Equality Read online

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  EDWARD BELLAMY.]

  EQUALITY

  by

  EDWARD BELLAMY

  Author ofLooking Backward, Dr. Heidenhoff's Process, Miss Ludington's Sister, etc.

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  Second Edition

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  PREFACE.

  Looking Backward was a small book, and I was not able to get into it allI wished to say on the subject. Since it was published what was left outof it has loomed up as so much more important than what it contained thatI have been constrained to write another book. I have taken the date ofLooking Backward, the year 2000, as that of Equality, and have utilizedthe framework of the former story as a starting point for this which Inow offer. In order that those who have not read Looking Backward may beat no disadvantage, an outline of the essential features of that story issubjoined:

  In the year 1887 Julian West was a rich young man living in Boston. Hewas soon to be married to a young lady of wealthy family named EdithBartlett, and meanwhile lived alone with his man-servant Sawyer in thefamily mansion. Being a sufferer from insomnia, he had caused a chamberto be built of stone beneath the foundation of the house, which he usedfor a sleeping room. When even the silence and seclusion of this retreatfailed to bring slumber, he sometimes called in a professional mesmerizerto put him into a hypnotic sleep, from which Sawyer knew how to arousehim at a fixed time. This habit, as well as the existence of theunderground chamber, were secrets known only to Sawyer and the hypnotistwho rendered his services. On the night of May 30, 1887, West sent forthe latter, and was put to sleep as usual. The hypnotist had previouslyinformed his patron that he was intending to leave the city permanentlythe same evening, and referred him to other practitioners. That night thehouse of Julian West took fire and was wholly destroyed. Remainsidentified as those of Sawyer were found and, though no vestige of Westappeared, it was assumed that he of course had also perished.

  One hundred and thirteen years later, in September, A. D. 2000, Dr.Leete, a physician of Boston, on the retired list, was conductingexcavations in his garden for the foundations of a private laboratory,when the workers came on a mass of masonry covered with ashes andcharcoal. On opening it, a vault, luxuriously fitted up in the style of anineteenth-century bedchamber, was found, and on the bed the body of ayoung man looking as if he had just lain down to sleep. Although greattrees had been growing above the vault, the unaccountable preservation ofthe youth's body tempted Dr. Leete to attempt resuscitation, and to hisown astonishment his efforts proved successful. The sleeper returned tolife, and after a short time to the full vigor of youth which hisappearance had indicated. His shock on learning what had befallen him wasso great as to have endangered his sanity but for the medical skill ofDr. Leete, and the not less sympathetic ministrations of the othermembers of the household, the doctor's wife, and Edith the beautifuldaughter. Presently, however, the young man forgot to wonder at what hadhappened to himself in his astonishment on learning of the socialtransformation through which the world had passed while he lay sleeping.Step by step, almost as to a child, his hosts explained to him, who hadknown no other way of living except the struggle for existence, what werethe simple principles of national co-operation for the promotion of thegeneral welfare on which the new civilization rested. He learned thatthere were no longer any who were or could be richer or poorer thanothers, but that all were economic equals. He learned that no one anylonger worked for another, either by compulsion or for hire, but that allalike were in the service of the nation working for the common fund,which all equally shared, and that even necessary personal attendance, asof the physician, was rendered as to the state like that of the militarysurgeon. All these wonders, it was explained, had very simply come aboutas the results of replacing private capitalism by public capitalism, andorganizing the machinery of production and distribution, like thepolitical government, as business of general concern to be carried on forthe public benefit instead of private gain.

  But, though it was not long before the young stranger's firstastonishment at the institutions of the new world had passed intoenthusiastic admiration and he was ready to admit that the race had forthe first time learned how to live, he presently began to repine at afate which had introduced him to the new world, only to leave himoppressed by a sense of hopeless loneliness which all the kindness of hisnew friends could not relieve, feeling, as he must, that it was dictatedby pity only. Then it was that he first learned that his experience hadbeen a yet more marvelous one than he had supposed. Edith Leete was noother than the great-granddaughter of Edith Bartlett, his betrothed, who,after long mourning her lost lover, had at last allowed herself to beconsoled. The story of the tragical bereavement which had shadowed herearly life was a family tradition, and among the family heirlooms wereletters from Julian West, together with a photograph which represented sohandsome a youth that Edith was illogically inclined to quarrel with hergreat-grandmother for ever marrying anybody else. As for the young man'spicture, she kept it on her dressing table. Of course, it followed thatthe identity of the tenant of the subterranean chamber had been fullyknown to his rescuers from the moment of the discovery; but Edith, forreasons of her own, had insisted that he should not know who she was tillshe saw fit to tell him. When, at the proper time, she had seen fit to dothis, there was no further question of loneliness for the young man, forhow could destiny more unmistakably have indicated that two persons weremeant for each other?

