People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1896 — THE COMING REVOLUTION. [ARTICLE]

THE COMING REVOLUTION.

The Editor or ‘*The Arena’? Discusses ’Hr. Call’s Book in a Striking Paper Dealing with Fundamental Evils of the Hour. Ptutocracg the Product of Special Privilege -The Fallacy of the Survival of the. Fittest Theory when Applied to Social Conditions The Well• * springs of Colossal Fortunes found in Privileges Obtained Through Inheritance. From the Arena, by permission. In “The Coming Revolution’ * Mr. Call has made a contribution to social and economic litera ture of the new time of positive value. It is a work which merits a very wide reading. It might be justly characterized a trumphet call to free men; but it is more than this—it is a calm, fair, and masterly survey of social conditions as they exist; an investigation of the underlying causes of the widespread poverty and misery of today, and a bold but reasonable and statesmanlike presentation of measures, which, if radical, are as conservative as any remedies can be, which in the nature of the case are more than palliatives or temporary makeshifts. The author is a brilliant lawyer; he has been trained to reason logically and to view questions on all sides, but his education has not blinded him to the fundamental demands of justice. He has a charming style, at once lucid and concise: he makes his meaning perfectly plain, while using few words—an art few writers possess; his style is simple, and he has so thoroughly mas tered the subject in hand that he finds no difficulty

in making his meaning perfectly plain. So important, is this work at the present crisis that it calls for an extended review. As may bt* inferred, the author does not agree with the conventional economists who owe their popularity and livelihood to their efficiency as sophists in the unsavory if lucrative role of the paid tools or attorneys for plutocracy, and who are ever anxious to silence the discontent of the industrial millions, who are being pressed slowly but remorselessly toward serfdom, through injustice and the essential anarchy of capitalism. He does not believe that it is the will of a Divine Providence that a million should suffer that ten may revel in millions of dollars which have been acquired by'the ten, but earned chiefly by the millions. In his opening chapters on “The Signs of the Times,” he says: “There are those who have come to charge the wretchedness and warfare now everywhere existing among men to their institutions, instead of to any wise or beneficent provision for their future; they deny either the necessity or benefit of the hardships the great mass of mankind now suffer, and demand that these hardships be at once remedied.” He points out the general discontent which exists and the various methods proposed for remedying the wrongs which are becoming too grievous to be borne: “The condition of the toiling masses may truly be described as a struggle for existence. Hard and constant toil is necessary for the meagre return which clothes body and affords shelter and food, but it is not the ceaseless grind of work which'is chiefly responsible for the discontent which is present among the industrial millions throughout the industrial world. Work is not itself unwelcome, but it is the anxiety, poverty, and wretchedness which are everywhere the lot of labor, that cause men to look with sullen dread and. revolt upon this struggle. However meagre their subsistence, this is ever precarious; theirs is a contest for very life in which many fail. Each recurring crisis shows how thin are the of chance which ever div ; de success, in this struggle, from failure. Thefi it is that the merchant and the mechanic fail in business, the farmer loses his farm, and penniless and burbened with debt they together sink into the condition of wage-laborers; meanwhile their ruin has also driven labor out of employment, and the ranks of the unemployed, always full, swollen from these < various sources, become now so crowded that all cannot hope to obtain positions; a competition ensues in which some must inevitably fail. However remote the tramp and the pauper of society may seem from their more for tunate fellows, they have but failed in the common struggle.”

THE “STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE” FALLACY. But it is urged that the savage struggle for life is seen among the lower animals, that the weaker are devoured by the stronger, and the fittest survive, therefore this brutal struggle is natural. This argument is fatally weak if examined in a candid and impartial spirit, even though we leave all question of morality out of the discussion. For the conditions are not the same. The freedom which obtains among the lower animals is * "The Coming Revolution," by Henry L. Call. Pp 240: price cloth *1.25, paper 50 cents. Arena Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.

not present here.* The widespread misery today is due chiefly to artificial and not natural conditions. On this point Mr. Call is very strong! He shows: (l) That there is no sound reason for the struggle for existence with man because there is wealth enough for all. and under just conditions no man, woman, or child who chooses to work need fear poverty. (2) That, under the conditions which exist among the lower animals the colossal fortunes of the present would be impossible. These two points are clearly set forth, and upon the establishment of them the popular pVaof the apologists for plutocracy falls. Touching the bounty of nature he observes: _ “The position of man in the world is far from unfavorable. The world is large enough for all, out everywhere land is unoccupied—withheld from use. It is. too. so bountiful, that if labor is allowed to exert itself fora brief season, the cry is raised of overproduction, the markets are glutted, mines must be closed, mills must be shut down, and labor must be turned out of employment because there is no demand for its products. Nor was the labor of man ever more effective than now. Machinery has come to his aid. and with it he can accomplish so much in every branch of production that labor itself is becoming superfluous—a drug on the market; man is ✓ crowded out of the field of industry because his labor has become too efficient. Sureiv. when the world is large enough for all. when its bounty more than suffices for all the wants of man, and when his labor is only too efficient in procuring the satisfaction of his wants—surely, in face of these facts, the position of man in the world can

