Equality Read online

  CHAPTER XIV.

  WE LOOK OVER MY COLLECTION OF HARNESSES.

  Wires for light and heat had been put into the vault, and it was as warmand bright and habitable a place as it had been a century before, when itwas my sleeping chamber. Kneeling before the door of the safe, I at onceaddressed myself to manipulating the dial, my companions meanwhileleaning over me in attitudes of eager interest.

  It had been one hundred years since I locked the safe the last time, andunder ordinary circumstances that would have been long enough for me toforget the combination several times over, but it was as fresh in my mindas if I had devised it a fortnight before, that being, in fact, theentire length of the intervening period so far as my conscious life wasconcerned.

  "You observe," I said, "that I turn this dial until the letter 'K' comesopposite the letter 'R.' Then I move this other dial till the number '9'comes opposite the same point. Now the safe is practically unlocked. AllI have to do to open it is to turn this knob, which moves the bolts, andthen swing the door open, as you see."

  But they did not see just then, for the knob would not turn, the lockremaining fast. I knew that I had made no mistake about the combination.Some of the tumblers in the lock had failed to fall. I tried it overagain several times and thumped the dial and the door, but it was of nouse. The lock remained stubborn. One might have said that its memory wasnot as good as mine. It had forgotten the combination. A materialisticexplanation somewhat more probable was that the oil in the lock had beenhardened by time so as to offer a slight resistance. The lock could nothave rusted, for the atmosphere of the room had been absolutely dry.Otherwise I should not have survived.

  "I am sorry to disappoint you," I said, "but we shall have to send to theheadquarters of the safe manufacturers for a locksmith. I used to knowjust where in Sudbury Street to go, but I suppose the safe business hasmoved since then."

  "It has not merely moved," said the doctor, "it has disappeared; thereare safes like this at the historical museum, but I never knew how theywere opened until now. It is really very ingenious."

  "And do you mean to say that there are actually no locksmiths to-day whocould open this safe?"

  "Any machinist can cut the steel like cardboard," replied the doctor;"but really I don't believe there is a man in the world who could pickthe lock. We have, of course, simple locks to insure privacy and keepchildren out of mischief, but nothing calculated to offer seriousresistance either to force or cunning. The craft of the locksmith isextinct."

  At this Edith, who was impatient to see the safe opened, exclaimed thatthe twentieth century had nothing to boast of if it could not solve apuzzle which any clever burglar of the nineteenth century was equal to.

  "From the point of view of an impatient young woman it may seem so," saidthe doctor. "But we must remember that lost arts often are monuments ofhuman progress, indicating outgrown limitations and necessities, to whichthey ministered. It is because we have no more thieves that we have nomore locksmiths. Poor Julian had to go to all this pains to protect thepapers in that safe, because if he lost them he would be left a beggar,and, from being one of the masters of the many, would have become one ofthe servants of the few, and perhaps be tempted to turn burglar himself.No wonder locksmiths were in demand in those days. But now you see, evensupposing any one in a community enjoying universal and equal wealthcould wish to steal anything, there is nothing that he could steal with aview to selling it again. Our wealth consists in the guarantee of anequal share in the capital and income of the nation--a guarantee that ispersonal and can not be taken from us nor given away, being vested ineach one at birth, and divested only by death. So you see the locksmithand safe-maker would be very useless persons."

  As we talked, I had continued to work the dial in the hope that theobstinate tumbler might be coaxed to act, and presently a faint clickrewarded my efforts and I swung the door open.

  "Faugh!" exclaimed Edith at the musty gust of confined air whichfollowed. "I am sorry for your people if that is a fair sample of whatyou had to breathe."

  "It is probably about the only sample left, at any rate," observed thedoctor.

  "Dear me! what a ridiculous little box it turns out to be for such apretentious outside!" exclaimed Edith's mother.

  "Yes," said I. "The thick walls are to make the contents fireproof aswell as burglar-proof--and, by the way, I should think you would needfireproof safes still."

  "We have no fires, except in the old structures," replied the doctor."Since building was undertaken by the people collectively, you see wecould not afford to have them, for destruction of property means to thenation a dead loss, while under private capitalism the loss might beshuffled off on others in all sorts of ways. They could get insured, butthe nation has to insure itself."

  Opening the inner door of the safe, I took out several drawers full ofsecurities of all sorts, and emptied them on the table in the room.

  "Are these stuffy-looking papers what you used to call wealth?" saidEdith, with evident disappointment.

  "Not the papers in themselves," I said, "but what they represented."

  "And what was that?" she asked.

  "The ownership of land, houses, mills, ships, railroads, and all mannerof other things," I replied, and went on as best I could to explain toher mother and herself about rents, profits, interest, dividends, etc.But it was evident, from the blank expression of their countenances, thatI was not making much headway.

