Читать книгу: «The Arena. Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891», страница 5

Apart from these constitutional provisions, the general drift of legislative action seems to have set in very strongly towards a mild form of state socialism, somewhat after the form of the Prussian system, but with this difference, that in the case of Switzerland it is the people who unite to delegate certain powers to the state, while in the latter country this policy is imposed upon the people from above by the ruling authorities. The altogether exceptional clauses in the Swiss Constitution referring to the exclusion of the Jesuits, a survival of the war of 1848, to the so-called Heimatlosen, or those who have no commune of origin, and to the police appointed to control the movements of foreign agitators seeking the asylum of the country, all these have a purely local interest, and need not be especially examined.

What, then, is the peculiar mark and symbol of the Swiss Constitution, taken as a whole? When all has been said and done, the most characteristic provisions are those which introduce forms of direct government or of pure democracy, as the technical expression is. The supremacy of the legislative branch, as representing the people, the peculiar make-up of the Federal Council, the limited powers of the Federal Tribunal, and above all the institution of the referendum, are all evidences of this tendency toward direct government. In the Cantonal governments the same quality is still more apparent, for it is from them that the Swiss Federal Constitution has borrowed the principles which underlie these characteristic provisions. In point of fact, representative democracy has never felt quite at home in Switzerland; there has always been an effort to revert to simpler, more straightforward methods; to reduce the distance which separates the people from the exercise of their sovereignty; and to constitute them into a court of final appeal.

In view of the marvellous stability which the pure democracy of Switzerland has displayed, there is something comical in the horror of all forms of direct government expressed by most constitutional writers. De Tocqueville, whom we honor for his appreciation of our own Constitution, declares “that they all tend to render the government of the people irregular in its action, precipitate in its resolutions, and tyrannical in its acts.” Mr. George Grote also condemns the referendum, and of course one cannot expect pure democracy to be praised by Sir Henry Maine, who believes that “the progress of mankind has hitherto been effected by the rise and fall of aristocracies.” On the other hand it is refreshing to hear Mr. Freeman and Mr. Dicey actually discussing the practicability of introducing the referendum into the English political system.

After all, is not this very quality of directness a great recommendation, when we consider the rubbish which at present clogs the wheels of our political machinery, the complications which confuse the voter and hide the real issues from his comprehension? The very epithets pure and direct satisfy at once our best aspirations and our common sense. If monarchy is the government of one, oligarchy that of a few, and democracy that of many, surely there will some day arise the rule of all. The United States seems to be standing at the parting of two ways, one of which leads back in a vicious circle to plutocracy and despotism, while the other advances towards a genuine pure democracy. No nation can stand still. Which way shall it be?

THE TYRANNY OF ALL THE PEOPLE

BY REV. FRANCIS BELLAMY

Dr. Whewell observed that the acceptance of every new idea passed through three stages: 1. It is absurd; 2. It is contrary to the Bible; 3. We always believed it. Change the second stage to, It is unscientific, and the diagram may apply to socialism. We have certainly emerged from the period when it was considered a valid argument to call socialism somebody’s dream. It is now treated with a scientific earnestness which betrays its progress in general thought. This serious grappling with the subject is noted in the recent “Plea for Liberty,” by some of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s disciples, for which Mr. Spencer himself has written an elaborate introduction.

The same earnestness is felt in the masterly editorial, “Is Socialism Desirable?” in The Arena for May. This is a solid contribution to the permanent literature of the subject. It is not a surprise that it has commanded such wide attention. Its deep thoughtfulness, its strategic selection of only vital points for its attack, and, not the least, its kindliness and chivalry, mark it as a notable production. I truly appreciate the honor of being chosen by this knightly antagonist to face the attack on his own sands.

It is not without some question, however, that I accept the generous challenge. For I am not sure that I myself believe in the military type of socialism which the editor seems continually to have in mind. The book, which more than all others combined has brought socialism before American thought, has also furnished to its opponents a splendidly clear target in its military organization. It cannot be repeated too often, however, that the army type is not conceded by socialists to be an essential, even, of nationalistic socialism. Democratic socialism differs considerably from military socialism, and may be fully as national in its reach. In so far as Mr. Flower’s arguments apply to democratic socialism, the following paragraphs may be taken as a rejoinder.

To bring the chief counts of the editor’s indictment again clearly before the readers, it will be well to summarize them:—

(1) National socialism means governmentalism, which is tyranny over the individual.

(2) National socialism means paternalism, which, exercised by all the people, is the most hopeless kind of tyranny.

