The Portland daily press., 1873-01-08
Universal Assurance.

of the period is the proposltloii, III" iocoi'-
ing considerable attention IN MASSACHUSETTS,,
that tbe State shall assume the Office of in
surfing properly against fire. Absolute Sc
curity would thus be afforded to the insured.
If the plan had been in operation before the
Boston fire, the millionaires of that city
would have been Unidentified for their losses
by the tax payers, rich and poor, of the
whole Commonwealth. But it is not as
much the consequences of carrying out this
one proposition that are startling, as the con-
sequences logically involved in the principle
to be established. IF the State is to depart
so much from the prevailing theory of gov
ernm mt, it is impossible to see where it is to
stop. If it may properly insure against fire,
it certainly cannot long refuse to take upon
itself the business of insuring lives. Lam
entable as are the results of great confagra-
tons which swamp scores of underwriters
and make waste paper of hundreds of poll
cies, they are trihing compared with those
watch would result from the suspension of
very few of the principal life companies. 1t
is true that the life companies are prudently
and safely mana red, but nevertheless the
possibility of even so great calamity as
their failure has at times been the subject OF
serious appIehensio and elaborate dis
cassion. The pecuniary distress occasioned
By the failure of such a company as the
connecticut Mutual" for instance, and by
small war, would be about equal The pa
ternal government which offers safe fire pol
ieies must surely furnish security against
danger still more appalling than tina against
which it is now pre- posed to guard. But the
scope of governmental interference with mat
tiers heretofore left to private enterprise,
being so much enlarged, there could be no OBJ
lection to the assumption by the State or by
the general government ofthe control of rail-
roads. The latter project has already been
made familiar to the public by the support il
receives from many leading minds. 1t is the
one sha dow that hangs over the regal pros
poets of the managers of the imperial cor
porations of America. But the logic of the
new theory does not stop here. If the rail
roads are managed by the peope, for the
people, why should not other almost equally
oppressive monopolies be wrested out of the
hands of their enemies A monopoly of the
profits of certain kinds of commerce and
branches of IL dustry was an old expedient for
filling the private exchequer oftyrants. Now
that the people are their own governors, such
a proceeding, it practical, would be eminent
ly dem 1cratic. The profits of iron manufac-
ture or of wooden and cotton fabrics which
now make sco.e of millionaires would add
immensely to the general comfort and happi-
ness of the people. The govern ment would
thus become, not an organization of the peo-
pie for retc purposes, as now, but for almost
all purposes. 1t would become a device for
providing all the people not only with educa-
ton, i'm PARTIAL civil and criminal law and
protection from foreign and domes ic VIC
lenc-, but also with transportation, employ
mcnt an an equitable share of the common
property. 1t would be contract of univer-
sal assurance-a means by which every man
guaranteed every other man tn possession of
happy competence. The official corps would
by that time be so much expanded that pub
lie employment would cease to confer special
dloiluCbloll3 dnd OLA bOh'S az puO oo"O eihS
and in the same sense employers and employ
ees, the government would be the peoples
cooperative association. in doing the business
of which the work must necessarily be diver
sified and assigned to the different partners.
We do not urge the usefulness or even ar
que the possibility of such government.
Our purpose is merely to exhibit in their ul-
innate theoretical form The results of the ex-
listing tendency, the enlargement of the sphere
of government, and to combat an error. The
error is in supposing that the Capitalization
of power in democratic government is a
step in the direction of despotism. In truth
Capitalization is not at all the same thing in
a republic as in any kind of monarchy. In
the latter it is the taking of rights from the
people and vesting them in a power outside
of themselves and antagonistic to them, In
the former it is merely change in the meth
cd by which the people m mage their own af-
fairs, and, as we have seen, is movement
tending to establish comm nism more abso-
lutte than the Partisan Red foresees in his
widest dreams. Perfect Capitalization in a
republic is perfect democracy The chang,
from highly decentralized COVE 'nment to
very Strong ole by the people of the Unit
ed States would be an act like that of an in
dividual who determines to make and enforce
more minute rules for the government of his
own conduct. To say that the people may
suffer from sell-imposed supervision and ty-
ranny is a paradox in reasoning as absurd as
that in physics made by man who tries to
lift himselfb by the straps of his boots. Cen
radiation is not, then, thing to be feared
Of ITSELF A slow rate of progress is to be pre-
jcribed for it, in order that the average virtue
md intelligence may have time to increase
to afford safe and economical
of an organization, the COM
plexity of which is infinitely increased by its
expressio, !.