not be held responsible for his wops; want and 'wretchedness cannor be preached as the necessary and natural lot of man. “The poor will not believe that their struggle and want are necessary, so long as they see in contrast with their condition the possessions and idleness of the rich. This is not only the age of paupers, it is also the age of the millionaires; the hovel of the poor is under the shadow of the palace of the rich However stinted and wretched may be the lot of the masses, they see here no evidence of want; all is, instead, the most lavish luxury and display; everything that wealth can procure to satisfy the warts, or pander to the appetite and pride of man, or astonish ’he gaze of the beholder, belongs to these favorites of fortune.' Yet, notwithstanding all their expenditures, the fortunes of the rich are ever swelling into vaster and vaster proportions; the ndmber of the rich, too, is fast increasing. The hoards and the squanderings of these alike show that the world is filled with abundance; they also show the wonderful effectiveness of labor; for labor, either of the past or present, is, after all, the source of all value, and the means by which all wealth is brought into being.”

Thus it will be seen that the “survival” argument is fatally weak in that it is based on false premises. It necessarily assumes that, there is not room enough for all. that some must perish in order that others may survive, and therefore that man has a natural right to prey upon his brother. Not only does this popular plea rest upon false premises, but it assumes that man in civilization is accorded at least as fair a chance in his struggle with his fellowman as the lower animals enjoy, and this assumption is false. “It is not applicable to present conditions, for the reason that the freedom of struggle there [among the lower animals] allowed is here denied. The brute has the free use of all his faculties; to one is given strength, to another cunning, and to each, by the kind provision of nature, is adapted to obtain his living in his own way. This is indeed the cause of his survival: the first law of nature, the very instinct of life, is selfpreservation; to preserve his life the brute is allowed the use of every faculty given him; where life is at stake every means to preserve it is justified. But it is not so with man’s institutions. Man cannot by his strong arm help himself to the plenty he sees around him; to do so would be trespass or crime. Cunning is the only faculty in free use, and it is'allowed to run riot. Manly strength is chained helpless, while low cunning, deft-fingered, passes by and filches from it. “Nor is labor allowed in its struggle the freedom of opportunity given the brute. Each brute has free access to the world; man is denied that access by the laws of society, which give the world to the few in each generation and say to all others “keep aloof.” These few play the “dog in the manger;” and although they may each have enough to support a thousand such as they, society itself stands watch and ward over their possessions, and turns portionless labor away unless it can purchase the consent of these owners by the wages of servitude. Compared with the lot of labor how free that of the brute ! Take the most savage and despicable of these, the wolf and the hyena: they each range the prairie or forest in equal struggle, and do not always feel it necessary to war upon and devour

each other; then when they have satisfied their j maw from the carcass which they with honest toil have slain, they become almost sociable, and perhaps abandon it to their fellows. If, now. these brutes had reached a high state of civilization, and united into a society giving some few of them, under the name of property rights, the whole world now ranged in freedom by all, and compelling all others to come to them in service or beggary for leave to get food and shelter, how like to the institutions of man they would have attaiued. “No! the doctrine of the struggle for existence —brute doctrine though it be—is altogether too merciful to palliate or justify the institutions with which man has cursed himself; it is too honest a doctrine. These institutions will instead be found to have cloaked themselves under names sacred and revered by man, such as “liberty,” “rights of property,” and the like, and not to have paraded openly in their true colors under any doctrine however brutal, else would mankind have long ago risen in revolt and made short work of them.” It is not in the working of natural law,‘but, in the operation of artificial and unjust conditions that we find the mainspring of the misery of man throughout the civilized world. “It is not to any lack of wealth in the world, but. instead, to man’s institutions which have made this distribution of it, and have given to the few so much, that we must look if we would know why the many have so little.” The author points out the signs of profound discontent everywhere manifested. In our coun-

try the violent oscillations of the political pendulum, no less than the desperate struggles of organized labor, are suggestive signs of the times. He shows that a political readjustment must speedily supervene, else will political as well as industrial freedom soon be a thing of the past. “Industrial slavery cannot long coexist with political freedom. Either the spirits of men will be crushed, as under the tyrannies of ancient times, and they will become unfit to remain free even in name, or they will resent the yoke of oppression, whatever its form, and demand with, their ballot that they shall be free, not only in name, but also in fact.”

