CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A Short Lesson in the History of the Working Class.

(A very careful distinction should always be made between those who abuse and those who nobly use great offices and powers.)

“We have repeatedly pointed out that every social institution weaves a protecting integument of glossy idealization about itself like a colony of caterpillars in an apple-tree. For instance, wherever militarism rules, war is idealized by monuments and paintings, poetry and song. The stench of the hospitals and the maggots of the battlefield are passed in silence, and the imagination of the people is filled with waving plumes and the shout of charging columns.”—Professor Walter Rauschenbusch, Rochester Theological Seminary.[332]

KNOWLEDGE OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORKING CLASS, WHICH INCLUDES THE HISTORY OF WAR, WILL CEMENT THE WORKERS INSEPARABLY TOGETHER—SOCIALLY, INDUSTRIALLY AND POLITICALLY, AND WILL THUS MANY TIMES MULTIPLY THEIR POWER FOR SELF-DEFENSE.

When the working class understand the history of the working class, a bronze monument erected in honor of a great general will look to the workers like a vote of thanks to the Superintendent of Hell, and an ornamental cannon in a public park will look like a viper on a banquet table spread for a feast of brothers.

In the public schools of the world the history of the working class is almost wholly neglected. No text-book gives the facts, and no teacher is permitted to tell the truth—clearly—about the martyrdom of labor since the dawn of class-form, “civilized” society. The union labor men and women of the world could with great advantage to the working class devote a few thousand dollars for the expense of a five-hundred-page book summarizing: The History of Labor—The Tragedy of Toil.

(At this point please reread first two pages of the preface of the present volume.)

The following pages are offered as suggestions for a half-hour lesson chiefly on the origin of the working class. It is suggested to the working class reader that he teach this lesson to the children of his family and of his neighborhood.

Now, no living thing can be understood without a study of its history, and the study of the history of a living thing requires special attention to the origin of the thing studied. The working class are a living reality, and in order to understand themselves the working class must study their class history—with the very special attention to their origin as a class.

Long, long ago—thousands of years ago—our ancestors lived in tribes. These tribes grew, expanded till finally the pressure of population forced the tribes to enlarge their territories; and thus the tribes trespassed—aggressed upon one another’s territory.

This caused wars—intertribal wars.

This was the origin of war.

This led to the opening of hell—for the workers.

After a while a working class arose—and began to fall into hell. Here is the way it came about:

For a long time in these intertribal wars it was the practice to take no prisoners (except the younger women), but to kill, kill, kill, because the conquerors had no use for the captive men. When, however, society had developed industrially to a stage enabling the victors to make use of live men as work animals, _that new industrial condition produced a new idea_—one of the greatest and most revolutionary ideas that ever flashed in the human brain; and that idea was simply this:—A live man is worth more than a dead one, if you can make use of him _as a work animal_. When industrially it became practicable for the conquerors to make use of live men captured in war, it rapidly became the custom to take prisoners, save them alive, beat them into submission—tame them—and thus have them for work animals, human work animals.

Here the human ox, yoked to the burdens of the world, started through the centuries, centuries sad with tears and red with blood and fire.

Thus originated a class of workers, the _working class_.

Thus also originated the _ruling_ class. Thus originated the “leading citizens.”

Thus, originally, in war, the workers fell into the bottomless gulf of misery. It was thus that war opened wide the devouring jaws of hell for the workers.

Thus was human society long ago divided into industrial classes,—into _two_ industrial classes.

Of course the interests of these two classes were in fundamental conflict, and thus originated the class struggle.

Of course the ruling class were in complete possession and control of all the powers of government—and of course they had _sense enough to use the powers of government to defend their own class interests_.

Of course the ruling class made all the laws and controlled all institutions in the interest of the ruling class—naturally.

Of course the ruling class socially despised the slaves—that is, despised the working class; this “upper” class felt contempt for the “lower” class—naturally; and thus originated the social degradation, the social stigma that still sticks to the working class, so clearly clings to the workers that, for example, the banker’s daughter does not marry the wage-earning carpenter; the mine-owner’s son does not marry the wage-earning house-maid; the rank and file of union labor are not welcome in the palatial parlors and ball-rooms where the “very best people” are sipping the best champagne and are rhythmically hugging themselves in the dance; the servants, both white and black, in a high-grade (high class, “upper” class) hotel are not even permitted to take a drink of water at the guests’ water fountain tho’ the guest-list may include scores of blasé old reprobates, scores of polygamous parasites, scores of the most infamous, dollar-lusting, law-breaking disreputables in the world. The working class are indeed even yet openly or secretly despised socially by their “betters.”