  Presently the doctor looked up from the papers which he was devouringwith the zeal of an antiquarian, and chuckled.

  "I am afraid, Julian, you are on the wrong tack. You see economic sciencein your day was a science of things; in our day it is a science of humanbeings. We have nothing at all answering to your rent, interest, profits,or other financial devices, and the terms expressing them have no meaningnow except to students. If you wish Edith and her mother to understandyou, you must translate these money terms into terms of men and women andchildren, and the plain facts of their relations as affected by yoursystem. Shall you consider it impertinent if I try to make the matter alittle clearer to them?"

  "I shall be much obliged to you," I said; "and perhaps you will at thesame time make it clearer to me."

  "I think," said the doctor, "that we shall all understand the nature andvalue of these documents much better if, instead of speaking of them astitles of ownership in farms, factories, mines, railroads, etc., we stateplainly that they were evidences that their possessors were the mastersof various groups of men, women, and children in different parts of thecountry. Of course, as Julian says, the documents nominally state histitle to things only, and say nothing about men and women. But it is themen and women who went with the lands, the machines, and various otherthings, and were bound to them by their bodily necessities, which gaveall the value to the possession of the things.

  "But for the implication that there were men who, because they must havethe use of the land, would submit to labor for the owner of it in returnfor permission to occupy it, these deeds and mortgages would have been ofno value. So of these factory shares. They speak only of water power andlooms, but they would be valueless but for the thousands of human workersbound to the machines by bodily necessities as fixedly as if they werechained there. So of these coal-mine shares. But for the multitude ofwretched beings condemned by want to labor in living graves, of whatvalue would have been these shares which yet make no mention of them? Andsee again how significant is the fact that it was deemed needless to makemention of and to enumerate by name these serfs of the field, of theloom, of the mine! Under systems of chattel slavery, such as had formerlyprevailed, it was necessary to name and identify each chattel, that hemight be recovered in case of escape, and an account made of the loss incase of death. But there was no danger of loss by the escape or the deathof the serfs transferred by these documents. They would not run away, forthere was nothing better to run to or any escape from the world-wideeconomic system which enthralled them; and if they died, that involved
noloss to their owners, for there were always plenty more to take theirplaces. Decidedly, it would have been a waste of paper to enumerate them.

  "Just now at the breakfast table," continued the doctor, "I wasexplaining the modern view of the economic system of private capitalismas one based on the compulsory servitude of the masses to thecapitalists, a servitude which the latter enforced by monopolizing thebulk of the world's resources and machinery, leaving the pressure of wantto compel the masses to accept their yoke, the police and soldiersmeanwhile defending them in their monopolies. These documents turn up ina very timely way to illustrate the ingenious and effectual methods bywhich the different sorts of workers were organized for the service ofthe capitalists. To use a plain illustration, these various sorts ofso-called securities may be described as so many kinds of human harnessby which the masses, broken and tamed by the pressure of want, were yokedand strapped to the chariots of the capitalists.

  "For instance, here is a bundle of farm mortgages on Kansas farms. Verygood; by virtue of the operation of this security certain Kansas farmersworked for the owner of it, and though they might never know who he wasnor he who they were, yet they were as securely and certainly his thrallsas if he had stood over them with a whip instead of sitting in his parlorat Boston, New York, or London. This mortgage harness was generally usedto hitch in the agricultural class of the population. Most of the farmersof the West were pulling in it toward the end of the nineteenthcentury.--Was it not so, Julian? Correct me if I am wrong."

  "You are stating the facts very accurately," I answered. "I am beginningto understand more clearly the nature of my former property."

  "Now let us see what this bundle is," pursued the doctor. "Ah! yes; theseare shares in New England cotton factories. This sort of harness waschiefly used for women and children, the sizes ranging away down so as tofit girls and boys of eleven and twelve. It used to be said that it wasonly the margin of profit furnished by the almost costless labor of thelittle children that made these factories paying properties. Thepopulation of New England was largely broken in at a very tender age towork in this style of harness.

  "Here, now, is a little different sort. These are railroad, gas, andwater-works shares. They were a sort of comprehensive harness, by whichnot only a particular class of workers but whole communities were hitchedin and made to work for the owner of the security.

  "And, finally, we have here the strongest harness of all, the Governmentbond. This document, you sec, is a bond of the United States Government.By it seventy million people--the whole nation, in fact--were harnessedto the coach of the owner of this bond; and, what was more, the driver inthis case was the Government itself, against which the team would find ithard to kick. There was a great deal of kicking and balking in the othersorts of harness, and the capitalists were often inconvenienced andtemporarily deprived of the labor of the men they had bought and paid forwith good money. Naturally, therefore, the Government bond was greatlyprized by them as an investment. They used every possible effort toinduce the various governments to put more and more of this sort ofharness on the people, and the governments, being carried on by theagents of the capitalists, of course kept on doing so, up to the very eveof the great Revolution, which was to turn the bonds and all the otherharnesses into waste paper."