The progress of revolutionary ideas is neces sarilv slow in gaining popular acceptance, especially among phlegmatic people. The attention must be gained, the reason successfully appealed to. and the people must also be made to sqe that their interest will be better conserved by the change. Old prejudices have to be overcome, and the influence of opinion - forming organs, which are always largely wedded to conventionalism, have to be neutralized. Frequently the most beneficial reforms are retarded by a false and. vicious conservatism which turns alarmist whenever a progressive step is proposed for society. Yet the history of the world’s great reformative measures shows that when evil conditions have reached such a point that a noble discontent is everywhere visible, the light of a better day dawns and increases until the darkness which enslaved the brain and lent wings to fear disappears. In order to intelligently appreciate the subject, it will be necessary to notice somewhat at length: (1) The condition of society today. (2) How that condition has been produced. (3) Whether the producing causes admit of remedy. (4) The nature of the remedy required. (5) The application of the remedy. (6) The effect of the remedy. (7) How t the revolution is to be accomplished. It is to these subjects that the author devotes his succeeding pages, which are written in an easy, fluent manner, affording interesting reading even to those who read little, and so lucid that the dullest intellect and those most unused to philosophical reasoning will find no difficulty in following the author in his comprehensive survey of conditions, his searching analysis of popular fallacies, his concise portrayal of major producing factors in present evil social conditions, and his statesmanlike discussion of fundamental reforms which alone can secure equally of opportunity or establish just conditions which can reasonably meet the requirements of society today.

Frequently the employer is placed in as trying a condition as the employed, both being virtually slaves to a few who have acquired great landed interests or other form of wealth. The real masters of both employers and employed are the owners of the world's soil and its wealth. “These owners fix the terms not only for the toilers, but for that of the employers also, and rob from both. The dependence of labor does not mean accepting the wages of another; if a man have the cnoice whether to do so or not, he may accept them and stijl be free. It is the denial of this choice to both employer and employed—the conditions which give all the footholds and means of life to the few, and enable these to say

to dispossessed labor, ‘This world is ours, and whether ye toil for day’s wages or otherwise, ye can have no l ight to labor,’ or place or means upon which to labor, except by our leave and upon our terms’—that constitutes the dependence of labor. It is this dependence that makes toil so grinding and existence so precarious, and that makes labor debt-ridden in spite of all its hardships. Were it not for the fact that the debtor is a!’owed his legal exemptions, and that our laws in * lunger tolerate imprisonment for debt, at least three-fourths of the race would be even now at the absolute mercy of t-heir creditors.” THE CONDITION OP THE WAGE EARNER TODAY. While it is true that the theory of the survival of the fittest when applied to man is fundamentally false as well as inhuman, it is true that owing to unjust conditions, which flow from special privileges, a few are enjoying the fruits of the industry of the millions with the appalling result that the masses today are forced into a fierce and pitiless struggle for existence which is at once essentially debasing to the moral nature, enervating to the intellectual faculties, and destructive to free government and enduring progress. *

“Whether we take the wage-worker, the farmer, the mechanic, or the business man, the position of each, and his existence even, are secured only by a fierce and competitive struggle. Not only is that struggle intense, but it is also precarious, as seen in the condition of the wagelaborer when he loses employment, of the farmer when, unable to hold his farm, he loses it under mortgage, or of the mechanic and the merchant who fkil ip business and are ruined.” Very impressive is the extended notice of the dependent condition df the wealth-producers of the world and the bitter struggle, the forlorn battle, which they are waging for the right to earn a little more than a bare livelihood. The toiler looks out upon a bountiful world, but “knows full well that of all this wealth he has no right to so much as a crust of bread to keep from starving, except, he earn it by his labor. Nor even to labor has he any right, except by the consent of the owners of this wealth; for upon the soil or its fruits all labor must be exerted; he must have the use of these, and of machinery and tools, and must enter the employ of these owners, who are thus his masters.” INVENTIONS WHICH SHOULD HAVE BLESSED HUMANITY ARE MADE A CURSE TO THE MILLIONS. The growth of labor-saving machinery, which should have proved an unalloyed blessing to the race by reducing the time required for manual labor and giving to the children of men ample time for cultivation of brain and soul and for wholesome recreation, has proved a curse rather than a blessing to the toiling millions, putting them ever and ever more completely in the power of the few who are in reality the masters of the millions. The servant machinery makes the servant man superfluous. That such is the effectof machinery is self-evident, from its labor-saving, labor-dis-pensing power. That labor shares no part of the gain is certain: and why should it? itself a mere commodity, it has no part in the material, the machine, or, the product; it sells its services when it can, and receives its pay, and that is the end so far as it is concerned. That labor, however, loses its employment is no less certain, for if capital have a new servant that cheaply can do so much, what folly it would be to employ the old! let capital now give employment to all the labor that offers itself, and the world’s markets are at once glutted. Hence labor is tramping the country vainly for work, and daily losing employment, because no longer required.” The condition of the farmer boy is scarcely less pitiable; and another startling fact which is well worthy of notice, is that with each recurring panic or financial crisis, those engaged in other lines of industry and in business are being carried with irresistible force toward the condition of the mechanic and the farmer.

