The next time the members of our little group came together, the
manufacturer at once upon the banker:
“I should think that our friend the professor, here, would like
that of yours, that business, as business, has nothing to do with
the education of a gentleman. If this is a man’s country, and if
the has nothing in stock but the of education that business
has no use for, I should that he would want to go into some other
line.”
The banker the to the professor, who said, with
that cold of his which I hated:
“Perhaps we shall wait for to purge and live cleanly. Then it
will have some use for the education of a gentleman.”
“I see,” said the banker, “that I have touched the quick in of you,
when I hadn’t the least of doing so. But I shouldn’t like to
prophesy which will itself to the other--education or business. Let
us there will be concessions. There are some pessimists who
say that methods, on the large of the and
combinations, have of better; but this may be merely
what is called a ‘transition state.’ Hamlet must be to be kind; the
darkest hour comes dawn--and so on. Perhaps when gets
the whole of life into its hands, and the republic, as its
enemies now it of doing, the of purging and cleanly
will begin. I have of who started in life rather
scampishly; but when they secure of themselves, and that
they to be honest, they so. There’s no why the
same thing shouldn’t on a large scale. We must that we
are still a very experiment, though we have so in
some respects that we have come to ourselves as an accomplished
fact. We are less so than we were years ago, with all the
tremendous since the war. Before that we take certain
matters for granted. If a man got out of work, he his hand to
something else; if a man failed in business, he started in again from some
other direction; as a last resort, in cases, he West, pre-empted
a quarter-section of public land, and up with the country. Now the
country is up; the public land is gone; is full on all
sides, and the hand that itself to something else has its
cunning. The for life has from a free-fight to an
encounter of forces, and the free-fighters that are left get
ground to pieces labor and capital. Decidedly,
we are in a state, and if the higher education to adapt
itself to needs, there are that it might itself
without helping business. After all, how much education business
need? Were our great by men, or men of university
training? I don’t know but these are right about that.”
“Yes, that may all be,” I put in. “But it to me that you give Mr.
Homos, somehow, a of our economic life by your
generalizations. You are a Harvard man yourself.”
“Yes, and I am not a rich man. A or two, more or less; but what is
that? I have suffered, at the start and all along, from the question as to
what a man with the education of a ought to do in such and such
a juncture. The who have not that of education have not that
sort of question, and they go in and win.”
“So you admit, then,” said the professor, “that the higher education
elevates a man’s of morals?”
“Undoubtedly. That is one of its drawbacks,” said the banker, with a
laugh.
“Well,” I said, with the to a man who had only a
million or two, more or less, “we must allow _you_ to say such things. But
if the case is so with the men who have the great
fortunes--the men who have had the of a
university education--I wish you would to Mr. Homos why, in every
public exigency, we to the of the
community as if it were the of wisdom, probity, and equity.
Suppose there were some question of interest--I won’t say financial,
but political or or social--on which it was necessary to rouse
public opinion, what would be the thing to do? To call a meeting
over the of the leading men, no other names
appeal with such to the public. You might up a call by
all the novelists, artists, ministers, lawyers, and doctors in the state,
and it would not have a of the effect, with the people at large,
that a call by a leading merchants, bank presidents, railroad
men, and trust officers would have. What is the reason? It strange
that I should be you to against yourself.”
“Not at all, my dear fellow, not at all,” the banker replied, with his
caressing bonhomie. “Though I will confess, to with, that I do not
expect to answer your question to your entire satisfaction. I can only do
my best--on the plan.”
He to the Altrurian, and then on: “As I said the other night,
this is a man’s country. We are a purely people; money
is to the fore; and business, which is the means of the
most money, is the American ideal. If you like, you may call it the
American fetish; I don’t mind calling it so myself. The that business
is our ideal, or our fetish, will account for the popular in
business men, who its priesthood, its hierarchy. I don’t know,
myself, any other for men as than
novelists or or ministers, not to mention lawyers and doctors.