  His cup of happiness now being full, he had an experience in which itseemed to be dashed from his lips. As he lay on his bed in Dr. Leete'shouse he was oppressed by a hideous nightmare. It seemed to him that heopened his eyes to find himself on his bed in the underground chamberwhere the mesmerizer had put him to sleep. Sawyer was just completing thepasses used to break the hypnotic influence. He called for the morningpaper, and read on the date line May 31, 1887. Then he knew that all thiswonderful matter about the year 2000, its happy, care-free world ofbrothers and the fair girl he had met there were but fragments of adream. His brain in a whirl, he went forth into the city. He saweverything with new eyes, contrasting it with what he had seen in theBoston of the year 2000. The frenzied folly of the competitive industrialsystem, the inhuman contrasts of luxury and woe--pride andabjectness--the boundless squalor, wretchedness, and madness of the wholescheme of things which met his eye at every turn, outraged his reason andmade his heart sick. He felt like a sane man shut up by accident in amadhouse. After a day of this wandering he found himself at nightfall ina company of his former companions, who rallied him on his distraughtappearance. He told them of his dream and what it had taught him of thepossibilities of a juster, nobler, wiser social system. He reasoned withthem, showing how easy it would be, laying aside the suicidal folly ofcompetition, by means of fraternal co-operation, to make the actual worldas blessed as that he had dreamed of. At first they derided him, but,seeing his earnestness, grew angry, and denounced him as a pestilentfellow, an anarchist, an enemy of society, and drove him from them. Thenit was that, in an agony of weeping, he awoke, this time awaking really,not falsely, and found himself in his bed in Dr. Leete's house, with themorning sun of the twentieth century shining in his eyes. Looking fromthe window of his room, he saw Edith in the garden gathering flowers forthe breakfast table, and hastened to descend to her and relate hisexperience. At this point we will leave him to continue the narrative forhimself.

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  CONTENTS.

  CHAPTER

  I.--A SHARP CROSS-EXAMINER

  II.--WHY THE REVOLUTION DID NOT COME EARLIER

  III.--I ACQUIRE A STAKE IN THE COUNTRY
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  IV.--A TWENTIETH-CENTURY BANK PARLOR

  V.--I EXPERIENCE A NEW SENSATION

  VI.--HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE

  VII.--A STRING OF SURPRISES

  VIII.--THE GREATEST WONDER YET--FASHION DETHRONED

  IX.--SOMETHING THAT HAD NOT CHANGED

  X.--A MIDNIGHT PLUNGE

  XI.--LIFE THE BASIS OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY

  XII.--HOW INEQUALITY OF WEALTH DESTROYS LIBERTY

  XIII.--PRIVATE CAPITAL STOLEN FROM THE SOCIAL FUND

  XIV.--WE LOOK OVER MY COLLECTION OF HARNESSES

  XV.--WHAT WE WERE COMING TO BUT FOR THE REVOLUTION

  XVI.--AN EXCUSE THAT CONDEMNED

  XVII.--THE REVOLUTION SAVES PRIVATE PROPERTY FROM MONOPOLY

  XVIII.--AN ECHO OF THE PAST

  XIX.--"CAN A MAID FORGET HER ORNAMENTS?"