It was thus and there and then that, long ago, _in war_, originated the first class-labor form of society, the institution called slavery.[333] A class of despised human work animals and a class of domineering masters thus appeared; and these two classes developed, this METHOD OF PRODUCTION developed, to such vast proportions that this CLASS-labor system became the FUNDAMENTAL THING IN THE INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY. It was in this manner that, long ago, one part of society climbed upon the shoulders of the other part of society and became parasites, social parasites, and as a class sunk their parasitic beaks into the industrial flesh of those who had become a working class. (Reread carefully the three quotations at the head of Chapter Ten. They are specially important.)

Of course the industrial blood of the workers tasted good to the masters—that is to say, the more work the slaves did the less work the masters had to do,—and that was lovely, for the masters, for the “leading citizens.” The “leading citizens” knew they had a bright idea—just like a “leading citizen’s” idea of course. The new idea became popular, extremely so—of course. The “leading citizens” were _so_ pleased—with themselves and their “brainy” idea. They were “superior” people—their idea proved that, of course. At that point in human history a ruling class began to flatter themselves and talk in a loud and handsome manner about “the _best_ people,” “the _right to ride inferior people_,” “the progressive, enterprising part of society,” and so forth. The “leading citizens” knew very well that they had a “good thing”—for the “leading citizens,” for the upper class who thus became _so very pleasantly located as an upper class_—that is, upon the industrial shoulders of the “lower class,” the working class. (Note carefully the quotation from Dr. Ward at Head of Chapter Ten.)

Very naturally the ruling class at once busied themselves _promoting and protecting_ their new class-work plan, their new idea. The idea was _their_ idea and it was such a splendid idea. Indeed slavery was such a perfectly delightful idea—for the rulers—that, being “gentlemen of push and enterprise,” they _eagerly studied the problem of developing ways and means of extending their new advantage_. They thought. They planned—to manage the new human mule.

Their first idea was—force.

Kick the mule—and rule.

An institution, an _armed_ guard, was, therefore, promptly organized for holding down the slaves, the “lower class,” by force,—to hold the toilers, as it were, by the wrists. But an armed guard was expensive, and it was expensive simply because _one_ armed guard could not hold _many_ slaves to their tasks—by force. Now, the ancient slave-holding ruling class, like the modern capitalist ruling class, were, of course, eager to “reduce expenses and increase efficiency.” Thus the rulers had another idea, a big bright idea. Mark well the masters.

Their second idea was—fraud.

Fool the mule—and rule.

The brilliant idea of using _fraud_ in ruling slaves, that is, in ruling the working class, was simply this: to have an _unarmed_ guard _teach_ the human horse to “stand hitched,” as it were, or, rather, to work like a trained horse without requiring an armed driver to whip him, to force him to his tasks. This unarmed guard was to hold the workers to their tasks by getting a grip on their minds, on their brains, rather than on their wrists.

This was more “refined.”

This was also much cheaper. _This method has always been cheaper._ It is cheaper for this reason: One _unarmed_ deceiver acting as a guard by holding the mind, the _brain_, of the workers, can hold to their tasks _hundreds of times as many_ as one _armed_ guard can hold by force. This was a most happy idea—for the ruling class.

A new era opened.

The ruler smiled at the deceiver. The deceiver smiled at the ruler. They understood—each other, and agreed upon “_the best interests of society_.”

Precisely so.[334]

Here originated the vile rôle of the intellectual prostitute, the cheap part of the chloroformer of the working class, the contemptible business of the professional palaverer. Here, right at this point in human history, the perfumed intellectual prostitute joined the blood-stained soldier,—in the ruler’s service of _holding down the robbed and ruined working class_. The palaverer taught the toil-cursed workers to be obedient and grateful and humble and meek and lowly and contented, to “forget it” that they have poverty here and keep in mind that “it will be all right over there”—“up above” (over in behind beyond the stars) where they will be “richly rewarded, in the sweet bye and bye, for all their sufferings in this world”; taught them that they should not be “resentful,” but “in patience bear all sufferings,”—bear even the agony of having their daughters raped by rulers, and their sons run through with spears.

Thus the toiler was kept in his “proper place” (at work) by the soldier and the palaverer, compelling and cajoling the domesticated human work animal.

They held him fast.

One seized his wrists, the other seized his reason; one used force, the other used fraud; one used a lash, the other used a lure; one used a club, the other used chloroform; one frowned threateningly, the other smiled seductively. With curses and cunning these two have taught the toiler LAW AND ORDER—THE LAW AND THE ORDER MADE BY THE MASTERS FOR THE MASTERS.

Both guards were “necessary”—in the business of robbing the working class. Both have served the ruling class long and well. Through the long sad centuries these three, the ruler and his two “standbys,” the soldier and the palaverer, have ridden the human beast of burden, the working class. The mailed fist of the hired assassin and the soft voice of the bribed palaverer have held the worker utterly helpless while the ruler robbed him.