“We are, it is said, a nation of debtors; and pre-eminently is this true of the business men of the country. Scarce one in a hundred but is doing business on credit, purchasing on credit, selling on credit. It is impossible for any one of them at any time to say what they are worth. When collections are good and they are able to pay their bills, they seem to succeed; but in adverse times, when their debtors cannot pay, they are brought face to face with the fact that ruin ever impends. Many of them fb.il with almosteach recurring crisis, only to again attempt rising to their feet; others, by the most desperate exertions, are barely able to maintain their credit; few, indeed, rise into the ranks of wealth and independence. For one that really succeeds, there are, in all the walks of toil and honest industry hundreds who fail.” THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES. In a chapter dealing with the privileged classes

Mr. Call turns the searchlight upon the dark places of our political and economic system, and reveals root causes of want in a clear, incisive manner, which will prove anything but pleasing to the barnacles of society. If there is anything which an arrogant plutocracy fears, it is a complete unmasking of the real causes which are forcing millions to lives of hopeless drudgery in a land of marvellous wealth, when under just conditions every man and woman who chose to work might soon become the owner of a home, and gain a position where age would not have terrors from possible want, and where the children who came into the home would be properly educated, and would also be able to enter active life with a more pleasing prospect before them than hopeless servitude and perhaps a homeless old age. When the truth that the misery which t<-ns of thousands of industrious people suffer and the ever present dread which haunts millions of lives are due to monstrous crimes which are entrenched behind partial and cruel paternalistic laws, and the refusal on the part of society to accept the great basic truth that the earth belongs to the people, and not to a few 7 people; when the slow-thinking masses who for so many weary ages have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by the tools of the privileged classes, awaken to the truth that by uniting at the ballot they can change the current of affairs, and in so changing may bring about, not nihilism or ruin, but a bloodless and glorious revolution which shall help humanity upward as w’ell as onward, and radiate the sunshine of happiness over a heart-heavy world- then will dawn the hour of Humanity's most splendid triumph; the hour which shall entitle man to be called a rational being. . Today while the toilers of the world are engaged in a desperate struggle for “a precarious subsistence, they see around them the lavish wealth and idle splendor of the rich;” a spectacle which alone, if they would but stop and think, would effectively set at naught all the tine-spun fallacies and explanations.of the minions of plutocracy. They would also perceive that while “their own desperate exertions furnish them only a scanty living,” the favored classes are ‘-vying with each other in a mad race to spend their hoards for vulgar display and for every luxury and indulgence known to man,” while, furthermore, their fortunes, despite their reckless waste of unearned wealth, “are growing from year to year. No comparison can be made between the condition of the poor and that of the millionaire; imagination can scarce bridge over the distance between them. Yet in this new world the millionaire is of recent origin.”

‘•When it is considered that less than thirty thousand men already own half the entire wealth of this country of some sixty million inhabitants, and that the number and wealth of the enormously rich is fast increasing, the poverty oh the masses may be accounted for. The! poor and the rich ' live in the same world; andj however enormous may be the possessions of tue one, or meagre the scant earnings of the other, these are alike drawn from the same fund; labor exerted upon the soil or upon the products of the soil is the source of a'l wealth. If. then, the few have such disproportionate shate. there must be little left for the many, .lust in proportion as the rich grow relatively richer must the poor grow relatively poorer. When we see the millionaire heapin,' up his hundreds of millions in the course of a single lifetime, we may and must expect to see labor getting less than its share, and poverty increasing; and this is borne out by the actual facts: in large centres where millionaires most abound, the squalor and poverty of the poor is most general and most extreme. This is. indeed, but the law of simple arithmetic: one hall' the nation’s wealth or labor’s gains being given to thirty thousand men, there remains but one half to divide among the sixty million others. It is also the law of organic life: if the vitality is absorbed to plethora by one part of the body, all other parts must be enfeebled thereby. “It is not, then, because the world is too small or too niggard, it is not because nature refuses to yield to man’s labor enough wealth for all his needs, that the many poor are living in misery and dying of want.” Mr. Call clearly establishes the important fact that “The oppressed condition of labor is not due to any pressure of population upon subsistance; the world is large enough, but it is appropriated and withheld from use.” Yet even under such manifestly unjust conditions, when so little of the approprirted earth is actively employed, wealth is created in abundance, but the distribution of this wealth makes the millionaire and the proletariat. He next emphasizes the fact that “The rich are exempt from any struggle for existence like that of the poor man,” and that it is by exemption from that struggle and through enjoyment of privileges that the colossal fortunes aie acquired. PLUTOCRACY THE PRODUCT OP PRIVILEGE. He observes that a great number of the great fortunes descend to their owners by inheritance. “These inherited fortunes grow without effort or exertion of the owners, by interest, by rent, and by profits upon capital. The many who are disinherited must, have the use of this wealth, and they have no recourse but to go to these owners for that privilege; their necessity compels them to pay the price' asked,i.wbethe'* this

