Transcriber’s Notes:

This is The Unpopular Review, Vol. 2, No. 4, October-December, 1914, including the index for Vol. 2, which consists of Issues No. 3 and 4. Issue No. 3 is posted at Project Gutenberg as EBook #15876.

The [index] in the html (web browser) version of this document contains clickable links to the referenced pages. The targets for the links to pages in Issue No. 3 are in the [online version at Project Gutenberg].

[Additional Transcriber’s Notes] are at the end.

The Unpopular Review

No. 4 OCTOBER-DECEMBER, 1914 Vol. II

CONTENTS

SOME FREE-SPEECH DELUSIONS

A singular phenomenon of our time is the invention of a new species of martyrdom. Resistance to wrong, real or imaginary, revolt against oppression, the endeavor to overthrow an established order, has in all ages been attended with hardship and suffering. When repression or punishment has been cruel or vindictive, and the victims have cried out against it, in the more humane ages, they have had in their protest the sympathy and support of right-minded men, however opposed to the aims of the agitation or revolt in question. Those who have suffered for their convictions, whether at the hands of a court or through the bloody judgment of the sword, have won the name of hero or martyr. The time has been when those who were known to hold opinions which were regarded as dangerous to the State, or were obnoxious to the ruling power, fell under the ban of the Government as criminals. In the last two or three centuries, among the more liberal and advanced nations, outright persecution of this kind has been unknown; but between this merely negative freedom of opinion and that positive freedom which we understand by the terms “free speech” and “free press” there is a long distance, the traversing of which has been slow and irregular. It is possible to maintain that even now, and even in such countries as the United States or England, this freedom is not absolute; there are extremely few things, either in government or in common life, that are absolute. But the remarkable thing about the outcry for freedom of speech, of which we have lately been hearing so much, is that this clamor has nothing whatever to do with the question of the absolute completeness of that freedom. What the agitators complain of is not that there are some things which they are not permitted to say or to print; it is not that their publications are censored or the circulation of them obstructed; it is not that the doctrines in which they are interested cannot be put before any assemblage, large or small, which chooses to gather together in an orderly way to hear them. Their grievance is that at certain times or places, where the speaking they wish to do would be either an invasion of ordinary private rights of others, or, in the opinion of the authorities, an incitement to disorder, the authorities intervene to prevent these results. The restrictions to which they object are not limitations as to the nature of the doctrine preached, nor yet limitations that in any way confine the general spreading of the doctrine. What they are not allowed to do is—in principle, at least; of course, there have been blundering applications of it—simply what nobody else is allowed to do. In a word, what they demand is not that they shall have the same freedom as the ordinary citizen in spite of being enemies of the established order, but that they shall have special privileges and immunities because of being enemies of the established order.

In keeping with the peculiar character of their grievance is the character of that factitious martyrdom which they seek to build upon it. The I. W. W. orator who wishes to speak at the foot of the Franklin statue in Park Row considers himself—in a mild way, to be sure—a martyr if, on account of the obstruction of traffic by the crowd that gathers round him, he is required by the police to hold his meeting a couple of hundred yards further north; his martyrdom consisting in the fact that there is very little fun or excitement to be had out of addressing a crowd which does not obstruct traffic. In the crowd itself—say the excited and more or less turbulent crowd in Union Square soon after the Colorado trouble—a man may refuse to move on at the command of the policeman, and may get a crack on his head from the policeman’s club; this man certainly has a much more substantial claim to the title of martyr, and yet his claim is at least nine parts humbug to one part reality. It may be a pretty serious thing to the poor fellow himself, or it may not; as a social or political event it is simply nothing. It would only be something if it were part of a systematic persecution—an incident of a regular policy of oppression. Unfortunately there have been places,—say Lawrence or Paterson—where unwise or wrong-headed local administrations have been guilty of offences of this kind; but in such agitations as that of the I. W. W. and their “Free Speech” allies in New York the grievance has been wholly factitious. There has, indeed, occurred a tragic climax to these goings-on; the killing of three of the New York anarchists by the explosion of a bomb which they were handling, and which there is almost no doubt that they were engaged in preparing for some work of destruction or slaughter. But while this is in one sense a less factitious martyrdom than the others, for it was certainly serious enough, yet in the most vital element of martyrdom it was obviously lacking altogether. Nobody invited, still less compelled, these gentlemen to blow themselves up; and when they did it, they were not engaged in defending themselves against aggression, nor, presumably, did they feel that they were in the slightest danger of themselves incurring the fate they were preparing for others. But all this does not in the least impede their elevation to the honors of martyrdom; and incidentally it may be remarked that although those who thus publicly honor their dead comrades in the cause of revolutionary anarchy say their say without interference, and go about the city of New York without molestation, there are not wanting persons who are ready at any moment to tear their hair over the suppression of free speech in this community.

But it is in the hunger strike that the new martyrdom is seen full-fledged, and in its true character. Here we have the fiction of persecution raised to the second power. The use of it by the free-speech anarchists is of course only one instance of its exploitation, but it is the one that specially concerns us here. Whether from its small beginnings it will develop into a serious nuisance, or perhaps even take on the dimensions of a grave problem, remains to be seen. But men of sense should be prepared for the possible spread of a great deal of foolish and muddled thinking on the subject, and should from the outset see the thing exactly as it is. In a land of free discussion, and where the right to vote is exercised without distinction of class, a certain number of persons are actively engaged in the agitation of radical or revolutionary changes affecting the whole social order. No impediment is put in the way of this propaganda in the shape either of censorship, of hindrance to publicity, or of personal proscription. They are free to make as many converts as they can, either by oral persuasion or by the printed word; and when they have won over a sufficient number, the government is theirs. Of one instrument, it is true, they are deprived the use; and it happens that that instrument is the one most to their liking. They are not allowed to create turbulence or disorder, or to persecute individuals who have incurred their hostility. In this, they are treated no otherwise than advocates of the most innocent or orthodox of causes would be under like circumstances. If there should arise a Puritan agitation against the theatre, its leaders would be allowed to denounce the stage to their heart’s content as a device of the Devil for the corruption and damnation of mankind; but they would not be permitted to harangue excited crowds that were ready to mob the actors and actresses or to burn down the theatres. They would have to content themselves with bringing over to their way of thinking as many persons as could be won by orderly methods. It is of this kind of restraint that the anarchists, and other pretended champions of so-called free speech, complain; it is against this imaginary grievance that the fraudulent martyrdom of the hunger strike is a protest.

And it is the fraudulence of the hunger strike, the affront that is offered to human reason, first in the thing itself, and still more in the silly cry of “torture” that is raised about it, that every sane man must most deeply resent. Here is a handful of cheap revolutionists making themselves more or less of a menace, but certainly very much of a nuisance, to the constituted authorities. This they do, in general, without a particle of molestation from the government or of inconvenience to themselves. Once in a while, when, in these proceedings, they pass, or are thought to pass, beyond a certain line, marked out by considerations of public safety or comfort, they are arrested and subjected to the mild punishment of imprisonment for a short term, such as is meted out to thousands of petty offenders. Then they proceed to set themselves up as judges in their own case; they demand that the law shall surrender to their will. And when this preposterous demand is met by the application to them of the most humane methods which professional skill can devise for securing the accomplishment of their sentence, they rend the air with shrieks of “torture.” If the sentence itself was unjust, let them make all possible to-do about it by all means; nobody would begrudge them that. But they know only too well how little could be made of any real grievance they could lay claim to; and they count on a combination of soft-heartedness and soft-headedness in a considerable part of the public to make a self-inflicted stage-play torture pass current as the equivalent of the thumb-screw and the rack. Precisely what the penal authorities had best do if this foolishness should prove persistent in our country, it may not be easy to say. The one thing certain is that it cannot be trifled with. It is an impudent challenge, not only of the law, but of reason and humanity; and, unless we have quite lost our grip on the realities of life and government, whatever measures it may be found necessary to take in order to meet the challenge effectively will receive the emphatic approval of the American people.

To what extent the fantastic notions of the nature of the right of free speech that we have been discussing are shared by men of intelligence and culture, it is difficult to say. They are to be found distinctly among a certain small and fairly well-defined class of socialist or semi-socialist clergymen and other humanitarians. In a wider circle, these notions, if not distinctly embraced, are at all events given a considerable amount of sympathetic toleration. In either case, it is not too harsh a judgment to say that the attitude is due to want of thought or to shallowness of mind. The true doctrine of free speech is a broad principle of civic conduct, having its foundations in reason and experience, and its justification in the highest public expediency; these people appear to think of it as a simple and absolute dogma, whose sanction transcends all considerations of expediency, and any violation of which is a sin against the divine order. Such a view can be entertained only by a shallow thinker or a one-ideaed fanatic; and it is the former class, unquestionably, to which nearly all of the “free speech” extremists are to be assigned. The contrast between their crude and childish notions and that conception of the doctrine of free speech which is alone worthy of respect or of serious consideration cannot be better shown than by quoting the words of one of the greatest champions of individual liberty the world has ever known. It will hardly be claimed by even the most effervescent of our sentimental apostles of free speech that his own convictions on the subject are more profound, or his courage more uncompromising, than that of John Stuart Mill. In his noble tractate “On Liberty,” Mill goes as far as anyone can go—farther no doubt in some respects than many of these same emotional humanitarians would go—in demanding complete freedom of public expression, so far as the substance of the opinions or doctrines in question is concerned. He does not draw the line at immorality; he does not draw the line at the advocacy of tyrannicide. But the ardor of his devotion to this principle is that of a rational thinker, not that of the blind slave of a fetish. That freedom of speech is made for man, not man for freedom of speech, is to him so obvious as to require no insisting on. A single brief passage—introduced at the beginning of his discussion of the question whether “the same reasons” which prescribe freedom of opinion and of speech “do not require that men should be free to act upon their opinions”—will suffice to show this:

No one pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary, even opinions lose their immunity when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard.

When we note the remark, a little further on, that “the liberty of the individual must be thus far limited: he must not make himself a nuisance to other people;” and when we observe that after maintaining the right of an advocate of the doctrine of tyrannicide freely to express his opinions, Mill adds that the instigation to it in a specific case may be a proper subject of punishment, provided “an overt act has followed, and at least a probable connection can be established between the act and the instigation,”—we see plainly enough the difference between the working of a profound and rational conviction like Mill’s, and that of the shallow-pated emotionalism which rallies to the support of a Berkman or a Bouck White.