  XX.--WHAT THE REVOLUTION DID FOR WOMEN

  XXI.--AT THE GYMNASIUM

  XXII.--ECONOMIC SUICIDE OF THE PROFIT SYSTEM

  XXIII.--"THE PARABLE OF THE WATER TANK"

  XXIV.--I AM SHOWN ALL THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH

  XXV.--THE STRIKERS

  XXVI.--FOREIGN COMMERCE UNDER PROFITS; PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE, ORBETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA

  XXVII.--HOSTILITY OF A SYSTEM OF VESTED INTERESTS TO IMPROVEMENT

  XXVIII.--HOW THE PROFIT SYSTEM NULLIFIED THE BENEFIT OF INVENTIONS

  XXIX.--I RECEIVE AN OVATION

  XXX.--WHAT UNIVERSAL CULTURE MEANS

  XXXI.--"NEITHER IN THIS MOUNTAIN NOR AT JERUSALEM"

  XXXII.--ERITIS SICUT DEUS

  XXXIII.--SEVERAL IMPORTANT MATTERS OVERLOOKED

  XXXIV.--WHAT STARTED THE REVOLUTION

  XXXV.--WHY THE REVOLUTION WENT SLOW AT FIRST BUT FAST AT LAST

  XXXVI.--THEATER-GOING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

  XXXVII.--THE TRANSITION PERIOD

  XXXVIII.--THE BOOK OF THE BLIND

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  EQUALITY.

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  CHAPTER I.

  A SHARP CROSS-EXAMINER.

  With many expressions of sympathy and interest Edith listened to thestory of my dream. When, finally, I had made an end, she remained musing.

  "What are you thinking about?" I said.

  "I was thinking," she answered, "how it would have been if your dream hadbeen true."

  "True!" I exclaimed. "How could it have been true?"

  "I mean," she said, "if it had all been a dream, as you supposed it wasin your nightmare, and you had never really seen our Republic of theGolden Rule or me, but had only slept a night and dreamed the whole thingabout us. And suppose you had gone forth just as you did in your dream,and had passed up and down telling men of the terrible folly andwickedness of their way of life and how much nobler and happier a waythere was. Just think what good you might have done, how you might havehelped people in those days when they needed help so much. It seems to meyou must be almost sorry you came back to us."

  "You look as if you were almost sorry yourself," I said, for her wistfulexpression seemed susceptible of that interpretation.

  "Oh, no," she answered, smiling. "It was only on your own account. As forme, I have very good reasons for being glad that you came back."

  "I should say so, indeed. Have you reflected that if I had dreamed it allyou would have had no existence save as a figment in the brain of asleeping man a hundred years ago?"

  "I had not thought of that part of it," she said smiling and still halfserious; "yet if I could have been more useful to humanity as a fictionthan as a reality, I ought not to have minded the--the inconvenience."

  But I replied that I greatly feared no amount of opportunity to helpmankind in general would have reconciled me to life anywhere or under anyconditions after leaving her behind in a dream--a confession of shamelessselfishness which she was pleased to pass over without special rebuke, inconsideration, no doubt, of my unfortunate bringing up.

  "Besides," I resumed, being willing a little further to vindicate myself,"it would not have done any good. I have just told you how in mynightmare last night, when I tried to tell my contemporaries and even mybest friends about the nobler way men might live together, they deridedme as a fool and madman. That is exactly what they would have done inreality had the dream been true and I had gone about preaching as in thecase you supposed."

  "Perhaps a few might at first have acted as you dreamed they did," shereplied. "Perhaps they would not at once have liked the idea of economicequality, fearing that it might mean a leveling down for them, and notunderstanding that it would presently mean a leveling up of all togetherto a vastly higher plane of life and happiness, of material welfare andmoral dignity than the most fortunate had ever enjoyed. But even if therich had at first mistaken you for an enemy to their class, the poor, thegreat masses of the poor, the real nation, they surely from the firstwould have listened as for their lives, for to them your story would havemeant glad tidings of great joy."

  "I do not wonder that you think so," I answered, "but, though I am stilllearning the A B C of this new world, I knew my contemporaries, and Iknow that it would not have been as you fancy. The poor would havelistened no better than the rich, for, though poor and rich in my daywere at bitter odds in everything else, they were agreed in believingthat there must always be rich and poor, and that a condition of materialequality was impossible. It used to be commonly said, and it often seemedtrue, that the social reformer who tried to better the condition of thepeople found a more discouraging obstacle in the hopelessness of themasses he would raise than in the active resistance of the few, whosesuperiority was threatened. And indeed, Edith, to be fair to my ownclass, I am bound to say that with the best of the rich it was often asmuch this same hopelessness as deliberate selfishness that made them whatwe used to call conservative. So you see, it would have done no good evenif I had gone to preaching as you fancied. The poor would have regardedmy talk about the possibility of an equality of wealth as a fairy tale,not worth a laboring man's time to listen to. Of the rich, the baser sortwould have mocked and the better sort would have sighed, but none wouldhave given ear seriously."

