, the money necessary to sustain their supremacy at home, or fight their neighbors abroad. The people are no more interested in it than the slave is interested in the credit of his master.

Another convenient scheme for exploiting the labor of others is the organization of joint stock corporations. Large blocks of the stock are distributed gratuitously to the organizers, and other large blocks are sold at a small percentage of their face value. Very few of such corporations actually receive from their stock-holders the full face value of the stock they control, and the total capitalization seldom bears any necessary or ascertainable relation to the money actually invested in the enterprise. The stock so issued in excess of the money invested,—which represents no investment at all, is called “water,” or “watered stocks." But they come in for their share of the dividends just the same, and swell the amounts that must go to monopoly, and thus diminish those which can possibly go to labor.

In addition to the stock manipulations of these corporations, it is a common practice to issue bonds [224] bearing a fixed rate of interest, and running a given time, which still further increase the fixed charges of monopoly, and reduce the rewards of labor. The greater the amount of the watered stock in a corporation, the less cash that stock brings into its treasury, and the more necessary becomes the issue of bonds to obtain means to carry on its business. It is often the case that through these bond and stock manipulations, schemers will build whole railroads, and obtain and keep enough of those stocks to control the roads without ever investing a dollar themselves, especially if they have obtained a grant of land from the government in aid of its construction. When a railroad has been built in this way, and most of them have been so, it is of course loaded down with interest-bearing debt, and with dividends on stock which represents nothing; it must charge high rates of freight and passage in order to meet those charges, and pay salaries to high priced officials, and other running expenses of the road. This again puts additional burdens upon those who do business over the road, breeding discontent among the farmers and business men; while at the same time the wages of employees are kept almost down to starvation rates. If the men strike for higher wages, or the farmers and others demand lower charges, the first plea put forward against them is, that “the capital invested is only making legitimate interest,” and so they cannot afford to reduce charges, or raise wages.

But in the first place, the stock does not represent honest capital invested; and, in the second place, there is no such thing as legitimate interest. Interest is always illegitimate. Dividends are always illegitimate; because neither interest nor dividends represent wages for actual labor performed. Those contrivances by which a stock-holder can draw dividends, or a bond-holder can draw interest, are exactly like the slavery of public bonded debts,— contrivances [225] which enable the idler to subsist upon the earnings of the industrious. They exist wholly in and by virtue of the law. They receive from it their only sanction. Through the establishment and maintenance of just such things as these do governments build up monopolies, and protect them afterwards. In the absence of law they would be impossible: First, by violating the natural rights of persons to properly, by setting up arbitrary and unnatural fights of property; and then favoring and facilitating large aggregations of capital through abnormally increasing the power of aggregated capital, and through special advantages enacted in laws relating to corporations, the law kills off the competition of individual merchants and manufacturers, who are placed at so great a disadvantage in the competition for trade that they are driven out of business, or compelled to accept subordinate position under the corporations. Everywhere the individual or firm is giving way to the corporation. Those only who can command almost unlimited captital can hope to make head against these modern cyclops.

Men frequently look upon the tendency to concentration in business, to the disappearance of the small trader of limited means, and the substitution of the corporation, or great capitalist, as indicating a gain to the people at large, in the cheapness of production. If cheapness is taken to mean a less expenditure of labor in the production of wealth, then the idea is wholly erroneous. But if it means the lessened amounts that monopoly is compelled to pay to labor as wages for that production, then their idea is correct. Monopoly does not facilitate the production of wealth. It hinders it. It requires just as much, or more labor to produce wealth under monopoly than under freedom, but those who produce it get less, while more; therefore the outward appearance of cheapened cost [226] of production. That this is true is proved by the steady decrease everywhere in the number of small, or independent traders, who are driven into bankruptcy, and are finally compelled to accept a situation at a small salary under monopoly; and they generally consider themselves lucky if they get even that. And yet, there is probably not one per cent of those who have been thus forced into bankruptcy by the operation of the law, who do not religiously worship the fetish of the law, and who would not consider it their sacred duty to fight, if necessary, for the government, which is the instrument of the law.

Patents and copyrights are other ways in which governments play into the hands of monopolists under the pretense of “rewarding genius,” of “stimulating invention,” and of “promoting authorship.” It makes, and keeps people poor, and therefore helpless; and should they invent a useful article, they are generally so poor that they can not pay the fees for taking out a patent; or if they can, they can not manufacture and sell the article, but must look to monopoly to help them out. And it generally does help them “out,” and so far out that they never get back again.

If a man writes a book he must find some publisher with sufficient means to defray the cost of its publication. And the poorer he is, the more helpless; in other words, the more he is in the power of the publisher. A man with a patent, or a copyright, but without money, is just about as well off as the settler is, on a quarter section of wild government land, who has nothing with which to work it; and if lie had, he is so far from market that his land is well nigh worthless to him. In this condition the patentee, the author, and the settler become easy victims to monopoly. What to them was nearly worthless becomes of vast importance to monopoly, The reward which the generous [227] government grants to genius, or the settler, is a pittance, while that to monopoly is magnificent and substantial. And then, when the monopoly has grown rich on the invention; or the landholder by the rise in the value of the land, people are invited to admire the beneficent generosity of a government which so munificently rewards inventive genius, and the sturdy frugality of its pioneers, notwithstanding the pioneer and the genius may fill a pauper’s grave.

If there are any other opportunities for setting up monopolies, and special privileges, the government maintains several corps of very industrious men to look them up, and parcel them out—for a consideration. There is the national congress, the state legislatures, the city councils, the town boards, the excise, drainage, railroad and warehouse, and inter-state commissions; and all the other legislative, and semi-legislative contrivances whereby laws are passed, franchises granted, contracts let, and taxes imposed. There is scarcely an act from the cradle to the grave that government does not endeavor to bring under subjection to the will of those who assume to rule, and which does not involve the payment of fees, duties, taxes, and contributions of various kinds, either directly to those rulers, or to some of their favorites, whom they have given special permission to collect these charges. The child at birth is required to be registered. If he is sick he can only be doctored by an authorized physician. He must only eat authorized food, drink authorized drink, work at authorized times, and at authorized things, marry in an authorized way, live in an authorized place, and finally die and be buried in an authorized manner. Of course, all these authorizations cost money. It does not matter whether the doctor knows anything or not, if he has gone through certain formalities, the state suppresses all competition so far as it [228] can, except from those who have taken the same formalities. The result is that the doctors are, to a large degree, absolved from the necessity for study. They do not even have to keep posted on the current advance in knowledge in their own profession. Their profession is protected by law from outside competition; and then, by setting up artificial standards of ethics for themselves, they still further limit competition among themselves; or, in other words, make it hard for some and easy for others to get ahead. It naturally follows that some have more than they can attend to, get large fees, and attain great reputation, while others get nothing. The doctor with a large practice is physically unable to keep abreast of the advance in medical knowledge, for want of time and strength, while the one who has none cannot do it for want of means. The latest discoveries in the nature of diseases, and improved methods of treatment, are as completely foreign to the great majority of physicians as if they had never studied medicine. Here again, the law destroys whatever it pretends to protect. Freedom is just as necessary in medicine as in anything else. Protection to a learned profession is just as injurious as any other kind of protection. Instead of protecting ability, and merit, it always turns out that it is incompetence that has received the protection. Ability needs no protection; but incompetence does.

So we may go through the whole list of laws providing for official inspections, against the adulterations of food and drink, all forms of sumptuary laws, laws for the promotion of morality, Sabbath observance, etc., and we shall find that where they do not have the direct purpose in view of violating the security of the citizens, in the direct robbery of those citizens, they still amount to a meddlesome and pestiferous interference, with the direct result of destroying all spontaneous and healthy activity. [204] The law promotes adulterations instead of protecting against them; it fosters licentiousness where it would prevent it; and enables the strong to prey upon the weak instead of preserving the weak against the strong.

The laws for the collection of debt are practically a nullity so far as promoting the payment of just debts between individuals goes. They give almost infinite opportunities for fraud, deception, and dishonesty. Those who are disposed to pay, and have the ability to pay, need no law to compel them. But those who are not, always seek in the forms, technicalities, and delays of the law an efficient method of avoiding payment. Instead of leaving debt where it rightly belongs, as a matter of honor, laws are made for its forcible collection, and then / it no long rests upon honor, but upon the law; so that if a man can cheat according to law he is all right. Honor is not involved. Here again, the law promotes dishonesty instead of honesty. All this has come to be so well recognized that very few good business men will undertake to collect debts by law. They find it costs more than it comes to.

That the law is wholly unnecessary in the collection of debt is abundantly shown in the transaction of business between men. In the stock and grain exchanges pencil memoranda in the note books of brokers are sufficient to guarantee the sales of property to the amount of thousands of dollars. These contracts, depending wholly upon the honor of those who made them, are considered safer than those made outside, although they may be signed, sealed and registered parchments. Among gamblers also, the debt of honor,—the debt which cannot be collected by law, is the first debt paid.

But of course, this only applies to obligations which have an honorable basis,—a basis of equity between man and man. It could never be applied [230] to the exactions of monopoly. When we come to rent, interest, taxes, mortgages, royalties, or any of the other takings of monopoly, which are purely legal stealings, and no honor is involved, the law is then an absolute necessity. It is a club in the hands of monopoly to compel the people to give up. Monopoly could not live a week in the absence of law. And as the chief purpose and function of the law is to create monopolies, and enforce their demands, its action must necessarily be to violate the security which it pretends to subserve, instead of promoting it To the poor the law is utterly worthless, or worse; but to the rich it is invaluable. Yet the poor pay the expense while the rich get the benefit.

The enforcement of contracts comes under the same head as the collection of debt, although it is something more. Men enter into contracts to do certain things; and if the terms of those contracts are just and equal both parties to them are equally benefited, and consequently will be equally interested in their fulfillment, and will therefore need no law to enforce them. But if one party to a contract has misrepresented the facts, has overeached the other, and has secured terms which are not just and equal, then the law is necessary to enable him to enforce and make effective his rascality. Here also the law directly encourages and promotes deception and fraud, and then helps to carry out that fraud.

Then, under the pretense of regulating commerce, the law exacts contributions, tariffs, licenses, duties, fees, and taxes; subjects it to delays, hindrances, and regulations, in many respects prevents it altogether; stirs up envy, strife, war; and again violates security. Commerce needs no regulation. It is best promoted by leaving it perfectly free to take its own unhindered way. If free, it will always adopt such methods and appliances as [231] best promote the interest of those who are engaged in it, at the least cost. What does a ward politician know about the needs of trade of a circulating medium? What does the average legislator know about the requisites of a proper grain inspection, or an inspection of meats, fish, or dairy product? What does h know about the qualifications of a doctor, or ninety-nine out of the hundred things about which he is called upon to legislate? And if he seeks information from those who are supposed to know, that information will be colored by their own interests, or prejudices. Commerce is never regulated except to rob it; and those who regulate it to-day, are the same as those who plundered it of old. The name has been changed, but the thing is the same.

Every human institution, every rule of intercourse, every custom is but the expression of the needs and interests of men, and not of formal laws enacted by government; and so long as they continue to be such an expression they will be observed without law; but when they cease, they will change with the changing needs, notwithstanding the law. Law at the very best, can only hinder and delay the adoption of better customs and usages; and whenever an institution needs the support or sanction of law, it is an indication that it is in a state of decay. Ignorance, prejudice, and bigotry cling longest to old institutions. Men fear and condemn what they do not understand; therefore, when law is enacted to sustain any form or tenet of religion, any standard of morality, or any custom of society, it is certain to represent, not the intelligence of the community, but its ignorance.

This is law at its best. What it is at its worst, we have already had glimpses; but they are only glimpses. Where the law is not a direct and conscious robbery of the people in the interest of a part of those people, it furnishes a means of oppression [232] whereby the most ignorant and bigoted can harass, annoy, and persecute those whose increasing intelligence has discarded the old methods and standards.

Let us take a look at the courts! What do their duties consist of? What is their function? Primarily to enforce the demands of monopoly; sometimes to settle disputes between different monopolies; and very rarely to furnish a tribunal for the people themselves. But their action is so bound up in technicalities, delays, and expense, that in the last case, it amounts to the merest sham. It is a notorious fact that no matter how just may be a man’s claim, unless he is rich he stands no show against the wealthy. First, he cannot employ the best legal talent to conduct his case; second, the delay wears him out; and third, the expense eats him up. The poor man has no more show before the courts, as they are constituted and conducted, than a lamb would have before a tribunal of wolves.

Examine the records of every court in the land, and it will be found that more than nineteen twentieths of all their work is either to enforce the demands of monopoly, or they are purely disputes between different monopolies in which the people have not the slightest interest, although they are heavily taxed to support them.