(3) National socialism means the arrest of progress, because the majority will surely tyrannize over the small “vanguard of human progress.”

(4) National socialism will be needless when the people are educated to the fraternalism which alone could temper the inevitable despotism of the majority.

There is a period in every agitation of a new idea when the most prosperous weapon against it is a thumping epithet. The name must be apt enough to stick. Furthermore, no matter how misleading, it must be suggestive of sinister things.

“Governmentalism” is such a word. In its etymology it is harmless enough. Governmental is the adjective of government, and means “exercising the powers of government.” Governmentalism, therefore, means the exercise of the powers of government considered as a principle. But the word when made the bogy of socialism is supposed to mean the principle of the exercise of the powers of government raised to the nth degree, and separated from the people. It suggests a shadowy somewhat of officialdom; a Corliss engine of functionaryism; all of which is thought of as apart from the people, yet pressing upon the people. In other words, the name “governmentalism,” while intended as a word of opprobrium for socialism, really indicates the amazing misconception which the critics have of the nation itself, and of the relation of the nation’s life to its self-direction.

The nation is not an aggregate of the Smiths, and Joneses, and Robinsons. It is a favorite formula with the opponents of the new school that the nation is but a multitude of individuals. So is a sand-heap. But in the nation the individual atoms are linked by mutual obligations. They are members one of another. No individual can claim isolation and independency. Let him make the most of his individuality; yet, as Aristotle said, “Man is a political animal;” his nature apart from the nation is incomplete; sundered from that to which he belongs he seems a freak.

The nation, then, is not an artificial binding of units; it is a natural relationship. The ideal nation is not entered as a result of reflection and choice. A man is born into the nation as into the family. To belong to the English nation when born an Englishman is not usually considered so “greatly to his credit,” except in the case of Mr. Gilbert’s naval hero. The very term “naturalize,” with which we denote the initiation of a foreigner, is a confession that the nation is not a social contract but a natural relation. It is this natural relation which makes the nation worth dying for; it is fatherland.

Still further, the nation is an organic being. The scattered atoms of a sand-heap are as perfect as before they were dislodged; not so an amputated arm. When the nation is disunited, the detached segment becomes a different kind of body. “The man without a country” begins to be another sort of man. The nation is not a mass of independent individuals, but of related individuals, who, moreover, are so closely related that they make together an indivisible organism; this organism develops according to orderly laws; this organism has perpetuity, never disjoining itself either from its past or future; and this organism has also self-consciousness and moral personality. This is the nation in which we live, and move, and have our being.

When we look this high conception of the nation squarely in the eye, much of the talk about governmentalism seems at once irrelevant. For government in America must ever mean the nation directing itself. Here are no hereditary governing machines; no bureaucracies created by a power apart from the people. In Europe, government is fastened on the people. But in America, if government is not of the people, by the people, and for the people, it is their own fault. The worst abuses of power in a government actually emanating from the people, do not put it beyond their reach. It is still the nation governing itself. It will one day become conscious of its strength, and will direct its efforts more wisely. But so long as it is the living, organic nation governing itself, no mere multiplication of functions, no straightforward increase of powers, are a discrowning of the people.

Socialists believe in the fearless extension of government because they have a clear and high idea of the nation as an organic relationship, apart from which the individual cannot realize himself. As the nation becomes more self-conscious, it perceives more clearly its own responsibility for the development of each individual. The self-governing nation extends its governmental powers solely to give a better chance for development to the largest number of individuals. “All individualism,” says Mr. Flower, “would be surrendered to that mysterious thing called government.” But there is nothing mysterious in the expression the nation makes of its own will; and it is hard to discover what individualism is surrendered, except bumptiousness, when the rounded development of the greatest number of individuals is the nation’s motive for extending its governmental functions.

There is also another kind of reason for being undismayed at the threat of governmentalism. Nationalism is but the very distant consummation of local socialism.

I suppose it is not strange that the hostile critics occupy themselves almost entirely with this keystone of the arch, since that has given the name to the whole tendency. They delight to picture the superb riot of corruption if nationalists could have their way at once. They will never listen, they will never remember, while nationalists declare they would not have their way at once if they could. A catastrophe by which nationalistic socialism might be precipitated would be a deplorable disaster to human progress.

