I I not have any great originality for my
notion that the walking was the of the labor troubles: he
is as the of a in the newspapers, and is
reprobated for his agency by the editors, who do not fail to read the
working-men many lessons and them against him, as
soon as the to go wrong--as it nearly always does. I
understand from them that the walking is an tyrant,
who from the that him and from time to
time orders a in of and plenitude of power, and
then the working-men and their families to the consequences,
while he goes off and in the of luxury, careless of
the he has created. Between his of and
his of activity he is in the mind of
the working-men against his and friends. This is
perfectly easy, the American working-man, though shrewd
and in other respects, is the of an unaccountable
obliquity of which him from his and
real friends--or, at least, from them when he sees them.
There be no doubt, I thought, in the mind of any person
that the walking was the of the among our
proletariate, and I him with a which met the approval
of the professor, apparently, for he nodded, as if to say that I had hit
the on the this time; and the minister to be freshly
impressed with a that not be new to him. The lawyer and the
doctor were silent, as if waiting for the banker to speak again; but he
was silent, too. The manufacturer, to my chagrin, into a laugh. “I’m
afraid,” he said, with a which me, “you’ll have
to go a good than the walking delegate. He’s a symptom; he
isn’t the disease. The thing on and on, and it to be always
about wages; but it isn’t about at the bottom. Some of those fellows
know it and some of them don’t, but the is with the whole
system, with the nature of things. I had a on that
point the last time I to with my men as a union. They were
always me about this and about that, and there was no end to the
bickering. I point after point, but it didn’t make any difference.
It as if the more I gave the more they asked. At last I up my
mind to try to at the of the matter, and I didn’t wait
for their to come to me--I sent for their leading man, and said
I wanted to have it out with him. He wasn’t a fellow, and when I got
at him, man to man that way, I he had sense, and he had ideas--it’s
no use those are fools; he had about his side
of the question, anyway. I said: ‘Now what it all mean? Do you want
the earth, or don’t you? When is it going to end?’ I offered him something
to take, but he said he didn’t drink, and we on cigars. ‘Now
when is it going to end?’ said I, and I pressed it home, and wouldn’t let
him off from the point. ‘Do you when is it all going to end?’
said he. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘all. I’m of it. If there’s any way out I’d
like to know it.’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I’ll tell you, if you want to know.
It’s all going to end when you the same amount of money for the same
amount of work as we do.’”
We all laughed uproariously. The thing was comical; and
nothing, I thought, the Altrurian’s want of like his
failure to this joke. He did not in asking: “And
what did you say?”
“Well,” returned the manufacturer, with enjoyment, “I asked him if
the men would take the and it themselves.” We laughed again;
this than the other joke. “But he said, ‘No’; they
would not like to do that. And then I asked him just what they would like,
if they have their own way, and he said they would like to have me
run the business, and all alike. I asked him what was the of
that, and why, if I do something that all of them put together
couldn’t do, I shouldn’t be paid more than all of them put together; and
he said that if a man did his best he ought to be paid as much as the best
man. I asked him if that was the their was on, and
he said, ‘Yes,’ that the very meaning of their was the protection of
the weak by the and the of among all who do
their best.”
We waited for the to go on, but he a pause at
this point, as if to let it into our minds; and he did not speak
until the Altrurian him with the question, “And what did you
finally do?”
“I saw there was only one way out for me, and I told the I did not
think I do on that principle. We friends, but the
next Saturday I locked them out and their union. They came back,
most of them--they had to--but I’ve with them since ‘as
individuals.’”
“And they’re much off in your hands than they were in the union,”
said the professor.
“I don’t know about that,” said the manufacturer, “but I’m sure I am.”
We laughed with him, all but the minister, mind to have
caught upon some other point, and who sat by.
“And is it your opinion, from what you know of the working-man generally,
that they all have this in their heads?” the asked.
“They have, until they to rise. Then they of it soon.
Let a man save something--enough to a house of his own, and take a
boarder or two, and have a little money at interest--and he sees
the in another light.”
