Chapter 13

To the student of social conditions, who might have been a guest of the philosopher Rousseau, the picture photographed on the mental retina would have been far different. Above he would have beheld the round of selfish, thoughtless gaiety, in which the images and intrigues of Madame Dubarry and Marie Antoinette, of Choiseul and Rohan, of Louis and Richelieu, were strangely mingled and distorted by exaggeration, as they sifted down from the Court through several layers of brains until they reached the world of the newly awakened laborer. Below him would have yawned, in all its hideousness, the blackness of the pit, the social cellar into which he would have seen thousands and scores of thousands of his fellow-men crowded or driven by want, misfortune, or the avarice of the more powerful, and from which so few who once fall ever rose to the noble estate of true manhood and womanhood. Around him he would have noted still another world, more interesting and yet more terrible in its ferocity and power than those above and below--the realm of the common people--the sphere of the masses--the _current_ which passed over the darkest dregs and bore on its surface the scum. In this world the strange and interesting phenomenon would have met his eye of a newly awakened brain, an intellect which after ages of semi-unconsciousness, had, in a surprisingly short time, been aroused by the intellectual brilliancy of thinkers who had flooded a nation with new ideas, who had kindled the fires of justice, who had spoken in the _ear of all the people_ the doctrine of the essential brotherhood of man, the kinship of the throne and the shop, the idler in the palace and the idler in the cellar; the cormorant who dined off the labor of others at Lucerne, and the low-browed outcasts occupied in the same way but pursuing different methods, in the social sewer. And he would have noticed an unusual activity in this working world; secret meetings were being held on every hand. The great philosophical works of Rousseau breathing a new hope and a larger life into the soul of every reader, and the withering satire of Voltaire falling against the battlements of the church and the throne--these were the text-books and watchword of the new revolution. Tens of thousands of men who a few years before had accepted unquestioningly the assurance of the priests and obeyed as children the decrees of Royalty, were now thinking as never before on justice and equity, were students and intelligent expounders of the master brains which blossomed forth on every hand, in spite of priest and police. Heresy and liberty, justice and freedom, progress and equity had joined hands; conventionalism was doomed. The cry for justice went up from every hand to the crown and the aristocracy, only to come back with a mocking laugh or a royal restrictive decree. Thus the flame was fanned. The noble teaching of the great apostles of light and justice which illuminated the brains of the people and at first filled their hearts with holy love and wonderful tenderness, making them ready to accept and only desirous of receiving that measure of justice and consideration to which they knew they were entitled, later changed to feelings of hate and desire for revenge which ever grows as mushrooms in the average mind when justice is denied and oppression bears down more relentlessly at each complaint that comes from the oppressed. It is a law of life on the lower plane that selfishness, indifference, and heartlessness coming from above are photographed upon the sensitive intellect of the struggling minds below, which vainly ask for justice, only to return in time intensified a hundred-fold--selfishness becomes active and is complemented by an insane desire to destroy. Indifference calls forth unbridled ferocity. Heartlessness awakens sentiments of cruelty and brutality as relentless and destructive as the cyclone.

The social sewer or cellar of Paris at this time presented as interesting and suggestive a study as the toiling world above. Here were thousands of human beings dwelling in the atmosphere of crime and brutality, hungry, cold, and well-nigh hopelessly vicious by virtue of want, association, and environment, and ready for, if not eagerly anticipating any social upheaval which would afford them an opportunity to plunder and pillage. This world presented then, as it ever must, the saddest and most hopeless spectacle in the kaleidoscope of life. There were scores of thousands in this social sewer and new recruits coming daily. The avarice and extravagance of the Court pressed upon the great stratum of middle life, which in time bore down upon the lower sphere with crushing weight, while many of its numbers, weary of the eternal struggle, relaxed their hold on respectability and fell into the pit of crime and moral death. The inhabitants of this realm presented a picture of ferocity and despair, which must necessarily prove a frightful element in a revolution. The social cellar was only waiting for the signal when its hideous throat would belch forth death as surely as cannon or mortar ever hurled the life-destroying bomb. Such was life in France in the world of the wealthy and the world of want; while Louis drank Dubarry's health; while Marie Antoinette longed for her childhood home, and the Dauphin busied himself with geography, lock-making, and clock-repairing.

When Louis XV. died the scum had so thoroughly poisoned the great current of life in France that it is probable that even had there been far wiser heads at the helm of State than Louis XVI. and his councillor they would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to prevent a bloody reckoning, for the love of peace and reverence for justice, the cool judgment and mature wisdom which swayed the popular mind at an early day was well-nigh drowned in the rising tide of angry discontent and intense hate. A settled conviction pervaded the soul of the masses that the hour had come when might should make right the age-long wrongs of the people; and when an idea of this character possesses the rank and file of a nation it is almost impossible even by a liberal policy to avert a bloody issue.

I have dwelt upon this striking passage of history because it bristles with suggestive lessons and warning notes to the great Republic at the present time, and because the grave evils, which are as symptomatic to-day as were the signs of the times portentous in the reign of the easy-going, sensual Louis, are being met by those who have it in their power to avert a social catastrophe in precisely the same short-sighted spirit as characterized the conservative aristocracy when it denied the existence of the universal discontent among the masses and flippantly dismissed the angry muttering of the coming storm as merely the expression of a few shallow-brained malcontents. To-day we find the same brutal indifference and selfishness as was so conspicuous at the Louvre in 1770, exhibited by our mushroom aristocracy of the dollar, composed of those who form and control the great monopolies, syndicates, trusts, and combines, which are so cruelly oppressing the many that the few may grow many times millionnaires; together with the great railway magnates, who have through watering stock on the one hand, and plundering the commonwealth of farmers by exorbitant freights on the other, dishonestly amassed colossal fortunes. And that still more baleful communion which forms such an important part of America's shoddy aristocracy, the Wall Street gamblers, they who rule "the street," paralyzing healthy business, causing panics at will, and annually sweeping to the wall, to ruin and to death numbers of victims who have been lured into their snares by deceptive reports industriously circulated and extensively published by paid agents of these same brigands of the commercial world.