The confusion of thought which is at the bottom of these vagaries has been strikingly illustrated in connection with two matters upon which it may be profitable to dwell at some length. In both instances, the trouble is in part due to misinformation, or misconception of the facts; but in both instances the misinformation, or misconception, is inextricably bound up with the confusion of thought.

Closely allied to the false notion we have been discussing of what constitutes suppression of free speech by the authorities is the false notion, even more prevalent, of what constitutes suppression of the news by the newspapers. That there are some items of news that do not get the degree of publicity to which they are entitled may be quite true; and as regards the treatment by some newspapers of some whole classes of items, the accusation may be entirely justified. But that there exists anything like wholesale suppression of news, among the newspapers of the country generally, and especially by the Associated Press, is a charge absolutely without foundation. Regarded as a matter of large and fundamental public interest—not as a mere matter of ordinary criticism, dealing with imperfections of execution rather than with wrongfulness of intent—the question simply lapses for want of body to the accusation. The things charged as suppressions are so trivial in amount, in comparison with the vast mass of matter of precisely the same, or graver, nature carried in the papers, that the idea of the so-called suppression being anything more than defect in execution—even though sometimes due to the dishonesty of individuals and not always to accident or want of adequate equipment—should be peremptorily dismissed by any man who is accessible to ordinary argument on the subject.

But in the minds of its chief exponents, the idea that there exists a wholesale and systematic suppression of news in the interest of conservatism does not rest upon the omission, or the misrepresentation, of specific items in the record of what are generally regarded as the day’s happenings. Their conviction that the newspapers are guilty of a great and systematic crime against the truth cannot be overcome by any such comparison as I have indicated; simply because the scale of values which they habitually use is fundamentally different from the scale which is current in the community at large. To their minds, the one absorbing concern of mankind is to end the iniquities of the existing economic order; and accordingly, the ordinary news of the day is utterly trivial in comparison with anything that bears upon the social revolution which they are sure is impending. Now it would be perfectly possible to fill many columns of a newspaper every day with matter of this kind—indeed there would be no difficulty in making up an entire newspaper of nothing else. The world is very big—even the United States, even New York city, is very big; and a diligent search for tales of evil, of hardship, of injustice, of rapacity, of poverty, would be amply rewarded any day in the year. Moreover, there are strikes, little and big, in the thousands of industrial and mining centres; there is every now and then the formation of a Socialist club or the starting of a little Socialist newspaper; and then there are speeches, and meetings, and what not. From the point of view of the man who is convinced that the present order of society is on its last legs, and that the supreme duty of the journalist is to expose its rottenness, these are the things with which our papers ought to be filled, instead of the idle chatter about politics and business. This opinion they are, of course, fully entitled to entertain; but their charge that the newspapers suppress the news is essentially based on the notion that the owners or editors of the papers are themselves of that opinion, but have not the honesty or the courage to act upon it. And this is too absurd to call for denial.

The other illustration that I have in mind arises out of the history of the Chicago Anarchists of 1886. There has gradually spread throughout the country a notion that the execution of the four anarchist agitators who were hanged for instigation of the slaughter of the policemen in Haymarket Square was little better than a judicial murder. This opinion is expressed in only a little more extreme form than that which is widely current, by Charles Edward Russell (late Socialist candidate for Governor of New York) when he says:

The eight men were convicted, nominally by the jury, in reality by a misinformed public opinion resolutely bent upon having a hanging. Anything more like the spirit of a lynching I have never known under the forms of law.

That a man of Mr. Russell’s type should talk in this way is natural enough; but it is truly regrettable that an impression approximating this should be widely entertained among persons of intelligence and soberness, and having no sympathy at all with the Socialist, not to speak of the Anarchist, movement. The explanation of this phenomenon is to be found in part in the absence of knowledge of the actual facts; but it is to be found in at least equal measure in the failure to grasp the essential character, and the natural and rational limits, of the right of free speech.

At a time of great public excitement, arising in connection with a strike, a bomb was thrown into the midst of a platoon of policemen, wounding sixty-six of them, seven of whom died of their wounds. The men who were tried and convicted of this murder had, every one of them, been engaged in anarchist agitation; they had, every one of them, been members of a revolutionary society; the two most conspicuous were active promoters of a propaganda of violence as editors of revolutionary sheets and as public speakers. But it was not on these general grounds that the men were convicted. What was proved at the trial, to the satisfaction of the twelve jurymen and of the judge, was that these men were guilty of direct incitement to the precise kind of act that was actually committed—the killing of policemen as the defenders of the rights of property and the maintainers of law and order. Now the trouble with the tender-minded people who so easily accept the view that the executed Anarchists were martyrs of free speech and victims of something like lynch law is that they never ask themselves the question whether, in point of fact, these men were really instigators of the crime in the sense required by the law to make them murderers, or were not. The trial lasted nearly six weeks; it was perfectly orderly; and this question—the question of whether these men were legally guilty of murder—was put before the jury in the sharpest possible way by the judge. It was that question which they decided; it was upon that question that Judge Gary, who presided over the trial, declared, in a remarkable and convincing article written seven years later and published in the Century Magazine, that the verdict was absolutely sound, and involved no stretching of the law. Finally, it should be remembered above all—and yet it is constantly forgotten—that the Supreme Court of Illinois, a year after the trial, sustained the proceedings in a unanimous judgment; its opinion, covering 150 pages of the Illinois reports, being an exhaustive review not only of the law, but also of the facts of the case. To speak of a trial so conducted, and stamped with such approval, as being a proceeding in the nature of a lynching, is not only preposterous, but impudent.

In the foregoing discussion, and in the illustrations that have been adduced, what I have chiefly endeavored to bring out is the unreasonableness, and the practical absurdity, of the unthinking view which passes current with many for the noble and rational doctrine of freedom of speech and of the press. It may be well to add, in conclusion, a few words on a broader aspect of the matter. Just as religion may be made repulsive and odious by narrowness and bigotry; just as scientific or philosophic thought may be perverted by a spirit of intolerant dogmatism; so a high and inspiring doctrine of human conduct and polity may degenerate into an object of merited contempt when divorced from those considerations upon which its justification rests, and erected into a mere formula, to be followed with superstitious servility. That the absurdities which have been put forward in the name of the doctrine of free speech will actually have the effect of thus degrading and discrediting that doctrine, is not likely; but it is not likely only because common sense and sound feeling may be counted on to keep the folly from spreading. Yet it is the duty of men of light and leading to make clear their own position on the subject whenever it comes conspicuously to the front. They can in no better way serve the permanent interests of the cause of true freedom of speech than by showing, beyond the possibility of mistake, their contempt for the cheap counterfeit of it. In all the clamor that has been set up by the Bouck Whites and the Berkmans and the Upton Sinclairs, has any one pointed to a single doctrine that has been suppressed, a single teacher that has been silenced, a single truth, or alleged truth, that the authorities have endeavored to stifle? Time was when the champions of free speech have had to fight in order that men who had a message to deliver should have a chance to deliver it; what these make-believe apostles and martyrs have to fight for now is a chance to be suppressed. Nobody asks what it was that Bouck White or Becky Edelson wanted to say; what they ask is how he came to be dragged out of a church, or how she came to be arrested for being disorderly. And nobody asks the former question for two reasons—first, that the newspapers freely print what these people have to say; and secondly, that what they have to say is utterly familiar and commonplace. Suppression is not, with them, an obstacle to the spread of their teachings; on the contrary, it is their chief stock-in-trade, their sole claim to the attention of the public. What has elevated the doctrine of freedom of opinion and of speech to the lofty place which it holds in the estimation of mankind is the conviction, slowly acquired through ages of physical and spiritual struggle, that by that freedom can best be served the cause of truth, and hence the advancement of humanity. But with this neither the vulgar stage business of the New York Anarchists of today, nor the crazy appeals to the pistol and the bomb of the Chicago Anarchists of 1886, has anything whatever to do. To identify either with the great historic doctrine of free speech is to debase the intellectual and moral coinage of the race.

IS SOCIALISM COMING?

And when the pedants bade us mark

What cold mechanic happenings

Must come; our souls said in the dark,

“Belike; but there are likelier things.”

G. K. Chesterton.

Every historian today owes much to Karl Marx for his development of the “Economic Interpretation of History.” Whatever that theory may fail to explain, it certainly succeeds in explaining the nature and growth of the Socialist movement. When the great attempt at real political and economic democracy made by the French people in their great Revolution had failed and left behind it as a legacy the memory of the Terror and the wars of Napoleon, every nation in Europe felt the reaction. Russia, Austria, Spain and non-industrial Europe generally reacted towards simple absolutism, noble against peasant. But in the countries within the boundary marked out by the industrial revolution, the wealth created by the new machines placed the balance of economic power in the hands of the commercial classes, and so forced the old landed aristocracy to admit them to political power as well. In the meanwhile the first shock of large scale production had widened the gap between the industrial workers and the employing class. Independent artisans were ruined or forced into factories, and in the wake of the new industry there trailed a network of industrial oligarchies which spread until they covered the civilized world. The already enfranchised classes refused to use their power to moderate the harshness of the competitive struggle, honestly believing that any interference with “economic law” could work nothing but ruin and hardship in the end.

In view of the facts as they existed in the days of the Communist Manifesto it was practically inevitable that an economist in sympathy with the economically powerless and politically disfranchised masses should interpret history as did the Marxians. In an age of coal, iron and steam (that potent trinity), of large scale production, of capitalistic agriculture, of economic tyranny, of sharpening class divergence and increasing poverty, it seemed that there was no way to realize democracy but to wait until industry had been concentrated into the hands of a few rich men, till the middle class and the free peasantry had been reduced to the proletarian ranks, and till the ever increasing misery of the workers taught them to combine and seize the means of production and distribution by a single revolutionary stroke. Private property could have appeared only as a tool for robbing the workers of the “surplus value” of their labor, religion as an ingenious means of sidetracking revolutionary activities, and patriotism as an excuse for standing armies and protective tariffs. This was a tenable explanation of the world—in 1848!