When a difference arises between two or more individuals, one of them appeals to the law, which assumes to arbitrate it, not with the mutual consent of the parties, but at the instigation of one of them. The government meddles constantly in the private affairs of the people, assuming the right to settle their disputes with or without their consent. It sends its minions to evict the starving widow and fatherless children from their miserable shanty upon the demand of the rich and favored, when they can no longer wring enough from their misery to satisfy their greed. It stands ready to foreclose the mortgage of the farmer when he can [223] no longer meet the demands of the usurer; and it sends its militia, and if need be the army, to shoot down the workingmen if they insist a little too strongly on their right to a little larger proportion of the wealth they produce.

The keeping of records is another very important function of government,—important to the monopolies, but to no one else. Natural property, depending solely upon possession, or occupation, needs to preserve no records. It is only when that natural condition is violated, and men are enabled to own a thing while in the possession of another, that records are necessary. Yet here again; the people are taxed once more to keep the records of their own slavery. Voltaire says that “the art of government is to make two thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.”

Voltaire was right; and those payments are only in small part in the form of taxes, although these are heavy enough in all conscience. During the six years, ending June 30th, 1871, following our civil war, the revenues collected from the people over and above the total expenditures of the government, were in round numbers $380,890,000. Such a thing in any other government on earth would not have been tolerated; nor would it have been here had it not been for our peculiar form of government which falsely deceives the people into the idea that they are governing themselves. Add to this excess over and above all the needs of government, the total expenses of government, national, state, and local. then include the almost incalculable amounts exacted by monopoly through the operations of government, whereby the idle are made rich, and the industrious are kept poor, and we get the aggregate cost of government to the people.

Can a people so taxed, and robbed, and hampered be said to be free? To be free as to be without [234] restriction. What has government, or law, which is the embodiment of restriction, to do with freedom? To speak of “free government” is to employ a contradiction of terms. Freedom and government are utterly inconsistent. There is no such thing as a free government. Government is slavery. There is no slavery possible outside of government, except the slavery of ignorance; and ignorance is soonest conquered when men are free to employ their faculties to dispel it, without the restraining influences of government. Men can never achieve freedom until government is completely eradicated. I am not here discussing their right to so free themselves. Like M. Dunnoyer, “I do not say sententiously: men have a right to be free; I confine myself to asking: How does it happen that they are not so?” Let them once understand that they are not so, and I have no fears that they will not attend to it in a becoming manner.

Pierre Leroux, Necessity of Evil, pt. 2

Pierre Leroux, "Necessity of Evil" [part 2 of 2], The Spirit of the Age, I, 19 (November 10, 1849), 289-91.

Translated for The Spirit of the Age,

NECESSITY OF EVIL.

FROM PIERRE LEROUX'S L'HUMANITE.

In answer to the question: "What is our condition in this life and how should we comport ourselves in relation to the good and ill found in it?" Plato replies: we must live this life and concern ourselves with it but idealize it. Epicurus merely accepts it; and Zeno inculcates the not being interested in it, making of oneself a free force, an absolute power, emancipating oneself from life by contemning it. The doctrine of St. Paul, developed by S. Augustin, is to free oneself from this life, to consider it as Plato did, contrary to the original nature of man, but to find the Savior in the Incarnate Word, the Wisdom of God in God.

The Means, indicated by these different philosophers, are conformable to the different aims they assign.

What says, "Love—seeking God in thy love." Epicurus: "Love thyself," Zeno: "Deny thyself." Paul: "Love only God."

Love is the means equally indicated by Platonism, Epicureanism, Christianity. The Stoics perish from having no object; the Christian turn away from man to love God. If one loves neither the world nor its creatures, it is necessary to love God and this is what Christianity has done; while Stoicism disappears from being no object of love. Stoicism, true at its commencement, soon became an error. Its principle, that we should aspire to be a free force, is true; but the pretension, that we should be a force entirely free, destroys instantly all the goodness of its principle. Its fundamental error is in having exaggerated the effort we should make; so that believing nothing done as long as we have not arrived at a complete emancipation, we thereby destroy all tie with life and the a world. To be a Stoic and to take a real interest in the world was an inconsistency. Some great men doubtless committed this happy inconsistency and having by force made of themselves Gods, they regarded this holy Spirit, which they believed to be in them, as a kind of favoring Providence, whose duty it was to watch over the human race. But this was an inconsequence that the theorists of the sect never committed. This doctrine taught nothing as the end of love; therefore it had no solution of life. Why be a Free Force a will, a God? Is it to act on the world. But in order to be that Free Force one must detach e himself entirely from the World. Therefore why live? why should the world continue to exist? Thus Stoicism taught disdain of Society, contempt of life, suicide and the end of the world.

Epicureanism is ordinarily represented as the doctrine of pleasure; nothing is more false as far as it regards the teaching of Epicurus. His true doctrine was on the contrary very sad. One should seek contentment, it is true, but of an altogether negative kind. The aim was merely not to be unhappy, to avoid agitation, cares, inquietudes, all occasions of suffering. Conceal thy life was the proverb of the Epicureans. Their maxim was not to intermeddle in public affairs. Sensual luxury was considered as a necessity; but far from maintaining that voluptuousness was in itself a good, the wise man strove only to diminish this necessity, to live more and more in repose, out of the reach both of the passions and of the world.

The sovereign good of Epicurus consisted in a calm with a certain sort of contentment, founded on the consciousness of not suffering and of having escaped numberless perils. This quietude is altogether negative; so that Epicureanism has never been able to remain in it: and this is so true that what is commonly understood by this word is rather the doctrine of the Cyrenian school than that of Epicurus. Deprived of all ideal, one is insensibly habituated to regard sensuality as a good and not as a cure of ill; it is sought rather than waited for. Such a tendency is inevitable. The profound cause of this is, that our life is a continual aspiration, and without some firm resting place we cannot resist the force that draws us on. Epicureanism necessarily results in a narrow egotism or in sensualism; the maxim of Epicurus "Love-thy-self" is transformed either into egotistic prudence, full of void and weariness, or into irregulated earthly loves.

To Platonism is opened equally two different routes "Love God," said Plato, "love the Beautiful, love the Celestial Goodness from which thou hast sprung and whither thou returnest." If thou lovest not this end, in vain wilt thou seek thy happiness in created things; thou wilt find no sustenance for thy, soul for thy soul can be nourished only on the beautiful. One may understand this precept in two ways. One may, as Plato positively indicates, seek the beautiful, through the world, by the means of the world, in the world; extract it thence and return it thither again: or considering only the object God, the Infinite Beauty, one may fancy oneself capable of being put in immediate relation with that object independently of the world, and so call out with passionate appeal for every thing to disappear before it. This last has Christianity done.

The maxim of Plato was "Strive to become like to God as much as is in thy power." The Christians cut off this restrictive condition which preserves nature and life. Like the Stoics they have desired a prompt; rapid, instantaneous salvation.

They have said to the world as the sage of Seneca: " Non placet; Liceat eo reverti, unde venio." In this consists the separation of Christianity from Platonism. Plato has two means to remount to God, reason and love: the Christians recognize only Grace; this is the doctrine of St. Paul and St. Augustin, and the true doctrine of Christianity, whatever efforts may have been made to preserve the principle of free Reason.

Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, Paul, Augustine, are the successive terms of the development of the question of Happiness; Socrates begun in the west the philosophic antiquity that Augustine terminated, by opening the religion of the Middle Ages. It is a continuous argument. This sublime dialogue lasted ten centuries, and yet it might be formulated in a few words:

Socrates. Let the sophists be silent. Let the learned cease to puff themselves with pride and heap up foolish hypotheses to explain the world. Let the artists know that art without aim is a puerility and a poison. The sole knowledge worthy of man, which gives to Science and Art a true distinction, is the knowledge of "the good" and "the best," and this is acquired only by study of ourselves; know thyself therefore.

Plato. From the study of ourselves we learn that man is a force originally free, not actually united to Tatter which appears coeternal with God. We tend to return to our source by the natural effect of life, which is an aspiration, a continual and endless love; we can return thither only by attaching ourselves to the perceptible rays of Divine Beauty. It is therefore towards God that Science, Art and all Life should aim. O! Greeks, you are children. I have traveled among those who have given you all the knowledge you possess, and this is what those masters have taught me.

Zeno. If man is originally a free force, why not emancipate himself at once? Why not recover his true nature by separating himself rationally from the world?

Epicurus. You are dreamers. I am the first of sages. Are you not all under the yoke of Nature which has created you in one of its infinite combinations? All wisdom consists in obeying Nature's inevitable prescriptions, shielding oneself from its blows as one does from a fierce animal that one wishes to use.

St. Paul. I am at once free and bound. I am carnal, sold to sin. I do not the good I love, but the evil I hate. Who shall deliver me g The Grace of God through Jesus Christ.

Pelagius. At least we are free in something; if we tend to God, it is in virtue of an inherent force, by our own liberty and merit.

St. Augustine. No. Sin has reft us of all. The love which saves us is not of us; there is in us no trace, no vestige of it; God gives it when and as he pleases. We are free in nothing. O my God! Thou commandest that I love thee; give me what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.

The advantage resulting from Epicureanism is the perfecting of the material life. By sanctifying the care of the material life, Epicureanism has been the indirect cause of those numerous capabilities of perfection that human intelligence has found in the properties of matter.

If the life that we hold in common with animals had not met a reasonable justification, human intelligence would have been still farther precipitated into that purely contemplative route into which Christianity plunged with so much ardor. It is evident, that all the sciences of experiment, which consist in discovering the will of Nature in order to turn away evil effects and to accumulate good, have fundamentally a certain affinity with Epicureanism; so they have always sought in it the justification of their efforts. And let it not be said that men would have made these discoveries without this philosophy; from the sole fact that they are useful. If there were no doctrine which presented utility under a moral aspect, humanity would utterly have condemned it: for the law of humanity is to be moral.

A sublime effort towards liberty, Stoicism has given birth the benefits of another order. With Epicurus the work is to avoid evils by obeying Nature as an intelligent slave; with Zeno it is necessary to be free. Twenty centuries have rolled away; and now let us ask if the evolutions of the world have not wrought a growth of liberty in our natural and social conception, and if this aspiration to be free,—source of Stoicism—has not had its realization. Man has enfranchised himself from man and Nature. He will free himself more and more. Man will become more and more the equal of man, and nature will become obedient to him. We are to-day almost as powerful over Nature as the Jupiter of the Greek Olympus; and the time approaches, in which Epictetus can no longer be another's slave.

But of these various solutions, that which has had the greatest influence on the World is incontestibly the idealism of Plato. This was truly the spark of life that animated the West. Like the statue of Pygmalion, which is marble until the moment of contact with divine love, the West remained without moral light until the revelation of Plato. It is Plato; so long surnamed the Divine, happy interpreter of the anterior philosophy, who first caused to descend upon us the fire by which we live.

When he taught that the distinction of men consisted in the satisfaction of an innate need of beauty and goodness, human morality awoke to self-consciousness. Then truly for the first time Western man turned his face towards heaven. For the revelation of this attraction towards the beautiful was the revelation of what is called Heaven.

The sciences were for Plato the incomplete but accessible realization of the human ideal. The known sciences received a new impulse from Idealism; those almost unknown sprung to life. In the bosom of Plato was found Aristotle, as strongly attracted towards virtue as his master. Aristotle produced Alexander, that missionary of philosophy, so penetrated with the ideal that the earth could neither satisfy or contain him. Alexander transported Greece into Egypt, to its cradle. Then from Alexandria the flame spread to Rome, and the Romans begun to ask towards what star humanity was marching.

Idealism, realized anthropomorphically by the Jews, produced Christianity. Then the whole West became directed with so much earnestness towards the Ideal, that not only was the material life despised, but man fancied himself able to unite himself, without the mediation of this life, to the Divine Beauty. Thence Monkery and the Christianity of the Middle Ages; thence the Anthonys, Basils, and Benedicts, those sublime practicians of Platonism interpreted by Paul, Athanasius and Augustine; thence two orders, two worlds.

When St. Thomas in the thirteenth century explained St. Paul by saying, that it was sufficient to have God virtually for own object in our love for his creatures, the ascendant period of idealistic Stoicism was terminated. Then revive the Sciences with the study of Aristotle, the Arts with the Crusades; and ancient Platonism is set forth anew in Italy as a rival of Christianity. There is a passing out from the phase absolute Christianity, which would have God alone for object; and while this doctrine is always admitted, another route to it is followed. Man reverences the Ideal, but still does not reject the Earth. He has Religion, but admits Science. He has the Gospel and the Fathers, and introduces the doctrines of the Peripatetics. He has hope of Paradise, and meanwhile painting seeks to realize on earth divine forms. He still believes in the celestial Jerusalem, when Leo X. raises his temples and his palaces towards the heavens. It was at this epoch that the doctrine of the Ideal largely produced its fruits.

