Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1904-12-22

Equality" page 391:
~" Doctor said, Il am sure my
old friends could do better than
that. Let us have another of their
objections
"Here, then, is one which they
seem to have thought great deal
of. They argued that the effect of
economic equality would be to
make everybody just alike, as if
they had been sawed off to one
measure, and that consequently
life would become so monotonous
that people would all hang them
selves at the end of a month. This
objection is beautifully typical of
an age when everything and every
body had been reduced to a money
valuation. 1t having been pro-
posed to equalize everybody's
supply of money, it was. at once
assumed as a matter of course that
there would be left no points of
difference between individuals that
would be worth considering. How
perfectly does this conclusion ex-
press the philosophy of life held
by generation in which it was
the custom to sum up men as re-
spectively worth so many thou
sand, hundred thousand, or mil
lion dollars! Naturally enough,
to such people it seems that human
beings would become wel]-nigh
indistinguishable if their bank ac-
counts were the same. But let us
be entirely fair to your contempor-
aries. Possibly those who used
this argument against economic
equality would have felt agrieved
to have it made out the badly sor-
did proposition it seems to be.
They appear to think from the ex-
cerpts collected in this to have had
a vague but sincere apprehension
that in some quite underlined way,
economic equality would really
tend to make people monotonously
alike, tegiously similar, not merely
as to bank accounts, but as to
qualities in general, with the re-
suit of obscuring the differences in
natural endowments, the inter-
action of which lends all the zest
to social intercourse. 1t seems al
most incredible that the obvious
and necessary effect of economic
equality could be apprehended in
a sense SO absolutely opposed to
the truth. How could your con-
temporaries look about them with
out seeing that it is always in
equality which prompts the sup
preston of individuality by put
ting a premium on servile imita-
ton of superiors, and, on the other
hand, that it is always among
equals that one finds independ-
ence? Suppose, Julian, you had
a squad of recruits and wanted to
ascertain at glance their differ
ence in height, what sort of ground
would you select to line them up
on?"
"The levelest piece could find,
of course"
"Evidently; and no doubt these
very objectors would have done
the same in like case, and yet
they wholly failed to see that this
was precisely what economic
equality would mean for the COM
munity atlarge. Economic equal
ity with the equalities of education
and opportunity implied in it was
the level standing ground, the even
floor, on which the new order pro-
posed to range all alike, that they
might be known for what they
were, and all their natural in
equalities be brought fully out.
The charge of abolishing and OBJ
scuring the natural differences be-
tween men lay justly not against
the new order, but against the old,
which, by a thousand artificial
conditions and opportunities aris-
ling from economic inequality,
made it impossible to know how
far they were the result of arti-
fetal conditions. Those who
voiced the objection to economic
equality as tending to make men
all alike were fond of calling it
leveling process. So it was, but
it was not men whom the process
leveled, but the ground they stood
en-. From its introduction dates
the first full and clear revelation of
the natural and inherent varieties
in human endowments. Economic
equality, with all it implies, is the
first condition of any true anthro-
pometry or man measuring sys-
tenn" F. P. HILBURN.