  "As a representative of the nineteenth century," I said, "I can not denythe substantial correctness of your rather startling way of describingour system of investments. Still, you will admit that, bad as the systemwas and bitter as was the condition of the masses under it, the functionperformed by the capitalists in organizing and directing such industry aswe had was a service to the world of some value."

  "Certainly, certainly," replied the doctor. "The same plea might beurged, and has been, in defense of every system by which men have evermade other men their servants from the beginning. There was always someservice, generally valuable and indispensable, which the oppressors couldurge and did urge as the ground and excuse of the servitude theyenforced. As men grew wiser they observed that they were paying a ruinousprice for the services thus rendered. So at first they said to the kings:'To be sure, you help defend the state from foreigners and hang thieves,but it is too much to ask us to be your serfs in exchange; we can dobetter.' And so they established republics. So also, presently, thepeople said to the priests: 'You have done something for us, but you havecharged too much for your services in asking us to submit our minds toyou; we can do better.' And so they established religious liberty.

  "And likewise, in this last matter we are speaking of, the people finallysaid to the capitalists: 'Yes, you have organized our industry, but atthe price of enslaving us. We can do better.' And substituting nationalco-operation for capitalism, they established the industrial republicbased on economic democracy. If it were true, Julian, that anyconsideration of service rendered to others, however valuable, couldexcuse the benefactors for making bondmen of the benefited, then therenever was a despotism or slave system which could not excuse itself."

  "Haven't you some real money to show us," said Edith, "something besidesthese papers--some gold and silver such as they have at the museum?"

  It was not customary in the nineteenth century for people to keep largesupplies of ready money in their houses, but for emergencies I had alittle stock of it in my safe, and in response to Edith's request I tookout a drawer containing several hundred dollars in gold and emptied it onthe table.

  "How pretty they are!" exclaimed Edith, thrusting her hands in the pileof yellow coins and clinking them together. "And is it really true thatif you only had enough of these things, no matter how or where you gotthem, men and women would submit themselves to you and let you make whatuse you pleased of them?"

  "Not only would they let you use them as you pleased, but they would beextremely grateful to you for being so good as to use them instead ofothers. The poor fought each other for the privilege of being theservants and underlings of those who had the money."

  "Now I see," said Edith, "what the Masters of the Bread meant."

  "What is that about Masters of the Bread?" I asked. "Who were they?"

  "It was a name given to the capitalists in the revolutionary period,"replied the doctor. "This thing Edith speaks of is a scrap of theliterature of that time, when the people first began to fully wake up tothe fact that class monopoly of the machinery of production meant slaveryfor the mass."

  "Let me see if I can recall it," said Edith. "It begins this way:'Everywhere men, women, and children stood in the market-place crying tothe Masters of the Bread to take them to be their servants, that theymight have bread. The strong men said: "O Lords of the Bread, feel ourthews and sinews, our arms and our legs; see how strong we are. Take usand use us. Let us dig for you. Let us hew for you. Let us go down in themine and delve for you. Let us freeze and starve in the forecastles ofyour ships. Send us into the hells of your steamship stokeholes. Do whatyou will with us, but let us serve you, that we may eat and not die!"

  "'Then spoke up also the learned men, the scribes and the lawyers, whosestrength was in their brains and not in their bodies: "O Masters of theBread," they said, "take us to be your servants and to do your will. Seehow fine is our wit, how great our knowledge; our minds are stored withthe treasures of learning and the subtlety of all the philosophies. To ushas been given clearer vision than to others, and the power of persuasionthat we should be leaders of the people, voices to the voiceless, andeyes to the blind. But the people whom we should serve have no bread togive us. Therefore, Masters of the Bread, give us to eat, and we willbetray the people to you, for we must live. We will plead for you in thecourts against the widow and the fatherless. We will speak and write inyour praise, and with cunning words confound those who speak against youand your power and state. And nothing that you require of us shall seemtoo much. But because we sell not only our bodies, but our souls also,give us more bread than these laborers receive, who sell their bodiesonly."

  "'And the priests and Levites also cried out as
the Lords of the Breadpassed through the market-place: "Take us, Masters, to be your servantsand to do your will, for we also must eat, and you only have the bread.We are the guardians of the sacred oracles, and the people hearken untous and reply not, for our voice to them is as the voice of God. But wemust have bread to eat like others. Give us therefore plentifully of yourbread, and we will speak to the people, that they be still and troubleyou not with their murmurings because of hunger. In the name of God theFather will we forbid them to claim the rights of brothers, and in thename of the Prince of Peace will we preach your law of competition."