But the world has moved since the day of the Manifesto. Now manhood suffrage is the rule and not the exception. The worst forms of factory serfdom have been ended by legislative and economic changes. The various reform parties of Europe and America and even the Conservatives compete with each other for the workingman’s vote by programs of social amelioration which steadily grow more ambitious every year. Socialism itself has altered in a changing world. The “Revisionist” or common-sense wing of the party has abandoned both the “surplus value” metaphysics, and the prophecy, so happily falsified, of “increasing misery” and “cumulative panics,” and has moderated the class war dogma far enough to permit working hand in hand with the once hated bourgeoisie for immediate reforms. Other Socialists still repeat the old catchwords, but modify them by a process of “interpretation” analogous to that which makes Liberal Christians content to repeat the historic creeds. Of course some revolutionists have looked upon this readjustment with misgivings, and, as a result, we have sporadic and badly led revolts against party discipline, such as Syndicalism in France, Larkinism in England and the I. W. W. in America.

The main citadel of Socialist theory still remains intact, however, in the eyes of its defenders; and so the loss of unessential outposts harms the party very little. If it is true that industry conducted in large units is always in the end more efficient than if undertaken by many small units, sooner or later all the means of production and distribution will be concentrated either in the hands of a closely-knit class of industrial magnates or else in the hands of society as a whole. The only choice then open will be between control by the few, and control by the many: there will no longer be a choice between individualism and collectivism. This must be, because individualism always involves some measure of free competition, and under a system of competition the less efficient competitor is forced into the background by the more efficient. The one hope of saving both democracy and private property, then, lies in the chance that centralization beyond a certain point is not an economic gain.

The factors that undoubtedly do make for greater concentration are numerous and important, but they are so well known that a brief mention of a few of the more important will be sufficient here. The first cause of monopoly is the fact that nature is also a monopolist. Many valuable mineral deposits are found in quantity in a small area, and hardly at all outside of it. Coal, iron, timber, water-power and a ready access to market are not to be had everywhere. There are also economies in the greater size of a plant, especially where, as in the telegraph service or the railroad lines, there is an enormous initial expense in any case, and profits increase directly with the amount of business which can be done on the basis of a given amount of fixed capital. Standardization of commodities, especially of commodities used in production—such as machine parts, is an advantage to the consumer, and hence to the largest producer. In the large factory, moreover, the subdivision and specialization of labor can be carried farther—more processes can be handled under one roof, and more patents can be united into one machine. But the chief advantage of the great factory is that it can afford great quantities of power in place of using hand labor. The reason why “handicraft revivals” have had such limited success is that the most skilled of artisans, working by hand, cannot produce in quantity as can the engineer with his machine. So long as this difference exists, individual industry can only be a decorative border to the main fabric of industrial life. The type of power now generally used gives an added advantage to concentration. “For steam can only be generated in a fixed spot, and the motive power furnished thereby can only be distributed over a small area.”[1]

These advantages are due to the size of a unit of production. But large industry is usually also rich industry (or it could not be very large), and there are other advantages due to the wealth of the owners. The wealthy concern can buy goods cheaply in quantity, and, if its demand is great enough, even exercise some control over the production of needed raw materials. It can afford the best machinery, the best labor, the best management. This advantage notoriously applies, even to such organizations as churches and universities, since the ablest pastors and professors are attracted by the largest institutions. A great saving can also be made by such factors as combining clerical forces, managers, salesmen and other employees of several firms into one, thus reducing salary costs, and preventing duplication of effort. Other advantages of the rich firm are diminished advertising costs, the abolition of premiums, the reduced need of borrowed capital and of extending credit to consumers, power over prices, middlemen, carriers and competitors, the ability to adjust supply to probable demand, and, as centralization approaches monopoly, the power to reduce wages without fear of losing employees to other firms. What then is left but to admit the contention of the Socialist that Socialism has no alternative except the undesirable one of a new feudalism differing from the old only in resting upon an industrial rather than an agricultural basis?

The first objection I would make to the positing of this dilemma is to the assumption that the farmer can be safely ignored. Socialists admit that concentration is proceeding more slowly in agriculture than in any other branch of production, but they say that as industry develops, the movement toward the city which is so strong today will become stronger than ever, until the manufacturing population will outnumber the agricultural many times. But there is a balance in these things. We must have food, and every person who leaves the country for the city subtracts one from the number of food producers, and adds a customer for other farmers to supply. Hence the growth of a large population divorced from the land means a continually augmenting profit for the agriculturist, and a growing inducement to go “back to the land.” Agriculture must then remain a cardinal factor in our economic life. To be sure, in the past the great estate has often triumphed over the small farm, and the Socialists maintain that it will again. If the causes which produced the “latifundia” of Rome, the feudal land ownership of the middle ages, the sheep farms of sixteenth century England, the capitalist farming of the early nineteenth century and the cotton plantations and “bonanza” wheat farms of America, were operative today, this contention would be right. But just the contrary is the case. The vast estates of eastern Prussia,[2] heavily mortgaged and hard pressed for labor, are being rapidly alienated by the landlords themselves, who are encouraging the government they dominate to establish a system of peasant proprietorships in their place. In France the small holder is triumphant economically, and he controls by his vote the political destinies of the Republic. In Australia and New Zealand, the squatters’ sheep farms have receded before the advance of selectors’ holdings, which in turn are being parcelled out under “Closer Settlement Acts.” In Ireland most of the landlords have already been bought out under the Wyndham act, and even in England, where the custom of primogeniture has tended to keep estates together, the Conservative or landlords’ party has promised to establish small holdings by a policy of government purchase from the present owners.

If the Socialist theory as regards agriculture holds good anywhere, it must be in America. But on turning to the census of 1910 what do we find? Over 62 per cent. of our farms are worked by their owners, and these include about 65 per cent. of the improved land, and more than that of total area! In 1850 the average number of acres to a farm was over 202; today it is 138.1. More significant yet, while the number of owned and rented farms increased, the number of farms worked by managers shows an absolute decrease in the decade since 1900. This was the type of farm that was going to supplant all others, according to the Marxian prophecy. In the words of the census:[3] “That the number of farms increased more rapidly than the acreage of land in farms, is accounted for partly by the fact that in some sections of the country considerable numbers of small truck, poultry and fruit farms have been established, but still more by the fact that in the West large numbers of farms of moderate size have been established where great cattle ranches were formerly found. Then, too, in the Southern states, the subdivision of many plantations into smaller tracts of land operated by tenants—a process begun soon after the Civil War—has continued, each of such tracts counting as a farm under the census definition.”

It is further to be noted that the forces which have tended to bring about the triumph of the state and the plantation, are of less and less significance as we turn to the future, whereas the counter forces which make for agricultural decentralization increase with the progress of population, invention and popular education. Slave labor was alike the cause of the Roman manor and the Mississippi plantation, but the world will probably never see slavery extended again, for it is at once too inhumane for modern sentiment, and too wasteful for present-day scientific methods. On its economic side, the American Civil War was a fight to the death between the small farm run by free labor, and the slave plantation. So, virtually, is the present conflict in Mexico. Certainly in the first case, and probably in the second, victory belongs to the farm. Feudalism was partly a result of the disorders caused by barbarian raids, which forced men to put themselves and their holdings under the protection of some great lord, and partly of the exhaustion of the precious metals, which made it necessary for a king to pay his retainers in landed estates instead of money. Neither factor has been operative for centuries, or probably ever will be again. Nor is it probable that it will ever again pay to turn good arable land into pasture, as happened in Tudor England: the increasing density of population forbids it. Capitalistic farming in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries rested upon the costliness of agricultural machinery, and the ignorance of the average farmer. Today the advance of industry puts cheap machinery within the pocket-range of the individual farmer, and scientific training is placed within reach of all by agricultural schools and colleges, state and national experiment stations, and the free distribution of information. Knowledge is no longer a monopoly: the farmer is becoming an engineer of intensive agriculture. What factors are now effective? The chief is the growth of population, the consequent increased value of land, and therefore the need for conservation rather than exploitation of its richness. Small diversified stock, fruit, poultry and dairy farms, where every acre can be watched over and put to its best use, yield a greater profit than where the land is covered with staple crops. The agricultural laborer or “hired man” is another factor in the situation. Few persons like to work for wages, some do not like agricultural life, almost no one enjoys the combination. Hence the laborer in the country will either buy a small holding of his own, if he can, or else go to the city. Whole provinces in Germany east of the Elbe have been depopulated just for that reason. No doubt the wholesaler has certain advantages in marketing his goods, but such voluntary systems of coöperative credit and sales as are so popular in western Germany and Denmark, reduce this to a minimum.

Is agriculture a solitary exception to a general law of the indefinite concentration of industry? In many cases, such as the telephone, telegraph, cable (possibly not wireless telegraphy), railroads, steamship lines, certain kinds of mining, certain wholesale physical and chemical processes, and the making of standardized goods, no doubt concentration has advantages which do not tend to diminish. Such industries will be either socialistically owned, or quasi-socialistically controlled by the government. But this leaves a wide range of trade and manufacture where other centralizing factors operate, which are not permanent but temporary. If the largest plant, even today, is the most efficient, why do separate establishments increase in number so rapidly? In 1909[4] the number of establishments in the continental United States were no less than 268,491, representing an increase of 24.2 per cent. over the number in 1904. But the most remarkable fact is that the number of persons engaged in manufacture increased in the same period by only 23.6 per cent. and the number of wage workers, as distinguished from owners and salaried persons, only by 21.0 per cent. Of course the Socialist will reply that many different plants are really controlled by single corporations, openly or secretly, according to the degree of enforcement of “anti-trust” laws. This is perfectly true, but it belongs to another aspect of the problem. What the census figures indicate is that the maximum efficiency point of a plant has not only a definite limit, but may even decrease with the progress of industry. The truth is that Socialism is a phenomenon of the age of coal burning, the nineteenth century. Steam power is being more and more replaced by electrical power, which, generated in one place, can be used over an immense area. It is true that most electricity is still derived, at some loss of efficiency but an immense gain in availability, from the burning of coal or other fuel. But the coal beds are far from inexhaustible, and sooner or later we must supplement our supply by the “white coal” of the waterfalls. The Age of Electricity will usher in a second great industrial revolution. By putting power in quantity at the disposal of the independent artisan, it will for the first time in history enable him to compete with the great factory. Our tiny remnant of handicraftsmen may thus become a great army of artisan-engineers, combining the skill and personal attention of the old-fashioned master craftsman, with the technical training and machinery of modern engineering. And if the supply of energy within the atom is ever tapped to a sufficient degree, power will be as cheap as water, and the greatest advantage of the large producer be wiped out forever.

