Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-10-19

/ bright young journalists and warm-hearted
women, and small knot of clergymen and
literary devotees, who expect in single
decade to peacefully reyolutionize the ex-
isting order Of things in America and set
up an industrial organization with the
President as its chief or head, and gov
erned by an army system of grad
! ing. In this arrangement money is I'M
known, excellence alone justifes promo
ton, and the men of the learned profess
sions are excluded from candidacy for
headship, parties are to be things of the
past and buying and selling abolished.
The nation is to be the sole producer of
commodities, and all persons are to be in
the employment of the nation. All ex-
changes between individuals are to be
eliminated, banks and bankers inhibited,
needed allowances of necessaries are made
to the people from Government shops, and
as they present credit cards at these shops
the amount due the Government is
punched out. While every one is privi-
legged to spend his income as he pleases, it
is the same for all, the weak, incompetent
and crippled having equal allowance,
therefore, with the stalwart and skilled,
though every one must make certain
amount of effort, and to this he viii be
pushed by force of public opinion.
Under this proposition, and which may
we'll be termed Bellamyism, clubs are being
formed, and that inevitable accessory of all
such new movements, magazine, has
been started, which announces the purpose
Of the new politics and economy to be
'the naturalization of industry, and
thereby the promotion of the brotherhood
of humanity. The economical tendency
of the age being favorable to this end, this
club seeks to promote its practical adop-
ton by familiarizing the people with the
benefcent idea underlying it, and by en-
couraging national and local measures
tending in this direction"
The mother or Boston club has called
into being to date seventeen branches, and
of these, seven are in California. Sixty
eight other clubs are in process of torma-
ton. There are no business men as yet
related to the organization, but few sin
cere believing mechanics and variety of
writer's, lawyers, doctors, clergymen and
dreamers are in its ranks. As the essayist
referred to well says of the Bellamyism
that has ripened into Boston fad :" Z" 1t
is hard and fast bureaucracy, the per-
sonnet of which, once instituted by popu-
lar vote, would perpetuate itself in the
closest routine, for as the power of appoint
ment in the industrial army is in the Of
fcers of the grade above, the advantages
of monarchical and of democratic rule are
equally absent" Mr.. Gilman Witty
quotes member of the Bellamyites as say
ing that the new doctrine "has had but
little sympathy from human nature as it
is, but derives its support from human ma
ture as we desire to have it." One other
paragraph we quote in conclusion:
Meanwhile, it remains true that the skies do
not necessarily fall with the appearance of each
new phenomenon in economics. Human society
has never yet taken such leap in the darkness
as the plunge into natonalism would be- The
cultured and conservative class" for the con-
version of which Looking Backward" is stated
to have been written, has thus far manifested
little inclination to take up nationalism. The
American press, with scarcely an exception,
treats it with amusement as the latest Boston
fad" The ineffective character of the move
ment so far. as regards its distinctive aim-the
rationale ation of productive industries-is ap-
parent in its failure to enlist practical men of
affairs or teachers of economic science. Nation
alism is derided by the labor organs as the SEN
timental nostTum of people who are out OF all
vital touch with workingmen. 1t gets no sym
psthy from the followers of Henry George. The
literary class, from which it has been chiefly
recruited thus far, has lent it but small por-
ton of its sympathy. The amount of serious
discussion which nationaiism has received in
public meetings or in the press is slight and
does not indicate any wild fire spread of the
movement. The literary ectdt given it by the
novel to which it owes its inspiration, and by
the friendship of the guild of letters for the tai
ented author of Looking Backward" Will nat
urally subside in time. Robert Hlsmere" has
not founded a sect, and Looking Backward"
will hardly originate political party.