Both guards have been rewarded—with provender and flattery, with pelf and popularity. The whipper and the wheedler of the toiler, the slayer and the seducer of the working class, have been the specially petted patriots whose ignoble rôle has been to help defend the class-labor system.

The workers have been kicked and tricked for ten thousand years, but chiefly tricked, _betrayed into helpless consent and stupid approval_. The more fraud the less force.

_Undoubtedly far more important than the physical conquest over the working class was the conquest over the mind of the working class. Undoubtedly the idea of teaching the slave to be a slave and to be satisfied with slavery and thus make the slave, the serf, the wage-earner, an_ AUTOMATIC _human ox to bear and draw the burdens of the world in brainless obedience and dull humility—undoubtedly that idea has done more solid service in the successes of injustice than any other idea ever born in the brain of tyrants_.

The ruling class have always carefully secured the services of many of the world’s ablest men to play Judas to the carpenters—to the working class. Profound men, gifted men, trained men, eloquent men, enjoying the world’s choicest food, blissfully happy with the world’s finest wine, living in homes of comfort and splendor, dressed in softest raiment, many of these have traduced the slave, the serf and the wage-earner without shame. Tho’ the splendid Christ said: “The _truth_ shall make _you free_,” these Judases have taught the working class that learning is a useless or an evil thing for the _working_ people;[335] that the toilers’ poverty is the will of God, that unrewarded toil in this world would reap a “_specially_ rich reward beyond the grave.” These paid and powerful human things, palavering about the “dignity of honest toil,” palavering about the “joy of the hope of good things beyond” (always _beyond_)—these themselves have been practical and careful to take cash-down-good-things for their collect-on-delivery services, careful to take a rich and prompt reward _here_ and _now_ in _this_ world, while at the very same time they were advising and urging the slave, the serf, and the wage-earner to accept unsigned cheques payable in heaven.

Always this for the worker: “_Your_ turn will come _next_”—that is, in the next world.

Following this vanishing lure, hundreds of millions of toilers have, as it were, walked barefoot on broken glass and lain down in their beds of misery _mentally paralyzed on the subject of justice_. Hundreds of millions of toilers have not only accepted these teachings; but, saddest of all, have been tricked into teaching these same things to their children.

Thus it was that almost the entire working class were tamed and trained for many centuries into spineless meekness, into the docility of humility—helpless—policed by prejudice and fear founded on _shrewdly perpetuated ignorance_.

“Slaves, obey your masters,” has been taught in a thousand ways for ten thousand years by the stuffed prophets for the profit-stuffed rulers of the robbed and ruined workers of the world.

This perhaps will make it somewhat easier to understand the _present intellectual condition of the working class_. It thus becomes easier to understand why the workers were taught (and are taught now) to be “satisfied with their lot,” taught the “identity and harmony of interests of capital and labor.” This explains the meekness of the multitude, the docility of the majority, and their _political modesty_.

Sheepish meekness, self-contempt and prideless obedience long ago took the place of defiant and splendid rebellious self-respect—in the _character_ and the _thinking_ of the working class.

In every possible way the shackles have been riveted to the wrists and brains of the working class—what for?—_in order to perpetuate the class-labor system_. Under slavery, under serfdom and under capitalism, laws, constitutions, customs, religious teachings, secular teachings, and all the social institutions have been _shrewdly conformed or adjusted to_ THE PREVAILING METHOD OF PRODUCTION for the PROTECTION of that method of production _in order thus to_ SUPPORT THE CLASS _who, in the struggle for existence, have had_ GROSSLY UNFAIR ADVANTAGE BY MEANS OF THAT METHOD OF PRODUCTION.[336]

Ferocious _wrongs_ were studiously developed into vast _institutions_. For example, man-stealing and slave-breeding became the chief business of the mightiest of the ancient pagan societies, the Roman Empire, and was also a flourishing enterprise under the most highly developed modern Christian societies, the British Empire and the American Republic. Christian Queen Anne, of England, unrebuked by her “spiritual adviser,” was a pious stockholder in a slave-hunting corporation composed of prominent and pious Christian ladies and gentlemen.[337] The Christian churches, colleges, newspapers, of the United States not long ago, North and South, were almost unanimous in their eloquent and pious defense of human slavery.[338] The business was eminently respectable, the business of legally (and piously) sucking the industrial blood out of one’s fellowmen—living like a parasite,—the business of producing nothing and living upon the results of the worker’s labor-power.