be interest for the use of money, rent, for the use of lands, or selling their labor at such prices as to yield capital the great profits of industry. Can it be wondered at, then, that the owners of the world’s wealth, to whom it is parcelled out by laws of inheritance, continue to grow richer, standing as they do at the very threshold of life and dictating to the world of labor the terms upon which it shall live? Thus it is that these inherited fortunes grow from age to age, and will continue to do so, until, by the inexorable logic of the present system, the world becomes altogether. as it even now almost is, the world of the rich. Inheritance is thus a privilege, in that those who take under it do so without engaging in any struggle for existence, or even for their hoards, which are vastly in excess of the amount required for their subsistance. It is, furthermore, a privilege, in that the fortunes so acquired grow of their own accord, without struggle or exertion on the part of the owners, by the mastery which the monopoly of the world gives.” “Many more of these fortunes are acquired by the monopoly of land. The poor who invest in the mere equities of land during seasons of speculation, or who endeavor to own their homes under mortgage, may conclude, when they lose these by foreclosure, that land ownership is not desirable; and the conclusion of both may be true when they are compelled to pay interest at present rates upon the mortgages. Yet the fact remains that the real landlord class —not they who hold a mere equity, but they who own the land itself or the mortgage upon incumbered land —although they perform no labor or service upon it, neverthe'ess grow rich; to them, whether in rent or in interest, comes the wealth acquired by the monopoly of land. “Whether the land thus monopolized be withheld from use for mere purposes of speculation, or rent be charged for its use. in either case the ownerof the soil need perform no service upon it; he can sit by in idleness while his hoards grow; the land increases in value with the growth of the community, and rents or interests are paid because of its necessity to the community. Seasons of speculation which lure the laboring classes into purchasing lands, succeeded by periods of crisis which compel .them to relinquish it, but add to the gains ot the real landloid class, who emerge out of each crisis richer than before. There is no loss as a whole; the losses of the land poor but mean the gains Of the land-rich, a mere transfer of wealth lias taken place. “The landlord is exempted from labor, by the privilege which the ownership of land gives him to appropriate and turn into his coffers the labor of others.”

The monopoly of land carries with it monopoly in mines. Th us the Rockefellers and the Flaglers have been able to acquire millions of wealth from obtaining a monopoly in one of Nature’s greatest treasures which should have been enjoyed as the land by the whole people, or subject to rental value. A third source from which the privileged class reap millions is found in monopoly in money. Tims in the republic to-day we have a spectacle which might well excite the amazement of a true republican who believes in a democracy in fact rather than a plutocracy labelled democracy. Here we find that. “The government issues the money andcharges the bank from one-fourth to one half of one per cent interest for its use; the bank, in turn, charges the public rates varying from six to twelve per cent, and even upwards; pratically, the whole interest charged is thus its profits for the mere distribution of the money. The bank also receives individual deposits, paying no interest thereon; these it lends at the same rates as before, the whole charge again constituting its profits. As almost the entire money circulation of the country passes through the banks, it is not strange that with such exorbitant profits their fortunes should be both large and numerous. “The fortune of the banker is not, any more than those acquired through inheritance or the monopoly of land, accumulated by a struggle like that of the toiling poor. Money is a public necessity, and every laborer and all industry must have its use; trade or exchange, which means so much’to industrial society, is impossible without money. The banks which are ini rusted with its distribution take advantage of this necessity. A fourth source of colossal fortunes is found in Monopoly in Transportation. “That large fortunes are acquired by this means every one knows, yet so complex are these interests that the exact manner in which these fortunes are acquired is not always known; there is a growing feeling, however, that it is at the expense of society, and ihe private control of railroads is therefore looked upon with increas ing distrust. “This plunder first begins in the building of the roads. They are regarded as public interests, and large public aids are given by land grants and the voting of bonds to encourage and assist In their building; yet notwithstanding the assistance, the roads when built are often mortgaged far in excess of their actual cost, the public aids, together with the surplus realized from the mortgages above the cost of the roads, going to swell the fortunes of the builders. Stock is then issued upon the road, much as i( a farmer who had mortgaged *a five-thousftnd-dollar farm for ten

thousand dollars should attempt to dispose of his equity. But the public are not acquainted with fcecost of railroads, and these seem to the ordinary imagination the embodiment of wealth; the stock is, therefore, purchased by investors all over the country, and the price received for such investment adds still further to the fortunes of the manipulators. “The road is then launched into operation with a debt-burden far in excess of what it cost to build. The public are charged exorbitant rates for the maintaining of this debt-burden and the payingof dividends to stockholders labor is paid the lowest wages for the same reason, and is also turned out of employment whet business is light, it being well known that applicants will be plentiful enough when again needed. Yet, notwithstanding these exorbitantcbarges to the public, and this oppression of labor, the debt-burden of the road—bond and stock—cannot i e supported; dividends fall behind and interest on bonds is not paid. Here, nowever, is another great scource of profit to the shrewd manipulators, whose power of combination has already done so much for them. The stockholders take fright and sell their stock at any price, and these buy it in. Or if the stock is not worth buying, by reason of the large bonded indebtedness, then it is foreclosed, and these shrewd heads get it for less than it is worth, effectually defeating the claims of stockholders and other creditors of of the road.

