Socialism by. Roswell D. Hitchcock Chapter 1. part 2.

This essay on socialism was written in the late 19th century. Around the same time as Marx was doing his writing. To me this is fascinating reading and remarkable in it's pertinence to today. The Faux news talking heads would have us believe that this is the best of all worlds if we liberals would quit messing it up, but hey who has been in charge for the last three decades? This is part 2 of the first chapter.

This is due largely to the extraordinary ad-
vances made in manufacturing and commerce,
which have reacted even upon agriculture,
revolutionizing also its methods. Everywhere
now machinery carries the day. Inventors
are the potentates, replacing the Alexanders,
the Caesars, the Ghengis Khans, the Na-
poleons of the past. Look at the mowing-
machine, sweeping across the hay-field like
a charge of cavalry ; but anybody can learn
to manage it who has wit enough to whet
and swing a scythe. In one of our cotton
mills I saw a machine, called the Warper,
which, from 358 spools, was taking the 358
threads required for the warp of a web of
cloth, and was winding them upon a drum or
cylinder for the loom. When a thread broke,
the machine instantly stopped, to have the
ends tied. A child was tending the machine.
Which was master, the child or the machine ?
And which was servant, the machine or the
child? Our best pocket chronometers, that
used to be called by the names of their fa-
mous makers, Patek, Jiirgens, Frodsham, now
bear the name of the Massachusetts village
whose factory turns them out by the hundred,
as some other factory turns out its wooden
pails. Our machinery is marvelous. Al-
ready some of it talks. If only it could be
made to think, very little would be left for
brains to do, except, possibly, to invent a
new machine occasionally. Some of this
machinery certainly requires very careful
handling, but much of it may be handled by
almost anybody. The very design of it is
not merely to cheapen and stimulate produc-
tion, but also to supplement the scarcity of
skilled labor. And so, apparently, its tendency
has been to lower the average of artisan abil-
ity. It not only permits, but encourages the
employment of women and children, who
ought rather to be at home, or in school.
Machinery thus gets the better of manhood.
Our civilization becomes a pyramid, whose
base is broad and crushing. Steam drives
the machinery ; coal generates steam ; and
men go down for coal with something of the
risk of regiments going into battle. About
the year 1350, coal, which had been discover-
ed some fifty years before, on the banks of
the Tyne, began to be used for fuel in Lon-
don.* Now the coal mines of England, be-

* In 1373 its use was forbidden by proclamation on account
of its effluvia, supposed to be unhealthy. But about 1400 the
consumption of it was extended.


sides all the semi-barbarism they breed, are
costing" her, by accidents of one sort and an-
other, more than a thousand human lives a
yean In the old classic Levant, every sailor
was on deck, with a chance to be schooled by
sea, and sky, and star, and storm, into the
higher grades of service. Now we steam
round the globe in huge leviathans, at the
mercy of grimy firemen out of sight, deep
down where day and night, calm and storm,
summer and winter, are all the same.

On the whole, unhealthful employments
appear to multiply with the advancing arts.
More and more men take their lives in their
hands for their daily bread. Brave soldiers,
you tell me, do the same. Only mercenaries,
I reply, do that; and war, no matter how
righteous it may be, is always terribly de-
moralizing. Say what you will, things are
not just as they should be when a man is
forced into some loathsome and hazardous
employment because there is nothing else for
him to do ; and then is so exiled and humbled
by it, that his children after him shall be al-
most hopelessly foredoomed to the same employment.
Even in armies, where authority
is absolute, and obedience must be implicit,
volunteers are generally called for in forlorn
assaults, partly, to be sure, that only the very
best may go, but also because it is considered
simply fair that men should have always every
possible liberty of choice when their own
lives are at stake. Pensions likewise await
the widows and orphans of them that fall.
Ancient nations made unhealthful employ-
ments a part of their penal discipline. For-
feited life gained something by being sent
** to the mines.''