They are to have long heads; but it that ninety-five
times out of a hundred they haven’t. They are to be very
reliable; but it is almost a man of some who gets
out to Canada while the is his books, and it is
usually the men who by him. No, it
is is our national that the man is
honored above all other men among us. In the they
forward a public object under the of the and gentry; in
a plutocratic country they the men to it. I suppose
that the American citizen that they wouldn’t a thing
unless it was safe; and the American citizen to be safe--he
is cautious. As a of fact, men are always taking risks,
and is a game of chance, in a degree. Have I myself
intelligible?”
“Entirely so,” said the Altrurian; and he so well
satisfied that he any question.
No one else spoke. The banker a cigar, and at the point
where he left off when I to enter upon the of his class
with him. I must say that he had not me at all. At that moment
I would have him, in any of practical
concern, than all the I of. But I I would
leave the word to him, without attempt to him in his
self-esteem. In fact, he to be along very well without it,
or else he was that from the Altrurian which I
had already him of using. Voluntarily or involuntarily, the
banker with his to the Altrurian’s stock of
knowledge our civilization:
“I don’t believe, however, that the higher education is any more of a
failure, as a for a career, than the education is
for the life of labor. I that the might say
that in a like ours the man really
needed nothing the three R’s, and the working-man needed no R at
all. As a practical affair, there is a good to be said in of
that view. The higher education is part of the social which we have
derived from the past, from Europe. It is part of the for the
life of leisure, the life of the aristocrat, which nobody of our
generation leads, women. Our have some use for the
education of a gentleman, but our men have none. How will that do for a
generalization?” the banker asked of me.
“Oh,” I admitted, with a laugh, “it is a good like one of my own. I
have always been with that phase of our civilization.”
“Well, then,” the banker resumed, “take the education. That is part
of the which, I suppose, I may say we from the depths
of our of what an American citizen ought to be. It
includes in all the R’s, and in other of the
alphabet. It is free by the state, and no one can that it is
thoroughly in and application.”
“Distinctly so,” said the professor. “Now that the text-books are
furnished by the state, we have only to go a step and provide a
good, for the children every day, as they do in Paris.”
“Well,” the banker returned, “I don’t know that I should have much to say
against that. It as as anything in the of
education which we upon the classes. _They_ know perfectly
well, we do or not, that the three R’s will not make their
children or laborers, and that, if the for a mere
living is to go on from to generation, they will have no
leisure to apply the little learning they in the public for
their personal culture. In the time we the of their
children’s labor, in order that they may be citizens for their
schooling, as we imagine; I don’t know they are or not. We offer
them no of for their time, and I think we ought to feel
obliged to them for not wanting for their children while we are
teaching them to be citizens.”
“You know,” said the professor, “that has been by some of their
leaders.”
“No, really? Well, that is too good!” The banker his and
roared, and we all laughed with him. When we had again, he
said: “I that when a working-man makes all the use he can of his
lower education he a man, and then he doesn’t need the
higher. Professor, you to be left out in the cold by our system,
whichever way you take it.”
“Oh,” said the professor, “the law of supply and ways:
it the demand, if the supply comes first; and if we keep on giving
the sons of men the education of a gentleman, we may yet make
them the need of it. We shall a new of man.”
“The that can’t make money, or wouldn’t like to, on some
terms?” asked the banker. “Well, we shall work out our democratic
salvation in that way. When you have your new man to the
point where he can’t to rich at the cost of others,
you’ve got him on the way to work with his hands. He will into
the ranks of labor, and give the with the education a chance.
I’ve no he’ll take it. I don’t know but you’re right, professor.”
The lawyer had not spoken as yet. Now he said: “Then it is education,
after all, that is to the the and the masses,
though it to go a long way around about it. There was a
time, I believe, when we religion to do that.”
“Well, it may still be doing it, for all I know,” said the banker. “What
do you say?” he asked, to the minister. “You ought to be able to
give us some on the with that large of
yours. You to more people than any other in your city.”
The banker named one of the in the East, and the minister
answered, with, pride: “I am not sure of that; but our is
certainly a very large one.”
“Well, and how many of the are there in it--people who work
for their with their hands?”