This mushroom plutocracy, whose representatives hold colossal fortunes acquired rather than earned, practically rule our business interests by virtue of the enormous opportunities afforded by their great wealth. And year by year are they increasing the rising tide of indignation in the hearts of millions of hard-working men and women, by grinding down more and still more hopelessly the multitude dependent on them, whom they can reduce to starvation if they rebel. Another element, which, viewed from the plane of justice and equity may be rightly termed _criminal_, is the popular and conservative economist who caters to the plutocracy and with brazen effrontery denies facts susceptible of proof, while he denounces every reformer who seeks to expose the iniquities of the present. This course is precisely a repetition of the policy of those who minified the real danger and misrepresented the grave facts to the Court of France, at a time when an honest, truthful representation might have averted the most terrible revolution in the annals of civilization. Only a short time since a popular economic writer denounced a Boston clergyman for unveiling the horrors of the sweating system in the modern Athens. He could not deny the truth of the sickening facts described, but termed the minister a member of one of the "_most dangerous class_" of citizens, merely because he spoke the truth with a view to bettering the condition of society's exiles.

At a recent meeting of the Rhode Island weavers, a distinguished and popular conservative economic writer addressed the hard struggling workingmen. During his remarks he sought to make them blindly and contentedly accept their lot by saying in honeyed tones: "_Why, my dear friends, the production of the country only furnishes $200 a head annually, and it is hard to make it go around. It is only by hard pinching and careful economy that we can make it do so;_" while almost within gunshot of the speaker rose the palaces of America's millionnaires, at Newport, where gigantic fortunes are annually squandered with lavish hands; where Mr. McAllister and his butterfly coterie of wealthy gourmands eat, drink, and dance away the summer, and illustrate how _these_ children of idleness and wealth have to "_pinch and plan_" _to make their share_ "_of the $200 go around_," of which the distinguished conservative economist spoke. If the masses of our people were unable to read or write, if they had been accustomed to centuries of oppression, a policy so glaringly unjust and disingenuous might succeed for a time. But with conditions as they are, the persistent crying of peace when there is no peace, and attempting to juggle with facts is more than foolish, it is _criminal_. One who does not regularly read the labor and agricultural press of this country is incapable of forming an intelligent idea of the nature or extent of the discontent at the present time. Then again, beyond this commonwealth of struggling toilers rises another commonwealth, the frightful condition of which no careful student can ignore. I refer to society's exiles, or the contingent of the social cellar. This element grows more powerful with each year. It is not securing justice at the hands of civilization and must some day be reckoned with.

In every agitation, every crusade against wrong, every battle for humanity, every contest for a broader sweep of justice, conventional critics have arrayed themselves on the side of the evil conditions, and denounced as dangerous agitators those who have sought to arouse the higher impulses of the people to right the crying wrongs of the hour. The treatment of Garrison and Phillips by this class in Boston, even in the shadow of the Cradle of Liberty, during the anti-slavery agitation, is of sufficiently recent date to emphasize this point, which has been paralleled in every important agitation for a higher civilization and a more just condition. To ignore the serious social unrest of the present, and the bitter cry of the weak for justice, is to follow the fatal precedent set by the French government. To deny the reality of the wrongs complained of, or lightly dismiss them as our popular economists are doing, is to pursue the ostrich policy with the certainty of being overtaken by the results of the evil which might have been averted. It matters not whether our "eminent" authorities are ignorant of the true social condition in city and country life to-day, or are wickedly juggling with truth in order to curry favor with plutocracy and conservatism, the fact remains that they are deceiving their masters as courtiers have often deceived thrones at moments when deception meant ruin. The duty of the hour is to _turn on the light_, to compel the thoughtful among our wealthy and powerful people to know the truth as it is, and to seek such a just and equitable revolution as will save a baptism of blood. The day for prophesying smooth things is past; we are face to face with problems and conditions which will not brook dishonest treatment. The exigencies of the present hour demand that we frankly face the social problems as they are and honestly discuss them in all their bearings. That we call to witness the impressive lessons of history and if possible, avert the repetition of the cataclysms of the past by prompt measures, marked by wisdom and justice. It is not too late to prevent a revolution of force if _wealth and power_ will heed the cry of _want and weakness_; if justice, courage, and duty supplant self-interest and indifference in the hearts of those who see and feel the rising tide of angry discontent. To-day if we would demonstrate that a century of civilization and free government has lifted us to a higher ethical level than humanity had attained a hundred years ago, we must face conditions as they are and promptly adopt measures that will secure such a meed of justice for the weak as shall take from his heart the bitterness of injustice and establish a feeling of common brotherhood and good-will.

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[Transcriber's Notes:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies. The transcriber made the following changes to the text to correct obvious errors by the publisher:

1. p. 589, "Samangala" changed to "Sumangala" 2. p. 603, "Lassez-faire" changed to "Laissez-faire" 3. p. 607, Both "J. S. Moffitt, Jr." and "J. S. Moffit, Jr." appear on page 607. 4. p. 622, "nothng" changed to "nothing" 5. p. 632, "Even he carrion" changed to "Even the carrion" 6. p. 633, "Sabbath or" changed to "Sabbath on"

Also, several occurrences of mismatched quotes remain as published.

End of Transcriber's Notes]