These changes will make small production a possibility; there must be other causes to make it the general rule of industry. As wealth increases and the standard of living rises, quality in commodities will come to be considered as well as quantity. If the small productive unit cannot compete on even terms with the large in wholesale production, it may more than do so in retail production for an exacting market. “Finishing” industries, “assembling” industries and the like will absorb an ever increasing proportion of the industrial population. The future will have use for the expert, and only the expert; the mere laborer will be eliminated by the advance of education and the specialization of machinery. There will yet come a time when it will pay the manufacturer better to keep “cheap labor” in opulent idleness than to let its unskillful fingers touch the machines. Mere routine duties in commerce can be left in large measure to calculating and recording machinery. The great concerns will then run with a small office force and a staff of engineers, and release a host of supernumerary clerks and laborers for individual industry. The only “proletariat” will be one of cogs and wires and dynamos.

There still remains the problem of distribution. Will the great stores, banks and exchanges continue to control the economic life of the nation? Will competition in buying and selling crush the small producer, no matter how efficient his production? It must be admitted that this is a possibility. The last moral I should wish anyone to draw from this article is that “everything is bound to work out all right” because of certain beneficent economic laws. Certainly it will need all our statesmanship to realize the possibilities I have sketched. All I contend is that they are possibilities, that we are not hopelessly driven to the alternative of aristocratic or democratic collectivism, that the stars in their courses do not, as is so often contended, fight against the small producer. But I see no cause for despair in the matter of exchange and control. The small shop still continues to exist beside the big store; the individual concern may fail, but the type endures. Perhaps all middlemen, big and small, will in the end disappear as the connection between producer and consumer becomes more direct. Even the poorest classes of the future will, I think, buy more goods to order than ready made. As to the power of the big establishment over carriers and middlemen, these can be controlled in part by law, as in the extirpation of the railway rebate. The advantages of credit and capital on the side of the large concerns, can be offset by coöperative credit and sales agencies, as readily in manufacturing as in agriculture. By ensuring a high level of competition unfair advantages can be eliminated, and the fight be purely one of industrial efficiency, which is not always on the side of the biggest battalions.

It is of the first importance to realize that each perceptible social change involves many other perceptible changes, that, in Spencer’s happy analogy, the social constitution is a web, no strand of which can be moved without moving others. The changes we have tried to forecast cannot come effectively before the subsidence of the wave of fierce competition which was partly smoothed down by the trusts. In many businesses, competition in drumming and advertising is still at the point where it costs more to sell goods than to make them and hosts of men accomplish only the neutralizing of each other’s efforts. The rationalizing of competition and the growth of a coöperative spirit would release men for other pursuits; and the growth of intelligence in learning what is to be had and discriminating what is best, must diminish the billions spent on advertising. These additions to productive labor and capital must diminish the ills which have made Socialism seem desirable as well as inevitable.

Suppose we do our best to realize these possibilities to the full. Suppose a Socialist then revisits the earth two or three hundred years from now. He may see in full operation what he has always declared impossible, a democratic individualism. Instead of an impoverished and disappearing farming class, he will find a populous countryside divided into small homesteads, and run at a handsome profit by specialists in intensive agriculture. Instead of a factory or mining proletariat, hungry and rebellious, he will find great wholesale establishments owned and run by a handful of engineers, turning out pulp, cloth, metal and standard parts for machinery, turning the products over to millions of independent artisan establishments supplied with cheap and plentiful power, to be worked into countless articles of art and utility. He will look to the processes of exchange to find great financial magnates and railway barons on the one hand, and a horde of miserable clerks and small shopkeepers in difficulties on the other. Instead, he will discover a network of voluntary credit and sales associations, information bureaus, individually owned freight automobiles (and possibly airships); with perhaps a few regulated railway lines and pneumatic delivery tubes, run by a prosperous association of experts. He will look for the old-time “servant class,” and find that the scientifically trained housewife, with a power plant in the cellar, can run her own house, thank you, and consider it the most honorable of professions. Seeing everything so effectively managed for the happiness of the people, he will look to see in the government the universal owner and employer of his dreams, but he will find instead a clearing house of help and information, which puts its knowledge of efficient management, of technical processes, of economic and sociological conditions, at everyone’s disposal, and comes to the rescue in the rare case of poverty, failure or crime. Will he rejoice that the world is happy, or be sorry that it is not happy his way? If I know the Socialist, he will claim that he was right all along, and that this state of society is really Socialism. Let him claim the word; I call it democratic individualism, because it means the greatest possible distribution of economic power and function consistent with efficient production.

THE REPUBLIC OF MEGAPHON

Persons of the Dialogue:

Socrates.
Chærephon.
Megaphon.

Scene: At first a street in the Metropolis,[5] and afterward the house of Megaphon.[6]

Time: Year 4 of Olympiad 25 after American Independence.

The narrator and leading person of the dialogue is Socrates.

I. I had gone into the city on the Fourth day of the month to witness how they would observe the Festival, and was returning at my leisure, when Chærephon, catching sight of me at a distance, ordered his son to run forward and bid me wait for him. And the boy, taking hold of me by the cloak behind, said: “My father bids you wait for him.”

“By all means,” said I.

And not long afterward Chærephon came.

“Socrates,” he said, “you seem to be returning from the city.”

“You guess not badly,” I replied.

We continued on our way, and soon came near the crossing of two streets. Here, a boy was standing at the curb, calling loudly to all who passed.

“What are the words he cries?” I said to Chærephon.

“The Republic,” he answered. “It is the new paper, that will come forth daily, and is to help the demos; for you know that until now it has come but thrice a week, and has been for the few. Have you not heard of it?”

“Yes,” I said, “and I have thought about it much. Henceforth we shall have the news every day, and in a different way.”

We had now come to the boy, and were passing him.

“Here, boy,” I said, “give me your paper.”

He gave it to me, still crying as before.

“And how much must I pay you for it?” I asked.

“An obol,”[7] he replied.

“Very well,” said I, and gave him the obol.

“Is it not cheap?” said Chærephon. “And do you not think the demos has great reason to rejoice? For now many more will be able to read of what takes place.”

“It is indeed cheap,” I said, “and now the demos may indeed read all it will. But I do not think it may rejoice.”

“Do I hear aright?” he asked. “Can it be you do not like the change?”

“You do hear aright,” I answered. “I do not like it.”

“But ’twill educate the demos,” he said.

“It will,” I said, “and that is why I do not like it. My thought is that ’twill educate them wrongly, and we shall have trouble from it. But let us discuss the matter, if that will please you.”[8]

II. “Most gladly,” he said. “But look, yonder is Megaphon’s house, and I told him I would stop. Will you go with me, and there discuss in the hearing of us both?”

“Yes,” I said, “most willingly.”

We drew near, and Chærephon beat gently upon the door with his sandal,[9] and we waited until someone should come from within.

The son of Chærephon, first asking his sire’s permission, now joined other boys who were vying one with another in a game of making noises.

Now the playing of the game was on this wise. Chærephon’s son would take from the store in his pocket a crimson paper, tightly rolled, containing an explosive. This he set off by means of a thread which projected from the end of the roll, and contained the same explosive, but not so much. The thread was called the fuse, and the roll a “cracker.” When lighted with a match, the fuse would quickly carry fire to the cracker, which, straightway bursting, made a loud report. But first Chærephon’s son would send it flying through the air, lest it harm his fingers. Yet there were lads of hardihood who boldly held the cracker as it burst, and remained unharmed; and these were the winners of the game.

This at that time was for young and old the manner of celebrating the nation’s freedom. For the people had once been in thrall to the tyrant.

III. While we yet stood looking on at this sport, the daughter of Megaphon opened to us.

“My sire is within,” she said; and pointed to the door of the megaron.

The door was open, and we entered. At first we saw no one, but after some moments became aware of Megaphon’s legs, which alone could be seen of all his body. For the rest of his body was hidden by a printed sheet. This sheet, we saw, was the Republic; for the letters were large.

“Hail, O Megaphon!” I cried in a loud voice.

Megaphon lowered the sheet until his face appeared, and then leaped up.

“A thousand pardons, Socrates and Chærephon!” he cried. “I was deep in the paper, and did not notice. Pray seat yourselves.”

We seated ourselves in front of him, and not far off.

Megaphon laid aside the paper, as it seemed, unwillingly.

“What were you reading, O Megaphon?” Chærephon inquired, to start our discussion. For he knew well, without the asking.

“The Republic,” Megaphon replied. “Ah, I see you have one, Socrates. Is it not fine, and should we not rejoice? The demos will surely make great progress now, and our nation will become much greater than ever, for we shall have news every day, and nearly all will be rich enough to read, and nearly all will thus become intelligent.”

Chærephon gazed at me.

“But Socrates does not approve,” he said.

“No,” I said, “by Zeus, no!”[10]

Megaphon was greatly astonished.

“I do not understand,” he said. “Will not knowledge be spread among our people as never before, and will not our demos become well informed and thinking citizens, no longer a prey to their own ignorance or to the deceits of their enemies? For we shall now have the news at trifling cost, I think. Is it not so, O Socrates?”

“At trifling cost, most certainly,” I answered. “To speak truly, the cost is even too little. But shall we discuss the matter?”

“By all means,” he said.

“And will you listen to me with patience,” I said, “and answer what I ask, and not grow angry?”

“We will do as you say,” he said. “Will we not, Chærephon?”

Chærephon agreed.

IV. “Well, then,” I began, “I suppose we may assume that the Republic, and others—for without doubt there will in time be many like it—will be taken daily into the homes of the demos, as well as of the few. Is it not so?”

Megaphon assented.