Another incidental evil, of considerable
magnitude, is the liability to over-production,
or, as some prefer to say, disproportionate
production, which is over-production in some
directions ; the very calamity, or one of the
calamities, upon us now. Plethora begets
paralysis. Hounded on by the hum of our
own machinery, we manufacture more than is
wanted. Mills stop, and workmen, narrowed,
dulled, dwarfed, almost crippled by our sys-
tem of labor, are flung out helpless upon the
street. They can not dig, to beg they are
ashamed. They ask only for work ; but, till
consumption catches up again with produc-
tion, there is no more work to be had.

In Europe another characteristic infelicity
of our present civilization, is the supposed
necessity of maintaining large standing armies.
The old Roman Empire, holding the better
part of Europe, and portions of Asia and Af-
rica, with a population of a hundred millions,
half freemen, half slaves, had a regular army
of 175,000 men. Of auxiliaries, furnished
by the provinces, there were about as many
more ; with some 75,000 naval troops. So
that the whole military strength of the Em-
pire was a little more than 400,000. Now,
instead of that one Empire, there are five or
six powerful kingdoms, several of which are
stronger in arms than Rome was. For ex-
ample, France and Germany, having each a
population of about 40,000,000, have each a
regular army of nearly 500,000 men. The
heart of Europe is one vast military encamp-
ment. Millions of men are under arms all
the time ; consuming without producing ; incapacitated
for any other employment.* The waste is
enormous. And in Germany especially, where the
discipline is sternest, Socialism waxes fiercer and
fiercer year by year. The cry is, '* Disarm." But no nation dares
disarm alone ; and they can not agree to dis-
arm together. To such a pass has our civili-
zation come in about four hundred years,
since Charles VII., in France, organized for
himself the first standing army of 22,000
archers and 900 horsemen ; just about the
size of our United States army, which an-
swers our purpose, only because the Atlantic
Ocean rolls between us and the politics of
Europe.

This inequality of social condition, thus far
increased, rather than diminished, by our ad-
vancing civilization, is very painful to think
of. One has no need to be a Christian, to be
grieved by it. It offends the most rudimental
sense of human brotherhood. How has it
come about that children of the same family

* See " The Armies of Asia and Europe," by Emory Up-
ton: 1878.

are so far apart in their fortunes? And what
can be done, not to bridge, but to narrow,
and, if possible, annihilate, the chasm between
them ? These are the two cardinal Socialis-
tic questions of our day, and of all days.
The former suggests what may be called the
diagnosis, the latter what may be called the
therapeutics of Socialism.

Socialism, in this sense of the word, is not
a bad thing. It seems very much like philan-
thropy, but they differ. Philanthropy con-
cerns itself about the whole nature, condition,
and destiny of man, for time and for eter-
ity. Socialism concerns itself about the out-
ward environment, and ends with time. So-
cialism claims to be more realistic than phi-
lanthropy ; it is, in fact, more likely to be sen-
timental. Pronounced and professional So-
cialism easily becomes a cant and a quackery.
Dealing so exclusively with outward prob-
lems, it prescribes for the symptoms and
misses the disease. It may not go so far as
to say, that the individual is for society, rather
than society for the individual ; men for insti-
tutions, rather than institutions for men. But
It does overrate society and underrate the in-
dividual ; it does overrate institutions and un-
derrate men. And so it dreams of regenera-
ting society, without regenerating the individ-
ual ; or, at all events, it insists upon regener-
ating society first.

Socialism by. Roswell D. Hitchcock Chapter 1. part 1.

This essay on socialism was written in the late 19th century. Around the same time as Marx was doing his writing. It is interesting how pertinent much of this essay is today. This is part 1 of the first chapter.

SOCIALISM IN GENERAL.

Throughout Christendom a cloud has
been gathering, and is gathering still, whose
shadow falls upon the streets of every great
city from St. Petersburg to San Francisco.
Our civilization, whose present special type
dates back now some four hundred years, in
spite of all it has achieved and all it promises,
has an under side to it of terrible menace ; as,
in ancient Athens, the Cave of the Furies was
underneath the rock, on whose top sat the
Court of the Areopagus. This under side of
our civilization is inequality of social condition,
keeping pace with the civilization ; no new
thing in history, but now commanding both
scientific and popular attention as never be-
fore : part of it sheer and simple dividend,
more or less according to the invested capital
of talent, industry, and thrift ; part of it Provi-
dential visitation by sickness, or accident, or
premature bereavement; part of it vicissitude,
inseparable from complicated interests;
part of it inexorable retribution, according to
the observance or infraction of moral laws ;
part of It, no doubt, wages unfairly restrained ;
but all of it blurred and hazy ; misunderstood
by the careless masses who have everything
at stake ; and misrepresented by the hideous
fraternity of conspirators who have nothing
at stake, and are bent on mischief. I am no
pessimist. It is not ruin that I see ahead,
but trouble, which can not be too promptly
met. The Communism of our day is a real
Cave of the Furies.