Thus keep in mind:[339]

(1) The origin of the working class,

(2) The origin of the first class-labor system,

(3) The origin of the class struggle,

(4) The origin of the social degradation, the socially “down-and-out” condition, the loss of social standing—of the working class people,

(5) The origin and growth of the humility of the working class, of the sheepish meekness of the working class, the meekness which today shows itself in the politics of most working men—always suspecting and despising their own working-class political party, always in our day tagging along after some smooth, well-dressed crook candidates on capitalist class party tickets.

(6) The perpetuation of ignorance—in the working class.

(7) The origin of the intellectual prostitute, the moral emasculate.

Now, help your satisfied fellow worker, help _him_ understand _why he is satisfied_.

Without malice, without anti-culture prejudice, without anti-religious hatred, without anti-church spite, but _with knowledge of the naturalness of human behavior domineered by economic necessity_, with knowledge of the great _historical process_, with your vision clear, your heart kind, your courage high, and your purpose fraternal—explain, explain this matter of meekness to your humble, contented wage-slave neighbor. Explain: That long ago the working man was forced and taught to be docile and meek. Under slavery, later under serfdom and still later under capitalism—for thousands of years—he industrially, socially, and politically _surrendered_. He was compelled to do so. He was taught to do so.

He got the habit.

He had the manhood and the courage beaten out of him, kicked out of him—and coaxed out of him.

He lost heart.

He humbly took his place—as a chattel-slave class, as a serf-slave class, as a wage-slave class.

He has produced wealth.

He has reproduced slaves.

_The wings of his aspiration have been clipped._ He can hope no higher than a job—for himself. He hopes no higher than a job—for his children.

The top of the plans of his life is—toil.

And therefore even now as a wage-slave he teaches his own children to “respect their betters”—their employer masters.

He forgets.

He is so cringingly grateful for a job that he forgets he should have not only the right to breathe the air, the right to look at the sun, the right to read in the library, the right to walk on the highway, and the right to sit in the park,—but also the _right to work_, _the right to work unrobbed_, _the right to work under dignifying conditions_, and thus maintain himself on this earth at the _upmost levels of life_, enjoying the full result of his applied labor power,—and _without whining for permission to do so_.

He forgets.

He is still so very humble.

He is, under the wage-system, forced to obey orders all his life in the factory, the shop and the mine. He is thus habitually so obedient that he will obey any order. He prides himself on his obedience. Under orders he will even plunge a bayonet into the breast of his fellow workers—in the interest of the capitalist class. He forgets the thousand wrongs thrust into his weary life and into the life of his class.

He does indeed forget.

He is still in a dull, dumb slumber.

But he is _beginning to rouse_ from the slumber of meekness—from the social damnation of brainless obedience.

_He is beginning to study the history of his own working class; and therefore he is rousing, waking, rising._

Following are some additional short paragraphs on the history of the working class from books by distinguished writers and teachers. It is hoped that these quoted paragraphs will induce further working class study of working class history. These passages confirm the main points of this lesson. (See Chapter Twelve, Suggestion 4.)

Professor Lester F. Ward (Brown University):[340]

“Still, the world has never reached a stage where the physical and temporal interests have not been largely in the ascendant, and it is these upon which the economists have established their science. _Self-preservation has always been the first law of nature_ and that which best insures this is the greatest gain.... _All considerations of pride or self-respect will give way to the imperious law of the greatest gain for the least effort._ All notions of justice which would prompt the giving of an equivalent _vanish_ before it....”

Thus wrote Sir Henry Maine:[341]

“The simple wish to use the bodily powers of another person, as a means of ministering to one’s own ease or pleasure, is doubtless the foundation of slavery.”

And thus Professor W. G. Sumner (Yale University):[342]

“The desire to get ease or other good by the labor of another and the incidental gratification to vanity seem to be the fundamental principles of slavery, when philosophically regarded, after the rule of one man over others has become established.... It appears that slavery began historically with the war captive, if he or she was not put to death, as he was liable to be by the laws of war.... It seems to be established that it [slavery] began where the economic system was such that there was gain in making a slave of a war captive, instead of killing him.... The defeated [in war] were forced to it [slavery] and _learned to submit to it_.... It seemed to be good fun, as well as wise policy, to make the members of a rival out-group do these tasks, after defeating them in war.... Inasmuch as slavery springs from greed and vanity, it appeals to primary motives and is at once entwined with selfishness and other fundamental vices.... _It rises to an interest which overrules everything else_.... The motive of slavery is base and cruel from the beginning.... The _interests_ normally control life.... Slavery is an instinct which is sure to break over all restraints and correctives.... It is a kind of _pitfall for civilization_.”