“Then let us speak of the matter in this fashion,” I said. “Suppose you had an acquaintance who came to visit you every day in the year, and was admitted not only to yourself, but freely to your wife and your sons and daughters. On entering, he first makes a great show of importance and a great deal of noise by calling out in an exceedingly loud voice that a cruel murder has been done, or a savage battle has been fought, or a shocking accident has happened, or a great robbery has been attempted, and comes up quite close to all of you and points out in every detail just how the accident or the crime took place. After this, he tells you of lesser crimes and mishaps—of thefts, adulteries, and murders among the poor and vicious, and the like; and then he tells with great exactness of many brutal contests—of the pancration,[11] of boxing with the cestus,[12] and of the fights of cocks and dogs. He tells you also of the life of the idle, who do nothing but eat and drink, passing the nights in waking and the days in sleep, consuming in pleasures they do not need the substance they have not earned. And suppose he counsels you to hate not only them, but all who possess greater store of goods than you. And then suppose he will tell you of various things which he says you should not lack, now screaming loudly that these goods will be sold for less than they cost, and now whispering other things of the sort with equal earnestness, and with equal intent to deceive you. Suppose he not only tried to sell you good and necessary wares, but that which he knew you did not need, or was worthless. And suppose he told you much that was true of your neighbors but was no concern of his, and repeated much that was false and harmful. And suppose his words were often vulgar and many times profane, and that his jests were coarse, and even obscene, and you should come upon him murmuring to your wife and children such things as the tongue should in no wise repeat.”[13]

Megaphon seemed not quite content with my words.

“Suppose,” I said, “that he did and said such things in your house, not twice or thrice in the year, but daily, ever boasting of his virtues, and telling you all that he was your true and faithful friend. Would you not think the advantage of his presence doubtful?”

“I should,” said Megaphon, “if he were all you say he would be; and I should not let him remain, but kick him out of doors without delay, and forbid him to enter again. But surely there are other matters he would relate, such as we should be glad to hear of, and we should not need to listen to all he said, nor buy all he would have us buy.”

“No,” I said, “doubtless not; but his company would be unpleasant, even if you neither bought nor heeded. For he would offend you often, and waste your time.”

“And the Republic, I think, is not wholly like the acquaintance you describe,” Megaphon said. For he bore ill what I said.

“But it will be so in no long time,” I said.

“Will you tell us why?” he asked.

V. “I will, assuredly,” I said. “Let us inquire farther. Just now I paid for the Republic one obol, did I not? and heretofore it cost two? The price is now but half, and soon it will be still less. For so at least they promise. Is it not true?”

“It is,” Megaphon said. “And justly, as I think. For the demos should be encouraged to read.”

“Very well,” I said, “when the former price is cut in half, will it not be impossible to gain as much? For gain is the purpose of the newspaper, and its owners will not publish it unless they receive gain, and the greatest possible amount. If they cut the price in half, they will of a surety use other means to bring them the money thus lost. Will it not be so?”

“But more people will buy and read,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “they will. But more men and better machines will be needed, and the paper will be much larger, as you already see. Without doubt, they will not be able to give for so small a sum a paper so large.”

“You seem to speak truly,” he said.

“Then whence will come the gain I speak of?” I said. “Will it not come perforce from advertisements? At least, so I have read, for you see I know what is being talked. And how shall they increase the number of those who advertise, and make the price greater? For both, I think, will be necessary. Will it not be by having more who purchase and read? For those who buy and sell goods will pay a higher price only if more are to read their advertisements. Do you think I am right, Megaphon?”

“So it appears to me,” he said.

“Then,” I said, “is it not clear that we shall have a change in the newspaper’s ways? Until now, the newspaper has had its gains mostly from those who read, and but little from those who advertise; but henceforth it will be contrariwise. It will not enrich itself from readers—except as their number brings more and better-paying advertisements.”

“And there is another thing,” Chærephon said. “The character of the readers will also change. There will henceforth be more of them untaught and unthinking than before, because of the cheapness of the paper. Will it not be so?”

“Most certainly,” I said; “you have anticipated my thought.”

VI. “Then,” I continued, “if this is as I say, will it not of necessity follow that henceforth the paper will be so ordered as to suit the tastes of the many rather than of the few?”

“I do not disagree,” said Megaphon.

“For,” Chærephon said, “you cannot suit at once the tastes of both the ignorant and the intelligent.”

“And what are the tastes of the demos?” I said. “Does not the demos like excitement, and will not the newspaper set forth in detail every manner of accident and crime and gossip? Doubtless you have seen the demos, how it behaves when the dead are to be seen, or when the wedding of some rich person takes place, or evildoers are being led by the Eleven to be punished.”

“Yes,” he said, “I have. The demos has but poor taste in many matters. The demos likes above all to be entertained, and it delights in things that are strange and horrible.”

“True,” I answered, “and the demos does not like to think; for that is a difficult sort of labor. It will be necessary to omit that which would please the few, and put in its place that which is amusing and easy to understand. And there will doubtless also be much that is unseemly and shameful to read.”

I took up the Republic from Megaphon’s side.

“Indeed,” I said, “that of which I speak has already begun. I will read you what stands written here:

‘An important witness against Bloombury Bright, Priest of the Pericles Avenue Temple of Zeus, in Bright’s trial before fifteen priests of the State Synodos, was Theodora wife of Diodoros Ploutocrates. She charged that in the month Anthesterion the priest embraced and kissed her twice. On a second visit, when he found her wearing a chiton,[14] she says, he was more violent in his attentions.’

“Do you not think this very vile, O Megaphon?” I asked.

“Most vile indeed,” he said.

“And would you like to have your daughter read it?”

“No, by Zeus!” he cried. “For there is no good in it, but only evil. It would befoul her mind.”

VII. “And there will be another consequence,” I said. “Will not the makers of the paper think they must make it attractive to the demos at all costs, and will not the gatherers and arrangers of the news learn to do this by adding to or taking from the truth, or even by inventing news; so that we shall not be able to distinguish between the true and the false?”

“It will be,” he said, “as you say; at least in the case of the paper that tries above all to please the demos.”

“There will thus be deception in two ways,” I said: “they will omit, and they will invent and add. But this is not the only evil from which we shall suffer. For consider the editor’s page. The newspaper has always been, it says, the moulder of the demos’s thoughts; and so, indeed, it was, so long as its editors were leaders of great causes, and thought strongly, and were masters of their own words. But how, when it must make its gains from those who buy and sell, and not from the followers of truth, shall it be able to attack or to favor whatsoever and whomsoever it please? How shall it be free to attack evil rich men whose advertisements it must have, or oppose a party or a movement cherished by them? And how in turn shall it be free to attack the inconstant demos itself, by whom it must be purchased? For it will not be conducted on principle, and look for its gains to those who read, but commercially, and look to those who advertise.”

“I do not see,” Megaphon said, “how it can avoid these evils.”

VIII. “Does it not seem clear, then,” I said, “that the editor’s page will be secretly open to purchase, and no longer truthful? For ‘We must live,’ the owners will say.”

“Yes,” Chærephon replied; “and I have another thought. I am thinking that much harm may come because we shall have news confused with advertisement, or with secret attempts of various kinds.”

“You think rightly,” I said. “We shall have persons or groups of persons making deceitful use of the news in advertising their products, or in courting the favor of the demos for some project. Indeed, I think that something might occur like this: those who sell goods for our triremes and hoplites might pay out great sums for the secret aid of the newspapers in rousing the passions of the demos by appeal to its natural hatred and fear of the barbarians. For then the State would increase the number of ships and soldiers of every kind, and thus they would sell more goods, and make greater gains. Or a maker of some food or medicine, or a false follower of Asklepias, might do the like; and the demos, which is ever seeking after cures for real and fancied ills, would soon enrich him. Can you not think that this could happen?”

“I can indeed,” Megaphon said.

“Then,” I said, “have we not proved that the newspaper will be used to educate the demos wrongly—I mean by giving too much news of one kind, and not enough of another, and exaggerating, coloring, and otherwise falsifying the truth, and pretending to be a friend when it is an enemy, and selling itself, whenever it safely can, to him who will give most?”

“I will admit what you say,” Megaphon said; “for I am eager to hear whither your discussion will lead.”

IX. “It appears, then,” I said, “that there is some doubt as to this education of the demos you rely upon, as to whether it will be as nearly perfect as you think. But let us go farther. I have spoken until now of matters of fact. Shall I now say something of matters of taste?—if you will yield to me in this, that taste has much to do with the worth of nations.”

“I will concede it,” he said.

“Consider, then,” I began, “the language which the newspaper will employ in its effort to please the demos. Will it not be of necessity untaught and rough, and often coarse, like the speech of the demos itself? For if it is to attract the demos, it must be easy to read, and of spicy savor, thus to say, and must not speak after the manner of the few. For the demos will have nothing superior to itself. We shall thus find ourselves at cross purposes; our didaskaloi will be trying to teach our epheboi to speak and write purely, and the newspaper will teach them to speak and write like the demos. Of a truth, men who write purely and well will not be employed, but only those whose manner is of the demos. And again, they will cost the owners less. Do you think I am right?”

“I grant it,” Megaphon said.

“And consider not only the news and the manner in which it is written, but the advertisements also, of what nature they will be. Will not many worthless things be advertised in a bold and shameless manner? and will not the effect of this be to confirm bad taste on the part of the demos, and beget and encourage it among the few who are better taught? Let me see your paper again.”

Megaphon gave me the paper.

I opened it, and, having searched some moments, “Listen,” I said:

‘Oh, say boys, don’t forget that sore, sweating, tired feet often have a wonderful penetrating and terrific odor which is very unpleasant in the home or with company. Asklepian’s Antiseptic cures all the trouble. Pharmakopoles Pharmakopolides’.

“Pharmakopoles moves in our best society, as the saying is, and is foremost amongst those who sacrifice to Zeus. Does it not seem to you that we have here an example of that which must be expected?”

“Undoubtedly,” said Megaphon and Chærephon together.

“And will not also the art of the newspaper often be vulgar? For it will be used to entertain the demos.”

“We agree with you,” they said.