“Do you think he sees it more clearly?” asked the minister.
“He sees it differently.”
“What do you think?” the minister pursued, to the lawyer. “You are
used to with questions of justice--”
“Rather more with questions of law, I’m afraid,” the other returned,
pleasantly, his together him and looking at them
in a way he had. “But, still, I have a great in questions of
justice, and I that I a wild in this
principle, which I see nobody do on. It me as
idyllic--it’s a touch of in the rough-and-tumble of our
economic life.”
He this to me as something I might in my quality of
literary man, and I in my quality of practical man: “There’s
certainly more than in it.”
He again to the minister:
“I the of the Christian is the family?”
“I so,” said the minister, with the that I have people
of his cloth when men of the world which the world
usually contests; it has to me pathetic.
“And if that is the case, why, the logic of the postulate is that the
prosperity of the is the and of
all the stronger. But the law has not any such principle, in
economics at least, and if the labor are upon it they are
outlaw, so as any of it is concerned; and it is for
men to themselves outlaw. How is it,” the lawyer continued, turning
to the Altrurian, “in your country? We can see no issue here, if the first
principle of labor the of business.”
“But I don’t yet what the of business
is,” returned my guest.
“Ah, that another question,” said the lawyer. “Of
course, every man the problem according to his
temperament and education, and I that on every
business man would answer you accordingly. But the personal
equation is something you wish to from the definition.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Still, I would not upon it first,” said the lawyer.
“Professor, what should you say was the of business?”
“Buying in the market and selling in the dearest,” the professor
promptly answered.
“We will pass the and the doctor and the as of
no value. They can’t possibly have any of the principle
of business; their is to look after the and and
fancies of other people. But what should you say it was?” he asked the
banker.
“I should say it was an of one’s own interests.”
“And you?”
The had no in answering: “The good of Number One,
first, last, and all the time. There may be a of opinion about
the best way to at it; the long way may be the better, or the short
way; the direct way or the way, or the purely selfish way, or the
partly selfish way; but if you of that end you might as
well up shop. That to be the law of nature, as well as
the law of business.”
“Ah, we mustn’t go to nature for our morality,” the minister protested.
“We were not talking of morality,” said the manufacturer; “we were talking
of business.”
This the laugh on the minister, but the lawyer cut it short:
“Well, then, I don’t see why the trades-unions are not as
business-like as the in their with all those outside
of themselves. Within themselves they an of the highest
order, but it is a altruism; it is like that which a Sioux
to his last with a Sioux, and to take the of
a Apache. How is it with your trades-unions in Altruria?” he
asked my friend.
“We have no trades-unions in Altruria,” he began.
“Happy Altruria!” the professor.
“We had them formerly,” the Altrurian on, “as you have them now. They
claimed, as I yours do, that they were into by
the of the case; that without the working-man was unable
to meet the on anything like equal terms, or to his
encroachments and oppressions. But to maintain themselves they had to
extinguish among the working-men themselves, and they
had to great against those who to join them or
who against them.”
“They them here,” said the professor.
“Well,” said the lawyer, from his mind, “the great syndicates
have no in a who won’t come into them or
who to go out. They don’t him or him, but they under-sell
him and freeze him out; they don’t his head, but they him.
The is the same.”
“Don’t Mr. Homos,” the banker entreated. “I am very to
know just how they got of labor in Altruria.”
“We had syndicates, too, and we had the _reductio ad absurdum_--we
had a of labor a of syndicates, that
divided the nation into two camps. The was not only impossible,
but it was ridiculous.”
I to say: “It hasn’t so much of a joke with us yet.”
“Isn’t it in a way to so?” asked the doctor; and he to
the lawyer: “What should you say was the logic of events among us for the
last ten or twenty years?”
“There’s nothing so as the logic of events. It’s like a woman’s
reasoning--you can’t tell what it’s at, or where it’s going to fetch
up; all that you can do is to keep out of the way if possible. We may come
to some such condition of as they have in Altruria, where the faith
of the whole nation is to secure every citizen in the of
happiness; or we may to some condition, and the master may
again own the man; or we may and along indefinitely, as we
are doing now.”
