The Portland daily press., 1879-11-21
The Future Commune.

When we consider the possibilities which
the future has in store for coming genera
tions, it is with feeling of sadness that we
reflect that the Communistic ideas may some
day prevail so far as to place all trades and
occupations under the control of govern
ment, and that our great-great-great-grand
children may be obliged to submit to all the
annoyances in every branch of its admlnis-
tration that we are now obliged to suffer in
the postal and other departments. We are
oppressed with that prophetic sorrow which
overpowered Hector when he exclaimed:
..Andromache thy griefs dread,
see thee trembling, weeping captive LED,
In Argive looms our battles to design,
And woes, of which so great part were thine
In sad anticipation we behold in vision the
daily bread of the people issued like ration
from government bakeries, and think OF the
inevitable Sunday morning when hundred
millions of families will go for their brown
bread loaf and find that the Baker-General
has been looking over the law which pro-
vides for rye and indian bread and has dis
covered a little twist on the tail of the d,
making it read breads, so that he has issued
a decision that in future two half loaves, one
of rye and one of indian meal shall be sup
piled instead of the time-honored loaf OF the
fathers. But this will be no stranger than
the decision just issued that book-manu-
scripts can no longer be sent as third-class
mail matter, unless accompanied by proof
sheets. How miserable will be the lot of a
people, who, thinking to realize perfect
| equality and happiness by regulating every
| province of domestic life by common laws,
| shall find all their calculations constantly
upset by unexpected decisions, which change
| the laws intended for their convenience into
regulations which incommode everyone.
How the Commune will howl with grief
| and astonishment some morning when it finds
| that sudden order from the Secretary Of
| the Railroad Department has caused mil
| Ion of trunks to be taken from the baggage
masters, who knew perfectly well where to
| deliver them, and sent to the dead trunk Of
| fee in Omaha, for want of proper addresses.
| 1t will not be owing to any inherent fault
| in the system, or because the laws OF the
| Commune will not be plain and definite,
| but because of that peculiar recurrent trait
| of our remote ancestry which ever crops out
in men elevated to arbitrary power. Civil
service will prevail then, and public opinion
will not be able to get at the life-incumbent
as it does now, so that obliging subordinates
who wish to keep in the good graces of their
masters, the public, will not break the rigor
| of their superiors by timely expostulation
and careful interpostion.
| In those days, if the government surgeon
accidentally omits to say ''mix" in his pre-
scrption, the Apothecary General will issue
adecison that the government druggist must
| send his prescription out in six different vi
| ais at extra expense, and if the directions
happen to read stem teaspoons fulP' instead
| of 'ten teaspoonfuls," the unfortunate pa
| tient will be obliged to take it from ten diff
ferent spoons under penalty of fine or i'm
| prisonment. But that will be no more ri
| diculous than changing the postage on a
package to letter postage because stamp
accidentally gets placed over the string.
| It may be suggested that the Postmaster
General is exceptionally stupid. Oh, no.
| Who says that knows not Internal Revenue
| Commissioner Delano, who invariably de-
cded every case against the public. He
knows not department regulations which re-
| fuse all information to claimants, and cheat
| honest creditors who cannot prove their
| claims from their own books. 1t knows not
| Custom regulations-butCu Custom houses will
| be abolished when the Commune prevails.
| Government tailors will then be examined
| in six different languages and trigonometry,
before they will receive their appointments !;
| they will be obliged to measure their custom
| ers by triangular survey, cut the chest and
| waist by comic sections, and fit under the
| arms by the use of the calculus, while the