Science and Art had received the illumination of baptism and Plato embraces the whole modern world by two universal ties; love and art. What artists have come forth from Idealism! If Lucretius and Horace are the sons of Epicurus, how much more numerous is the posterity of Plato! In his Divine Comedy, Dante relates that it was Virgil who was his guide to Heaven. In reality Virgil is a reflection of Plato, and a reflection which announces Christianity. From Virgil to us what tolerably sublime monument of art is there that is not imprinted with Idealism.

The alliance of Stoicism and Platonism in Christianity, that is, a supreme contempt of earth united to a love of the ideal, was absolutely necessary, in order to effect the emancipation of Women and Slaves, and to civilize the Barbarians. It is by elevation to absolute purity, absolute isolation from humanity, through renunciation of the world, celibacy and convents, that the human type was first perfected.

But this consideration must not make us forget that Epicureanism has been the counterpoise to the excess of Platonic Stoicism. It has said to the proud Idealism that menaced to destroy the terrestrial basis of existence. Thou shall go no farther. It has sanctified that kind of devotion to the natural laws which has been the source of so many discoveries, and whence has resulted the industrial power.

Already, it is the alliance of this power over nature with the social sentiments sprung from Platonism, which has caused the result that we now see thirty millions of men living in a kind of Equality, while ancient nations know only the condition of Castes.

K.

Pierre Leroux, Necessity of Evil, pt. 1

Pierre Leroux, "Necessity of Evil" [part 1 of 2], The Spirit of the Age, I, 18 (November 3, 1849), 273-5.

Translated for The Spirit of the Age,

NECESSITY OF EVIL.

FROM PIERRE LEROUX'S L'HUMANITE.

WE exist only in relation with the exterior world, or with internal ideas which have their source in our previous relation with this world. If this relation is agreeable we call it pleasure, but this is a transient thing. Happiness is such a state that we should demand its duration without change. Now if the exterior world were unchangeable, immutable, there would be no reason nor possibility of our intervening or acting upon it; and if in changing it should excite only pleasure, or if the ideas and passions awakened by this exterior relation wore immutable, or pleasant only, all this would preclude any wish to interfere with these relations, they would awake no desire, consequently no activity, no personality, and the result of this immutability would be not life but death, not happiness but annihilation.

If, as a celebrated myth says, man had his beginning in happiness, he existed only as an appendix to his creator; he lived in the bosom of God, innocent but unconscious. In passing from this state he has not fallen, but has exchanged happiness for virtue, unconscious innocence for activity, for personality, that is for true life.

Evil is then necessary to awaken desire and consequently activity and personality, that is, it is the very condition of actual life; its need ceases as soon as the force within us is sufficiently vital to act in the perfecting of life and the world, without being pricked into action by its sting.

Under the myth of the three places, Eden, Earth, Paradise, lies the fact of an unconscious inactive life, then a life active through suffering, thence to a life active without suffering; but the placing of the first and last of these states in a chimerical Eden and Paradise has caused the middle term Earth to fail of being appreciated, and it has been so slandered by theologians that from time to time there have arisen up partisans in its behalf, defenders of earth from the charge of absolute evil laid upon it.

In fact, absolute evil is as impossible as absolute happiness. The same instability of things, which precludes the one, precludes also the other. Evil is transformed by time, by memory, by the development of contrary passions, even by the exhaustion of the power of suffering. But although there is in nature, apart from any religious ideas, a perpetual resource and remedy against suffering, yet the doctrine of compensation which teaches that the happiness of all is equal, and that a deficiency in one point is made up by a superfluity in another, and the reverse, is not true.

This point of view has arisen and should arise in the train of Protestantism, for Protestantism was already to a certain extent a return to nature. Next to Protestantism came the controversy of Boyle; then the religious Optimism of Leibnitz; then the Epicurean Optimism of which we speak.

The first point of this philosophy is that happiness is the law and rule of all beings.

The second that in the destiny of each, good and evil are mutually compensated.

The third that consequently all destinies share equally in good and evil: so says Voltaire.

As heaven about us wove our human life
It used a mingled thread of peace and strife;
Desire, distaste, calm reason, folly free,
Moments of pleasure, days of misery;
These wake up man, in these his essence lies,
His nature formed of blended contraries;
All equal weighed in God's impartial scale,
All taste the sweet and none the bitter fail.[1]

The conclusion of this system is immobility; for if all conditions are equal, if all have the same measure of good and evil, and if the sole law of our being is happiness as this system understands it, then it would be folly to wish to change the conditions of the world. As well fool as wise man; as well barbarous as civilized; and one may finally arrive at the conclusion, that the happiest of organized beings is the most simple—an oyster or a coral.

The principle of the system is absurd. Happiness, as it is understood, in the first axiom of Voltaire, is not the end of created beings. Creatures are not made to be happy, but to live and to become developed by advancing towards a certain type of perfection.

The lyric Pindar said "Life is the track of a chariot;" but it is of elapsed life, of dead life, he speaks. Living life is the, wheel in movement. The revolving, advancing wheel is never fixed; it is never between the points, yet it passes successively all points. So of life: we are never in an idea nor pleasure nor suffering; but we are ever coming out of one to pass into another.

Our life is the emersion from an anterior state and immersion into a future state. Therefore the only permanent condition of our being is aspiration.

The problem of Happiness is the foundation of philosophy and religion. What is good? the only question among the sects of Greece; it gave rise to the hundred and eighty sects enumerated by Varro which may be reduced essentially to three: that of Plato, Zeno and Epicurus. 1. Those satisfied with nature or if not satisfied, accepting it as a master from whom there is no appeal; (Epicurus). 2 Those discontented with nature and appealing from it to themselves; (Zeno). 3. Those who regard nature as an imperfect and transitory state, the faults of which it is possible to correct by conforming one's self to a certain ideal; (Plato).

Plato preceded the others by a century: a century before Plato, Democritus and Heraclitus represented the contrasted ideas of Zeno and Epicurus.

The principle of the school of Epicurus was the acceptance of nature as it is; of Zeno, the reprobation of nature and the complete substitution of a different life called virtue; Plato neither absolutely accepts or rejects nature, but imports into Greece the oriental ideas of the fall and redemption.

The philosophic partisans of nature in the eighteenth century, the Deism of Bolingbroke, Pope and Voltaire, the egotism of Rochefoucauld, the sensualism of Condillac, the well-understood interest of Helvetius, the atomic materialism of the French Savans, the utilitarianism of Bentham are all comprised in Epicuns. This great man appears in history among the greatest of sages. By a curious symbol of his destiny he was called in his childhood a hunter of spectres, because ho went with his poor mother from house to house making lustrations in order to put to flight evil spirits. He has ever been and will be the hunter of Spectres, he who saves from superstition. It is useful and necessary to bring men back to a view of a earth. What distinguishes Epicurus from his followers is the sanctity with which he did this work, instaurating a contentment with the earth in a manner altogether religious. Among all the ancient sects Epicurianism endured the longest; it flourished around the author in his garden and still subsisted six hundred years late; when Christianity carried all before it. It flourished at the fail of Paganism as it was re-born at the fall of Christianity; and thereby is shown the necessity humanity is under, of destroying through doubt the old religions, which obstruct its path; thus its reign at certain epochs is good and necessary When religions fall into decay, man is forced to accept the present life as it is; the sage seeks to pass it away with the least possible torment; the fool wastes and devours it. Then come those epochs so marked in history of double-refined passions, of unbridled pleasures and profound melancholy, of incredulity and superstition. Then also comes Epicurus, under this or some other name, calming the insatiable desire of happiness with which men are enfevered, and saving them as far as possible from false voluptuousness itself. This doctrine is a retreat for humanity, preventing a complete overthrow. Yet humanity having rallied and under this shelter re-taken confidence in itself, it soon perceives that its fate is not to fly, not to take refuge in anything; but to march onward to now conflicts. Epicurianism, at all times an influence useful in some respects; has at certain epochs an office of incontestable legitimacy.

This system, which has for its principle the acceptance of and satisfaction with nature, can only be comprehended and adopted by the favored few; the slave Epictetus needs a Zeno: Thence arises a sect which reproves and rejects nature. The nature of man, according to the Stoics, consists only in his liberty. He is free only in attaching himself to nothing which is not completely in his power. The participation of the Stoic in life consists only in voluntarily obeying destiny, that is in voluntarily doing the part destiny bestows, but without being interested in it; for in being interested he ceases to be free. The morality of the Stoics was to despise life by taking refuge in one's self; to leave to destiny the responsibility of its work; not to temper the passions but to uproot them; to make of one's self a free intelligence, a liberty. Such was their disdain of life that they were desirous to demonstrate that the human soul is perishable; and such their disgust of the world, that their system gave to the sage the right of taking away his own life this right being the natural result of his liberty and the need of his virtue.

Plato, as it has been said, neither absolutely accepted or rejected nature. His works are a mingling of Socratic inspirations and Oriental solutions. The double character, of a Greek who had conversed eight years with Socrates and then, long a disciple of the Pythagoreans and the priests of Egypt, is seen in his works. With Socrates all investigation turned upon the question of morality and happiness; Plato accepts this direction, but solves the problem with a Theology drawn from the Egyptians and the Pythagoreans of Magna Graecia, themselves a branch of eastern philosophy. Plato, following Socrates; says that the object of all study is to find The Good; and the mode to this is the study of man, self-knowledge; but instead of adhering to this mode, he solves the question of "the good" and "the best'' by some ancient religious solution—no longer a Socratic Greek but a priest of Memphis. The soul, according to Plato, is a self-active force, but fallen and united to matter; it lives in a kind of imprisonment and exile; so that man is composed of two different principles: 1st, the rational; 2nd, the animal. The former has power to return to the blessedness of spirits. How is this return possible? By renewing its knowledge of Ideas, the eternal types and models of things.

These Ideas exist in God and traverse the world, for God has made the world on the model of Ideas. How can the soul gain knowledge of Ideas, disembarrass itself of Nature and so rise to God?

Through love. Love of the supreme Beauty; great in proportion as the soul is pure; adoration of this Beauty produces virtue.

Happiness consists not in the relation we have to terrestrial objects; but in our relation to the supreme Beauty which is concealed behind these objects as behind a veil. These Ideas; archetypes of things exist, in God; he is therefore the Supreme Good, and man's happiness consists in being as like to him as possible; thus the two guides to God, or good, are reason and love.

Let what Plato calls love be named Grace; explain moreover the real and objective existence of Ideas, the mysterious tie between God and the world j realize completely this Word, this Wisdom, which Plato distinguishes in God, the creative thought of God in potentia, as the Ideas are his creative thought already effectuated; find for this Word a man in which to incarnate it; make for him a history, a tradition; and all the links of the mysterious chain that unites man to God are illuminated and lo!—Christianity.

Plato applies his doctrine not to the rejection of but to the perfecting of human life; he also held the Pythagorean opinions of metempsychosis and successive existences and so was saved from the total rejection of nature and life, into which the Stoics and Christians fell. Our being, according to him is an aspiration to reach the Sovereign Good, but this can be reached only through the world; not immediately but progressively by uniting one's self with all the finite manifestations of good Science; art; polity, draw their reason of being from the Idea of the Sovereign Good, which is their aim.

Platonism, Stoicism; Epicureanism; the three solutions of the question proposed by Socrates; being largely developed; the work of Greece was accomplished and then Christianity appeared, a mingling of Platonism and Stoicism; its theology Platonic, its morality Stoic. Like the Stoics the Christians rejected the world, but the former took refuge in man; the latter, realizing the Word of Plato bowed to the divine Word, and substituted grace or divine action for human virtue; the Stoics abolished nature and substituted virtue or human force, the Christians abolished both nature and man and substituted divine action or grace. The protest of nature and man against this sacrifice appears in the revival of the Epicureanism or modern Deism.

---

[1] Discourse in verse.

Van Ornum, Why Government at All? - Part III, Chapter 3

[208]

CHAPTER III.

GOVERNMENT—ITS FUNCTIONS.

Having found the real origin, nature, basis, tendencies and limitations of government, we must also consider its ostensible functions in order to remove any lingering respect or regard which may still be entertained for it by those who have not become fully awakened to the hollowness of its pretensions. We must see if in fact it does bring any of the benefits which are usually ascribed to its workings.

The ostensible functions of government may be briefly summed up as, “the preservation of the security of its citizens.” If it protects against a foreign foe, it is the preservation of security. If it maintains internal order, quells disturbance, settles disputes, punishes or prevents crime, enforces contracts, collects debts, preserves records, and promotes morals and education, it is because the doing of these things is supposed to add to the security of the citizens in their persons and property, and to make sure that each really gets his due,—in other words, secures justice. The only excuse which can be urged for the state’ s meddling in the private affairs of the people is, that it seeks to, and does, accomplish this very object. If we find that this object is not attained in any case; but, on the other hand, in all cases security is violated,—justice is defeated, we shall be forced to the conclusion that law or government is always an usurpation, and an injustice; and that the only way to preserve security, and promote justice, is to destroy the law,—abolish government.