“But come, now,” said the banker, while he a touch on the
Altrurian’s shoulder, “you don’t to say that works
with his hands in Altruria?”
“Yes, certainly. We are mindful, as a whole people, of the law--‘In
the of eat bread.’”
“But the capitalists? I’m about Number One, you see.”
“We have none.”
“I forgot, of course. But the lawyers, the doctors, the parsons, the
novelists?”
“They all do their of hand-work.”
The lawyer said: “That to of the question of the working-man
in society. But how about your minds? When do you your minds?
When do the ladies of Altruria their minds, if they have to do
their own work, as I they do? Or is it only the men who work, if
they to be the husbands and fathers of the upper classes?”
The Altrurian to be of the which
persisted in our of his statements, after all we had read of
Altruria. He indulgently, and said: “You mustn’t that work
in Altruria is the same as it is here. As we all work, the amount that
each one need do is very little, a hours each day at the most, so that
every man and woman has and perfect for the
higher which the education of their whole has them
to enjoy. If you can a of where the and
arts and are for their own sake, and not as a means of
livelihood--”
“No,” said the lawyer, smiling, “I’m we can’t of that. We
consider the pinch of the that a man can have.
If our friend here,” he said, me, “were not like a
toad under the harrow, with his nose on the grindstone, and the poorhouse
staring him in the face--”
“For Heaven’s sake,” I out, “don’t mix your so, anyway!”
“If it were not for that and all the other that men
undergo--
‘Toil, envy, want, the and the jail’--
his wouldn’t be reading.”
“Ah!” said the Altrurian, as if he did not this joking; and,
to tell the truth, I the personal thing in very good taste.
“You will understand, then, how difficult it is for me to
imagine a condition of like yours--although I have it under my very
eyes--where the money is the consideration.”
“Oh, me,” the minister; “I don’t think that’s the
case.”
“I your pardon,” said the Altrurian, sweetly; “you can see how easily
I go astray.”
“Why, I don’t know,” the banker interposed, “that you are so out in
what you say. If you had said that money was always the motive, I
should have been to you, too; but when you say that money
is the consideration, I think you are right. Unless a man
secures his financial for his work, he can’t do his work. It’s
nonsense to otherwise. So the money is the first
consideration. People here have to live by their work, and to live they
must have money. Of course, we all a in the
qualities, as well as in the kinds, of work. The work of the may
be as the of his life; the work of the business
man as the means, and the work of the artist and scientist as the end.
We might upon these and make them closer, but they
will for as they are. I don’t think there can be
any question as to which is the of work; some are
self-evident. He is a man work is an end, and every
business man sees this, and it to himself, at least when he meets
some man of an or scientific occupation. He that this
luckier has a in his work which he can in business;
that his success in it can be by the that it is
the failure of another; that if he it well, it is pure good; that
there cannot be any in it--there can be only a noble
emulation, as as the work itself is concerned. He can always look up
to his work, for it is something above him; and a man often has
to look upon his business, for it is often him, unless he is
a low fellow.”
I to all this in surprise; I that the banker was a
cultivated man, a man of training, and that he was a reader and
a thinker; but he had always a in his talk, which he
now to have for the of the Altrurian, or because
the had a that him out of himself. “Well, now,” he
continued, “the question is of the money consideration, which is the first
consideration with us all: it, or doesn’t it the work, which
is the life, of those among us work is the highest? I understand
that this is the which you in view of our conditions?”
The Altrurian assented, and I it a proof of the banker’s innate
delicacy that he did not the matter, so as it the
aesthetic life and work, to me; I was he was going to do so. But he
courteously to keep the question impersonal, and he on to
consider it himself: “Well, I don’t any one can satisfy you fully.
But I should say that it put such men under a strain, and perhaps
that is the why so many of them in a calling that is
certainly less than business. On one side, the artist is
kept to the level of the working-man, of the animal, of the whose
sole is to something to eat and to sleep. This is
through his necessity. On the other side, he is to the of
beings who have no but with the of their work, which
they were and to do. This is through his purpose.