The minister in his chair, and at last he said, with
evident unhappiness: “They--I suppose--they have their own churches. I
have that such a of the was right; and I
have had some of the very best people--socially and financially--with me
in the wish that there might be more the rich and
poor among us. But as yet--”
He stopped; the banker pursued: “Do you there are _no_ working-people
in your congregation?”
“I cannot think of any,” returned the minister, so that the
banker to press the point.
The lawyer the pause which followed: “I have it
asserted that there is no country in the world where the of the
classes is so as in ours. In fact, I once a Russian
revolutionist, who had in all over Europe, say that he had
never such a want of or rich and
poor as he had in America. I he was right. But he
believed that, if it came to the with us, the
fight would be more than any such that the world had
ever seen. There was no respect from low to high, he said, and no
consideration from high to low, as there were in with traditions
and old associations.”
“Well,” said the banker, “there may be something in that. Certainly, so
far as the two have come into here, there has been no
disposition, on either side, to ‘make with the water of roses.’ It’s
astonishing, in fact, to see how the who have just got up
are toward the who are still down. And the best of us have been up
only a or two--and the who are still know it.”
“And what do you think would be the outcome of such a conflict?” I asked,
with my of it and the of its
excellence as material. My sketched the of a story
which should the and its event, on the plan of
the Battle of Dorking.
“We should beat,” said the banker, his cigar-ash off with his
little finger; and I him, with his calm, for the
part of a great leader in my “Fall of the Republic.” Of course,
I him somewhat, and his with the
bluff sang-froid of the soldier; these are easily done.
“What makes you think we should beat?” asked the manufacturer, with a
certain curiosity.
“Well, all the good reasons: we have got the materials for beating.
Those away their they to fight, and
they’ve been so generalled, up to the present time, that they have
wanted to at the of every quarrel. They have been in
every quarrel, but still they always want to by fighting. That is
all right. When they have learned to by _voting_, then we
shall have to look out. But if they keep on fighting, and always putting
themselves in the and the of it, we can fix
the so we needn’t be any more of that than we are of the
fighting. It’s how short-sighted they are. They, have no
conception of any for their more and fewer
hours.”
“But,” I asked, “do you think they have any just grievances?”
“Of not, as a man,” said the banker. “If I were a
working-man, I should think differently. But we will suppose, for
the of argument, that their day is too long and their pay is too
short. How do they go about to themselves? They strike. Well, a
strike is a fight, and in a fight, nowadays, it is always skill and money
that win. The working-men can’t stop till they have put themselves outside
of the public which the newspapers say is so in their
behalf; I saw that it did them the least good. They by
boycotting, and the of the men who want to work. They
destroy property, and they with business--the two absolutely
sacred in the American religion. Then we call out the and
shoot a of them, and their the off. It is
perfectly simple.”
“But will it be as simple,” I asked, in of my
projected romance, to have the so soon of--“will it be
quite so if their the working-men to leave
the militia, as they to do, from time to time?”
“No, not so simple,” the banker admitted. “Still, the would be
comparatively simple. In the place, I doubt--though I won’t be
certain about it--whether there are a great many working-men in the
militia now. I it is up, for the most part, of clerks
and small and book-keepers, and such employés of as
have time and money for it. I may be mistaken.”
No one able to say he was or not; and, after
waiting a moment, he proceeded: “I sure that it is so in the
city and regiments, at any rate, and that if every working-man
left them it would not their effectiveness. But when the
working-men have left the militia, what have they done? They have
eliminated the only thing that it for and unsparing
use against strikers. As long as they are in it we might have our
misgivings, but if they were once out of it we should have none. And what
would they gain? They would not be allowed to arm and as an
inimical force. _That_ was settled once for all in Chicago, in the case of
the International Groups. A of would them up.