The terms Communism and Socialism are
much used interchangeably ; but they are not
synonymous. Communism is related to So-
cialism as species to genus. All Communists
are Socialists ; but not all Socialists are Com-
munists. For example, in Germany, where
Socialism, repeating in this respect the his-
tory of the old Rationalism in theology, is a
recent and rank exotic, it is decidedly, even
fiercely. Communistic ; while in France, where
it is indigenous and finer, it has come to
be decidedly and soberly Anti-communistic.
These two kinds of Socialism are not to be
confounded. Nor yet may we disregard the
relationship between them. The trunks are
two ; the root is one.

I shall therefore speak first of Socialism
in general ; or, rather, of the problem it un-
dertakes to solve.

**The poor ye have with you always," is
both historic and prophetic. Inequality of
social condition is a permanent fact in political
economy; variable only in degree. If, by
some heroic treatment, it could be got rid of
to-day, it would return to-morrow. Readjust-
ment would be necessary every few years ;
every year, might be better still. The causes
of this inequality, most of them, are likewise
permanent. Mankind are not equal in en-
dowment. In stamina of constitution, one is
strong, and another weak. Brains are larger
or smaller, coarser or finer. Natural appe-
tites and passions are more or less overbear-
ing and vehement. The will is here a master,
and there a slave. It is not merely that there
are different grades of work to be done, which
call for graded remuneration, but, in the same
grade, one will surpass another. One man
just manages to keep soul and body together,
barely making the ends of the year meet.
Another man, whose chances are no better,
comes out with a surplus. He may, or he
may not, have earned more, but, being more
provident and self-denying, he has saved more.
This surplus is capital ; and if every man had
saved, labor and capital would never clash.

All this is exclusive of sickness and acci-
dent, which, if the sickness be brief, or the
accident not disabling, the patient himself
may have provided for in advance ; but if the
sickness be protracted or hopeless, and the
accident be crippling, society may have to be
taxed for the deficit, and the inequality may
become chronic and burdensome. Exclusive
also of those distressing casualties which fre-
quently plunge whole families into sudden and
helpless poverty by striking down the hus-
bands and fathers, whose daily labor brought
them their daily bread.

There is also the liability to commercial dis-
aster; a liability that begins with commerce
itself; and commerce begins with capital ; and
capital, as we have said, is surplus. Many of
these reverses are only tidal and transient.
But some are final. To the young man,
bankruptcy may be only a fall on the ice ; in
a moment he is up again. The old man, ten
to one, goes through and under. It has been
said, that in the United States only five trad-
ers in a hundred never fail.* In older coun-
tries, the failures are fewer.

But the greatest inequality is that which
comes of immoralities ; the chiefest of which
are willful indolence, intemperance, and licen-
tiousness. In their coarser forms these three
vices give us by far the greater part of all our
paupers and outcasts. The fashionable vices,
as they are called, do not provoke immediate
expulsion from society ; but, by and by, the
moral lepers will be found outside the lepers'
gate. Audacity in stealing may threaten us
every now and then with a new plutocracy,
more vulgar and flaunting than its predeces-
sor; but, after all, there is an inner side to
the iron bars.

* Horace Wright, before the Hewitt Committee in New York,
May 23, 1878, testified that during the last four years 37,000
firms out of 680,000 had failed.