Between the two, I should say that he got mixed, and that his work shows
it.”
None of the others said anything, and, since I had not been personally
appealed to, I the to speak. “If you will me to be
speaking from than experience--” I began.
“By all means,” said the banker, “go on;” and the in
various to me the word.
“I should say that such a man got mixed, but that his work kept
itself pure from the money consideration, as it were, in of him. A
painter or actor, or a novelist, is to all he can for his
work, and, such is our nature, he all he how to get:
but, when he has once passed into his work, he himself in it.
He not think it will pay or not, it will be popular
or not, but he can make it good or not.”
“Well, that is conceivable,” said the banker. “But wouldn’t he do
something he would less for, if he it, than the thing he
knows he will more for? Doesn’t the money his
choice of subject?”
“Oddly enough, I don’t it does,” I answered, after a moment’s
reflection. “A man makes his choice once for all when he the
aesthetic life, or, rather, it is for him; no other life seems
possible. I know there is a that an artist the of
thing he has go it pays; but this only the prevalence
of ideals. If he did not love to do the thing he does, he could
not do it well, no how it paid.”
“I am to it,” said the banker, and he added to the Altrurian:
“So, you see, we are not so as one would think. We are illogically
better, in fact.”
“Yes,” the other assented. “I something of your as well as
your I left home, and I that by some anomaly
the one was not by the other. It is a proof of the
divine mission of the poet.”
“And the popular novelist,” the lawyer in my ear, but loud
enough for the to hear, and they all their at my
cost.
The Altrurian, with his weak of humor, passed the joke. “It no
signs of from greed, but I can’t help that, as it
is, it might have been much if the who produced it had been
absolutely to their work, and had the of need.”
“Are they to it in Altruria?” asked the professor. “I
understood you that had to work for his in Altruria.”
“That is a mistake. Nobody for his in Altruria; he for
others’ living.”
“Ah, that is what our working-men object to doing here,” said
the manufacturer. “In that last of mine with the walking
delegate he had the to ask me why my men should work for my
living as well as their own.”
“He couldn’t that you were them the work to do--the very
means of life,” said the professor.
“Oh no, that’s the last thing those want to think of.”
“Perhaps,” the Altrurian suggested, “they might not have it such a
hardship to work for your if their own had been assured, as it is
with us. If you will my saying it, we should think it in
Altruria for any man to have another’s means of life in his power; and in
our condition it is imaginable. Do you have it in your power
to take away a man’s opportunity to earn a living?”
The laughed uneasily. “It is in my power to take away his
life; but I don’t shoot my fellow-men, and I a
man yet without good reason.”
“Oh, I your pardon,” said the Altrurian. “I didn’t of accusing
you of such inhumanity. But, you see, our whole is so very
different that, as I said, it is hard for me to of yours, and I
am very to its workings. If you your fellow-man,
as you say, the law would you; but if, for some that you
decided to be good, you took away his means of living, and he actually
starved to death--”
“Then the law would have nothing to do with it,” the for
the manufacturer, who did not to answer. “But that is not the
way out. The man would be supported in idleness, probably,
till he got another job, by his union, which would take the up.”
“But I that our friend did not labor,” returned the
Altrurian.
I all this very uncomfortable, and to turn the talk to a
point that I about: “But in Altruria, if the class
is not from the of manual labor, where do they time and
strength to write?”
“Why, you must that our manual labor is or
exhausting. It is no more than is necessary to keep the in health. I
do not see how you well here, you people of occupations.”
“Oh, we all take some of exercise. We walk hours a day, or we
row, or we a bicycle, or a horse, or we fence.”
“But to us,” returned the Altrurian, with a which
nothing but the of his manner would have excused, “exercise for
exercise would appear stupid. The of that began
and ended in itself, and produced nothing, we should--if you will excuse
my saying so--look upon as childish, if not or immoral.”
