The Washington times., 1894-04-08

from observation and experience, how vain
all such safeguards may prove, how impossi-
BILE 1t is for even the wisest and wealthiest Of
fathers to make sure that the cherished child
he leaves behind may not be glad to earn his
bread as q servant to the children OF his
fathers servants. Still the parent tolls and
saves, feeling that this is the best and all he
can do for his offspring, little though it be.
But Is it? Surely q moments thought will
show that this Is a wholly unscientifc way Of
going about the work Of providing for the
future of ones children.
This Is the problem of all problems to which
the individualistic method is most inapplica-
bic. the problem before all others of which the
only adequate solution must necessarily be
social solution. Your fear for your child is
that he may fail into the ditch Of poverty or
be waylaid by robbers. So you give him a
lantern and provide him with arms. That
would be all very well II you could not do
better, but would it not be an infinitely wiser
and more efficient method to join hands with
all the other equally anxious parents and
I'LL up the ditch and exterminate the robbers,
SO that safety might be matter Of course for
all? However high, however wise, however
rich you are, the only way you can safegu Ird
your child from hunger, cold and wretched-
ness. and all the deprivations, degradations.
and indignities which poverty implies. Is by
plan that will equally safeguard all mems
children. This principle once recognized,
the solution of the social problem becomes a
simple matter. Until it is, no solution Is pos
sible.
According to my best recollection it was in
the Fall OF Winter of 1886 that l sat down to
my desk with the definite purpose Of trying
to reason out a method Of economic organi-
zation by which the republic might
guarantee the livelihood and material
welfare Of its citizens on basis
Of equality corresponding to and supplement-
ing their political equality. There was no
doubt in my mind that the proposed study
should be in the form OF a story. This was
not merely because that was a treatment
which would command greater popular atten-
tion than others. In adventuring in any new
and difficult field Of speculation believe that
than to use the literary form
of fiction. Nothing outside OF the
exact sciences has to be so logical as the
thread Of a story If it Is to be acceptable.
There is no such test Of false and absurd
IDEA as trying to fit it into story. You may
make sermon or an essay or philosophical
treatise as illogical as you please and no one
know the difference, but all the world is
good critic of story, for it has to conform to
the laws Of ordinary probability and COM
monty observed sequence, Of which We are
all judges.
The stories that 1 had written before
Looking Backward were largely of one
sort, namely, the working out of problems,
that is to say. attempts to trace the logical
consequences of certain assumed conditions.
1t was natural therefore, that in this form the
plan of Looking Backward should present
itself TO my mind. Given the United States. a
republic based upon the equality of all men
and conducted by their equal voice, what
would the natural and logical way be by
which to go about the work OF guaranteeing
an economic equality to its citizens corre-
spending with their political equality, but
without the present unjust discrimination on
account Of sex? From the moment the prob
lem first clearly presented itself to my mind
in this way. the writing of the BOOK was the
simplest thing in the world.
Looking Backward has been frequently
called .'fanciful' production. or course.
the notion OF mans being rusticated after
century's sleep is fanciful, and SO, of course,
are the various other WITNESSES about life in
the year 1000 necessarily inserted to give
color to the picture. The argument Of the
book is, however, about as little fanciful as
possible. 1t is, as l have said, an attempt to
work out logically the results of regulating
the national system OF production and distri-
button by the democratic principle of the
equal rights of all, determined by the
equal voice of all. 1 defend as material no
feature of the plan which cannot be shown to
be in accord with that method.
Many excellent persons, not without
sympathy with the idea of a somewhat more
equal distribution of this worlds wealth,
have objected TO the principle of absolute and
invariable ecopomic equality underlying the
plan developed in Looking Backward"
Many have seemed to think that here was an
arbitrary detail that might just as well have
been modified by admitting economic in
equallty,in proportion to unequal values of in
dustrial service. So it might have been if the
plan had been the fanciful theory they sup
posed it. but regarding it as the result of
rigid application of the democratic idea to
the economic system. no feature of the whole
plan is more absolutely matter of course, a
more logical necessity than just that.
Political equality, which gives all citizens
an equal voice in government, without re-
gard TO the great differences between men as
to intelligence, public service, personal worth
and wealth, is the recognition that the essen
tial dignity of human nature is Of an import
ance transcending all personal attributes and
accidents, and is, therefore, not to be limited
by them. In applying the democratic idea to
the economic organization, economic equal
ity. without regard to differences of industrial
ability, is necessitated by precisely the same
logic which iustifies political equality. The
two ideas are one and stand or tall together.
Nor is economic equality any more an ethi-
cal than n necessary physical consequence of
democratic rule extended to the productive
and distributive system. Political equals will
never legislate economic inequality Nor
should they do so. Self-preservation forbids
it, for economic inequality presently under
mines and nullifies political equality and
every other form of equality as well.
Moreover, under any system proportioning
m ini rial
how could women be assured an indefeasible
equality with men and their yoke Of economic
dependence upon the other sex. with all its
related and implied subserviences, be finally
broken? Surely no social solution not Sc
curely guaranteeing that result could claim
to be adequate.
have stopped by the way to say these few
words about the plan of Looking Backward
az the result of the rigid application of the
democratic formula to the social problem. and
the feature of absolute economic
equality as a necessary effect of that method.
because it is In these points and their implica-
tions that nationalism, as suggested by
Looking Backward, Is, perhaps, most
strongly differentiated from some other So
cialistic solutions.
As to the form of the story. my first notion
was, while keeping the resuscitated man as a
link between the two centuries. not to make
him the narrator or to write chiefly
from hiss point Of view. but rather
from that of the twentieth century This
would have admitted of some very interesting
effects and about half the story was at first
written on that line. But as l became con-
vinced of the practical availability of the
social solution 1 was studying it became my
am to sacrifice all other effects to the method |
which would enable me to explain its features
most fully. which was manifestly that Of |
everything from the point of view |
Of the representative of the nineteenth |