There is another important respect wherein certain people are coming to ascribe great virtues to [209] government, which is, the performance of undertakings in which it is assumed that government can perform a service for the people more efficiently than people can do it for themselves, such as the building and maintenance of certain kinds of highways, of providing means for conveying intelligence, supplying gas, water, etc. The chief advantage urged is that as far as already undertaken it does, and an extension of the principle probably would, bring a greater degree of security to each individual in the enjoyment of his fair share of the benefits to be derived from these several public enterprises. So that even these are no exception; and the preservation of security is the one sole ostensible function of government.

I say ostensible, because, we have already found that the real purpose of government is to promote the advantage of those who govern. We have found that human nature being what it is, where some men control the actions of other men they will always control them to their own advantage. The real object for exercising such a control can never be other than to reap that advantage. But if those who govern were frank enough to avow their purpose it would put an end to their governing in short order. Therefore the ostensible functions of government must always be different from the real ones. Having considered the real functions of government in the preceding pages, we now turn to the ostensible ones, which we find to be the preservation in various ways of the security of its citizens.

One of the first and most important of these, is the defense against foreign enemies. Through the action of the governing corporation war is made, or peace is declared; and measures are adopted for the invasion of the territory of others, or the defense of its own. Surely here, if anywhere, a governing corporation is needed. But we shall find that here [210] again government is so far unnecessary that instead of promoting the public defense, and preserving security, it has precisely the contrary effect. It is constantly embroiling the people in foreign complications, arousing sectional, or national jealousies, inspiring hatreds, and fomenting strife. It is a constant source of irritation between peoples who not only have nothing to gain by strife, but who have everything to gain by peace and fraternity. In the absence of rulers, with their jealousies, rivalries, ambitions, and intrigues, I am unable to conceive of a cause of war arising between two countries. People of one country would gladly trade freely with the people of—other countries, and would no more think of making war upon them, than a merchant would think of making war upon his customers. Each must be the customer of the other, and each be equally benefited by the commercial intercourse between them. The prosperity of each would enhance the prosperity of the others. Boundary lines would be abolished, because the necessity for them grows out of the dominion of governments; and with the abolition of governments,—rulers, the need for them would disappear.

The action of governments in embroiling their people in foreign wars, and thus bringing upon them the very evils from which they pretend to protect them, is well illustrated in the case of France and Germany. The last war was notoriously a quarrel between the crowned heads carried on by their representatives, which culminated in an angry scene between the French envoy and Bismarck, in which neither the French or German people had the remotest real concern. But immediately, without consulting the people who must do the fighting, the vast armies of each were set in motion for a hostile attack upon the other. The sentiments of patriotism on either side were cunningly played upon by the rulers; immense enthusiasm was aroused [211] until the people went wild with excitement. Instead of setting the precious rascals who started the quarrel to fighting it out between them, the people, who never quarreled, or had any cause to quarrel, were set to cutting each other’s throats, or murdering each other in other ways, while the originators took good care to keep out of harm’s way. Mourning and desolation was brought home to every hearthstone in both France and Germany; the richest portions of France were given up to destruction; she was stripped of two of her fairest provinces; and Paris itself succumbed to the invader. At last, as a condition of peace, France was compelled to pay to Germany an indemnity of two hundred millions of pounds sterling: about one thousand millions of dollars. Did the German people who did the fighting get any of this indemnity? Not a dollar. It all went to enhance the glory, splendor, and power of the despotic rulers of Germany who had been parties to the original quarrel.

This war kindled the angry passions of the two peoples to a dangerous degree, and those passions have never been allowed to subside since. They are ready to break out afresh whenever the rulers on either side shall take it into their heads to renew the quarrel. That France has since changed to a republic makes not a whit of difference. Those republican rulers are just as ready to plunge their country into another war with Germany as ever Louis Napoleon was. The fire of hatred and revenge has been so steadily and cunningly fanned on both sides that whenever it suits the convenience of those rulers to quarrel again they are morally certain of getting the support of the poor dupes upon whom must fall the whole scourge of war, and who have everything to lose and nothing to gain by fighting. The danger, and the only danger to the security of the citizens, in any country in Europe to day, is from their so-called defenders,—their governments. [212]

But the Franco-Prussian war was in no way different from every other war between the two countries. Their early wars were simply quarrels between the French monarchs and the princes of the house of Hapsburg, in jealousy of the latter's ambition for universal dominion. Afterward, when religious dissensions broke out in Germany, and Germany had become weakened by them, Richelieu, and afterward Louis XIV, deemed it a favorable time, while so weakened, to plunder her. But they were called in by some of the contending factions among the German princes themselves (Germany’s protectors) who were intriguing for power in the empire. Throughout, not only the whole history of the struggles between the French and Germans, but that of all the wars that have ever cursed the world, they have been due solely to government in some form or other. In all cases it is the jealousies, ambitions, and intrigues of the rulers which have brought upon the people the curse of war, and the horrors of invasion.

Yet Lord Salisbury says: “The real danger of European wars lies not in the intrigues and rivalries of monarchs and statesmen, but in the deep feelings of great nations.” But who is it who play upon those feelings, provoke the arrogance, ignorant prejudices, and foment the hatreds of those people? It is precisely those monarchs and statesmen; and when they can no longer be held in check, they put on innocent airs, and cry:

“Thou canst not say I did it: never shake

Thy gory locks at me.”

If any one thinks that all governments are not essentially organized robbers, and that the best of them are not as bad as the worst, in that respect, we will take the government of England under the ministry of that professed liberal, Mr. William E. Gladstone. Some of the English monopolists,— favorites of the governing corporation in England, [213] had entered into a conspiracy with the Khedive of Egypt to impose new burdens upon the people of Egypt; that is, to intensify the already grievous slavery of the people by an increase of the bonded debt. They advanced money to the Khedive, at enormous and usurious rates of interest, to squander in extravagant expenditures for his own aggrandizement, he binding himself to repay those advances out of increased robberies of the people in taxes. After the bonds had been issued, and the people placed under tribute to their foreign slave-masters, the bond-holders, for the payment of debts which they had had no hand in contracting, and for money from which they had never received any benefit, those masters became suspicious that the Khedive would not, or could not, carry out his part of the agreement; and so they appealed to Mr. Gladstone for assistance. They demanded such a share in the administration of the internal affairs of Egypt as would enable them to make sure of their plunder.

Did Mr. Gladstone rebuke their rascalities, and refuse their demands? By no means. Were they not the special favorites,—the beneficiaries of the laws which he had undertaken to execute? Were they not large shareholders in the governing corporation over which he presided? On the contrary, he fitted out a naval and military expedition against Egypt; bombarded the city of Alexandria; murdered innocent and unoffending citizens; seized upon the administration of affairs; and enforced the demands of the bond-holders; a practice and policy which has been continued through subsequent administrations.

All this was done, so far as the world knows to the contrary, without one word of protest from this man who is held up to the admiration of the world as a “liberal”(!) ruler. This course was also adopted notwithstanding it was liable to, and almost did embroil his own country, that country the people of [214] which it was his ostensible business to protect in their security, in a foreign war the outcome of which no man could foresee. But there are attending results which accompany all wars, which Mr. Gladstone could foresee, and which he could not possibly be ignorant of. Those were that in case of the threatened European war, involving two, and possible four of the great powers of Europe in addition to his own, vast numbers of the people in all those countries, and those too who had no interest in Egyptian Bonds, and therefore no interest whatever in the quarrel, would be set to slaughtering each other; and those who were not so engaged in mutual slaughter would be called upon to pay the cost of the slaughter, although they could not possibly be benefited by it whatever the result. I say Mr. Gladstone knew all this, and yet, at the risk of all the misery and desolation his course was liable to bring upon the people of his own country and others, he did not hesitate to pounce upon a weak and practically defenseless people, bombard their chief city, and destroy lives and property of innocent persons in order to support the pretensions of a lot of men whose only purpose was to plunder the people of Egypt through a grinding bondage of debt dishonestly imposed upon them.

No! A liberal government is a humbug. The English government is precisely the same whether administered by a D’ Israeli, a Gladstone, or a Lord Salisbury. The government is the lineal descendant of the ancient robbers and pirates; and it has not abated one iota of its robberies and piracies. On the other hand they are carried on, on a grander scale, though with more refined methods, than ever before.

Our civil war between the states differed in no respect from a foreign war, in the causes which led to it, the characteristics attending it, or in its results. One class of politicians endeavored to take [215] advantage of the popular prejudice which had been aroused against another class of politicians, who desired to extend the territory over which they could exercise a peculiar monopoly which they enjoyed. These monopolists had been closely watching the growth of the popular sentiment against them, and knew that sooner or later they would have to meet the issue in some form. Believing themselves stronger than they really were, they deliberately broke up the democratic party, ensuring the election of a republican president; and then made the danger to their privilege the pretext for withdrawing from the union. The other politicians undertook to coerce them back again. First and last it was purely a quarrel between the politicians, on sectional lines, in which the people had not the slightest interest. The questions involved had nothing whatever to do with the abolition of slavery. The abolitionists, who had aroused all the popular antipathy to slavery, took no hand in the quarrel at its inception. The idea was distinctly and emphatically disclaimed that the war was waged for the abolition of slavery, or in fact, for anything else but to coerce the southerners back again into the union. That the abolitionists were afterward drawn into it, and finally made common cause with the north, was because they foresaw that sooner or later the exigencies of war would lead to the abolition of slavery.

After the war was started it was characterized on both sides with the same vandalism, the same disregard for the rights of the common people, the same oppressive burdens of taxation, the same favoritism, the same jobbery, the same corruption in public office, the same brutality among the people resulting from familiarity with scenes of blood, and the same advantages to the original parties to the quarrel.

And its results have been exactly what might have [216] been expected of a foreign war. Hatreds have been intensified; the spirit of patriotism, which is only a spirit of blind subservience to political rulers, has been fostered; the slavery of bonded debt has been increased enormously, and the whole country placed under its yoke; offices have been multiplied; taxes imposed; monopolies established; the rich have been made rich beyond their wildest anticipations; while the poor have been reduced to a condition of abject and desperate dependence and poverty.

The essential thing is that, like all other wars, it was a politicians’ war for the benefit of politicians and monopolists, but in which the people on both sides who were neither politicians nor monopolists were the sufferers. But the meanest thing of all is that more than twenty-five years afterward those same people should be taxed more than one hundred millions of dollars annually to buy votes for the party in power, under the pretext of pensions to disabled soldiers. Here again, instead of maintaining the security of the persons and property of the citizens, it was, and continues to be, a violation of that security.

Watch the performances of the politicians,—statesmen, they call themselves, who are persistently trying to embroil us in quarrels with our neighbors. We are treated to a fisheries dispute with England and Canada; which, for a time, serves its purpose in winning political support for the party, especially from the Irish, whose animosities are already strong against an old enemy. Then we have a Behring Sea question to enforce the exclusive privileges of a pet corporation to kill seals; and again an acrimonious quarrel with the politicians of Chile, over a drunken spree while on shore of a lot of sailors from an United States man-of-war. In each case the prejudices, passions, and vanities of the people are played upon through the press to see [217] how far they can be aroused to sustain still more aggressive acts on the part of their politicians. If they can only hoodwink the people into the belief that their honor is at stake, and that they ought to fight, then the politicians can reasonably count upon a continuance in power. Just to the extent that a political party which is already in power becomes discredited at home, and its supremacy is threatened, will it endeavor to foment disturbances abroad, in order to regain the support which it has forfeited. The exigencies of politics in a republic, exactly as in a monarchy, lead politicians to plunge a country into foreign wars to bolster up their own declining hold upon the people. It is a trick which has been played time without number, and will continue to be played until the people become intelligent enough to dispense with the whole political humbug of governing. They will continue to be exposed to this danger to their security, from those who profess to protect that security, just as long as they worship the fetish of government.

[Since writing the above, the truth of these deductions has received a most vivid and unexpected illustration in the unseemly anxiety of the President of the United States to dragoon this country into making war upon Chile, on account of that same drunken spree of the sailors. But the sensational developments which placed him in such an unsavory light were not different from what would be liable to any other politician under similar circumstances. Both he and his party need a foreign war to bolster up their declining hold upon the people. That is what wars are for.]

Talk about maintaining the honor of a people! What is that honor? How can a slight, or even a studied insult, to an officer, or representative of a government, reflect discredit upon a people over whom the government assumes to reign? What have the people to do with the honor of their rulers? [218] Just this, and no more; that is, the interest the slave has in the honor of his master. The spectacle of a people fighting for the honor of their rulers is precisely like that of slaves fighting for the honor of their respective masters. That slave is entitled to the greatest respect, the greatest honor, who has become sufficiently imbued with the spirit of liberty to let his master look out for his own honor; one who has learned that the honor of the master is the disgrace of the slave. Just to the extent to which a government is discredited, brought into contempt, disgraced, is that government weakened, and the people strengthened.