  But Edith smiled serenely.

  "It seems very audacious for me to try to correct your impressions ofyour own contemporaries and of what they might be expected to think anddo, but you see the peculiar circumstances give me a rather unfairadvantage. Your knowledge of your times necessarily stops short with1887, when you became oblivious of the course of events. I, on the otherhand, having gone to school in the twentieth century, and been obliged,much against my will, to study nineteenth-century history, naturally knowwhat happened after the date at which your knowledge ceased. I know,impossible as it may seem to you, that you had scarcely fallen into thatlong sleep before the American people began to be deeply and widelystirred with aspirations for an equal order such as we enjoy, and thatvery soon the political movement arose which, after various mutations,resulted early in the twentieth century in overthrowing the old systemand setting up the present one."

  This was indeed interesting information to me, but when I began toquestion Edith further, she sighed and shook her head.

  "Having tried to show my superior knowledge, I must now confess myignorance. All I know is the bare fact that the revolutionary movementbegan, as I said, very soon after you fell asleep. Father must tell youthe rest. I might as well admit while I am about it, for you would soonfind it out, that I know almost nothing either as to the Revolution ornineteenth-century matters generally. You have no idea how hard I havebeen trying to post myself on the subject so as to be able to talkintelligently with you, but I fear it is of no use. I could notunderstand it in school and can not seem to understand it any better now.More than ever this morning I am sure that I never shall. Since you havebeen telling me how the old world appeared to you in that dream, yourtalk has brought those days so terribly near that I can almost see them,and yet I can not say that they seem a bit more intelligible
thanbefore."

  "Things were bad enough and black enough certainly," I said; "but I don'tsee what there was particularly unintelligible about them. What is thedifficulty?"

  "The main difficulty comes from the complete lack of agreement betweenthe pretensions of your contemporaries about the way their society wasorganized and the actual facts as given in the histories."

  "For example?" I queried.

  "I don't suppose there is much use in trying to explain my trouble," shesaid. "You will only think me stupid for my pains, but I'll try to makeyou see what I mean. You ought to be able to clear up the matter ifanybody can. You have just been telling me about the shockingly unequalconditions of the people, the contrasts of waste and want, the pride andpower of the rich, the abjectness and servitude of the poor, and all therest of the dreadful story."

  "Yes."

  "It appears that these contrasts were almost as great as at any previousperiod of history."

  "It is doubtful," I replied, "if there was ever a greater disparitybetween the conditions of different classes than you would find in a halfhour's walk in Boston, New York, Chicago, or any other great city ofAmerica in the last quarter of the nineteenth century."

  "And yet," said Edith, "it appears from all the books that meanwhile theAmericans' great boast was that they differed from all other and formernations in that they were free and equal. One is constantly coming uponthis phrase in the literature of the day. Now, you have made it clearthat they were neither free nor equal in any ordinary sense of the word,but were divided as mankind had always been before into rich and poor,masters and servants. Won't you please tell me, then, what they meant bycalling themselves free and equal?"

  "It was meant, I suppose, that they were all equal before the law."

  "That means in the courts. And were the rich and poor equal in thecourts? Did they receive the same treatment?"

  "I am bound to say," I replied, "that they were nowhere else moreunequal. The law applied in terms to all alike, but not in fact. Therewas more difference in the position of the rich and the poor man beforethe law than in any other respect. The rich were practically above thelaw, the poor under its wheels."

  "In what respect, then, were the rich and poor equal?"

  "They were said to be equal in opportunities."

  "Opportunities for what?"

  "For bettering themselves, for getting rich, for getting ahead of othersin the struggle for wealth."

  "It seems to me that only meant, if it were true, not that all wereequal, but that all had an equal chance to make themselves unequal. Butwas it true that all had equal opportunities for getting rich andbettering themselves?"