Here are a few lines from Professors Ely and Wicker (University of Wisconsin, Department of Economics):[343]

“It follows from the need of larger territories [in the hunting stage] that war becomes an economic necessity wherever there is not an abundance of unoccupied land. This same condition of things gives us one of the causes of cannibalism. The pressure of increasing numbers bringing people continually to the verge of starvation, they fall, little by little, into the custom of eating enemies, taken in war.... Captives later came to be recognized as of use in serving their captors, and thus slavery succeeds cannibalism....

“The Origin of a Working Class. Perhaps the most important result of the change which produced the agricultural stage was the growth of slavery as an institution. As we have said, slavery had its beginnings in the preceding periods [hunting and pastoral], but it is only in the agricultural stage that it becomes an important, almost a fundamental, economic institution. Tending the herds did not call for persistent labor, but the prose of tilling the soil is undisguised work, and primitive men were not fond of work.... It is not strange then that they should have saved the lives of men conquered in battle with the design of putting upon them the tasks of tilling the soil.”

On the origin of slavery the eminent French sociologist, Gabriel Tarde, writes:[344]

“What do all our modern inventions amount to in comparison with this capital invention of domestication. This was the first decisive victory over animality. Now, of all historic events the greatest and most surprising is, unquestionably, the one which alone made history possible, the triumph of man over surrounding fauna [animals of the region].... To us the trained horse that is docile under the bit is merely a certain muscular force under our control.... The idea of reducing men to slavery, instead of killing and eating them, must have arisen after the idea of training animals instead of feeding on them, for the same reason that war against wild beasts must have preceded that against alien tribes. When man enslaved and domesticated his own kind, he substituted the idea of human beasts of burden for that of human prey.”

And this from Wallis:[345]

“But whatever its merits, the consideration of slavery introduces a much larger subject—the place of class relations in social development as a whole. In its material aspect, property in men is an institution by means of which one class of people appropriates the labor product of another class without economic repayment. _This relation is brought about [also] by other institutions than slavery._ For instance, if a class engross the land of a country and force the remainder of the population to pay rent, either in kind or in money, for the use of the soil, such a procedure issues, like slavery, in the absorption of labor products by an upper class without economic repayment.

“We have observed the origin of the social cleavage into upper and lower strata on this general basis at the inception of social development. If we scrutinize the field carefully, it is evident that one of the greatest and far reaching facts of ancient civilization, as it emerges from the darkness of prehistoric times, as well as one of the most considerable facts of subsequent history is just _this cleavage into two principal classes_.”

Herbert Spencer has written:[346]

“The sequence of slavery upon war in ancient times is shown us in the chronicle of all races....

“Ready obedience to a terrestrial ruler is naturally accompanied by ready obedience to a supposed celestial ruler; ... Examination discloses a relation between ecclesiastical and political governments ... and in societies which have developed a highly coercive secular rule there habitually exists a high coercive religious rule....

“The Clergy were not the men who urged the abolition of slavery, nor the men who condemned regulations which raised the price of bread to maintain rents. Ministers of religion do not _as a body_ denounce the unjust aggression we continually commit on weaker societies.”

Dr. Ward writes:[347]

“Passing over robbery and theft, which, though prevalent everywhere, are not recognized by society, let us consider war for a moment as a non-industrial mode of acquisition. In modern times, most wars have some pretext besides that of aggrandizing the victorious parties engaged in them, although in nearly all cases this latter is the real casus belli [justification of war]. This shows that the world is so far advanced as to be ashamed of its motives for its conduct, but not enough so to affect that conduct materially. In olden times no secret was made of the object of military expeditions as the acquisition of the wealth of the conquered people.... We may regard war, then, strictly considered, as a mode of acquisition.... War, then, when waged for conquest, is simply robbery on so large a scale that in the crude conceptions of men it arouses the sentiments of honor.”

In Dealy and Ward’s _Text Book of Sociology_, pp. 86–88, is this luminous passage:

“The stage of race antagonism is reached and the era of war begins. The chase for animal food is converted into a chase for human flesh, and anthropophagous [cannibal] races arise, spreading terror in all directions.... The use of the bodies of the weaker races for food was, of course, the simplest form of exploitation to suggest itself. But this stage was succeeded by that social assimilation through conquest and subjugation. The profound inequality produced by subjugation was turned to account through other forms of exploitation. The women and the warriors were enslaved, and the system of caste that arose converted the conquered race into a virtually servile class, while this service and the exemptions it entailed converted the leaders of the conquering race into a leisure class.

“Such was the origin of slavery, an economic institution which is found in the earlier stages of all the historical races.”