Of course, when one government is dealing with another, it must maintain what it terms its honor. And if it can convince that other that its own people are so devoted as to fight for its honor, it is able to command respect according to the fighting strength of that people. But if it cannot convince the other that it enjoys that support, it is held in contempt. That is why it is vital to all governments to maintain their dignity, and enforce respect. From this comes all the flummery of court etiquette, salutes, apologies for insults, “honor to the flag,” etc. It is from this same necessity that we have judicial punishments for “contempt of court,” and for ‘resistance to officers.” When the slaves are most respectful to their masters, most ready to fight for their honor, and most obedient and submissive, they are manifestly the most valuable as slaves. These are qualities that are just as desirable to the rulers in their citizens, as to the masters in their slaves; but they are wholly in. consistent in freemen. Self-reliance, independence, and insubordination are the qualities of freemen; but they utterly destroy the value of slaves.

Look at it in any aspect we may, instead of being a protection, government is always the exciting cause of war, of insecurity, and of spoliation. It [219] invites the very disasters it pretends to ward off. It has precisely the same effect in the intercourse of nations, and peoples, that the law does in the intercourse of individuals. It builds walls of separation between them. It prevents intercourse, hinders association, cripples commerce, and retards civilization.

Some one will ask me how a people who has discarded any organized government can resist invasion from neighbors who still maintain such an organization. Would it not be at the mercy of the first piratical government which chose to take possession? I say, no. The discovery of gunpowder rendered possible, and actually did destroy, in form at least, the institution known as the feudal system. Until then, mailed knights rode the country at will, and plundered whom they would. The people had no adequate means of resistance. They were practically powerless. But after the advent of gunpowder, coats of mail were no protection against powder and ball. I presume those who used this new agent were roundly denounced as resorting to

uncivilized warfare. But who ever heard of civilized warfare? There is none. War is essentially uncivilized, and barbaric. It can never be justified on any ground but that of defense. And where violent defense is necessary at all, it is proper to use a sufficient degree of violence to make the defense effective. Science has recently placed in the hands of the people new agencies against which the old methods are as ineffectual as the knight’s armour was against gun-powder. No invading army can possibly make head against them. It would be annihilated. Nor would it require any government organization to make use of them; or any other organization to speak of. A few intelligent, resolute men can utterly destroy any army of invasion; and that too without levying a tax, or creating a bonded debt.

Van Ornum, Why Government at All? - Part III, Chapter 2

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CHAPTER II.

GOVERNMENT—ITS NATURE, ORIGIN AND TENDENCIES.

I have said that government is a corporation. Let us see! When a state, city, county, or township is organized, a corporation is formed, according to certain prescribed rules. It is not only a corporation in theory but in name. The popular theory is that each citizen owns a single share of stock in that corporation, which is represented by his one vote. As in every other corporation the majority must rule. Still, if the popular theory only held good, and each stock holder actually expressed his own unbiased will by his vote, and was intelligent enough to have and to express an intelligent will, there would be little cause for complaint. It would then only be a condition where manifestly no governing corporation would be needed. But aside from all this, and admitting for the present a necessity for such a corporation, it is plain even to the dullest that all do not possess that degree of intelligence. Not that they are lacking in the power of its development, but in the condition. Knowledge is a plant which only grows under favoring conditions. And where a large part of the people are desperately poor, they remain ignorant and brutal for want of the conditions which develop knowledge; and they are easily swayed by the rich and crafty. We have also seen that the laws enacting special rights of property still further increase the power and influence of the possessors of property, while they correspondingly decrease the power and influence of those who have none, or little; so that the power of the rich is still further increased. Every special privilege, or franchise, [192] granted by law but augments that power on one side, and diminishes it on the other. Then, given a class whose interest it is to control the poor and ignorant, and with another class so poor and ignorant a to be willing to be controlled, it is utterly impossible that the rich and crafty should not be able to command a majority, and become masters of that corporation; and that they should not use that mastery to freeze out the smaller stock-holders. It would be impossible to trace all the ways in which this process of freezing out the smaller stockholders is carried on. To undertake it would transcend the limits set to this work. I will only note a few of them, and leave my readers to supply others. It can be done by any one who will use ordinary observation and thought.

To begin with, if unnatural rights of property are established, it requires unnatural means to enforce them. If the land is to be monopolized by a few and others are to be compelled to pay for the privilege of using it, that few must have at its command a sufficient power to compel respect for their claims. If men are to be prevented from freely exchanging the product of their labor with whomsoever they will without paying toll to these modern pirates, it necessitates heavy expenditures to carry it out. If they are to be obliged to contribute annually to support a horde of useless bondholders, it takes money to do it. If all the multitude of monopolies,—forms of slavery, are to be made effective, the people kept in subjection, and forced to give up to them, it involves enormous expenditures for public building and works, courts, great and small, and court officers, records, police, militia, armies, navies, tax gatherers, and office holders generally. These are the agencies by which the mass of men are held in slavery. By preventing them from going directly to the land,—the heritage and birth-right of all,—and producing freely the wealth necessary to place [193] them in comfort, they prevent the acquisition of knowledge, with the attendant growth of individual character. Even after men have produced wealth, under all the disadvantages to which they are subjected, the various forms of monopoly, through interest, rents, taxes, and increase of prices, constantly filch it away from them. Even if taxes are levied for the support of this corporation upon the property of citizens, the grossest favoritism is always shown in favor of the rich as against the poor. In the very nature of the case it is utterly impossible to devise a tax which will work with equal justice to all. Taxes, if levied upon any basis of valuation, can take no account of the intentions of the owner of the property, therefore they must fall in- differently upon property whether in the hands of the consumer or not. But taxes upon goods in the hands of other than the consumer, are simply added to their cost, and are shifted until finally paid by the consumer.

Our single-tax friends think they have found a simple process of reaching an equal and just system of taxation. By levying the tax upon the land values, it is assumed that they cannot be shifted, but I have already shown in Part I that this is a mistake,—that the single-tax can, and must be shifted precisely as every other tax is shifted. Taxation in every form is essentially a robbery, and always falls upon the weak, while its benefits accrue to the strong. Thus, with the crafty rich in control of the governing corporation, and necessarily manipulating it in their own interests, society must present on one side the ignorant poor, and on the other the haughty and overbearing rich. The more abject the poverty, the more do the poor reverence the power of wealth; and the greater the wealth of the rich, the more arrogant and domineering they become, and the more willingly the poor entrust their most important interests to their keeping, which is only [194] to say, that the more intense the degree of slavery the more slavish become the objects of that slavery, and the more arrogant become the masters. So that the poor, no matter what may be their relative numbers, can no more shape the policy of the ad ministration of the government than they can originate the solar system. A few party leaders determine the programme, or policy, and in one or two speeches fix what shall be said or written, while they in turn receive their inspiration from the great interests which stand back of all politicians; and the small fry follow in their wake. This is the way platforms are made, policies established and laws initiated. Bagehot says, that “all important laws affect large vested interests; they touch great sources of political strength; and these great interests require to be treated as delicately, and with as nice a manipulation of language, as the feelings of any foreign country in making treaties.”

This is the very nature of government; and whether we consider the most autocratic or the most popular the difference is only in the outward form. At bottom it is the strong and crafty, against the weak and ignorant. Its basis is, the subjection of the will of one part of the people to the will of another part, whether it is the will of one, or of many. The voting is only a farce enacted in order to give the appearance of fairness, the more completely to blind the poor to the trickeries and impositions practiced upon them. These trickeries take every possible form and character. False and diverting issues craftily put forward to mislead the people, and divert their attention away from the real cause of their miseries; bogus enthusiasm worked up over some scheme which has for its object the promotion of some new form of plunder; playing upon their sentiments of religion, patriotism, or party prejudices until they are so confused and divided that they are unable to discriminate [195] between truth and falsehood, or unite upon any practical measure of relief, are some of the ways in which voting is made a farce. But, should all these influences fail, and men be elected of sufficient knowledge and stability to perceive, and for a time pursue, the real good of the people as a whole, and oppose the will of the real governors, public sentiment is again invoked through the command of the governors to destroy their influence, discredit their motives, and blast their reputation, while comfort, wealth, and honor are held out to them in a thousand insidious ways to tempt them into subservience to the will of the strong and crafty. The natural and inevitable selfishness of men here comes in, with their love of distinction and admiration, and the invariable result is that the ranks of the strong are secretly, if not openly, reinforced by new accessions, while the people are left just where they were before.

Democracy is not fulfilling the expectation of its jealous and conscientious founders. It is coming to be perceived that it is just as impotent to secure justice, and correct the great inequalities in condition, as the most absolute autocracy. The history of popular governments, in all nations, is the history of a constantly increasing restriction of the liberties of the people, and in the name of the people.

In a monarchy the powers of the despot are physically limited. He can give only so many hours each day to business. The balance is devoted to pleasure, society, the court, and his mistresses. Even if he wishes to he could not understand more than a small part of public affairs; so that his capacity for meddling is comparatively small. But this is not the case with representative government. Representatives rave no such powers of unlimited gratification, so that each has more time and opportunity for meddling; and a country ruled by such [196] representatives, is ruled by a worse despot, one with unlimited time, unlimited vanity, unlimited assurance, and whose ambition is stimulated to the most vicious activity.

But suppose the attempt is made to redress grievances or correct abuses through legislation, let us see what that involves. Even in the best of laws, be they never so wisely designed as a whole, the insertion or omission of a harmless appearing word, or clause, at a critical moment of its passage, sometimes even a comma, will destroy the whole intent of it; or even a provision for its enforcement may be omitted. And after all, when a seemingly desirable law has run the gauntlet of all the adverse influences of ignorance, incompetence, trickery, and bribery, a hostile executive may defeat its execution through a mere quibble, and finally, in almost every case in the whole history of law, the ultimate effect of every legal enactment has been different, if not exactly opposite, to what its promoters expected, or intended, except where a law has been directly or positively repealed. To entertain a hope, or expectation of correcting the evils of monopoly,.— achieving liberty, through amendments, or improvements in the law, is as utterly futile as for one who has lost his money at the gambling table to hope to recover it by play, where he knows that the game is stocked against him. Men are playing against loaded dice. They are beaten at every turn. It does no good to curse the politicians. They are only the hired men of monopoly, and must do its bidding if they would receive the advancement they seek. The political party is only an organization for getting and distributing the offices. Its action in shaping the real policy of the governing corporation is next to nothing. The differences between the different parties is not worth mentioning, only just enough to amuse the people, distract their attention, and keep them occupied with trifles. In [197] the choice of parties the people are governed by their interests, and by their passions, which are cunningly played upon by those who would control those actions. Thus ignorance and poverty produce general tyranny, and while liberty of thought and action ostensibly prevail, slavery, under the name of “majority rule,” is the universal fact. Under these circumstances monopolists may well advise workingmen to “do their striking at the ballot-box.” It is like a gambler advising his victim to keep on betting against a game which he knows has been fixed beyond the possibility of his winning. But we shall find that even the ballot box has virtues when the people acquire intelligence enough to use it.

If we trace government to its source, and learn its historic basis, we shall find as little in its history to command respect as appears in its present constitution. Composed at first of pirate or robber chiefs, who plundered and made war upon their neighbors, their power gradually became consolidated, and confirmed, until they took on more permanent forms, when the chiefs became Kings, Dictators, or Emperors, governing by nearly absolute authority, and surrounding themselves with favorites to whom they granted special privilege to plunder certain districts, or in certain ways, and who in turn supported the pretensions of the chief. This is the origin and genesis of government. The chief enforced deference to his will; and when he became king, what at first was admitted to be an enforced usurpation, was afterward claimed as a “Divine right.” And the same is true of every other infringement of the rights of the people. A protective tariff only has to stand a very short time before its beneficiaries set up the plea that they have acquired “vested rights” under it, and therefore it must not be repealed. Morality is invoked against any interference with their “vested rights.” Morality is [198] only the ghost of that old doctrine of the “Divine right of kings." It throws a glamour of sanctity around usurpation. This was true in the case of chattel slavery. It is true to-day of land monopoly, the money monopoly, the transportation monopoly, and of every other monopoly in this world. The law, morality, or religion are never invoked except to bolster up and sustain some hoary headed wrong or abuse. “Vested right” is a humbug; morality is a humbug; and religion is a humbug. There is no such thing as vested right. There is no right except justice,—present justice, which is only another word for equality; and there is no equality except in liberty. If there ever was any basis for morality, or religion, the reason for them has been so completely lost, or perverted, that it can no longer be traced. The sole use of either of them to-day is to maintain the control of the slaves by their masters. Does any one question the truth of this? Let a movement be made, in any way, by the people, to regain possession of the fruits of their labor, of which they have been despoiled; or to free the land, and religion, morality, and law will all be in- yoked to defeat them. When the people could no longer be blinded to the hollowness of the pretense of the “Divine right of the king” they overthrew the forms of monarchy, and substituted a republic. While the immediate effect of a change from monarchical to popular government, and in fact, any change in form, must always be to obscure the real nature of law, awaken false hopes, deceive the people, and make possible still greater violations of liberty, the ultimate effect upon human progress is likely to be salutary. Until mankind has drank deep of the bitter cup of slavery it is unable to appreciate the sweets of liberty. If men had never followed a false light, or learned its dangers, they might easily be led astray, and again loose their liberties, as they have done before. They have repeatedly [199] achieved liberty through the destruction of government, but they have inevitably submitted again to the yoke of slavery, by setting up the law in the same, or some new form. Until they become free in thought,—until knowledge is sufficiently increased to enable them to understand and appreciate liberty, they can never preserve it, even though all law were, for a time, destroyed. This consideration alone is enough to discredit all violence in the destruction of law, because, where violence is necessary, it is a certain indication that popular knowledge is as yet insufficient.