  "It may have been so to some extent at one time when the country wasnew," I replied, "but it was no more so in my day. Capital hadpractically monopolized all economic opportunities by that time; therewas no opening in business enterprise for those without large capitalsave by some extraordinary fortune."

  "But surely," said Edith, "there must have been, in order to give atleast a color to all this boasting about equality, some one respect inwhich the people were really equal?"

  "Yes, there was. They were political equals. They all had one vote alike,and the majority was the supreme lawgiver."

  "So the books say, but that only makes the actual condition of thingsmore absolutely unaccountable."

  "Why so?"

  "Why, because if these people all had an equal voice in thegovernment--these toiling, starving, freezing, wretched masses of thepoor--why did they not without a moment's delay put an end to theinequalities from which they suffered?"

  "Very likely," she added, as I did not at once reply, "I am only showinghow stupid I am by saying this. Doubtless I am overlooking some importantfact, but did you not say that all the people, at least all the men, hada voice in the government?"

  "Certainly; by the latter part of the nineteenth century manhood suffragehad become practically universal in America."

  "That is to say, the people through their chosen agents made all thelaws. Is that what you mean?"

  "Certainly."

  "But I remember you had Constitutions of the nation and of the States.Perhaps they prevented the people from doing quite what they wished."

  "No; the Constitutions were only a little more fundamental sort of laws.The majority made and altered them at will. The people were the sole andsupreme final power, and their will was absolute."

  "If, then, the majority did not like any existing arrangement, or thinkit to their advantage, they could change it as radically as they wished?"

  "Certainly; the popular majority could do anything if it was large anddetermined enough."

  "And the majority, I understand, were the poor, not the rich--the oneswho had the wrong side of the inequalities that prevailed?"

  "Emphatically so; the rich were but a handful comparatively."

  "Then there was nothing whatever to prevent the people at any time, ifthey just willed it, from making an end of their sufferings andorganizing a system like ours which would guarantee their equality andprosperity?"

  "Nothing whatever."

  "Then once more I ask you to kindly tell me why, in the name of commonsense, they didn't do it at once and be happy instead of making aspectacle of themselves so woeful that even a hundred years after itmakes us cry?"

  "Because," I replied, "they were taught and believed that the regulationof industry and commerce and the production and distribution of wealthwas something wholly outside of the proper province of government."

  "But, dear me, Julian, life itself and everything that meanwhile makeslife worth living, from the satisfaction of the most primary physicalneeds to the gratification of the most refined tastes, all that belongsto the development of mind as well as body, depend first, last, andalways on the manner in which the production and distribution of wealthis regulated. Surely that must have been as true in your day as ours."

  "Of course."

  "And yet you tell me, Julian, that the people, after having abolished therule of kings and taken the supreme power of regulating their affairsinto their own hands, deliberately consented to exclude from theirjurisdiction the control of the most important, and indeed the onlyreally important, class of their interests."

  "Do not the histories say so?"

  "They do say so, and that is precisely why I could never believe them.The thing seemed so incomprehensible I thought there must be some way ofexplaining it. But tell me, Julian, seeing the people did not think thatthey could trust themselves to regulate their own industry and thedistribution of the product, to whom did they leave the responsibility?"

  "To the capitalists."

  "And did the people elect the capitalists?"

  "Nobody elected them."

  "By whom, then, were they appointed?"

  "Nobody appointed them."

  "What a singular system! Well, if nobody elected or appointed them, yetsurely they must have been accountable to somebody for the manner inwhich they exercised powers on which the welfare and very existence ofeverybody depended."

  "On the contrary, they were accountable to nobody and nothing but theirown consciences."

  "Their consciences! Ah, I see! You mean that they were so benevolent, sounselfish, so devoted to the public good, that people tolerated theirusurpation out of gratitude. The people nowadays would not endure theirresponsible rule even of demigods, but probably it was different inyour day."

  "As an ex-capitalist myself, I should be pleased to confirm your surmise,but nothing could really be further from the fact. As to any benevolentinterest in the conduct of industry and commerce, the capitalistsexpressly disavowed it. Their only object was to secure the greatestpossible gain for themselves without any regard whatever to the welfareof the public."