The next selected paragraph is from Professor Simon Patten (University of Pennsylvania), Ex-President of the American Academy of Political and Social Science:[348]

“The human hordes turned upon each other, and their prowlings about the precarious supplies of food evolved in the course of time the ‘wars of civilization.’ There was little peace where nature was most productive, and the conquering populations of the better lands, governing and protecting by conquest, built up whole states on the traditions and practice of fighting.... _Statesmen and philosophers set forth the necessity and beneficence of destruction. It was in such a world, where a man’s death was his neighbor’s gain, that_ OUR _social institutions were grounded_.... Predatory habits, which originated in the hunting of game, developed a zest for hunting men as soon as conquests and the possession of slaves made the agricultural resources of the valleys more desirable than those of the mountain or upland plain.... The contests evolved social institutions, which do perpetuate and conserve, and which do not improve, man’s adjustment to nature. Here arises the distinction between the _social_ institutions ... and the _economic_ institutions.... The former establish status and the rights of possession and exploitation; the other increase nobility of men and goods, promote industry, and give each generation renewed power to establish itself in closer relations with nature.

“The result of these conditions is two kinds of obstacles that hinder advance. On the one hand are the obstacles economic, maladjustments between man and _nature_, which forced men in the past to submit to a poverty they did not know how to escape; and on the other hand are the obstacles _social_ which do not originate in nature, but in those _past [social] conditions retaining present potency_ that have aligned men into antagonistic classes at home and into hostile races abroad. The _economic_ obstacles are being slowly weakened by the application of knowledge, science and skill; but the _social_ obstacles will never be overcome until an intellectual revolution shall have freed men’s minds from the stultifying social traditions that hand down hatreds, and shall have given to thought the freedom that now makes industrial activity. _The extension of civilization downward does not depend at present so much upon gaining fresh victories over nature, as it does upon the demolishment of social obstacles which divide men into classes and prevent the universal democracy that unimpeded economic forces would bring about._ The _social_ status, properly determined by a man’s working capacity, has now _intervened between him and his relations with nature_ until OPPORTUNITY, which should be impersonal and self-renewed at the birth of a man, has dwindled and become partisan.”[349]

Thus Professor Patten, tho’ a conservative and a nonsocialist, frankly points out the necessity of such social reorganization as will destroy the _artificial_ barriers to equality of opportunity for each to secure an abundance. And it is certainly true, as Dr. Patten suggests, that we have arrived at that stage in our knowledge of nature and in our industrial evolution, which renders industrial reconstruction of society logically necessary—both to avoid war and to secure industrial justice and freedom for the working class.

Anent this matter one of America’s noblest and most scholarly women, Miss Jane Addams, writes as follows:[350]

“Existing commerce has long ago reached its international stage, but it has been the result of business aggression, and constantly appeals for military defense and for the forcing of new markets.... It has logically lent itself to warfare, and is indeed the modern representative of conquest. As its prototype rested upon slavery and vassalage, so this commerce is founded upon a contempt for the worker, and believes that he can live on low wages. It assumes that his legitimate wants are the animal ones, comprising merely food and shelter and the cost of its replacement.”

Frederic Harrison thus:[351]

“Within our social system there rages the struggle of classes, interests, and ambitions; the passion for wealth, the restlessness of want. The future of industry, the cause of education, social justice, the very life of the poor, all tremble in the balance in our own country, as in other countries; this way or that way will decide the well-being of generations to come.”

The wars of long ago originated because it was extremely _difficult_ to get a living out of nature’s store-house of supplies—when men were ignorant of nature’s resources and ignorant of how to make nature yield abundantly. Those wars were due chiefly to ignorance of physical nature, due to our _inability to get into right relations_ WITH PHYSICAL NATURE. But the wars of the present are carried on, and the wars of the future will be carried on, chiefly because of the following _combination_ of circumstances:

(a) We have so much knowledge of nature’s forces and resources that it is easy, now, to get livings from nature’s store-house, easy to produce abundantly; and

(b) Under the _wage_-system the worker’s power to produce abundantly is so much greater than his permitted consuming power that the surplus product becomes so large as to make a foreign market, a world-market, necessary; and,

(c) Since many nations have reached and more nations are rapidly approaching this stage of development in production, yet still remain under the wage-and-profit plan of distribution, THE WORLD MARKET IS INSUFFICIENT FOR ALL OF THEM.

Hence there will be wars, if the working class permit them.

The future wars will be due chiefly to ignorance of social nature, due to our _inability to get into right relations_ WITH ONE ANOTHER _industrially_.

War produced slavery, chattel slavery. Chattel slavery evolved into serf-slavery. Serf-slavery evolved into wage-slavery. And wage-slaves produce so much and are permitted to consume so small a proportion of what they produce, that the capitalists must order the wage-slaves to fight for a foreign market for what the wage-slaves produce and the capitalist employers do not consume or invest and the wage-slaves are not permitted to consume. War thus originated slavery and now slavery [wage-slavery] ends in war.