Socialism properly begins with the municipality; or more properly still, with the town-meeting. The Hon. Joseph Chamberlain is a practical State socialist; and he outlines in the North American Review for May how English cities are laying the foundation of more general socialism. The popular representative government of the municipality, he says, “unlike the imperial legislature, is very near to the poor, and can deal with details, and with special conditions. It is subject to the criticism and direct control both of those who find the money, and of those who are chiefly interested in its expenditure. In England, at any rate,” he continues, “it has been free from the suspicion of personal corruption, and has always been able to secure the services of the ablest and most disinterested members of the community.” The practical socialism of Birmingham, and other cities of Great Britain, enthusiastically supported by multitudes of citizens who do not call themselves socialists, is an example of the first numbers on the socialistic programme. The intellectual leaders of socialism are in no hurry. They have all the time there is. It may take years to persuade American cities that they are business corporations themselves, whose aim is the well-being of all the members. The extension of municipal control over all natural monopolies may be decades off. No matter; there is no use in being hot-headed because hearts are hot at the miseries of the poor. Municipalization ought to precede nationalization. The members of the community must learn to trust each other before the East and the West will trust one another. It must be proved in American cities, as it has been already in English cities, that the extension of municipal powers is itself a force to drive out corruption and purify politics, before the nation as a whole will deem it safe to make great enlargements of the civil service.

As that day approaches, it will be found that nationalism is a much simpler thing than it now seems. Nationalism does not begin in a paper constitution and work downwards. During the upheavals of the French Revolution Abbè Siéges is always coming forward with a new constitution. But in America institutions are rather an evolution. The last numbers on the social programme may safely be left blank. Nationalism is neither a city let down, of a sudden, four-square from heaven, nor are its working plans yet to be found in any architect’s office on earth. We certainly want no nationalism which is not an orderly development. We may agree with Mr. Spencer that the course of political evolution is full of surprises. It is quite possible that the nationalism which seems so full of menace as a military despotism may turn out to be but a simple federation of industrial and commercial interests which find they require a single head.

In other words, it seems to me, nationalism is only a prophecy. It is too distant to be certainly detailed. Present day accounts of it will one day be, as Horace Greeley said of something else, “mighty interesting reading.” We may be inspired by it as the end towards which present movements are tending. But each age solves its own problems; and the passage into that promised land is the issue for another generation. A nearer view alone can determine where the passage is, and whether the land is truly desirable. We may justly put some faith in the common sense, as well as in the political ingenuity of those who come after us. If military socialism, whatever it is, should ever be the issue, this American people can be trusted to vote against it if it is undesirable. Meantime, what our people must vote upon in the present year of grace, is whether great private corporations shall control legislatures and city councils, and charge their own unquestioned prices for such public necessities of life as light and transit. There is an issue between tyranny and liberty which is to the point. The future is in the hands of evolution.

Another opprobrious epithet is “paternalism.” This is the most familiar of the titles of reproach. It suggests an idea of government made pestiferous by old abuse. The most atrocious despotisms both of king and church have planted themselves in loco parentis. The welfare of the people has been the hoary excuse for the cruelest outrages of history. Mr. Flower goes a step further and avers that, with the good of the people for a pretext, tyranny has always been in exact proportion to power and authority.

Without stopping to query as to this last rather sweeping statement, it will be enough to check ourselves while the editor leaps to his induction; namely, that because the monarchical and ecclesiastical governments have tyrannized in proportion to their power, nothing less is to be expected if our Republic becomes affected with a greater sense of governmental responsibility for the welfare of her citizens. If our nation, it is claimed, allows this specious excuse to commit it to the doctrine of State interference, we are drifted into the despotic paternalisms of the old world.

But a paternalism must have a parent, a royal sire, or a priestly grandmother. In the antique paternalisms there is invariably this parental personality at the top; down beneath it are the puppet children. “My soldiers are my children,” says Napoleon; and he orders a charge for their benefit; an hour afterwards the dying address him as Sire as he walks over the field. “The German people are my children,” says Emperor William; and he issues the edict for the compulsory life-insurance of workingmen; an undoubted blessing. Both are instances of paternalism; and the principle in one case is as obnoxious as in the other. The principle of paternalism is an irresponsible authority above the people, mastering the people, with their welfare as a pretext.

But this essential of paternalism must be lacking in the republic. Whatever powers democracy may assume, it recognizes no authority outside itself. Democratic government, however socialistic it may become, is nothing but democracy expressing its own will. If the individual is led to surrender certain of his freedoms for the good of all, he surrenders to a paternalism of all the people. That were better called, once for all, a fraternalism.

It is not enough, however, to show that the title is in our case a grave misnomer. The editor adduces several recent instances which he considers exhibitions of the increasing tyranny of all the people. He believes the tyranny of all the people, if they are as selfish as they are now, would be more hopeless than the despotism of an individual; for the single tyrant is after all amenable to revolution, while the whole nation as a tyrant is accountable to nothing. To his view, indeed, the occurrences I am about to repeat prove the new tyrant is already created. They exhibit a “tyranny which shows that persecutions are only limited by the power vested in the State.”