The change was merely one of outward form. The substance remains. The king still lives in the law; and his favorites are the monopolists, who continue to plunder the people, some in certain districts, and some in certain ways, just as effectually as they ever did. The monopolists are just as much the favorites of the law as their ancient progenitors, the courtiers, were of the king. One, through the forms of the law, obtains a tract of land, and can plunder the district it comprises, in the collection of rent; another receives a special franchise, and can plunder in certain ways all who are compelled to use his monopoly. The law just as completely and just as certainly exists for plunder as the robber and pirate chiefs did from whom it sprung. The people are worshiping the law with just as much devotion to-day as they ever worshipped the king when he pretended to govern by right divine; and with just as much reason. I do not assert that the development from monarchy to a republic was not a necessary one in the progress toward freedom, but that the problem became more difficult just as it became more complicated; just as the real situation became more obscure.

As I write there lies before me a list of 215 citizens of the city of Chicago, with what is said to be a conservative estimate of the private fortune of each. The account says that “most of the money was made since the fire,—amassed in fifteen years.” These fortunes range from $1,000,000 to $25,000,000 and aggregate $506,500,000. Allowing those 215 men to have been fairly industrious during the time, and to have actually produced all the wealth that their average degree of industry could produce in the absence of special advantages given them by law, it is safe to say, that after paying their expenses of living, which were certainly no trifle with any of them, if they had been able to lay by $2000 a year each, for that fifteen years, it would probably be all that, by any reasonable estimate, could be attributed to their own labor in the production of wealth. This would give each a clear saving of $30,000 at the end of his fifteen years, after paying for a very comfortable living during the time; or a total of less than $6,500,000, leaving more than $500,000,000 abstracted by the operation of law from the workers of Chicago, in fifteen years, by 215 men only. And if 215 men obtained $500,000,000 in that time, it would be interesting to know how much all the other monopolists big and little received through the same means, and in the same time, especially as a very large proportion of them never did produce any part of their wealth, but have depended entirely upon the advantage possessed in the law. While those 215 men were undoubtedly the largest monopolists in the city during the time, and received more of the plunder than any other equal number, they were by no means all, or even more than a small minority of the direct beneficiaries of the law. I think it is a very conservative estimate to conclude that not more than one tenth of the total fruits of monopoly in the city of Chicago, during those fifteen years, went to those 215 men. This gives a grand total of more than $5,000,000,000 as the direct takings of monopoly, through the operation of the law, in fifteen years, in the city of [201] Chicago alone. But even this does not represent its cost to the people of Chicago. The wasting of labor through enforced idleness, or through inadequate employment, interference with production by legal restraints, the ruin of enterprises which were driven into bankruptcy, or out of business, all represent losses probably as great, at least, as all the actual stealings of monopoly; so that $10,000,000,000 would not be too great a sum to estimate as the total cost of the law, to the people of Chicago, in fifteen years; a sum large enough to place every man, woman, and child in the whole city in luxurious circumstances for their whole lives. When this same computation is extended to the whole country, and it must be, because the same conditions exist everywhere, the amount swells to proportions far beyond the power of the human mind to grasp.

We can now form a fairly good idea of the nature, origin, and cost of the law, as well as to who pays the cost, and who gets the benefit. It is next in order to examine its tendencies and limitations; and its effects upon human association, and upon the making of individual character.

“Every government, let its form be what it may, contains within itself a principle common to all, which is that of a sovereign power, over which there is no control, and which controls all others."—Thomas Paine.

Thomas Paine was a firm believer in popular government; and he placed this sovereign power, in democratic governments, in the people. I have already shown that the people do not, and in the nature of the case, cannot govern. It must be, even were it possible to secure a perfectly fair expression of the intelligent and unbiased opinion of every person, a government by the majority, of a minority, which is the subjection of the will of some men to the will of other men, which is itself a violation of nature, of equality, of justice, and of liberty. But [202] as we understand how majorities are made it becomes all the more monstrous. Despotism is always despotism whether exercised by king or by congress; whether it is the expression of the will of a sovereign or of a law bought with the bribes of the rich. The instruments of it are no more tolerable in a Czar Reed than in a Nero; in Anthony Comstock than in the Spanish Inquisition.

A peculiarity of every system of law is that its imperfections are being constantly exposed. It is like a leaky vessel,—it always needs mending. Repair it in one place and a fault is shown in another. Restrictions placed upon men’s liberty naturally arouse resentments and resistance, stimulate their ingenuity to defeat its provisions, and finally, revolt against its injustice. This necessitates more laws to overcome their resistance, or defeat their ingenuity. So legislatures and common councils interfere to formulate more laws to meet these contingencies. In this way the volume of law constantly increases, government becomes more complex, and more centralized; law encroaches more and more on liberty, and the people become more dependent; in fact, more servile in disposition, losing their hardy independence which is the concomitant of liberty. Inequality grows, classes are established, poverty and wealth become more sharply differentiated, and a ruling class is built up on one side, and on the other the ruled. All this is directly opposed to the spirit and conditions of association. Association can only exist between equals in material condition, consequently the growth of inequalities is the destruction, of association, and also of civilization, because civilization depends upon association. As law increases slavery becomes more intense, because law is the very essence of slavery; that is, restriction. And the only limit to the scope of law, that is, to the degree of slavery, is the point of the endurance of the slaves. The more ignorant a people [203] the longer and further they will endure the impositions of the law; but just as they increase in intelligence is the power of legal restraints weakened. I do not mean that increasing intelligence will always show a present corresponding disregard for law, because, for a considerable time men are occupied with their ordinary pursuits, and their minds are diverted from evils which steadily encroach upon them. But whenever any great emergency arises to arrest their attention, they discover the encroachment, and act with greater promptitude and decision. And more, they are likely to call in question, to a greater degree, the fundamental principles of the law itself.

But while the law operates it works with destructive effect to repress individuality, and prevent the development of individual character. The slave is not a responsible being, for he must obey his master. The soldier is not responsible, for he is subject to his superior officer. The pauper is not responsible, for he is dependent upon others for his subsistence. And everywhere, where men are subjected to the will of others, they lose the sense of responsibility for their own acts; thus individual character is weakened. Law is but the expressed will of its makers, and when that will is made to prevail against those who are not consenting, or after their consent has been withdrawn, it is clearly an unjustifiable usurpation, and furthermore an usurpation which violates liberty, promotes inequality, destroys association, prevents the growth of civilization, and crushes individual character. Government always stands in direct antagonism to civilization. It is the greatest, and almost the only impediment to civilization.

“The more perfect civilization is, the less occasion it has for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself; but so contrary is the practice of old governments to the reason of the case, that the expenses of them increase in the proportion they ought to diminish.”—Thomas Paine. [204]

He might have included all new governments as well. With monopoly and privilege operating by and through the law, it is utterly impossible to prevent the degeneracy of labor through reduction of wages; the crushing out of the small merchants and manufacturers through rents, taxes, interest, and disadvantage in competition; or the farmer through the foreclosure of his mortgage, and the multitude of agencies which rob him of his earnings. No association of interests, no political reform, no effort of public charity, or of instruction, can change, or virtually modify, the increasing dependence. Those social reformers who seek to ameliorate the condition of mankind, individually or socially, whether socialists, anarchists, single taxers, communists, or third party men, and who would remove the obstacles to man’ s natural development, must see, that those obstacles lie wholly in legal restraints to his natural liberty, that they are inherent in the law itself, and that they can never be removed except by removing the law. These facts once clearly recognized, all will see that the real ends of all social reformers are identical, that the place of each is shoulder to shoulder with all the others, and that they are properly allies working together for the same purpose, and must use the same means. And when they learn further that it is far easier to compass the entire destruction of the law, to destroy every possible monopoly, and reach absolute liberty, than to make any essential amendment to the law, it seems impossible for them to hesitate a moment longer. The only limit to which these tendencies are carried, as I said before, is the limit of endurance of the people; and that depends upon the degree of general intelligence which prevails.

Is there any doubt that the limit of endurance is the only limit to the degree of our present slavery? Examine any of the details and see. Is it in taxes? If men can be taxed at all, they can be taxed to [205] the full extent of their possessions. There is no logical stopping point except the forbearance of the taxed. And this doctrine is held by the courts. The right of taxation implies the right of confiscation. If it is in rent, the landlord can exact whatever he will within the power of the tenant to pay; or he may refuse to rent at all. The same thing is true of interest. In the slavery of debt, the creditor will seize the goods of the debtor to the full value of his claim. The slight exceptions allowed by law are so hedged about with restrictions and difficulties as to be of little practical advantage to the debtor. These exceptions are of the same nature as the laws in the south which used to forbid the master to kill his slave, or which provided for a minimum allowance of meal and molasses per week. Neither of them were of any practical value to the slave. If it is the slavery of any other form of monopoly, that monopoly may increase its demands to any amount it sees fit. There is no limit but the point of endurance of the people. If prices are increased above that limit people refuse to buy the goods and thus express their resistance. The slave has no more rights now than he had before the war. The law is never intended for the protection of the slave, but for the master. In 1856 the Supreme Court of the United States decided that if Dred Scott was a freeman, lie was an alien and could bring no action; but if he was a slave, he could still bring no action, because a slave had no standing in court, having no rights which that court could protect. And the question to-day is precisely the same. When a man is brought into court, the question is, according to the law does he owe the debt? In other words, is he a slave? This is the only question to be determined. If yes, then the edict is, to seize his possessions for the benefit of the master, to the extent of his mastery, the debt. It is of no consequence what that debt arises from; to [206] the state for taxes, to the landlord for rent, to the usurer for interest, to the monopolist for charges, or even to the petty tyrant of a magistrate for costs of process. It is all one. The status of the slave is the same.

Since writing the foregoing a scandal has broken out in the operations of the Chicago Drainage Commission, which forcibly illustrates the methods by which the functions of government are made to work to the advantage of monopoly, and build up a rich and privileged class at the expense of the poor. When the drainage commissioners undertook to acquire from the property holders along the line of the proposed canal, the right of way, preparatory to beginning the work, they found that options had already been secured upon the property along the whole line. A syndicate of wealthy men had been formed, and the options secured through the agency of a single real estate firm, which had acted as brokers for the syndicate. All this had been done three weeks before the route had been fixed upon, so far as was known to the public. The syndicate was informed in advance of the intended action of the board; and was thus enabled to act with certainty. Who were the members of this syndicate? It is probably impossible to obtain their names. Nor is it necessary. Those things are always worked in secret; but their personality is of no consequence. The purpose, and the only purpose, was to rob the tax-payers in charging a high price for the land on which to dig the canal,—more than the land could be bought for of the owners; and to hold the land not so needed for actual use of the canal, until the improvement, built at the expense of those taxpayers, had increased the value. In other words, to fleece the tax-payers for their own advantage without doing one thing to earn this wealth they will obtain. Some may be simple enough to believe that the syndicate did not contain more or [207] less of the commissioners themselves. I am not one of them. The information upon which the syndicate acted must have come from an authorized source. It would take no such chances as the purchase of options unless the assurances were backed by sufficient votes in the board to insure that certain location. The report reads that “a secretly appointed committee of the new board is now engaged in investigating, with the utmost secrecy, certain features which may cause an upheaval in political and business circles."

Nonsense! It will do nothing of the kind. It may have the effect of admitting some new members to the syndicate. Nothing more!

It is possible that there is nothing in the whole story; and that the disturbance comes from disappointed rival interests. Grant it. Does that make it any better? That a public improvement for which the people will be called upon to pay should develop rival interests to fight over at all, is the real evil. Government can do nothing without operating to the advantage of some, and the disadvantage of others.