“And they will try to amuse the children, too,” I said. “Our young ones will be taught many things they should not know, and the ugly will seem fair to them, and the fair ugly.[15] For that which is vulgar will seem to have power when seen in print.”

X. “And I think we shall have something still worse,” I said. “For I fear our morals, too, will stand in some danger. Consider the advertisements of those who would sell the barbarian potion,[16] and the weed of Lethe,[17] and other like doubtful wares, and among them books professing to tell of such mysteries as only sires should tell their sons, and mothers their daughters. Will not our epheboi be constantly assured how harmless these things are, and how pleasant to have, and thus become convinced that they are good rather than evil? For the printed word is a power, as I said, and we fear less the dangers we see most often.”

“At least,” said Chærephon, “there will be danger if we do not guard ourselves.”

XI. “You speak truly,” I said; “there will. But I bethink me of still another danger now, and one that will affect not individuals, but classes. Shall I speak of it?”

“Go on,” Chærephon said.

“Very well,” I said. “The demos is composed of men and women, and is but human. The demos likes sympathy, and the demos is also vain, and likes to be talked of, and to see its own name in print. If, then, the newspaper would make friends with the demos, it will need to tell of the demos and what it does—of its leaders, and of its virtues, and in like manner of its vanities; for it is no less vain than those it rails at. It will thus flatter the demos by making it feel as important as its betters, and teaching it to think it knows as much as they, about not a few things, but many. It will speak much of the demos’s sufferings, and of the demos’s worth, and of the demos’s rights, and it will make much use of sentimentality, and little of real sentiment, reason, and fact; for reason is a troublesome thing. Will not this be an excellent way for the newspaper to win friends in great numbers, O Megaphon?”

“It cannot be denied,” he said.

“And if this is true, will it not increase its favor with the demos if it also assails those who have store of goods, or gifts bestowed by the Muses, and makes it appear that their riches are due to accidents of fortune or unjust workings of the law, that their talents are not above the ordinary, and that the gifts of the Muses have no value whatsoever? For it will be among the demos that the greatest number of the paper’s friends must be won.”

“Yes,” Megaphon said, “in that manner it would surely make friends.”

“It appears, then,” I said, “that flattery of the demos and fault-finding with the few will be an excellent means for the newspaper to become rich. And consider the evil this will work among us. For the newspaper will make the few seem to the many richer and prouder and more selfish than they are, and the many seem to themselves poorer and more humble and virtuous than they are; besides making them wise in their own conceit, so that they will become meddlesome by trying to do many things of which they know nothing, and by doing them all awry. For the demos is a many-headed beast, lighter and more fickle than

‘the moon, th’ inconstant moon,

That monthly changes in her circled orb,’

as one of our poets saith.“

“And consider,” I said, “the newspapers of the few—for some will not enslave themselves wholly to Hermes, the God of Gain—how they will be misunderstood, and blamed without desert. The demos will be told by its leaders and its newspapers that the papers of the few pretend to know more than other folk, and that they are against the poor and secretly in favor of the rich. And they will not receive them into their homes, and will take little account of them. And that will make the task of these papers difficult, and they will lose hope, and will be inclined to counsel the few to distrust overmuch the many, just as the papers of the many will counsel the many to distrust the few. So that the many and the few will be encouraged to suspect, distrust, and hate each other. Will they not?”

“Yes,” Megaphon said. “At least, so you make it appear.”

“And this will be very harmful to the State?”

“I agree,” he said.

XII. “Then,” I said, “we seem to be at this point in our discussion: that there will be danger that the newspaper will not speak the truth impartially and thus educate the many, but will give them only phases of the truth, deceitful news, and interested opinions, misleading instead of educating them; and instead of forming their opinions for the better, it will rather follow their opinions, and often encourage them in thinking that which they should not think; and instead of improving their taste, it will confirm it, and degrade the taste of those who should know better; and it will counsel men to think ill one of another, and thus work damage to the State. Does this seem to sum up our conclusions?”

“It does,” Megaphon said.

“And does not this seem to you quite the opposite of what a short time ago you said was to be expected?”

“So it seems,” he said.

XIII. “And still,” I said, “I do not think that this is the worst that may befall. I have another matter in mind. Shall we discuss that also, O Megaphon and Chærephon?”

“Yes, by Zeus,” they said, “by all means.”

“Very well, then. What,” I said, “do you think will be the effect on the mind of the demos when it shall read daily of so much murder, violence, stealing, and deceit, and so many mishaps caused by carelessness? Will it not surely conceive that mankind is wholly selfish and lawless and not to be trusted, and hopelessly bad? You are aware, are you not, that men judge of the world by what part of it they see and read of, and that this they cannot help? And in the case whereof we speak, what they read will be mostly bad, and will have greater weight than what they see about them. For all evil things seem dreadful at a distance.”

“I see the force of your argument,” Megaphon said.

“Doubtless,” I said, “you have been told of the man without sight who was made acquainted with the great African beast.[18] Having been led to the animal, he was permitted to grasp only its tail; whereupon, ‘This animal,’ he said, ‘is very like a rope.’ Now I think that one who had touched another part would have made a different answer. Would he not?”

“You speak truly,” Chærephon said. “It would be according to the part he touched.”

“Then let us continue,” I said. “The followers of Zeus and Athena, what will they think when they shall have been told again and again, sometimes with truth and sometimes falsely, of priests or worshippers that have loved not wisely but basely, or have stolen, or cheated, or misbehaved in any other wise? Will they not soon distrust all who sacrifice to Zeus and Athena and the other blessed gods, and will they not of necessity disbelieve in them? For they will think that the gods have failed to make their worshippers good men. And thus the demos will become skeptical of all religion, and our temples will be empty. What do you think?”

“I think it will be as you say,” he said; “for indeed, I have already seen it happen with men as you describe.”

“And what will be the effect if the demos is told from early youth to manhood, not once in a while but every day, of the lies of those who would be rulers of the State, the knavery of those who buy and sell, the baseness of those entrusted with their neighbors’ money, and the unseemly means employed by men of every class to circumvent their enemies? Will it not be to convince the demos that all men are to be won by gain, and that no one may be trusted? Will it not suspect, after so many deeds of baseness, on the part of its leaders as well as others, that no law is proposed, no deed performed, however fair in its seeming, that has not an unworthy purpose at its root, and that no pleasant word is spoken and no fair promise given but with intent to deceive?”

“You seem to speak truly,” Megaphon said.

“And will it not become skeptical of all men of any calling whatsoever, in even greater measure than of our priests and our religion?”

“In even greater measure,” he said; “for men are loath to give up their faith in the gods.”

“And will it not say that to know the truth is impossible, inasmuch as every man obscures the face of truth for his own advantage? And is it not plain as regards the State, in what condition it then will be?”

“What?” said Chærephon and Megaphon.

“Every citizen,” I said, “will be convinced that many of his fellows are rascals, and that all are selfish and deceitful, and will say in his heart: ‘What boots it for me alone to speak the truth, or to do for Zeus and my neighbor that which brings travail to me?’ And he will conclude by doing as he has been taught that all men do. And this is the very worst of ill fortune for the State, for its citizens to be filled with suspicion and distrust and hopelessness, and to think they should act for no one’s welfare but their own. This is evil thinking at its worst.[19] Is it not, O Chærephon and Megaphon?”

“It is, in very truth,” Chærephon said.

XIV. But Megaphon was silent.

“What is it, O Megaphon?” I asked.

“You do not seem to me wholly just, O Socrates,” he answered. “And I have been thinking that if I should ask and you should answer, or if you should ask in a different way, the matter might not appear the same, but otherwise.”

“Then will you ask?” I inquired.

“I will ask but this, O Socrates,” he said: “for in most things I think you speak truth. But are we, then, to hear naught of what our citizens do except that which is good, and are we never to know the evil they commit? Is not darkness the friend of evil, and light its enemy? And will it be well with the demos if it have no friend to cry out its wrongs?”

“I will answer briefly,” I said; “for He of the Far-darts is already high in the heavens. If there were no guilty men, and no foolish, doubtless the newspapers would not tell the demos of their deeds. Nor do I think that guilt and folly and every manner of intemperance should be let thrive in darkness, and not be brought forth for men to scorn and punish. But I will tell you in what manner I think. Suppose, O Megaphon, that it were allowed to you to look into some dark and unknown chamber, through only one narrow chink, and that through this chink your guide should let enter strong rays to light up but one little corner, and that an ill-ordered one with crawling vermin. Would you not become convinced, from seeing that only, and not the rest, that all the chamber was awry and foul? And if you looked into many chambers, and saw all in the same condition, would you not become convinced that all chambers were awry and foul, and that to strive for cleanliness and order were in vain?”

“I think I should,” he said, “if I saw as you describe.”

“That,” I said, “is what I think about the use of light in these matters. I think ’twould be far better to use a candle and explore more thoroughly; and best of all to open the chamber to the light of the sun, which is the light of truth. Then we should see the entire chamber, and I think we should say: ‘This is a goodly chamber, but hath a foul spot,’ and fall to and set it in order, and sacrifice to Zeus for his goodness to mortal men.”

“But the wrongs of the demos,” he said; “must it not have champions to right them?”

“Truth is the champion that will best right wrongs, both for the many and the few,” I replied. “But truth ill told for selfish and evil purposes will set men one against another, and we shall have no peace. Do you think I speak words of reason?”

“Yes, by Zeus and Athena!” said Megaphon and Chærephon.

“Then,” I said, “let us pray to Athena, Giver of Wisdom, beseeching that she will make men love that which is true, and hate that which is false. For thus they will learn justice, and our State will be one people, and not two.”

“Let us indeed,” they said.

Chærephon and I then took our leave.

THE CURSE OF ADAM AND THE CURSE OF EVE

I

“The wide-spread change in thought and attitude of my sex towards yours,” which Anastasia Beauchamp announced to Adrian Savage in “Lucas Malet’s” novel of the latter name, affects marriage, of course, primarily. And it appears from Ida M. Tarbell, Making a Man of Herself (The American Magazine, February, 1912) that the leaders of Feminism have been trying for many years to dissuade their younger sisters from matrimony:

Man and marriage are a trap—that is the essence the young woman draws from the campaign for woman’s rights.... She will be a “free” individual, not one “tied” to a man. The “drudgery” of the household she will exchange for what she conceives to be the broad and inspiring work which men are doing. From the narrow life of the family she will escape to the excitement and triumph of a “career.” The Business of Being a Woman becomes something to be ashamed of, to be apologized for. All over the land there are women with children clamoring about them, apologizing for never having done anything. Women whose days are spent in trades and professions complacently congratulate themselves that they at least have lived. There were girls in the early days of the movement, as there no doubt are today, that prayed on their knees that they might escape the frightful isolation of marriage; might be free to “live,” and to “know,” and to “do.”