Why,” the banker exclaimed, with his good-humored laugh, “how preposterous
they are when you come to look at it! They are in the majority, the
immense majority, if you count the farmers, and they to as
if they were the minority. They say they want an eight-hour law,
and every now and then they and try to it. Why don’t they
_vote_ it? They _make_ it the law in six months by such overwhelming
numbers that no one would to or it. They can make any law
they want, but they to such laws as we have. That ‘alienates
public sympathy,’ the newspapers say; but the of their stupidity
and is so that I almost them. If
they chose, it would take only a years to our government
into the of anything they wanted. But they would not have
what they want, apparently, if they can only keep themselves from getting
it, and they have to work hard to do that!”
“I suppose,” I said, “that they are by the un-American principles
and methods of the Socialists among them.”
“Why, no,” returned the banker, “I shouldn’t say that. As as I
understand it, the Socialists are the only among them who propose
to vote their ideas into laws, and nothing can be more American than that.
I don’t the Socialists up the strikes--at least, among our
working-men; though the newspapers them of it, without
trying them. The Socialists to accept the as the inevitable
outcome of the situation, and they make use of them as proofs of the
industrial discontent. But, for the status, our labor are
not Socialists, for your Socialist, you may say against him, has
generally himself into a Socialist. He that until the
working-men stop fighting, and to voting--until they to
be the majority--there is no for them. I am not talking of
anarchists, mind you, but of Socialists, is more law, not
less, and who look to an order so just that it can’t be
disturbed.”
“And what,” the minister said, “do you think will be the outcome
of it all?”
“We had that question the other night, didn’t we? Our legal friend here
seemed to that we might along as we are doing, or
work out an Altruria of our own; or go to the stage and
own our working-men. He not to have so much in the logic of
events as I have. I if it is a woman’s logic. _Parole
femmine, maschi,_ and the logic of events isn’t words;
it’s full of hard knocks, too. But I’m no prophet. I can’t the
future; I to take it as it comes. There’s a little of William
Morris’s, though--I just what he calls it--that is full of curious
and on this point. He thinks that, if we keep the
road we are now going, the last of labor will be like its first, and
it will be owned.”
“Oh, I don’t that will in America,” I protested.
“Why not?” asked the banker. “Practically, it is owned already in a vastly
greater measure than we recognize. And where would the great be? The
new would not be like the old. There needn’t be irresponsible
whipping and of families, and private and selling. The
proletariate would be owned by the state, as it was at one time
in Greece; or by large corporations, which would be much more in keeping
with the of our free institutions; and an public
opinion would safeguards about it in the of law to it from
abuse. But it would be policed, localized, and controlled. There
would be less than there is now, when a man may be
cowed into to any terms through the of his family;
when he may be out and out if he is unruly. You may be sure
that nothing of that would in the new slavery. We have not had
nineteen hundred years of Christianity for nothing.”
The banker paused, and, as the continued, he it with a
laugh, which was a to my feelings, and I to the
feelings of all. I that he had been joking, and I was confirmed
in this when he to the Altrurian and his hand upon his
shoulder. “You see,” he said, “I’m a of Altrurian myself. What is the
reason why we should not a new Altruria here on the lines I’ve
drawn? Have you had philosophers--well, call them philanthropists; I
don’t mind--of my way of among you?”
“Oh yes,” said the Altrurian. “At one time, just we from
the conditions, there was much question whether
capital should not own labor of labor owning capital. That was
many hundred years ago.”
“I am proud to myself such an thinker,” said the banker.
“And how came you to decide that labor should own capital?”
“We voted it,” answered the Altrurian.
“Well,” said the banker, “our are still it, and getting
beaten.”
I him later in the talking with Mrs. Makely. “My dear sir,”
I said, “I liked your with my Altrurian friend immensely; and it
may be well to put the foremost; but what is the of
not us a leg to upon?”
He was not in the least at my boldness, as I had he might
be, but he said, with that laugh of his: “Capital! Well, I
have my a little too hard; I there is such a thing.
But don’t you see that it me in the best possible position to carry
the into Altruria when we him to open up about his native land?”
“Ah! If you can him to do it.”
“Well, we were just talking about that. Mrs. Makely has a plan.”
“Yes,” said the lady, an empty chair near her own toward me. “Sit
down and listen.”