Van Ornum, Why Government at All? - Part III, Chapter 1

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PART THREE—GOVERNMENT--LAW.

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CHAPTER I

RECAPITULATION

It is time now to review the ground we have passed over, and to assemble and arrange the results already obtained, in order to form a starting point for a still further advance.

In the first part of this work we found the ultimate objects of all social reforms to be the same; that is, to bring about a reign of universal justice, although pursuing, in many cases, directly opposite paths to its accomplishment. We found them all tracing the evils complained of to the same source,—the law; and then, instead of analyzing the law to find if they are faults in its administration, which can be remedied, or if they are inherent in the principle of the law itself, they all more or less assume that law is a necessity, and that it only needs to be changed in certain prescribed ways, according to the notions of the particular school represented, to make it work beneficent results, and eliminate the evils. The single taxer traces the difficulty to the laws relating to land tenure, and concludes that by changing the laws of taxation so as to bear solely upon the land monopoly, that monopoly may in time become vested in the hands of that corporation called government, which professes to act for the whole people, but which really acts for the associated monopolies. The state socialist would increase the power and prestige of government, and increase the restrictions already imposed by law, in order to destroy competition, notwithstanding that the competition itself arises wholly through the operation of law. The ordinary philosophical anarchist, while realizing to an extent the inherent viciousness of the law, and while seeking [180] in a large measure to reduce the volume of law, still insists upon “some law, some regulation, some protection from people who might wish to violate his rights.” The free trader, prohibitionist, green- backer, farmer’ s alliance man, trades unionist, and other social reformers, all find in the law the seeds of injustice, but infer that if the particular injustice which they see could only be removed by amending the law, everything would work harmoniously. All but the anarchist seek to bring about their specific changes by political methods, because they are the only methods by which mere changes in the laws can be effected. Even the anarchist keeps a close eye on political movements, and not unfrequently is quite ready to help elect a friend to office.

The best and ablest minds, in the whole history of man, in every country and every age, have been bent to the solution of the question of the proper relation of men, one to another in human society. Facts have been accumulated, theories advanced, and generalizations attempted. The facts have remained, while the theories and generalizations have been successively overthrown. As in every other science, no broad and comprehensive generalization was possible until a sufficient number of facts had been obtained, nor until those facts had been sufficient studied and understood. False theories and generalizations are always sure to be overthrown, whether the true ones are found or not. The attempts that have heretofare been made to generalize social facts, and reach a scientific arrangement of them, I think have failed because men have not properly studied and understood those facts. They have studied society as such, instead of resolving it into its integral parts, and then making a careful analysis of those parts. Their methods have been deductive instead of inductive. They have assumed certain generalizations, and from that have proceeded [181] to particulars, bending their facts to fit their generalizations.

On the other hand, I have sought the key to a right understanding of the facts, in the study of man as an individual. The individual exists before society. He is the unit, or integer of society; and before we can form any correct idea of what society should be, we must know what man is, what his wants are and what the impulses are which prompt his to association. Man has been regarded as a bundle of contradictions, swayed by opposite motives, some good and some bad, no one being quite certain whether the good or the bad would ultimately triumph. If the philosophers have treated of morals they have implied, at least, the existence of immorality. If they have spoken of good actions, they have asserted or presupposed bad ones. They have made benevolence the opposite of selfishness, and then given them both a place in the motives that prompt men’s actions. They have classed meekness, love, and sympathy as virtues, while other propensities equally natural and necessary have been set down as vices. They have thus assumed that the author of man’s being, whoever or whatever it might be, has made a bad job of it; and that the work needs to be done over again according to such patterns as y may furnish; and that it is the province of society to do this I have assumed, on the other hand, that nature makes no mistakes; or, if it does, it is beyond our power to correct them. I have assumed that the first step to the solution of the social question is to begin with the facts of individual character, and rise by the strict methods of induction to the association of those individuals in society. I do not claim that I have found all the hidden springs that modify human action,—all the elements of man’s character. At best it is only an outline; an outline perhaps that may be lacking in very important particulars; [182] but, as far as it goes, true to the facts in all essential particulars.

If we would see some of the ways in which people assume that nature has left its work undone, and in which nature’s work requires to be supplemented by human enactment in order to prevent general ruin and disaster, we have but to consult a list of the several proposed reforms to find them. First, there are efforts at prohibition, which look to the prevention of intemperance by making it difficult for people to obtain drink; agitations for Sunday observance; and agitations for the observance of other assumed moral standards, all proceeding under the supposition that it is the business of some people to look out for and take care of the morals of other people.

Laws limiting the rates of interest are also just so many attempts to tinker nature. Not perceiving that interest itself is the result of human enactments which interfere with the regular and equal action of natural laws, men seek in counter restrictions, to balance the evil effects of the first, instead of sweeping away the artificial laws of property which make interest possible.

Henry George’s scheme to distribute the advantage of special locations by appropriating the rents to public uses, is another one of the same kind. He fails to see that with the laws establishing property rights abolished,—land free, the advantage of location must distribute itself naturally and equally, in the prices of the goods produced on the favored spot. He does not yet see that nature works with perfect justice to all mankind; and that it is only when man attempts to do nature’s work over again in his way, that evil results.

We may go still another step, and include all human enactments of every kind and quality. So far as they are intended to minister to any general need of mankind in the adjustment of human relations, [183] they are an utter failure, and worse. They are absolutely harmful, as witness the social evils; poverty, vice, crime, brutality, and misery, which are all clearly traceable to the same cause,—the law.

The solicitude of nature is everywhere for the individual, that he may develop the best that he is capable of physically and mentally. The laws of nature all tend to the making of the highest specimen of individual character; and the sole condition of the best growth, is perfect freedom. To assume that some would naturally grow vicious, criminal, or bad, and that law is needed for them, is as absurd as it would be to suppose that some trees would grow rotten if they were not prevented from doing so by other trees. Trees do rot; but from disease. Such trees do not grow.

From Adam Smith to Henry George, all the professed economists have sought in what they miscall Political Economy, but which is properly Social Economy, that is, that branch of philosophy which discusses the sources and methods of material wealth and prosperity, for those principles which underlie human association. In many respects I have carried the examination of those principles of social economy further than any of them. I have found the lesson, and the only lesson they teach, to be the imperative necessity for the absolute freedom of each individual from all restraints imposed by others, as the one sole condition of man’s best and highest development, socially or individually. That same lesson has been more than confirmed in every particular when we have turned to the study of the constitution of the individual man. Whether we have considered the formation of his desires, the acquirement of knowledge by which those desires are shaped, the enjoyment of happiness, or the making of individual character, it is the ignoring of this same prime requisite that [184] stands forth as the only hindrance to the upward and onward sweep of human progress.

Freedom being the condition of human development, and the perfection of society depending upon the perfection of the individuals composing it, the interest of both are best promoted by removing the restrictions to that freedom, instead of imposing new ones, or changing their character, as most of the professed reformers seek to do.

Wherever we examine the nature and effects of these restrictions we find the same pernicious results. Is it those which bar men from the land? It is the laws of property which, while professing to protect property rights, set up false conditions of property, and thus violate the natural rights of persons as to property, and enable some to collect of others tribute in the form of rent. Is it the slavery of debt? It is again those laws of property which enact unnatural conditions of property, enabling those who have voluntarily parted with their property to compel its restoration, and pending that restoration, to exact gratuitous contributions in the form of interest. Is it the monopoly of money? It is in the development of those same laws of property which hinder men from providing, in their own ways, the tools necessary to carry on exchanges and in limiting the use of those tools, so as to enable those who control the tools to collect tribute for their use, again in the form of interest. Is it the monopoly of transportation and communication? Here again are found the laws of property so adjusted as to favor, not those who perform the labor of transportation, but who control the opportunity to perform that labor, and who reap the reward of its performance without ever having lifted a hand to labor. They have only bought stock. The gratuitous contribution in this case is in the form of dividends; and this same thing applies to almost all other forms of monopoly. Is it the support of the [185] corporation we call government? Again we have a whole host of laws in violation of the natural rights of persons to property, and restrictions to their natural freedom looking directly to the making effective those violations of natural property; taxes, licenses, duties, fees, etc., collected to maintain the machinery which actuates and enforces these restrictions of liberty. And when we come to consider crime, we shall find that it, too, results wholly from these restrictions, and mostly from the violations of the natural rights of persons to property,—that crime is itself in fact, only the natural and justifiable revolt against the injustice of the law.

Thus does almost every injustice in this world cluster around the laws which violate the natural rights of persons to property; which enact unnatural conditions of property; and which necessarily violate natural liberty, in every conceivable way, in the attempt to enforce those violations. All these injustices and inequalities radiate in every direction from this one center, and ramify through all the relations of business, of religion, of politics, and of society. Vast interests hang upon them. Learned professions are built upon them as a foundation. Literature takes its coloring from them. And every system of ethics and morals is directed to their support. The whole volume of the law has for its one sole object, immediately or remotely, the preservation or extension of the special advantages enjoyed by the few, mainly through the violations of the natural condition of property. Government itself stands as the concrete corporate body of all the associated monopolies, privileges, and advantages which violate the natural rights of persons to property, by taking from the industrious to confer upon the idle. In government the landlord is the partner of the lendlord, the mine owner of the railroad magnate, the bondholder of the coal baron, Jay Gould of Lord Scully, the Standard Oil Co. of the [186] national bank monopoly, the mortgage loan companies of the whisky trust, the landowner of the tariff beneficiary, and the elevator monopoly of the gas trusts. Each separate monopoly constitutes a wheel, great or small according to the size of the monopoly, within the greater wheel,—the government. Each stock-holder in a monopoly may be said to be a cog in one of those wheels. The affairs of this corporation are carried on precisely as the affairs of any other corporation are conducted. The principal stock-holders are the directors; and they dictate its policy. While they tickle the people with the fiction that the people govern, they take good care that nothing is done to weaken the power of monopoly. If they want a law passed) or one repealed, they know perfectly well how to get it. The office holders are their servants, and must do their bidding.

Through the agencies at the command of monopoly, the press and the pulpit, backed by the courts and the army, it has thus far succeeded in securing obedience to its dictates. How long it will continue to obtain respect and command submission, depends upon the intelligence of the people. When they have become intelligent enough to throw off the yoke, they will do it without consulting the convenience of their masters.

The first step in this direction is to understand the real nature of the yoke. This we have already found to be essentially the yoke of slavery. Slavery may differ in either one of two ways. The first is in form; and the second in degree. One of the forms of slavery is, where men are bought and sold as chattels. The essential character of it is that their labor is taken without recompense. There are different degrees even in this form; as, in ancient England the serfs of the soil were freer than the negroes in the south were before emancipation. Another form of slavery is where the land is bought [187] and sold as a chattel. The essential character in this case is also that the labor of the men who must use it is taken without recompense. The degree of slavery in this case corresponds to the price of the land. When the land is rented it has not changed the nature of the transaction a particle. Rent and purchase money are the same. Our single tax friends hope to change its nature by appropriating the rent to public uses. They would change the master, and make it the state, just as we should have done, if, at the close of the late war, we had made the negroes slaves of the state instead of freeing them. The slave traders of to-day are the real estate men who make a business of buying and selling the opportunities for men to labor,—the land, which is only another way of buying and selling the unpaid labor of the men.

We have other slave traders also; those who buy and sell stocks, bonds, mortgages, securities, patents, and make investments. These things are only privileges; and when we come to analyze them we find the privilege to consist in the privilege of collecting from some people gratuities in the form of interest, dividends and royalties for which no equivalent is given. If it is a public bond, the bond-holder buys of the government monopoly the privilege of appropriating to himself a given amount of the unpaid labor of the people, which this same monopoly engages to collect in the form of taxes, and turn over to him annually; and, finally, from the same source, to repay him the original amount paid for this privilege. If it is stocks, bonds or mortgages of a corporation, it is again the power to live off the unpaid earnings of those who do the work of that corporation, or who use the facilities that corporation was organized to furnish. The aggregate amount of those annual charges, evidences of debt; in other words, evidences of slavery, constitute the great bulk of the cost of railroad transportation. If the interest [188] on the bonds and mortgages, and the dividends on the stock of the railroads were wiped out, and the expenses only covered the actual labor and expense of operation, the workingmen who perform that labor would have no cause to complain of their wages, or the farmers and business men of the charges.

In the case of notes and mortgages against individuals, the slave master is brought a step nearer to the slave. He holds the power to take from him directly the unpaid fruits of his labor as interest, while behind him stands the power of associated monopoly,—the state, to compel submission. Wherever one man holds the power over another man, directly or indirectly, to live without labor, in whole or in part, off the earnings of that other, it can be traced directly to and identified as some form of slavery. And furthermore, in whatever form such slavery exists it is made possible through the operation of law, and through this alone.