In another article she says:

“Celibacy is the aristocracy of the future,” is the preaching of one European Feminist.... The ranks of the women celibates are not full. Many a candidate falls out by the way, confronted by something she had not reckoned with—the eternal command that she be a woman. She compromises—grudgingly. She will be a woman on condition that she is guaranteed economic freedom, opportunity for self-expressive work, political recognition. What this amounts to is that she does not see in the woman’s life a satisfying and permanent end.

Naturally, this attitude does not tend toward domestic contentment, peace and happiness. The woman who marries in this frame of mind already has her face set toward Reno.

Yet the instinct for maternity is a force. Therefore the great desideratum in the opinion of George Bernard Shaw and Ellen Key is the satisfaction of the instinct without the inconvenience of a husband. But when he comes to deal with the facts Shaw’s courage fails him, and he turns tail and flees. In Getting Married he confesses that, in spite of all its horrors, he can invent no substitute for marriage. Ellen Key, on the other hand, in Love and Marriage, has the courage of her convictions.

And yet her relations to man cannot be entirely without satisfactions to woman. She cannot be quite the slave that the Feminists describe. Anna A. Rogers, in Why American Marriages Fail (Atlantic Monthly, September, 1907) speaks of

the present false and demoralizing deification of women, especially in this country, an idolatry of which we as a people are so inordinately proud. One of the evil effects of this attitude is shown in the intolerance and selfishness of young wives, which is largely responsible for the scandalous slackening of marriage ties in the United States.... Our women as a whole are spoiled, extremely idle, and curiously undeserving of the maudlin worship that they demand from our hard-working men.... The hair-dressers, the manicurists, the cafes at lunch time, are full to overflowing with women—extravagant, idle, self-centred.... She has not merged her fate with her husband’s, if married, nor with her father’s if not: she does not properly supplement their lives; she is striving for a detached, profitless, individuality.... The sacredness and mystery of womanhood are fast passing away from among us.

A successful woman dramatist, an interview with whom was published in The New York Times a few months ago, said:

The American man is a great deal more unselfish and chivalrous than is good for the woman. He often bears his own burden, and part of the woman’s. This is very excellent discipline for him, but it is hard on the woman. She doesn’t have a chance to learn sacrifice.

Miss Tarbell recognized that the Feminist was in revolt against the drudgery of the household. Edna Kenton, for the militants, is even more explicit. She says in Militant Women—and Women (The Century Magazine, November, 1913):

There is rising revolt among women against the unspeakable dullness of unvaried home life. It has been a long, deadly routine, a life servitude imposed on her for ages in a man-made world.... There is nothing in the home alone to satisfy woman’s longing for variety, adventure, romance.

How many men have any means of satisfying their longings for variety, adventure and romance? Miss Kenton’s notion that “the restrictions on men’s free-willing are comparatively few,” is mere silliness. In the business and professional classes woman’s opportunities of disposing of her time and cultivating her tastes are vastly greater than man’s, and among the less fortunate classes, the care of a three-room flat or a five-room house is a lighter servitude than that by which the man gets the bread for his wife and babies. There is more companionship in the children and the neighbors than there is in digging, in tending the lathe, and operating the loom. There is more social life in hanging out the clothes in the back yard, and talking to the woman who is doing the same thing in the next yard, than there is in making entries in a ledger, and adding up columns of figures. The kitchen utensils are as interesting as the saw and the monkey-wrench.

Ninety-five per cent of the work of men is drudgery, and few men have any choice in the selection of their drudgery. They do what as boys they were set at, or what they can get a chance at. A very small proportion of men have variety, adventure, romance, and no one who looks at our shopping streets and places of amusement will be in any doubt that women are less tied to their galley oars than men. Olive Schreiner, in Woman and Labor, ungenerously says that men have always been willing that women should do the coarse and ill-paid work; it is only when women demand admission to the higher and more intellectual occupations that men admonish them to keep within their sphere. Yet to women of genius the world of literature and art and music has long been open, and within recent years a multitude of occupations have been opened to women, with little if any objection from men; perhaps in consistency the Feminists should approve the many men who have been glad enough to shirk the support of their womankind and let their sisters and daughters take care of themselves.

But these are for the most part the unmarried women, very many of whom marry and “lapse with their marriage into the old parasitism,” in the agreeable phrase of Edna Kenton. One remedy for this that has been proposed is that men shall pay wages to their wives. This, however, besides commercializing the union of men and women, is open to the further objection that if a man hires a woman to be his wife, he must have the right to discharge her when he finds some one else that would suit him better, for a time. This is admittedly a makeshift. A more “thorough” remedy offered is “paid motherhood,” the men supporting the state and the state supporting the women and children. In such a case the state would naturally decide what mothers to pay, and what men to mate them with. Nothing that is now recognized as a home could survive such an arrangement, and the Feminists don’t wish it to survive.

And even so, the house work has got to be done by somebody. If it is done by a hired charwoman she would be economically justifying her existence, while if it is done by a wife and mother, she would be a parasite, in the language of Olive Schreiner, and would be earning her living by the exercise of her sex functions, in the chaste words of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in Women and Economics, and Edna Kenton. And in any case the men must go on with their drudgery, which comprises overwhelmingly the greater part of all the work that is done in the world.

II

On the one hand, we are assured by Feminists that women do not differ from men, and therefore should not be confined to a “sphere.” On the other hand, we are no less confidently assured by them that politics and industry are in pressing need of qualities which men do not possess, and cannot acquire, because they are distinctively feminine. Olive Schreiner has carefully studied the male and female dog, and reaches the conclusion that there is no difference between them to justify different treatment and different occupations. She does not expect woman suffrage to effect any political changes, except in one or two matters where she believes women have interests which men have not, or do not recognize. For example, war. Woman in politics will put an end to war because she knows how much it costs to produce each human life. This is mere rhetoric. What are the facts? The Teutonic women, whose status she would re-establish, went to the wars with their husbands, and fought by their sides. From the Spartan mother who charged her son to return with his shield or on it, to Mlle. Juliette Habay, of Brussels, who wrote: “We are learning to shoot with rifles. Here in Brussels great numbers of young girls have joined rifle corps, and a professor of arms is teaching us to shoot,” when has woman ever failed to gird the sword upon her man? Socially there is assuredly no discrimination against the red coat in England, or the blue coat in the United States.

Very recently Femina, the woman’s newspaper in Paris, addressed to its readers the question, “If not a woman, what man would you have wished to be?” We are told in a news despatch that “Napoleon won easily.”

But Mrs. Schreiner is substantially correct. Biology may know something of male and female temperaments, but in their general characters and habits and adaptability to employments, there is no great difference between her male and female dog, or the male and female of other animals. If the path of progress leads downward by all means let us learn our sociology and domestic economy from the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. If human progress has been retrogression, let us get back by way of primitive man and the missing link, to the animals and birds whose social economy commends itself strongly to Feminist and socialist.

The differentiation of men and women is the most valuable product of ages of gradually developing civilization. The world does not need twice as many diggers in the earth, and workers in metals, as it has now, but it does need homes. If the beasts merely have dens from which they go forth at night for their prey, and in which they produce their young, which they care for only till the young can catch their own game, Mrs. Gilman sees no reason why men and women should have homes, except as places for sleeping, from which they go out every morning to secure subsistence for themselves and for their young. But the latter, in her system, would soon be removed to training institutions conducted by the state, and managed by experts in child-culture; for Mrs. Gilman does not credit women with ability to rear their own offspring (however well she thinks they can rear those of other women), though the world is perishing for lack of their greater participation in industries and politics.

The prolonged association of parents with children, the protraction of mother-love beyond the infancy of offspring, the association of men and women intimately, but not entirely for the perpetuation of the race; the instinct of exclusiveness in the relations of man and woman, and their refinement by sentiments of romance; the development of chivalry and accountability for others in man, and of modesty in woman; the separation of one part of the race from much that the other part must often be in close contact with; the creation of a domestic atmosphere which is not like that of the shop or the field—the essential features of the home and the family—these are the best results of civilization, and against them the Feminist storms. Yet they are more important, if possible, to woman than to man.

Women are different from men as the result of ages of segregation, and that is above all things else the object of Feminist attack. The whole purpose of Feminism is to make the conditions of life the same for men and women. Women are more chaste than men, and the Feminists may be right when they say that this has been forced upon woman by man, but they are mistaken when they treat this not as a gain, but as a grievance. It need not be disputed that men ought to be as pure as women, but it is at least a great gain to hold one sex to a high standard of purity. In the course of time something may be achieved by the other—much has been already, or mixed society would be impossible—but it will not be effected by the Feminists who complain of servitude to man-made standards of morals, and demand for women the freedom practiced surreptitiously by some men.

The common notion of the innate moral superiority of woman is due to fond recollections of happy childhood, to the warm language of poets, to the romance of the male when in the springtime of life his fancies lightly turn to thoughts of love, and to actual differences which are the result of the segregation of women. Feminism is breaking that down, and we are already getting some of the results. In The Vanishing Lady, The Atlantic Monthly, December, 1911, Mrs. Comer finds that the contrast between the people in the novels of Howells and in those of David Graham Phillips suggests something like a submergence of Christian civilization under a wave of materialism and paganism. The interval between these two writers is the period during which Feminism has been spreading like an epidemic. Women have not saved society from the change. The advanced women have not tried to. Like their clothes, they have been entirely up-to-date, and the materialism and paganism of the day are quite as apparent among women as among men.

