St. Paul daily globe., 1894-03-12
ALTKUksTIC FuTILIsM.

|
serves for those personal talks with his
readers which form one of its many in
terestlng features, drops into political
economy and declares that IL am not
believer III the economic theory so
prevalent nowadays, that the cheaper
commodities are the better for the COM
munlty at large" This theory, he SAYS,
! lies at the base of the current free
| trade movement Good, liberal. Ijv-
Ing profits and good wages are essential
to prosperity. The cheapening of things
Is not the best product of civI liZation."
| AT some 1uture time men will look back
| on THESE days of fierce comp ettiOn
somewhat as we look back on the times
or the robber baronS of the Rhine and
the predatory chiefs OF the Scottish
| border"
The spirit which inspired this para
graph Is the same one which, i'll all ages
since men ceased to be brutes, has seen
and been saddeneG by the evil condi-
tionS OF the lives of men and aspired
for better ones. 1t is spirit which is
not peculiar to the socialists, but every
man with any humanity in his soul has
Ieit the same and desired The same bet
terment. No one will dispute the state-
inent that all would be better off, lives
would all be happier. if wages We're al
ways continuously high, whether the
Wages were those paid over the counter
Saturday night or were represented in
the surplus over The cost of production.
No one will deny that competition has
its evils, and there is no one but will re-
Iolce if in any way these evils may be re.
moved. All of us hope to aid in the
coming OF that time. if we cannot all
hope to see it.
Grant all this, and what then? Ger
talnly, If these conditions are to be rad
Icaliy changed, it must be done by
some agency other than any human con-
LrlVance yet devised. 1t is TO-DAY and
has ever been the strenuous effort of
every man to get the most for what he
mas 10 sell, whether it is his labor, the
product of his labor or that of others.
No man that we are aware of is making
any effort to sell his products as cheaply
as possible; and even where he is striy.
ing to make his wares as cheaply as he
can he still wants to get for them all he
can when lie comes to sell. With this
universal effort to raise prices, assisted
often by the interference of govern
ments. and both producing only the
conditions regarded as evil, it is clear
that some agency must be brought into
play besides individuals efforts.
AS things are as they are, either as
the result of design or of the NEGLECT
OF providence, 1t is quite clear that that
power cannot be appealed to. There is
nothing below man in the scale of being
that can render help, and men are
thrown back on men for whatever of
Improvement there is to be made in the
conditions of mankind. The only instru-
mentality by which men can make
concerted efforts having an effective
force behind them is that vague thing
| called government, Il Il wit" ~,
supernatural impa alb ~ W h O =.
erS, regarded as po,. ii mac.. w
others with which to Work out selfish
purposes; but. as sad experiences teach
| us, great, blundering, stupid, unwise
implement of experiment ii IN and EN-.
| pircism.
There are several difficulties in the
| way of using governments as means
of correcting evil conditions growing
I out OF the play of human instincts
and impulses on each other. Not the
| least Of these, especially in a republic.
| is that the government is only one of
| averages by averages. Theoretically,
the people select their wise men for
| their Wltenagemotes. Practically, they
| select those men who are the nearest to
the general average of the community.
Ii the wlseSt are chosen, it is only in
sporadic Instances, and unintentionally:
and the wiSeSt finds himself, if chosen,
disliked and distrusted by the average
With whom he is associated. The best
lawyers are rarely made judges; the
best men are never made governors; the
fittest are rarely chos ell as legislators
or in the councils of our cities: and all
that can be said in auy case is that the
men chosen are fair averages of the
constituencies which elect them.
| No governments such as are ours in
their several subdivisions can rise
above their source. The certificates of
election carry no magic with them which
makes the recipient wise or sagacious,
or honest or nnselfish. We see today
that commission as justice of the fed
eral supreme court has no power to ren-
der the man who holds it in abeyance
| while he acts as senator, although a
| Democrat, able to be sufficiently unself-
ish or patriotic to aid in repeating the
law which gives him, as sugar planter,
a right to get something out of the
pockets of other people for nothing.
What kind of instrumentalities are
these thus constituted to be used to
perform work that the Almighty has
not cared to undertake or has thought
unnecessary? Ii reasoning a priori
leads to the futility of reforming deep
seated conditions by acts of legislatures,
a posteriori reasoning confirms it, The
| history of the nations teens with in
| stances Of such efforts. In all times
the impulse Of men who see evil coudi-
| tions, who either do not see or are i'm
patient of natures slow processes of
rectification, has been to use the gov.
ernmental power to coerce men into
paths of right conduct. In the efforts
to save the souls of men the experiments
have been most complete and the fail
ures have been most pronounced. In
economies similar course has been run.
with the result that the most paternaI.
iStic governments are the most tyrau-
nous, their people the worst-conditioned.
while the best-conditioned people are
those who have learned to restrict
tlfeir governments to the least possible
interference with or regulation OF. the
affairs of the citizen. The hard but in
eXorable fact is that the condition
under which men must live and work
out each his own destiny is the law of
the survival of the iittest. Sentimental
iZe as we may, we cannot escape it;
rebel as we WILL the law holds it's own
and works its will. But the natural
law and the socialist are working,
though by different means-the one