“It is by these means—in the building, the operation, and the wrecking of roads—that in the space of a short lifetime the great railroad magnates can heap up their hundreds of millions. The railroad, telegraph, and kindred interests, by their nature, offer peculiar facilities for such appropiation; so long as they are committed to private control, their very complexity permits manipulation which, in simpler affairs, would at once be seen through and resented. Their necessity to communities compels these to contribute unduly toward the building, and their nature as a monopoly compels the public to pay rates fixed by no competition, but aione by the appetite for plunder of their manipulators; their extensiveness, too, prevents all competition between them as employers of labor, and compels labor to contribute more than its share toward this plunder.” Another fountain-head of gigantic fortunes is found to be monopoly of commodities; millions are reaped through systematic plundering of the markets by speculators and trusts. The trust is as yet in its infancy, and “though only just beginning to exult in its newly learned power, it already controls many of tne staples of life.” “Society must have sugar, salt, and oil, and other like commodities at whatever price; and when the trust has secured entire control, it cannot, of course, get these elsewhere; to the trust it must come. There is thus no limit to what tiie trust may and will charge. These giant corporations, already capalized into almost the billions, corrupting legislatures and senates, are piling up untold wealth from the plunder of all society, until by their grip around the sources of life they must throttle it. “Sheltered as they are under alleged freedom of competition and contract, their position toward industrial society is none other, or different than that of the pirate of the high seas toward the honest merchantman he plunders; and the complexity of industrial society makes it as dangerous to license their occupation, as it would .be to license piracy itself. The mere permission to pursue their nefarious business unwhipt of justice, is a privilege from honest toil, and to prey upon the labor and necessities and lives of society.

“Many of these fortunes have, as we have seen been acquired with the assistance of the corporation. The transportation and banking systems are altogether too complex in their nature for individual enterprise, and, , as society does not think it safe to manage its own concerns, there remains nothing for it to do but to create corporations and give these concerns into their keeping. These corporations are called quasi-public; public because the business entrusted to them effects vitally the whole of society, and private because it is conducted wholly for private gain. But it is not only these concerns that have been entrusted in this manner to private corporate control. Does a city or any municipal corporation need street-car or telephone facilities, or water, or gas supply, it is not thought fit for it sell' to provide these, as giving it. too much and paternal power; but straightway a franchise is granted to a corporation, and property condemed therefore, and even public aid extended, as we have already seen it done in the building of railroads; the business is, however, conducted wholly for the gain of the private corporation. It is not strange, where these corporations thus control concerns necessary and vital to the whole community, and where their franchise gives absolute monopoly, thus placing the public at their mercy, that they should amass enormous wealth.” CARDINAf BOURSES OF THE GREAT EORTUNES 7 OF TODAY. It will be seen then that a vast majority of the great fortunes found to-day aie not due to the patient industi-y or intellectual capacity of man, but rather spring from “privileges” which are enjoyed or acquired through (1) inheritance; (2) monopoly in land; (3) monopoly in money; (4) monopoly in tratfsportation; (5) monopoly in

commodities, or corporate control of industry. “There may be large fortunes not so accumulated, and these may, in some instances, be acquired honestly in legitimate enterprise and competition, or they may, more likely, be the result of privilege and vicious legislation. It is not claimed that the privileges here named include all evils of law which need correction; others exist and will grow up, and it is the glory of government, as of intelligent man, to rid itself of these as they arise. But the *privileges here mentioned are the most grevious, those most generally recognized, and the ones that account for by far the larger part of the enormous fortunes which concentrate the world’s possessions in the hands of the few, and thereby, deprive society of their use and oppress it by their power.”