_War, conflict, struggle, Antagonism is in the social structure wherever there is slavery._

Slavery is fundamentally unsocial—anti-social.

Now, the capitalist employer insists that the wage-earner and the employer are in _proper_ relation to each other. The capitalist is satisfied to have had the first two class-labor forms of society (slavery and serfdom) pass away. But he accepts the _present_ class-labor form of society (the wage-system) as _correct_; it is satisfactory—to him. And he craftily has it taught in the high schools, colleges and universities that the employer and the wage-earner are at present in proper relation to each other.

The capitalist enjoys his own freedom _at the expense of the worker’s freedom_.

He is eager to have the wage-earner _believe_ that he too is free; and that, being free, he should be satisfied AND KEEP QUIET.

The capitalists explain that the wage-earners are free because the wage-earners have the _privilege of making a contract_, a contract to _work for wages_; that the wage-earners being thus at last free to make a contract, they have reached their final status, an ideal status; and that thus (Blessed be the Lord!) _evolution has finally finished its great work_—the work is done and _well_ done.

_Capitalists and the intellectual flunkies of the capitalist class do all possible to have the world believe the following proposition_:

THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RELATIONS IS FINISHED—PERFECT—IN INDUSTRY; AND, THEREFORE, THE WAGE-EARNERS ARE FOOLISH AND UNGRATEFUL TO BE DISCONTENTED, AFTER HAVING DEVELOPED TO THEIR PRESENT STAGE OF INDUSTRIAL FREEDOM.

Following is a sample of the familiar soothing congratulation on our having reached the present noble form of industrial freedom and civilization. Professor Fairbanks (Yale University) writes thus:[352]

“When captives taken in war could be utilized for work instead of being destroyed or eaten, a genuine means of production was secured.... Feudalism marked a decided advance on slavery.... The serf had certain interests of his own, not wholly identical with his lord’s.... Then masters gradually learned that hired labor [the wage-system] was more profitable than forced labor, and the principle of serfdom, like that of slavery before it, had to give way to a higher form of organization for production [the wage-system]....

“The laborer [at present under the wage-system] is bound to his master by no tie except such as he voluntarily assumes.”

How frankly profits are admitted to have been the motive inspiring the origin of the wage-system.

And how entertainingly ridiculous is the last proposition quoted above. What cheap palavering about freedom. What clownish antics pleasing to the kings—the industrial kings. It certainly pleases the industrial Caesars to have the Professor turn intellectual somersaults to induce the wage-slave to smile sweetly and admire the slave-bands on his own wrists. Are not those bands plainly marked “_Free_”?

Notice that Professor Fairbanks uses the words “master” and “bound” in referring to the relation between the employer and the “free-contracting” wage-earner.

A _free_ man does not _voluntarily_ BIND himself to a _master_.

With the lash of hunger cutting him and the wolf of want at the throats of his wife and children, the “free-contracting” hired laborer, the wage-earner, promptly and voluntarily seeks an employer—“master,” and “voluntarily” “contracts” to produce a dollar’s worth of value for twenty or forty cents in wages and thus “voluntarily” degrades himself and thus “voluntarily” submits to have his wife and little children robbed of the abundant livings he wishes to provide for them. This is the freedom, the free contract, of the wage-system, the present (the third) form of _class_-labor system. This _glorious_ freedom of the modern wage-slave is _easily_ seen in the picture _opposite the title-page of this book_.

The “freedom” of the wage-earner in thus making a contract, with starvation behind him, vagrancy laws reaching for him, police, militia, soldiers, jails and bull-pens ready for him, this freedom is about as complete as that of a citizen facing an armed and threatening highwayman who commands, “Hands up!” The wage earner and the held-up citizen are free to comply, free to surrender and free to be robbed, and _also_ free to decline _and take the consequences_—all “voluntarily” of course.

NO ONE IS FREE INDEED TILL HE IS FREE IN THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL ACTIVITY OF LIFE, THE ACTIVITY OF GETTING A LIVING.

In the evolution of mankind the worker has, in some parts of the world, secured:

Freedom to investigate,

Freedom of thought,

Freedom of assemblage,

Freedom of speech,

Freedom of the press,

Freedom of suffrage—for male workers,

Freedom of political party organization and association.