Let us examine the data for this astonishing conclusion. My limits will not allow more than a bare reference to the incidents which are fully described in the May editorial.

Case I. is the incarceration in Tennessee of a Seventh-day Adventist for working on Sunday. Of this it may be remarked that had it happened two centuries ago it would have been symptomatic; to-day it is a curiosity.

Case II. is the arrest of a Christian Scientist in Iowa for practising contrary to the rules of the State. I presume this cannot be fairly disposed of by suggesting that there has been some aggravated occasion for such stringency. But it is certainly true that the State has the right to prevent malpractice—a right none of us would wish renounced. And as soon as there are sufficient data to convince an intelligent public opinion that the theory, with its perilous repudiation of all medical skill, is not fatal to human life, it will receive an ungrudged status.

Case III. is the arrest of a minister, of pure life and unquestioned standing, for sending obscene literature through the mail. The sole charge was the publication of an earnest and chastely worded article on marital purity; but the real cause was supposed to be his severe criticism of the Society for the Prevention of Vice nearly a year afterward. If these facts are verifiable this is a monstrous outrage. But unhappily it is not the first instance where revenge has been taken on the innocent by due process of law. Without doubt the people ought to be more aroused by it than they are. Yet such a sporadic instance of miscarried justice is scarcely a reason why the State should cease its efforts to check by law the present alarming increase of lascivious printing.

Case IV. is an election bill in California which prohibits independent nominations except upon petition of five per cent. of the voters, and thus disfranchises four per cent. of the voting population. If this mad device proves anything, it proves that the leaders of the old parties are in such consternation at the uneasiness of the people that they have lost their heads. It proves no more than the denial of the right of petition in Congress during anti-slavery days; and it proves as much as that attempt to ignore the voice of reform. Earthquakes are not far off when such things happen.

Case V. is the suit for damages which one Powell brings against Pennsylvania. Under a statute authorizing the manufacture of oleomargarine, he had undertaken the business, to find himself ruined by a later legislature making its manufacture a misdemeanor. This is very noteworthy, for it proves too much. It shows a vested money interest controlling legislature and voting a rival business into outlawry. This is a kind of instance socialists like to get hold of.

Yet these instances are used to illustrate “a growing spirit of intolerance” in our country; they are said to exhibit a State tyranny which is already blossoming under paternalistic legislation; they emphasize, it is claimed, the fact,—“That all the majority wishes is the sanction of law to make its crimes against the minority assume a show of respectability. All that retards persecution is the limit of the sanction of law; and I submit that, in the light of history, and in the face of the wrongs of the present, all increase in governmental power menaces the liberty, the happiness, and the growth of the individual.”

This is a pretty large indictment to hang on such debatable evidence. Its audaciousness fairly takes one’s breath away. Our heaviest battery is turned against ourselves. Every cherished dream of the good time coming goes up at a blast. Instead of freedom at last to do that for which we are made, and to fit into the niche where we belong, we are shown a State’s-prison. Instead of an age of joy and of elastic step, we are pointed to an iron rule of repression and cheerlessness. Instead of leisure to ripen, of a full summing of our powers, of the exhilaration of new truth, we have disclosed to us a stunted individuality treading a dull and monotonous round of existence. And all this, because if the people are trusted with more power they will tyrannize life down to this paralyzing reaction.

The logic of this bold pessimism is:—Human nature is tyrannical; the majority have always tyrannized in proportion to their power; increase their power and they will increase their tyranny. This is the syllogism which has dignified the foregoing collection of occurrences into grave symptoms of an increase of popular despotism.

It might be fair to meet dogmatic pessimism with dogmatic optimism. Or, it would be legitimate to follow the logic to its end in a general abandoning of all the powers of government which, it seems, has only hurt when it tried to help humanity; to go back honestly to Jefferson, and beyond him, to

 
The very best government of all,
That which governs not at all.
 

This is the pandemonium of anarchy. Mr. Flower believes that there is not enough of the golden rule in society to-day to make socialism tolerable. But we have only to imagine our present society, with its current quantity of golden rule, thrown into the chaos where government has ceased to govern, where the political majority has lost all its power, but where the majority of brute strength awakes to find itself with no laws to molest or make it afraid.

But this doctrine of the inevitable despotism of the political majority lies so at the bottom of the whole impeachment, that it ought to be carefully examined in itself.