  "'And above all the clamor of the men were heard the voices of amultitude of women crying to the Masters of the Bread: "Pass us not by,for we must also eat. The men are stronger than we, but they eat muchbread while we eat little, so that though we be not so strong yet in theend you shall not lose if you take us to be your servants instead ofthem. And if you will not take us for our labor's sake, yet look upon us:we are women, and should be fair in your eyes. Take us and do with usaccording to your pleasure, for we must eat."

  "'And above all the chaffering of the market, the hoarse voices of themen, and the shrill voices of the women, rose the piping treble of thelittle children, crying: "Take us to be your servants, for the breasts ofour mothers are dry and our fathers have no bread for us, and we hunger.We are weak, indeed, but we ask so little, so very little, that at lastwe shall be cheaper to you than the men, our fathers, who eat so much,and the women, our mothers, who eat more than we."

  "'And the Masters of the Bread, having taken for their use or pleasuresuch of the men, the women, and the little ones as they saw fit, passedby. And there was left a great multitude in the market-place for whomthere was no bread.'"

  "Ah!" said the doctor, breaking the silence which followed the ceasing ofEdith's voice, "it was indeed the last refinement of indignity put uponhuman nature by your economic system that it compelled men to seek thesale of themselves. Voluntary in a real sense the sale was not, ofcourse, for want or the fear of it left no choice as to the necessity ofselling themselves to somebody, but as to the particular transactionthere was choice enough to make it shameful. They had to seek those towhom to offer themselves and actively to procure their own purchase. Inthis respect the submission of men to other men through the relation ofhire was more abject than under a slavery resting directly on force. Inthat case the slave might be compelled to yield to physical duress, buthe could still keep a mind free and resentful toward his master; but inthe relation of hire men sought for their masters and begged as a favorthat they would use them, body and mind, for their profit or pleasure. Tothe view of us moderns, therefore, the chattel slave was a more dignifiedand heroic figure than the hireling of your day who called himself a freeworker.

  "It was possible for the slave to rise in soul above his circumstancesand be a philosopher in bondage like Epictetus, but the hireling couldnot scorn the bonds he sought. The abjectness of his position was notmerely physical but mental. In selling himself he had necessarily soldhis independence of mind also. Your whole industrial system seems in thispoint of view best and most fitly described by a word which you oddlyenough reserved to designate a particular phase of self-selling practicedby women.

  "Labor for others in the name of love and kindness, and labor with othersfor a common end in which all are mutually interested, and labor for itsown joy, are alike honorable, but the hiring out of our faculties to theselfish uses of others, which was the form labor generally took in yourday, is unworthy of human nature. The Revolution for the first time inhistory made labor truly honorable by putting it on the basis offraternal co-operation for a common and equally shared result. Until thenit was at best but a shameful necessity."

  Presently I said: "When you have satisfied your curiosity as to thesepapers I suppose we might as well make a bonfire of them, for they seemto have no more value now than a collection of heathen fetiches after theformer worshipers have embraced Christianity."

  "Well, and has not such a collection a value to the student of history?"said the doctor. "Of course, these documents are scarcely now valuable inthe sense they were, but in another they have much value. I see amongthem several varieties which are quite scarce in the historicalcollections, and if you feel disposed to present the whole lot to ourmuseum I am sure the gift will be much appreciated. The fact is, thegreat bonfire our grandfathers made, while a very natural and excusableexpression of jubilation over broken bondage, is much to be regrettedfrom an archaeological point of view."

  "What do you mean by the great bonfire?" I inquired.

  "It was a rather dramatic incident at the close of the great Revolution.When the long struggle was ended and economic equality, guaranteed by thepublic administration of capital, had been established, the people gottogether from all parts of the land enormous collections of what you usedto call the evidences of value, which, while purporting to becertificates of property in things, had been really certificates of theownership of men, deriving, as we have seen, their whole value from theserfs attached to the things by the constraint of bodily necessities.These it pleased the people--exalted, as you may well imagine, by theafflatus of liberty--to collect in a vast mass on the site of the NewYork Stock Exchange, the great altar of Plutus, whereon millions of humanbeings had been sacrificed to him, and there to make a bonfire of them. Agreat pillar stands on the spot to-day, and from its summit a mightytorch of electric flame is always streaming, in commemoration of thatevent and as a testimony forever to the ending of the parchment bondagethat was heavier than the scepters of kings. It is estimated thatcertificates of ownership in human beings, or, as you called them, titlesto property, to the value of forty billion dollars, together withhundreds of millions of paper money, went up in that great blaze, whichwe devoutly consider must have been, of all the innumerable burntsacrifices which have been offered up to God from the beginning, the onethat pleased him best.

  "Now, if I had been there, I can easily imagine that I should haverejoiced over that conflagration as much as did the most exultant ofthose who danced about it; but from the calmer point of view of thepresent I regret the destruction of a mass of historic material. So yousee that your bonds and deeds and mortgages and shares of stock arereally valuable still."