The inequality of condition thus indicated,
was unquestionably greater in the ancient
than it is in the modern world. Our Chris-
tian civilization has certainly surpassed the
Classic. But now in Christendom itself, al-
though slavery has been abolished, the ine-
quality is greater than it was four hundred
years ago, greater than it was one hundred
years ago. Socialistic writers say the ine-
quality is still increasing. But France cer-
tainly is better off than she was fifty years
ago, and England is better off than she was
twenty-five years ago. And so perhaps it
would be safe to say, that the tide has turned;
that the inequality is now diminishing. But
the times are critical. Our civilization is
sharply challenged. Passion, science, con-
science are all aroused. Under these new
lights, it is as if the inequality were but just
discovered. It maddens like a new wrong.
The Furies are not asleep in their Cave.

Our present civilization, nominally Chris-
tian, is nevertheless distinctively and intense-
ly materialistic. Its special task has been the
subjugation of nature. It can not be called
exclusively Protestant, but, along with Prot-
estantism, whose handmaid it has always
been, it was cradled amidst inventions and
discoveries which have changed the very
channels of history. Printing with movable
types, Gunpowder for the battlefield, the
Mariner's Compass, the Passage round Good
Hope, the Discovery of new Continents, were
the signs and wonders of the new epoch. By
new applications of science, by new sciences,
both land and sea are considerably more pro-
ductive than they were. These products are
wrought up into endless varieties of form,
both for use and for ornament. And com-
merce, which began on the Persian Gulf, has
now all oceans for its own.

The result is great wealth, rapidly accu-
mulated, with an inequality in the distribution
of it which can not be wholly justified ; an
inequality which only began not very long
ago to be redressed : in France, by the Revo-
lution of 1 789, and the Code Napoleon ; in
England, about twenty-five years ago; in
Germany, and most other European countries,
not yet. Here in the United States,
the inequality to be redressed has never
equalled that in Europe. As a fair represent-
ative of our present civilization, take England,
all things considered, the first nation in Eu-
rope : her industry the most diversified, her
wealth the greatest, her will the stoutest.
In the fifteenth century she was quoted
throughout Europe for the number of her
land-owners and the comfort of her people.*
In 1873 about 10,000 persons owned two-
thirds of the whole of England and Wales.
In Scotland, it is still worse, half the land be-
ing owned, it is said, by ten or twelve persons.
Over against this growing wealth and dwin-
dling number of proprietors, stands the ragged
army of paupers, of which England is ashamed.t
The continental contrasts are not so startling ;
France, indeed, is quite the other way, with
her 5,000,000 of land-owners. But taking
Europe as a whole, and comparing the prices

* Chancellor Fortescue, cited by Laveleye, "Primitive Prop
erty," p. 263.

t In 1871, 900,000; in 1878, 726,000.


of labor with the cost of living, food, clothing,
and shelter, it can be proved that the average
European peasant of the fourteenth century,
as also of the fifteenth, was better off relative-
ly than the average European peasant of the
nineteenth century.* As Froude has said,
the upper classes have more luxuries, and the
lower classes more liberty ; while in regard
to the substantial comforts of life, they are
farther apart now than they were then. And
the greater the wealth of the nation as a
whole, the greater the inequality between its
upper and its lower classes.


* In England, for example, when the wages of a common
farm hand were fourpence a day, a penny went as far as a
shilling goes now. At this rate, the common laborer should
now be getting four shillings a day, whereas in fact he is get-
ting only about two. Mechanics* wages, owing to the Trade
Unions, are a trifle higher relatively than they were then. In
Germany, the highest price paid farm hands anywhere is 56
cents a day; on the lower Rhine, the price paid is 31 cents;
in Silesia, only 18 cents.

Been a Long Time, eh?

Well it HAS been almost a year, talk about not publishing regularly. My bad. I think I will start regularly putting out essays every week on Socialism. You all must realize if you don't already know that even though it gets a bad rap Socialism is not the evil it is presented as being. Socialism does not mean you don't have a market, or sell and buy, or even acquire some wealth. At least I don't think so. But enough. I know I have used this blog as a soap box to express my anger and frustration at the Bush Administration. It was good therapy. Now the damage has been done and we need to fix it. Since the last 8 years of supply side Republican/Conservative crap has obviously not worked well for the average joe, I say let's try out a little socialist principle. Might be a refreshing relief. Look for essays coming soon. First one is this friday. Then every friday hence. See you round........