This indicates the stage at which we have arrived in the development of freedom for the working class. These _preliminary_ forms of freedom are _the means with which, if we have pride enough, we shall secure freedom indeed—freedom in getting a living_, freedom from capitalist employers who, with soldiers and the lash of starvation, force us into wage contracts, freedom from the blue-blood social parasites who despise our common blood in social relations, suck our blood in industrial relations, and waste our blood in war.[353]

In the evolution of mankind the ancient free barbarian, taken prisoner in war, loudly and grandly protesting, became a chattel slave without any kind of freedom; the chattel slave became a serf without industrial freedom or any other kind in reality and completeness; the serf became a wage-earner, a wage-slave, without industrial freedom—that is, without the _fundamental_ freedom, freedom in getting a living. However, in very recent times the wage-earner has come into the possession of several of those extremely _important forms of freedom with which he can defend himself_ as soon as he has sufficient self-respect to do so.

Thus and therefore the QUESTION OF OUR DAY is this:

ARE THE WORKING CLASS PROUD AND KEEN ENOUGH TO USE THE FREEDOM THEY HAVE, TO SECURE THE FREEDOM THEY NEED MOST—NAMELY, FREEDOM IN INDUSTRY, FREEDOM IN GETTING A LIVING IN A SOCIALIZED SOCIETY, A SOCIETY WITH EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL, ALL OF US WITH OUR FEET FIRMLY PLANTED ON THE COLLECTIVELY OWNED INDUSTRIAL FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY, A SOCIETY OF RATIONAL MUTUALISM, WITH JUSTICE, PLENTY AND PEACE?

Reader, if you are with us in our peaceful struggle to win the world for the workers, start a fire—in your neighbor’s mind (if he has one)—hand him a torch, a torch of truth. Let us shake hands and fight—the enemy—with light.

With the truth we shall halt the galloping cavalry, silence the cannon, “ground arms,” and close the class struggle—in a co-operative commonwealth.

With a dollar’s worth of literature you can reach a hundred brains.

It is your move.

Footnote 332:

_Christianity and the Social Crisis_, p. 350.

Footnote 333:

It is true that even before this time woman occupied a servile position and virtually constituted an industrial class. See August Bebel’s _Woman—Past, Present and Future_.

Footnote 334:

Professor E. A. Ross (Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin) gently hints thus (_Social Control_, p. 86):

“Under the ascendency of the rich and leisured, property becomes more sacred than persons, moral standards vary with the pecuniary status, and it is felt that ‘God will think twice before He damns a person of quality.’”

Footnote 335:

Even great literatures, regarded as divinely inspired and boasted to be The Truth, have been kept from the _free_ access of the people—the “plain people,” too plain to _understand_ the literature said to have _life_ in it. Such literature has been hidden from the people for many hundreds of years—or “rightly divided” and diluted.

Footnote 336:

The inauguration of human slavery was a profound change in human relations—the greatest possible “change in circumstances”—down at the very foundations of society. Vast _fundamental_ changes resulted—inevitably—in changed, and even _new_, institutions.

“Institutions must change with changing circumstances, since they are of the nature of an habitual method of responding to stimuli which these changing circumstances afford.... The institutions are, in substance, prevalent habits of thought with respect to particular relations and particular functions of the individual and of the community....”—Thorstein Veblen: _The Theory of the Leisure Class_, p. 190. See quotation from Dr. Small at the head of Chapter Ten. Also consult Ross’s _Social Control_.

Footnote 337:

See Thomas’s _History of the United States_, p. 68.

Footnote 338:

See Hyndman: _The Economics of Socialism_, Lecture 1, Methods of Production.

Footnote 339:

And get these things into the minds of the children. If the teacher at your nearest school does not know these things, have the children teach the teacher.

Footnote 340:

_Pure Sociology_, p. 61. Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 341:

_Ancient Law_, p. 164.

Footnote 342:

_Folkways_, pp. 262–3 and 307. Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 343:

_Elementary Economics_, pp. 27–33.

Footnote 344:

_Laws of Imitation_, Parson’s translation, pp. 277–79.

Footnote 345:

_American Journal of Sociology_, May, 1902, pp. 764–65. Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 346:

_Principles of Sociology_, Vol. III., pp. 84, 92, 148, 448; Appleton’s Edition, 1899. See also Lester F. Ward: _Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., pp. 287–90. (Italics mine. G. R. K.)

Footnote 347:

_Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., pp. 583–85.

Footnote 348:

_The New Basis of Civilization_, pp. 67, 69. Italics mine. G. R. K.

Footnote 349:

See discussion of parasites in Chapter Ten.

Footnote 350:

_Newer Ideals of Peace_, pp. 115–16.

Footnote 351:

_National and Social Problems_, p. 255.

Footnote 352:

_Introduction to Sociology_, pp. 136–39.

Footnote 353:

For a powerful argument showing the intellectual equality of the working class and the ruling class see Professor Lester F. Ward’s _Applied Sociology_. The political foolishness of the working class is not due to lack of brains, but to lack of books—books that tell the truth, the truth that clears the vision and rouses the passion for freedom and points the way.—Suggestions, next chapter.