Therefore, any reform which does not strike at the principle of slavery as such,—which merely seeks to change some of the forms of slavery, or palliate its evils, is not of the slightest value. It is not within the power of God (if there is a God) or to prevent the constant fall of wages, the crushing out of small merchants and manufacturers, and the ruin of the farmers as long as the power of monopoly, as a whole, remains unbroken. Monopoly: that is, slavery, is essentially a war upon society, and a violation of liberty and equality. It is the cause of all the depopulated countries, the ruined cities, and degenerated peoples in the world. Reforms which do not strike at the root—the fountain head and source of slavery, (the law) only distract the attention of people from the real cause of their trouble, amuse them with trifles, and choke them with political sugar plums. Reform, mend, patch, here a little and there a little, prop up, paint, and when we are through, we have but a whited sepulcher [189] reeking with horrible uncleanness within, and tumbling to decay without. The only cure for slavery is freedom. Slavery is the expression of the despair and death of mankind; freedom its hope and life.

In the previous chapters I have proved theoretically that freedom from the restraints of the law is the true condition of human progress; that the degree of civilization depends upon the perfection of association; and that association again requires equality in material condition of the people. I have also shown that it is solely by the law that inequalities are established and maintained, mostly in those laws which enact special rights of property. It now remains to examine the actual workings of law, and see if the principles we have already discovered hold good in practice.

Another lesson we have learned in the course of our examination is the utter futility, and worse, of violence as a method of reform. Slavery is but the expression of human ignorance. But violence begets violence, inflames passions, and provokes resentments. Knowledge cannot grow in such a soil. Freedom can only he attained through an increase in knowledge. If freedom were to be conferred up on any people without their having first attained the knowledge necessary to its understanding and appreciation, they would at once set up again the fetish of the law, and worship it with the same devotion as before. That is why the violent destruction of one government has always been followed by putting another in its place, which in a little time became as bad as the first.

How can it be known when men have reached that degree of intelligence? Simple enough! When their knowledge finds expression in action. If I shall make clear in the course of this hook, how simple and easy a matter the attainment of freedom will be when that time comes, I shall have accomplished [190] my purpose. Although, as yet, men almost universally venerate the law, I think it is mainly because their attention has not been seriously directed to its injustice. Such is not likely to continue, however. Recent economic discussions have paved the way, and demands for political reform will probably increase the tendency, while any great crisis, like a commercial panic or a general railroad strike for instance, will be likely to precipitate it at any time.

Van Ornum, Why Government at All? - Part II, Chapter 9

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CHAPTER IX.

THE CHURCH, AND THE STATE.

There ought to be nothing plainer than that when people are miserable they will get out of their misery if they can; they will change their condition if they are allowed to. If they are homeless they will build themselves homes, unless they are denied places to put those homes, and materials with which to construct them. If they are without food, they will produce it in the way or ways which nature provided, unless something prevents them. And so they will do for anything else. What is it then that keeps men poor, homeless, hungry, ragged, and destitute?

People are prone to look in every direction but the right one for the causes of whatever evils that afflict them. They have sought the source of their destitution in all manner of causes. At one time it has been their own indolence, until they find that the most industrious are just as bad off as the rest, in fact, the poor, as a class, are the industrious, while those who are notoriously the most idle,—landlords, and the like—are the wealthiest. Then their extravagance is brought under censure; but when they have reduced expenditures to the lowest point that seems possible, thinking it will certainly leave them something towards a reserve for a rainy day, they find their wages fall low enough to wipe out their savings. Intemperance, too, has borne the blame, until it was discovered that intemperance, whatever there is among the poor, is the result of their miseries, and not their cause, that neb take to drink to drown their troubles, just as they take to opium to soothe their pains. But even this is by no means general. The poor are not the ones among [170] whom exists the greatest dissipation. That is among the rich. As a class, the mechanics, and laborers, are the equals, in the virtue of temperance, with any other class of people in this country. At last those who contend for things as they are have fallen back upon the inscrutable providence of God as the cause and justification of poverty, thinking that here at least they are safe from overthrow. It is hard, at least, to disprove it, like the other fables intended to amuse or frighten the children. This serves the same purpose with children of a larger growth, but of limited intelligence. For a time it quiets their questionings, and allays their discontent; but, as with the child, it ceases to satisfy, and the inquiry returns. Let those who are curious enough to want to find out what it is that stands in the way, that prevents them from gratifying their desires, obey the promptings of nature and try to gratify them. For instance, if the desire is for a home let them start in on the first vacant lot they come to and undertake to utilize it. How long will it be before an officer of the law will make his appearance and warn them off as trespassers? And if they persist how long before the police will be upon them, or before the militia will be called out if there are enough who join in the move to make it formidable?

Of course, the press will denounce such a movement as “revolutionary,” as ‘subversive of all law and order,” a “violation of property rights,” etc. But that is largely what the press is for. The stock in the great newspaper corporations is almost invariably held by monopolists of one kind or another. Where papers are owned by single individuals they are generally politicians who are trying to get office, which is only another name for serving the monopolists, who are the stock-holders in the government corporation. So, the press may be regarded as one of the arms of the law, or the state, just as the police and the courts are, only it is used to make [171] public sentiment in favor of the monopolists who own it, and in whose interests it works; used to chain the thought instead of, like the police and the courts, to chain the bodies.

Another thing that will be used with powerful effect to hold them back is the restraints of religion. The church will thunder forth its anathemas against the violators of morality, just as it denounced the abolitionists as “slave stealers,” ignoring the primary wrong of surrounding property with special rights which made the slavery possible, and which now makes possible and encourages the appropriation of the land, and all the other resources of the country, by a few. The church has always taken this attitude toward every advance of the people, every attack upon privilege, because itself represents caste and privilege. When men were contending for the abolition of slavery the church was one of its principal strongholds; and it is, and will certainly remain a fortress of strength to monopoly until its defense of monopoly brings it more discredit than favor. When the people are intelligent enough to appreciate their own rights, institutions which stand in the way of their attainment will be visited with popular condemnation; and will loose their hold on the masses. And that is the secret to-day, of the church’s loss of influence over the multitude. As people increase in intelligence they throw off the restraints of religion. The church retains its influence longest where the ignorance is the densest. But when the church gets more discredit from its support of monopoly than favors for that support, it will wheel into line with progress, assume that it has always been in line, and claim the credit of the whole achievement. It did this in the anti-slavery conflict; it has done it in every other; and is certain to continue the same policy. The facility with which it makes these changes, and the fact that it deals with the most ignorant [172] and superstitious, who are not habitually critical, enables it to retain a considerable hold through centuries of advance, notwithstanding its unnumbered delinquencies. Being a purely human institution, it is necessarily governed by human passions and motives, which, we have already found, are wholly selfish. The policy of the church must therefore manifestly be selfish, which accords with every fact in its history.

Thus the tether which holds men back from the land, and from the other good things of this world, is composed of two strands, closely twisted together so as to form a mutual support, and they are the church and the state. One binds the mind, and the other the body. One teaches that it is immoral to exercise one’s natural liberty, and the other that it is illegal. This tether is the only thing that stands between men and freedom. It looks very formidable, but before we get through I think we shall find that its strength is more apparent than real; that its strength is wholly in the ignorance of those who are tethered by it.

I do not pretend to say that the church, or the state, has not, at some time, served a good purpose; but I do say that whatever that purpose was, they have outlived their usefulness, and now only exist as clogs upon progress, like thick clay upon a cartwheel. When tender plants first begin to grow they must be carefully guarded against frost, or drouth, or the burning rays of the sun. But when they obtain a firm foothold; become well rooted, they thrive best to remove them from the pots, and set them in the ground, where they can get the free air of heaven, with the rain, the sunshine, and the dew. Human knowledge is such a plant. When it first began to germinate it needed careful attention. When men knew little of its power, they could not appreciate its value, and therefore were not greatly stimulated to its pursuit. In the early [173] ages the priests were simply the wise men. They were the possessors of whatever learning there was. As was to be expected, they guarded it jealously, throwing around it every possible mystery, and clothing it with supernatural terrors to keep away the uninitiated. The power it gave them among the people, as a matter of course, stimulated the pursuit of that knowledge among the priests, who sought to perpetuate their power by building up a church and continuing the mysteries. The church served the same purpose as pots do in a hot-house. But when the pots are no longer needed, we only delay and stunt the growth of the plant by continuing their use.

This is the origin, the cause, and nature of the church. The theological structure that has been built up little by little, to meet the changing needs of the priests, was merely for the purpose of increasing those mysteries, continuing the hold of the priests over the people, securing their submission, and drawing from them the wealth necessary for their support. The theological schools of to-day, with their ceremonies of consecration and ordination, are only the survival of the rites and ceremonies of the ancient magicians, sooth-sayers, priests, and wise men for the initiation of neophytes into their sacred mysteries. The good the church has done, has been, not as commonly supposed in repressing the natural tendencies of men, keeping them in order, but in furnishing a kind of hot-house for the tender tree of knowledge. So far as it has tended to restrain men from. the gratification of their desires, it has violated liberty, has prevented the spread of knowledge, and defeated its only reason to be. The church was only useful so long as it imparted a stimulus to knowledge within, greater than its repression of the growth of knowledge without. That time has long since passed. The great scholars of the world have, for a long time, been reared or [174] schooled outside the pale of the church. Their distinction has been won in other fields than those presented by religion. The tree of knowledge has been taken out of the pot, and transplanted to the rich soil of human enterprise. The pot only cumbers the ground.

It is easy to see also, how law, government, or special privilege may have served a good purpose in the early development of man. When the infinite resources of nature were all but unknown, the production of wealth slow and laborious, man a savage, satisfied with the gratification of the grossest animal needs, the enterprising men were then the slaveholders, robbers, and pirates. They obtained and enjoyed more wealth because they did not depend upon their own production, but tool the product of others. They were not satisfied with the modes of living of those they plundered, but ransacked the world for new delights, and new gratifications. Their enterprise gave new scope and opportunity for the pursuit of knowledge, which knowledge still further increased their power. Their example was a constant invitation to others to do likewise. Afterwards it became, in many cases, easier and safer to obtain what they wanted by trading than by force; so the merchants were developed, who found most of their profit in producing things for the robber chiefs. They were their principal customers. For them they sought choice viands, fine fabrics, gems, and slaves; and, as a partial return, they received special favors, privileges, and advantages from those chiefs, who were the early governors, or rulers. These grants of privilege aimed to increase the opportunities for gain of those who were favored. The effect was to stimulate enterprise, which again promoted the acquirement of knowledge.

Government itself had its origin in the rule of these robbers, and pirate chiefs. Law was their [175] will, expressed in their edicts, or commands. And those who have studied the history of laws know that they were always intended for the slaves, attendants, and retainers of those chiefs. For themselves, or in their dealings with one another, they acknowledged no law.

While men needed such a stimulus to enterprise, and to the acquirement of knowledge, there is no doubt that government, law, and privilege did have that effect; but the need for government disappeared whenever it hindered enterprise, and the pursuit of knowledge more than it promoted them.

How can that be determined? Easily enough. How are the great monopolies operated to-day? By corporations made up of individual stockholders, only a very few of whom are actually engaged in promoting their enterprises. These stock-holders buy shares of stock, few or many, and sit down and wait for others to carry on the enterprise, they drawing their dividends at stated periods. It is not necessary for them to be enterprising, to cultivate their intelligence, or to do anything. Privilege has become a means of idleness, of sloth, and of parasitism upon others.

Another form of privilege is land-holding. Here parasitism has been carried to its highest degree of expression. The man who gets possession of a tract of land has only to sit still to obtain the fruit of others’ toil. He may be as stupid and idle as a post, and yet he gets rich. He is not only not enterprising himself, but by his robbery of others he discourages them from enterprises, because he takes away the rewards of enterprise.

But the individual merchant even, whom privilege at first helped to develop, has been, and is being destroyed by the same thing that aided him at first. He has no more show in the fierce competition for trade against the corporation, and those wielding great capital, than a pigmy has against a [176] giant in a prize-fight. He is forced out of the ring; and considers himself lucky if he can obtain a subordinate place under the corporation, or the great capitalist.

Science finds its votaries among individuals. Its discoveries are all made by those individuals. Invention, literature, philosophy, art, all depend wholly upon individuals for their advancement. Who ever heard of a corporation inventing a machine, or a process, writing a book, formulating a philosophy, or designing a work of art? So that the law, like the church, has ceased to promote the only object for which it existed. Enterprise and knowledge are repressed more than their growth is stimulated. These plants have long since been transplanted to the freer soil of individual effort, where they can no longer be helped by privilege; and in order to reach their most perfect development they must be free from the rule of the modern robber and private chiefs, the lineal descendants of the enterprising barbarians of antiquity.