This is Mrs. Comer’s description of the type of woman who is being evolved by Feminism:

One cannot travel far in these days without being filled with wonder at the vast numbers of these women roaming the continent. They are usually of a willful fatness, with flesh kept firm by the masseuse; their brows are lowering, and there is the perpetual hint of hardness in their faces; their apparel is exceedingly good, but their manners are ungentle, their voices harsh and discontented; there is no light in their eyes, no charm or softness in their presence. They are fitting mates, perhaps, for the able-bodied pagans who are overrunning the earth, but hardly suitable nurses for a generation which must redeem us from materialism, if, indeed, we are to be so redeemed. Facing them, one wonders if race-suicide is not one of nature’s merciful devices?

In a period of rapidly acquired fortunes women have accepted the dollar as the unit of individual worth quite as readily as men have, and have applied it more relentlessly, for men are more democratic than women; rich and poor wear the same costumes, and in their friendships they do not draw the financial line so closely as their wives do. During the spread of Feminism manners have coarsened, modesty is disappearing, the fiction and drama of the day familiarize the young with vice under the thin pretext of fortifying virtue. If it be true, as is sometimes charged, that women are taking to alcohol and tobacco, it is merely one additional evidence that in breaking down the distinctions between men and women, the standards of the former are not raised, but those of the latter are lowered.

Two women have lately suggested the assimilation of the figures of the male and female of the species. Ellen Key refers to the flattening of woman’s bosom as the result of the growing use of artificial means of nourishing infants, and “Lucas Malet” speaks of “large-boned, athletic, sexless persons, petticoated, yet conspicuously deficient in haunches and busts.”

III

As the garb of male and female in the lower animals does not differ radically, and seldom varies much except in the brighter hues of the male, so the socialist who seeks to assimilate the human sexes, objects to radical differences in their costume, and many essays toward the adoption of the costume of men have been made by advanced women. Morris and Bax, in Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome, deplore differences of costume, saying: “Another fault may be noted in all bad periods (as in the present), that an extreme difference is made between the garments of the sexes.” Since that was written the skirts of women have been reduced to a point suggestive of a single trouser instead of a pair, and the divided skirt, the harem skirt and the riding costume for the cross saddle indicate a movement that Morris and Bax would welcome.

There are history and politics in clothes. Trousers are described as a product of democracy, because they conceal the material of the stocking, whether silk or wool. Not so very long ago men wore laces, and ribbons, and jewels, and delicate tints. With the gradual breaking down of the caste system, the spread of democracy in politics, and of the brotherhood of man in philanthropy and religion, men have reduced their costumes to the present inartistic, but very serviceable standard. There has been no lasting change in that direction in the costume of women. If the determination of some women to “make men of themselves” had coincided with the severe simplicity of the tailor-made suit there would have been, as there has been in some cases, a certain measure of harmony between the inner and the outer woman. But the period of aggressive Feminism coincides with decrees of fashion that are designed to expose as much of the female figure as the police will permit. The paucity of garments, and their thinness and scantiness are suggestive of Vivien, upon whom

A robe

Of samite without price, that more exprest

Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs.

The pageants and tableaux which afford women an opportunity to appear in the garb of statues, leave one somewhat in doubt whether Feminism relies chiefly upon arson and malicious mischief, or upon the arts Vivien practiced upon Merlin, for the accomplishment of its ends. Salome is dancing before Herod in the confident expectation that he will give her the half of his kingdom. But it is idle for women in the Western world, in the Twentieth Century, to pretend that they are odalisques, compelled by their helplessness to appeal to the sensuous side of men. They exhibit themselves for their own pleasure, and they dance the whole list of modern dances, with their vulgar names, because they enjoy them.

The extreme of fashion, in this day when Feminism is demanding larger opportunities to refine, purify and uplift the world, is fast reaching the point of

One Pan

Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,

and on the Paris stage this has already been done, with the approbation of the audience, until the Nymph came forward to the footlights to bow her acknowledgment of the applause, when the audience intimated plainly that she was overdoing her part.

In Berlin, in Chicago, and in Washington, very recently opposition to distinctive titles for married and single women has broken out. It is asked indignantly why women, and not men, should be tagged with their conjugal condition. One woman remarks, not without force, that it is more important to know whether men are married, than to know whether women are wives or maidens.

But men have so far been the more public, and therefore the better known of the two. General information about their status is more probable. Perhaps the conjugal status of men ought to be indicated in their titles, but they do not change their names in marriage, and therefore it is less convenient to change their titles. At any rate, it is better that the conjugal condition of one sex should be indicated than that that of neither should be. The distinctive titles for married and single women go back in England, France and Germany, rather less than 250 years, and they constitute a part of the differentiation of women from men which the Feminist resents, but which is really one of the most valuable products of civilization. It is a necessary feature of a society based upon the family as the unit, but in which women are free to move about without guards, and without the supervision of their men.

Intimately connected with the title is the last name the woman is to bear. The Feminist resents being “branded” upon marriage by her husband’s name. Certainly under Ellen Key’s system it would be folly to change the name for each association. One distinguished Feminist in Boston retained her maiden name after marriage, and her daughter uses the names of both parents. But this does not solve, it only evades, the real problem. What is the mother’s name? It is the name of her father. There is no reason to the Feminist or the socialist why she should bear the name of her father, any more than that her daughter should bear her father’s name.

There are no family names now except the names of the men, and in a Feminist society there can be no family names; which will not matter, for there will be no family. The Feminist is less frank in admitting this than the socialist is, but their programs are equally destructive of it. Each person will select his, or her, own name. To this social individualism leads. In no other way will the Feminist woman be satisfied that her identity is not merged in a man, and her ownership by a man indicated for public information.

IV

Feminism is a declaration of sex war, Edna Kenton proclaims. Yet the havoc involved in this might well give advanced women pause. Miss Tarbell (The Uneasy Woman, The American Magazine, January, 1912) does not believe that “Man is a conscious tyrant, holding woman an unwilling captive—cutting her off from the things in life that really matter—education, freedom of speech, the ballot.” She asks:

Is man the calculating tyrant the modern uneasy woman charges?... Is not man a victim as well as she—caught in the same trap? Moreover, is woman never a tyrant? That a man’s life may not be altogether satisfactory, she declines to believe. The uneasy woman has always taken it for granted that man is happier than woman.

Mrs. Rogers recognizes that man, not woman, is the idealist. The unselfishness of woman, beyond her willingness to sacrifice herself for her offspring, is poetic license. She is often unselfish; so is man. In a small material way it may be worth noticing that the amount of ordinary life insurance in this country, nearly all of which is paid for by men for the benefit of women, is thirteen times the amount of the national debt. Man and woman have been happy together, or miserable together. There have been times when a man pounded his wife, but she in turn pounded the children, and he in his turn was pounded by men higher than he in the social scale. With an improvement in manners and morals, man ceased submitting to pounding on the one side, and inflicting it on the other. When force was the rule in all social relations, both suffered from it. Since force ceased to be the rule, woman has had very much the better of man; for she cares less about his comfort than he does about hers; and while he will give up a good deal for the sake of peace, there is little that she will not give up peace for the sake of. “It is the perseverance which conquers,” says Thackeray, “the daily return to the object desired. Take my advice, my dear sir, when you see your womankind resolute about a matter, give up at once and have a quiet life.”

The common interests of men and women, subserved by co-operation and certain to be destroyed by competition, should avert sex war. The bonds of matrimony, which gall so many women, are mainly restraints upon men, and protections of women. Their dissolution would be cheerfully submitted to by very many men, but it ought not to be necessary to refer to the condition women would find themselves in after a few years. The condition of the greater part of the women who have achieved economic independence in the mills and shops is not such as to commend economic independence to all the others, disregarding for a moment the certain destruction of the domestic life, the home, and the family, that would result from the universal economic independence of married women.

The answer to both Feminist and Socialist is that of The Lords of Their Hands, in Kipling’s, An Imperial Rescript. They were on the point of signing the pact which would put an end to all struggle in the industrial world—

When—the laugh of a blue-eyed maiden rang clear through the council hall,

And each one heard Her laughing, as each one saw Her plain—

Saidie, Mimi, or Olga, Gretchen, or Mary Jane.

After several delegates had expressed themselves energetically in regard to their plans for themselves and the Eternal Feminine, who was untouched by the Feminist movement—

They passed one resolution: “Your sub-committee believe

You can lighten the curse of Adam when you’ve lightened the curse of Eve.

But till we are built like angels—with hammer and chisel and pen

We will work for ourself and a woman, forever and ever. Amen.”

TABU AND TEMPERAMENT

When, I wonder, did the word “temperament” come into fashion with us? We can hardly have got it from the French, for the French mean by it something very different from what we do; though it is just possible that we did get it from them, and have merely Bowdlerized the term. At all events, whatever it stands for, it long since became a great social asset for women, and a great social excuse for men. Perhaps it came in when we discovered that artists were human beings. At least, for many years, we never praised an artist without using the word. It does not necessarily imply “charm,” for people have charm irrespective of temperament, and temperament irrespective of charm. It is something that the Philistine never has: that we know. But what, by all the gods of clarity, does it mean?

It means, I fancy, in one degree or another, the personal revolt against convention. The individual who was “different,” who did not let his inhibitions interfere with his epigrams, who was not afraid to express himself, who hated clichés of every kind—how well we know that figure in motley, who turned every occasion into a fancy-dress ball! All the inconvenient things he did were forgiven him, for the sake of the amusing things he said. Indeed, we hardly stopped to realize that his fascination was largely a matter of vocabulary. Now it is one thing to sow your wild oats in talk, and quite another to live by your own kaleidoscopic paradoxes. The people who frowned on the manifestations of “temperament” were merely those logical creatures who believed that if you expressed your opinions regardless of other people’s feelings, you probably meant what you said. They did not know the pathology of epigram: the basic truth of which is that word-intoxicated people express an opinion long before they dream of holding it. They say what they think, whether they think it or not. Only, if you talk with incessant variety about what ought to be done, and then never do any of the wild things you recommend, you become in the end perfectly powerless as a foe of convention.

This tactical fact the unconventional folk have at last become aware of; and, accordingly, hostility to convention is ceasing somewhat to take itself out in phrases. Conventions, at the present moment, are really menaced. The most striking sign of this is that people are now making unconventionality a social virtue, instead of an unsocial vice. The switches have been opened, and the laden trains must take their chance of a destination.