  "Dear me! Dear me! Why you make out these capitalists to have been evenworse than the kings, for the kings at least professed to govern for thewelfare of their people, as fathers acting for children, and the goodones did try to. But the c
apitalists, you say, did not even pretend tofeel any responsibility for the welfare of their subjects?"

  "None whatever."

  "And, if I understand," pursued Edith, "this government of thecapitalists was not only without moral sanction of any sort or plea ofbenevolent intentions, but was practically an economic failure--that is,it did not secure the prosperity of the people."

  "What I saw in my dream last night," I replied, "and have tried to tellyou this morning, gives but a faint suggestion of the misery of the worldunder capitalist rule."

  Edith meditated in silence for some moments. Finally she said: "Yourcontemporaries were not madmen nor fools; surely there is something youhave not told me; there must be some explanation or at least color ofexcuse why the people not only abdicated the power of controling theirmost vital and important interests, but turned them over to a class whichdid not even pretend any interest in their welfare, and whose governmentcompletely failed to secure it."

  "Oh, yes," I said, "there was an explanation, and a very fine-soundingone. It was in the name of individual liberty, industrial freedom, andindividual initiative that the economic government of the country wassurrendered to the capitalists."

  "Do you mean that a form of government which seems to have been the mostirresponsible and despotic possible was defended in the name of liberty?"

  "Certainly; the liberty of economic initiative by the individual."

  "But did you not just tell me that economic initiative and businessopportunity in your day were practically monopolized by the capitaliststhemselves?"

  "Certainly. It was admitted that there was no opening for any butcapitalists in business, and it was rapidly becoming so that only thegreatest of the capitalists themselves had any power of initiative."

  "And yet you say that the reason given for abandoning industry tocapitalist government was the promotion of industrial freedom andindividual initiative among the people at large."

  "Certainly. The people were taught that they would individually enjoygreater liberty and freedom of action in industrial matters under thedominion of the capitalists than if they collectively conducted theindustrial system for their own benefit; that the capitalists would,moreover, look out for their welfare more wisely and kindly than theycould possibly do it themselves, so that they would be able to providefor themselves more bountifully out of such portion of their product asthe capitalists might be disposed to give them than they possibly coulddo if they became their own employers and divided the whole product amongthemselves."

  "But that was mere mockery; it was adding insult to injury."

  "It sounds so, doesn't it? But I assure you it was considered thesoundest sort of political economy in my time. Those who questioned itwere set down as dangerous visionaries."

  "But I suppose the people's government, the government they voted for,must have done something. There must have been some odds and ends ofthings which the capitalists left the political government to attend to."

  "Oh, yes, indeed. It had its hands full keeping the peace among thepeople. That was the main part of the business of political governmentsin my day."

  "Why did the peace require such a great amount of keeping? Why didn't itkeep itself, as it does now?"

  "On account of the inequality of conditions which prevailed. The strifefor wealth and desperation of want kept in quenchless blaze a hell ofgreed and envy, fear, lust, hate, revenge, and every foul passion of thepit. To keep this general frenzy in some restraint, so that the entiresocial system should not resolve itself into a general massacre, requiredan army of soldiers, police, judges, and jailers, and endless law-makingto settle the quarrels. Add to these elements of discord a horde ofoutcasts degraded and desperate, made enemies of society by theirsufferings and requiring to be kept in check, and you will readily admitthere was enough for the people's government to do."

  "So far as I can see," said Edith, "the main business of the people'sgovernment was to struggle with the social chaos which resulted from itsfailure to take hold of the economic system and regulate it on a basis ofjustice."

  "That is exactly so. You could not state the whole case more adequatelyif you wrote a book."

  "Beyond protecting the capitalist system from its own effects, did thepolitical government do absolutely nothing?"

  "Oh, yes, it appointed postmasters and tidewaiters, maintained an armyand navy, and picked quarrels with foreign countries."

  "I should say that the right of a citizen to have a voice in a governmentlimited to the range of functions you have mentioned would scarcely haveseemed to him of much value."

  "I believe the average price of votes in close elections in America in mytime was about two dollars."

  "Dear me, so much as that!" said Edith. "I don't know exactly what thevalue of money was in your day, but I should say the price was ratherextortionate."

