Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-27
LOOKING BACKWARD.
Thoughts by Belle Hunt After Reading
Bellamy and Savage, the Extremes.
a Plea for a Middle Ground On Which Com
mon Humanity Can stand-Let the Deity
and the Devil Hold the Ends.
For the Gazette.

and the Devil Hold the Ends.
For the Gazette.
There Is a prosaic but significant old
saw TO the effect that the test of the pnd-
ding is chewing the string. The people
have chewed the string of Mr.. Bethany s
Utopian pudding and have pronounced it
good. 1t Dehooves one to be most safely
entrenched behind the breastwOr1s of IN
formation and logic to question any pro-
teenth century. Whatever is, is hest.
Mr.. Bellamy's book decidedly Is. Mr..
Bellamy has walked clean over the heads
of the swells of the ocean Of sensations
and made roaring big wave of his own.
The people have accepted him and
''rhe people, - Notwithstanding their
unmitigated bowling against oppression,
seem 10 have things pretty much their
own way after all.
Public opinion is like the Christian 3
assurance of grace, you know it's there
If you can I put your finger on it.
Opinions differ, OF course Friction
keeps the intellectual and moral, no less
than the mechanical world gong.
When Mr.. Bellamy pushed off from the
conventional shore of fact into the ocean
of fiction, he made about as many moves
landward as seward.
Someone whose name I do not re-
member, but whose opinions are first
class in the reformatoFy ranks, has said
that Looking Backward" is destined to
exert as powerful an influence on the
o. nd lol, % 4 o1t
Toms Cabin on that of slavery
Less official opinions have gone forth TO
the effect that Looking Backward -
Will stand side by side with Plato 3
"Repubhc' when the two books with
other specimens of defunCt liteTature)
shall have been laid on the top shelf of
those magnificent public libraries which
Mr.. Bellsmy builds so Eiibly out of the
surplus fund of 2OO0! The book has hit
the people so hard that they cannot bal
RnCe themselves on middle ground. If
Smith so much as suggests to Jones TO
read Looking Backward - Jones goes
off and bawls out: ''SInith is a Ted-hot
Socialist, goln' in for Bellamy for all
he's worth. -
So much for TweedIedum. On the
other hand, the Optimists and couserva-
lists assert that Mr. Bellamy 5 ideas are
L
goes further and says, that they are per-
nicious. In & recent sermon headed
"Mr. Bellamy's Nationalism, - Mr..
Savage "goes for the communistic
dreamer with q keen edged and fur
flying blade. In the first place, MIR.
Bellsmy assumes that the present condi-
ton of the industrial world is about as
bad as can be, and getting worse and
worse every dav. he tells us that there
Is o tendency, going on at IL geOm etriC
ratio, towards concentration of all the
wealth OF the country into few hands,
a kind of high handed game of "freeze-
out, - in fact, that has eaten out the
foundation of the peoples hon
esty. On this point Mr.. Savage
rises to give what he calls the plain,
hard, cold facts. He denies Mr.. Bel
lamy s assertion that the rich are get
ting richer and the poor poorer. On the
contrary he asserts as the result Of care
full statistical inquiry both in England
and America that the percentage of profit
that accrues to capital is growing less and
less, while that accruing 10 labor grows
more and more. He claims that the
wealth of the world is being more equally
distributed year by year; that the aver
age day labcreT of America, in this year
of our Lord 1890, has more of the COM
forts Of body. more food for mind,
more solaCe Tor heart, more to lift up
and stimulate him toward spiritual as
pirs tons, than could possibly have been
possessed by Queen Elizabeth or any of
her court.
In Jnis round Mr.. Savage comes out on
top of Mr.. Bellamy, think.
The next assumption Of Mr.. Bellany is
that famous stage coach comparison
which seems 10 offend Mr.. Savage in
proportion as il has tickled and misIead
the people.
In this attractive categorical depletion,
Mr.. Bellamy makes society an immense
stage coach, the driver hunger, the |
horses the working class, and the pas
seDgers the aristocrats aud cap
italists. Mr.. Bellamy dweNs elo- |
Quently upon the struggling, stumbling |
1ainting, dying horses, the uurelenting !
driver, and the ComplaisaUt passengers,
discussing art and theology, and enjoy |
ing Abe fine air and scenery on top. He |
saws ROW ana then, when we come TO |
particularly bad places in the road, and |
there IS danger OF a standstilI or |
''balk, - the passengers do Condesceud |
20 lean over the wheels and say, ''how /
very sad; - then proceed TO expatiate /
upon the statistical necessity for such de- |
plorable inequality of birth aud station, !
and TO exhort the horses to renewed en- |
ergy and patience, cOnsoling them with |
assurances OF compensation in the world |
TO come.
Occasionally, the more actively phil |
RnthFopic DO get down and mingle TENS
porsrily with the horses, even going so |
far as to contribute money to buy band |
ages and saves for the wounded. In |
this round Mr. Savage still keeDs the
upper hand. He says that Mr.. Bellamy
has made plain misstatement; that the /