The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1896-04-12
AN IMPORTANT QUESTION.
SOCIALISM AND the AMERICAN
SPIRIT.

vs. &Aa - S"AN
Americas.Born OaspripE-wby Social.
ism Does Not Succeed Here Iutoeracy
aud Da.gcrs That May Re BEFORE Us.
In taking up any new theory, political or 500
cial. we do well to ask whence II comes. and un-
dor what conditions II had Its birth. We shall
thereby sometimes save ourselves a good deal of
logical Investigation. | am reminded of this by
Mr.. Gilman's work on Socialism and the Amer
lean Spirit. Socialism is European. II may
be defined practically Ms the expression Of the
discomfort Of the European mechanic with
his wages and his position. But In England IL
has taken comparatively little hold Of the agri-
cultural wage Garner. for Joseph Arch's move
mert was only an extensive strike. With the
French peasant, who owns his land, It has
made no way. Its chief seats are great manu-
featuring cities, where the worktncn are gath
cred in ~inflammable masses; where the rate of
wages is the one great subject Of interest;
where the wage carriers are organiLed In
unions. There the labor orator and the labor
journal find their field. There the contrast De-
tween the income OF the wage Garner and that
OF the capitalist who employs him, Is most
striking. The wage Garner Of Leeds or Man.
chester strolls out on the Sunday afternoons,
looks at the masters sumptuous villa in the
suburbs, thinks that it is all the fruit of his
wv iAll = ~ Nv NANANh w ms "hNN' ~
alone. he tells himself, is the toiler who pro-
duces, while the other classes are spoilers, by
whom he is kept out of his due. 1t does not oc-
cur to him that he can be mistaken In fancy
ing that the accumulated produ ctions and in
ventions OF past ages belong to him alone as
their sole heir, and in imagining that without
capital, plant. guidance. and the facilities of
distribution which directed by high
intelligence affords, he could produce all the
wealth with his own hands.
The source of socialism is discomfort rather
than distress. Nothing can have been more
clearly proved than that OF the vastly increased
wealth of Europe a full share has gone to the
wage earning class. and especially to the skilled
mechanic. Not only have the mechanics
wages greatly risen, but, by the extension of
traffic and invention, comforts and luxuries
TO which a century ago he was utterly a stran-
ger have been placed within his daily reach, rs
every fruit sail tells. II used to be observed
in the manufacturing cities of England that
the most thrifty mechanics were not those
that had the highest rate of wages. but rather
those who had the second rate; those who had
the highest rate being brought within sight Of
n more costly class Of Injuries, and thus tempt
ed To expense. The ASSUMPTION upon which
Progress and Poverty POUNDS itself is the
reverse OF truth. The positive amount of
p''NASt "th'te t'h '"uoNo
including idleness and incompetence, has of
course increased with the vast increase of pop
nlation, but 1t bears no proportion to the in.
crease in the number of those who are well
of. while even the destitute have a fund of re-
lief to which they can look and do not look
wholly Ia vain. Nor lie the gulf between the
rich and the poor SO wide. either materially or
socially. as it was in the days of Roman slavery
or feudal serfdom. Democracy has at all
events rescued poverty from contempt.
The discomfort sometimes takes the form Of
anarchism. the coexistence of which with
socialism its exact ornosite as n ~no,i,ic.,
vision. helms to show that discomfort Is the
parent of the whole movement. and that the
nim is not so much TO build nm n new social
ediice as to tear the existing edidce down.
Another variation of the tendency i, ommu-
pism. which seeks to abolish nron.r,v. our cn,y
known motive to production. while socialism
upholds property. at nil events in wages The
dream of socialism is the regulation Of all in
dustry and the distribution of all protts nv
the State. which is to supersede contract ex.
clude competition and above al, onnibiIota