  "I think you are right," I answered. "I used to give in to the talk aboutthe pricelessness of the right of suffrage, and the denunciation of thosewhom any stress of poverty could induce to sell it for money, but fromthe point of view to which you have brought me this morning I am inclinedto think that the fellows who sold their votes had a far clearer idea ofthe sham of our so-called popular government, as limited to the class offunctions I have described, than any of the rest of us did, and that ifthey were wrong it was, as you suggest, in asking too high a price."

  "But who paid for the votes?"

  "You are a merciless cross-examiner," I said. "The classes which had aninterest in controling the government--that is, the capitalists and theoffice-seekers--did the buying. The capitalists advanced the moneynecessary to procure the election of the office-seekers on theunderstanding that when elected the latter should do what the capitalistswanted. But I ought not to give you the impression that the bulk of thevotes were bought outright. That would have been too open a confession ofthe sham of popular government as well as too expensive. The moneycontributed by the capitalists to procure the election of theoffice-seekers was mainly expended to influence the people by indirectmeans. Immense sums under the name of campaign funds were raised for thispurpose and used in innumerable devices, such as fireworks, oratory,processions, brass bands, barbecues, and all sorts of devices, the objectof which was to galvanize the people to a sufficient degree of interestin the election to go through the motion of voting. Nobody who has notactually witnessed a nineteenth-century American election could evenbegin to imagine the grotesqueness of the spectacle."

  "It seems, then," said Edith, "that the capitalists not only carried onthe economic government as their special province, but also practicallymanaged the machinery of the political government as well."

  "Oh, yes, the capitalists could not have got along at all without controlof the political government. Congress, the Legislatures, and the citycouncils were quite necessary as instruments for putting through theirschemes. Moreover, in order to protect themselves and their propertyagainst popular outbreaks, it was highly needful that they should havethe police, the courts, and the soldiers devoted to their interests, andthe President, Governors, and mayors at their beck."

  "But I thought the President, the Governors, and Legislatures representedthe people who voted for them."

  "Bless your heart! no, why should they? It was to the capitalists and notto the people that they owed the opportunity of officeholding. The peoplewho voted had little choice for whom they should vote. That question wasdetermined by the political party organizations, which were beggars tothe capitalists for pecuniary support. No man who was opposed tocapitalist interests was permitted the opportunity as a candidate toappeal to the people. For a public official to support the people'sinterest as against that of the capitalists would be a sure way ofsacrificing his career. You must remember, if you would understand howabsolutely the capitalists controled the Government, that a President,Governor, or mayor, or member of the municipal, State, or nationalcouncil, was only temporarily a servant of the people or dependent ontheir favour. His public position he
held only from election to election,and rarely long. His permanent, lifelong, and all-controling interest,like that of us all, was his livelihood, and that was dependent, not onthe applause of the people, but the favor and patronage of capital, andthis he could not afford to imperil in the pursuit of the bubbles ofpopularity. These circumstances, even if there had been no instances ofdirect bribery, sufficiently explained why our politicians andofficeholders with few exceptions were vassals and tools of thecapitalists. The lawyers, who, on account of the complexities of oursystem, were almost the only class competent for public business, wereespecially and directly dependent upon the patronage of the greatcapitalistic interests for their living."

  "But why did not the people elect officials and representatives of theirown class, who would look out for the interests of the masses?"

  "There was no assurance that they would be more faithful. Their verypoverty would make them the more liable to money temptation; and thepoor, you must remember, although so much more pitiable, were not morallyany better than the rich. Then, too--and that was the most importantreason why the masses of the people, who were poor, did not send men oftheir class to represent them--poverty as a rule implied ignorance, andtherefore practical inability, even where the intention was good. As soonas the poor man developed intelligence he had every temptation to deserthis class and seek the patronage of capital."

  Edith remained silent and thoughtful for some moments.

  "Really," she said, finally, "it seems that the reason I could notunderstand the so-called popular system of government in your day is thatI was trying to find out what part the people had in it, and it appearsthat they had no part at all."

  "You are getting on famously," I exclaimed. "Undoubtedly the confusion ofterms in our political system is rather calculated to puzzle one atfirst, but if you only grasp firmly the vital point that the rule of therich, the supremacy of capital and its interests, as against those of thepeople at large, was the central principle of our system, to which everyother interest was made subservient, you will have the key that clears upevery mystery."