In the first place, both premises are without support. Human nature, even in irresponsible multitudes, is not essentially tyrannical. Let us admit frankly all the degraded sweeps of intolerance in the past; yet has not human nature during recent generations been growing in the tolerant spirit? Look straight at the intelligent society around us; look within ourselves most of all, and let us ask if we see any such intolerance of spirit as would bloom into tyranny if we only had the chance. A man may prove to me by inductive data, reaching uninterruptedly over ten thousand years, that my own nature is intolerant; he may even corroborate his proof by pointing to my occasional acts of thoughtless disregard for another’s opinion, yet all this array does not overwhelm me, for I know I am not intolerant. Our society to-day, as a whole, knows it is not intolerant;—even though it be proved as conclusively as ever Puritan divine proved God’s hatred for man, and man’s incapacity for a single good act. The logic works well; only there are some omitted factors. Human nature has made some progress. Hospitality to new ideas, and patience with divergent ones, are two of the surest fruits of later civilization.

Again, the majority have not always tyrannized in proportion to their power. They did not, in the Dutch Republic, when William of Orange followed the hideous persecutions of Phillip II. with the establishment of religious liberty. The Church of England was in the majority when it abandoned its acts of tyranny. Congregationalism was still in the ascendancy when it ceased to banish Baptists and to whip Quakers. The Rhode Island Baptists had plenty of majority when they pioneered the empire of religious freedom in America. And the Maryland Roman Catholics had things their own way, when in an age of persecution they resolved to be hospitable to other beliefs. Indeed, in our American life especially, the generosity and long-suffering of majorities are among the most notable features. On the other hand it may with truth be said that the worst tyrannies have been on the part of minorities. In the old world the oppressive minorities have usually been hereditary or ecclesiastical interests. In our country the ruling minorities have been determined, and self-assertive classes who would not brook the wisdom or the sense of justice of the majority. It was the regnant minority which rushed the South into secession. It was that same minority which had for half a century before over-ridden the whole nation. It was the Tammany minority which ruled the Democracy. It is the minority of syndicates, corporations, and vested interests which crowned itself in our Billion Congress, and is spreading itself in our legislatures. Are the very occurrences, of which so much has been made exhibitions, of the tyranny of all the people; or, are they not rather, with one exception, instances where a graceless minority has resolved either slyly or boldly to ignore the people? In short, the charge in the phrase “tyranny of the majority” has but the least justification in the course of government. There has been in history no power which has tyrannized less than the political majority. In modern times, at least, the most violent acts of despotic outrage have been the attempts to ride down the will of the political majority. “In the light of history, and in the face of the wrongs of the present,” to use the editor’s words, it might be well to consider some means for the protection of majorities.

For after all, in spite of the English sneers at government by count of noses, from Carlyle and Sir Henry Maine to the latest utterances, there is nothing so safe for humanity’s interests as the political majority. It is perfectly true that “the vanguard of human progress must ever be in the minority.” But the hope of this minority lies in one day becoming the majority. As Disraeli said, that is the minority’s business. The minorities of hereditary privilege, of priesthood, of monied classes, can perpetuate themselves and their power. But the majority of voters is always changing and always losing its power. The minority of radicals is always becoming the majority of conservatives,—the steadfast power to which progress has tied itself.

Is socialism necessary to the progress of the race? Will not a perfected fraternalism make the strong hand of socialism needless? Both questions are to be answered, yes. The perfect state is undoubtedly pictured in Rousseau’s ideal, where every man remains perfectly free, so that when he obeys the State he obeys only himself. This is the deep and eternal truth of the law of brotherhood, which is also the law of liberty. Love is the fulfilling of all law; no laws will be needed when love is the protection of the weak. Belief in that coming government of Love is the real religion.

But the practical politics of the present deal with a society where a strong arm is needed to protect the weak from the tyranny of the giants. To talk about the principles of brotherhood fully prevailing in our present conditions, is to treat the laws of Christ with flippancy. Nine-tenths of the maxims of our modern business system contradict the law of love. In our present environment it is impossible for business people or working people to obey the Sermon on the Mount and not starve. Perhaps a few sacrifices of this kind are needed to teach us how abhorrent the present selfish system is to the Christianity of Christ. “I suppose I ought to be thankful to get the work at all, for they told other women they had no work left for them,” said a woman to me who was making men’s pantaloons for two dollars a dozen. She was part of the system; she was competing with other less fortunate women as truly as her employer with other firms; she drank her tea at the expense of her less lucky sister, who had no work and no tea. What chance does this system afford for perfect fraternalism, or even for decent fraternalism, among those who have to compete?