PRIVILEGE THE CREATOR OF CAPITAL. In a chapter on “The Fruits of Privilege,” the legitimate working of the injustice due to privilege is forced home in a manner at once startling and unanswerable. The farmer, the wage-labor-er, and those actively engaged in productive work become the victims of the few who hold the earth, the tools of production, the medium of exchange, and the facilities of transportation. “Not only do these privileges thus oppress labor in all its forms, but in another sense, and as deeply, they effect every member of society as a consumer. The wages or profits of all productive labor are determined by two conditions: First, the actual money wages or returns received; and secondly, the cost of living. The object of the whole struggle of masses is for subsistence—for existence; when the farmer receives so many cents per bushel or per pound tor his products, when the manufacturer so much for his goods, the business man so many cents or dollars profits upon his sales, or when the laborer receives his day’s wage, the paramount consideration with each is how much of the necessaries or comforts of life this money will procure. Now these privileges, while they reduce the actual money reward of productive labor, also, in turn, increase the price 'Or all articles of use to the consumers; production alone is not able to bear their burden. Sometimes the burden is greater upon production, sometimes upon consumption. but the candle of living is burnt at hotheads. The debt-burden entailed upon production by inheritance, its increase by land monopoly, and the interest upon it due to the banking system, compels production of all kinds to raise the price of its products to support these; it must shift some of these burdens upon the consumer, else it cannot even struggle under their weight. So, too, while exorbitant transportation charges and the plunder of markets reduce the price received by the purchaser, they also enhance the price charged the consumer. “In order to fully understand how greatly and vexatiously prices are affected by these privileges, we must follow the history of each article of consumption and see at how many points and from how many directions even the simplest of these is made to contribute to their extortions. Take the coat on the farmer’s or the laborer’s back; the price of the wool is made higher by the load of debt the grower must incur for the use of wealth in the raising of sheep, the price or rent of land, the interest charged upon his debt, taxation levied to build railroads, the exorbitant rates demanded by these for carrying the wool to the manufacturer, and the plunder by speculators or trusts on its way. The manufacturer, too, must add to the price of the cloth in order to support the debt he must incur in its manufacture, together with the interest upon that debt, the rent or price of land upon which his factory is situated, exorbitant transportation charged for the bringing of the wool to his factory, and the plunder of speculators and trusts. This same process of addition must be continued b> the clothing manufacturer, the jobber, the wholesale merchant and the retail dealer, as the cloth or the finished product passes in turn into the hands of each on its way to the consumer; and the greater the plunder or privilege* the more exorbitant must be the prices charged at each step. The final price paid by the consumer is thus out of all proportion to what it should or would be, were industry not in this manner, aj every step, the prey of privilege. Trace any article of food, or clothing, or other use, through ■its passage from the raw to the final consumable shape, the result will be the same; and it can at once be seen how wide is the field of operation, how fruitful is the field of plunder for privilege. “Can we, then wonder why labor fails to procure subsistence, or why vast fortunes are mysteriously accumulated in the midst of growing property? Privilege stands over all production and rob labor of its money reward; it stands, too, over consumption, and by increasing the cost of living, lessens the value of labor’s earnings in procuring subsistence. Thus, and by this means it amasses its fortunes, while labor, with all its grind, is a beggar in the marts of life. The millionaire does not create, but appropriates his millions of wealth. It, is indeed, utterly impossible that any man’s services to society, except he be a genius of the rarest order, should procure him a million dollars in a lifetime; much less, then, should the service of those whose sole object is private gain, entitle them to their hundreds of millions. But when these privileges mean to society the ruin of industry and business, the loss of farms and homes under mort-

gage, and the pauperism of labor, surely the struggling and despoiled masses may be excused for inquiring whether these conditions be necessary and just. “These conditions constitute the tyranny of capital, so much complained of, and before which labor stands shivering and sullen, in dread and in revolt. Privilege is the creator of capital; it takes the wealth of the world ffrom the body of society where it properly belongs, and concentrates this wealth in the hands of the few, depriving labor of its use, thus setting capital and labor in opposing camps, at war with each other —at war in a contest necessarily, inevitably unequal. Capital owns the world, its machinery, and its material; labor, too. it owns, for it owns the means of labor and of life. And the cry of labor everywhere is that this mastery is too absolute too oppressive, in that it is a power over life and death, dealing death more and more, as capital, selfish and secure, has found a new and more profitable servant in machinery, andean therefore dispense with the commodity, labor, now everywhere tramping and begging for charity, for life.” Our author next considers “The Plea of Privilege.” This chapter challenges the attention of all thoughtful people who set truth and justice 1 above prejudice. It very effectively destroys the cardhouse ot the apologists for plutocracy, and will probably call down upon the author a torrent of violent invectives add insulting epithets, as this method is usually employed by the sophists of capitalism when the fallacy of'their more or less ingenious theories is mercilessly exposed. Equally important is the scholarly chapter on “The Law of Freedom,” in which Mr. Call proves the inconsistency of our social theories and conditions.

Indeed we are absolutely wittout any consistent political doctrines. Theory opposed to practice, and theory to theory. Confusion and antagonism exist upon every political question—so much so, that it is no exaggeration to say that politics as well as society is in a profoundly anarchical condition. The chapters t dealing with the “Signs of the Times,” “The 'Struggle for Existence,” “The Fruits of Privilege,” “The Plea of Privilege,” and “The Law of Freedom,” form the ground work of this work, after which the author devotes a chapter to a calm, clear, and able dis cussion of each of the great feeders of plutocracy, viz., “The Institution of Inheritance.” “The Monopoly of Land,” “The Banking System,” “The Transportation System,” “The Plunder of Trade,” and “The Corporate Abuse,” I will not attempt to summarize or outline these chapters. They are so strong, clear, and convincing that, could they be read by the industrial millions of America, I believe the doom of industrial slaverj would be assured, and that at an Ofirly day. ‘ THE NEW REPUBLIC Following these thoughtful discussions appears a chapter entitled “The New Republic,” in which are discussed the conditions which would prevail if an equality of opportunity was present. “When the world shall be the property of man and man no longer the subject and servant of property, then will man be at last free, and a new republic will have been ushered in. “This new republic great and sweeping as must de its benefits, will yet be founded on no otheror different principle than that upon which our liberties even now rest. It does not, like nihilism, demand the destruction of all institutions, for it holds that -government is necessary to establish and determine the relations of men in society, protect their respective rights, and as a servant to perform services public in their nature. It does not, like military socialism, demand the entire revolution of institutions, because it holds these to be a growth as the race itself is, and suited to the ideas and needs of men. Nor does it on the other hand, like so-called individualism, reduce government to a mere police power, for it recognizes government as the whole people acting through their laws, and that the people themselves must first determine their rights before these can be protected. It holds, too, that these rights must be redetermined with evSry change of conditions that effect them, and with every advance of so ciety to newer and more just standards of conduct. It holds, furthermore, that where (as in present industrial society) the rights of men so require government should be a servant, and .die people as a whole perform functions affecting the whole people. “This Isew Republic, based upon the principle of self-government, builds upon that principle the completed structure to establish which

that principle has alone ever been contended for. Nor is this structure k> beonce definitely planned and there remain. It must accommodate society in every condition its progress and environment from time to time require. It is elastic, and extensive, and never to be outgrown because ever to be changed, even as the practical rules of individual conduct, by the conditions of life and development. All thatdve can say is that justice now requires, from all the circumstances of existing society, that the privileges here named, which give advantage and produce inequality, be abolished. There may be other privileges arise, there may even now be other adjustments required. But this much, at least, must now be achieved if society would rise from out the conditions into which it is sunk. And this much will establish a republic whose object will be to secure human rights and further the advance of human progress.” The volume closes with a succinct review of the issues involved and a brief discussion of how problems can be solved, peaceaably and speedi ly, along the line of justice and freedom. In this chapter Mr. Call observes: “As long as a man submits to institutions which beggar and enslave him, his supplications and his protests will alike go up to deaf ears, while power and privilege will, as they have ever done, lord it over him. Any attempt to better his condition or obtain his rights will be astruggle and revolt against law, and all society will be organized against him. The strong arm of the law, it is, that everywhere crushes out all attempts of labor and proverty to obtain their owm If we would expect any real or lasting relief, the law must be ranged on the side of labor and not against it; the poorof society musthave the benefit of our institutions and not be placed without the pale of their protection. The remedy must be political; nothing short of this will work any permanent or substantial benefit. “There is what the moralists call “a noble discontent,” which, not satisfied with wrong, ever struggles toward higher and better ideals. This spirit it is that gave Greece her glory and Rome her grandeur, and this spirit it is tnat now centres the hopes of the world upon tjie Anglo-Sax on race. The absence of that spirit it is that constitutes the dark fatalism of the East, where men regard themselves as the prey of fate, thencondition as irremediable and their lot but to endure; the absence of that spirit it is that has blotted Asia and eastern Europe, once the home of civilization, from the pages of progress, and made the names of once glorious nations forgotten memories.

“It is not agitation but passive endurance that is to be feared. But this we have little need to fear. It is in the nature of political agitation once fairly begun to go on. That they who have once sincerely espoused this new religion of humanity shouldabandonit, is not to be supposed rather say that *he ranks of the sincere will be recruited, and ,that adversity will, as it has always done, but strengthen the onward sweep of reform. Never was there a more opportune time than the present; every condition, every indication points to the beginning of the twentieth century as the openingof a new era in human affairs and hopes. The condition of society compels it; the great popular uprising—the upheaval which now rocks society to its base —has prepared the way for it; and the march of mind, which has already enabled man to subdue nature to his bidding, now promises by the same process to enable him to subdue himself to the laws of the moral world. The last and greatest science, that of society, is but an easy and natural transition from all the other sciences which have gradually and successively rooted them selves in law.”

This work ought to become the handbook of the industrial millions in their struggle for their fundamental rights based on justice; it makes the issues so plain that the dullest intellect can grasp them; and when once grasped, the wealth producers are not likely to forget the real issues involved, for they carry with them justice for the wageworkers, happiness and prosperity not for the industrial millions alone, but for all highborn souls. Earnest men and women should read and circulate this book in evcy community througout the republic. It is a trumpet call to free men, and its appearance at the present cri sis in the industrial, economic, and political history of the republic is most fortunate; for in spite of the sneers and scoffing of the Benedict Arnolds of this laud, there are thoughtful peo pie who are not bound by prejudice and who are able to rise above the sophistry daily instilled into their minds by the organs of capitalistic an archism. We are to-dav engaged in a struggle with thd usurer class of Europe far more triomen tous to humanity and civilization than was the glorious struggle of the Revolution, and I may add also, far more dangerous, because it is the ser pent instead of tne lion with which we have to contend. B. O. Flower.